05 — As He Preaches

Chapter 5 CHRIST AS HE PREACHES The great and peculiar work of Christ was to make an atonement for the sins of men. His priestly office was the great office for which he was anointed of God; which, as God manifest in the flesh, he so gloriously fulfilled, and to which all the Prophets bear witness. But while we magnify his office as the great High Priest of the Christian profession, we may not overlook his office as the anointed Prophet, and the most distinguished religious Teacher. The predictions of the Old Testament speak of him as such; and if we look into the four gospels, we find these predictions abundantly fulfilled. We there learn that " he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom;" and that " he went throughout every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God." The first employment indeed upon which he publicly entered, was that of a religious Teacher. No sooner did he emerge from the retirement of domestic life and receive baptism from the hands of his distinguished Precursor, and the visible anointing of the Holy Ghost, than he commenced his public ministry. Aside from those portions of the Evangelists which record his genealogy, birth, miracles, death, and resurrection, these writings are altogether occupied in recording his religious instructions. These records of his teaching are sufficiently copious; yet must they, from necessity, be incomplete and compendious; for in the highly hyperbolical language of John, " if they should be written every one, the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Of the pre-eminent excellence of Christ as religious teacher, we have abundant evidence. John his forerunner, though the most distinguished of all the Jewish prophets, makes the humble, yet exulting confession, " He must increase, but I must decrease;" " there cometh one after me, who is preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose." We are told that " the people were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority and not as the Scribes," The officers sent by the Jewish rulers to apprehend him, were so affected by his preaching that they could not execute their commission, and when called to an account for their negligence, could only reply, " Never man spake like this man." But it is from his discourses themselves, that we are chiefly instructed in his preeminence as the Great Prophet of God. From these we learn, in the first place, that he was a most instructive preacher. It is recorded of the greatest and wisest of the kings of God’s ancient people, that " because the preacher was wise, he taught the people knowledge." The knowledge of God’s truth is the germ and principle of all holiness. Spiritual life can neither germinate, nor be developed in the dark and cold bosom of ignorance. To overlook this great law of man’s intellectual and moral nature, is to overlook what is primary and essential to the great end at which the gospel aims. There is no appeal to the conscience or heart, no obligation urged, no right emotions excited, and no practical conformity to God cultivated, except by presenting and believing the great doctrines of the gospel. Jesus Christ would have the roots of Christianity strike deep in the barren soil of this ungodly world; and therefore he taught that the "sower soweth the word". The great object of his ministry was to disabuse the minds of men of error, to unteach them where they had been taught erroneously, to enlighten them where they were ignorant, to set the great realities of a supernatural revelation before them, place them within their reach, and make them possessors of this rich inheritance. He knew of no other means of disarming the powers of death and hell, delivering men from the empire of Satan and the bondage of sin, introducing them into the liberty of the children of God, and rendering them partakers of the life eternal. His Spirit operates only through the instrumentality of truth. It is one of the laws of his kingdom, that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Richly was he endowed, and abundantly qualified to be an instructive preacher. He did not rush into the ministry until his mind was thoroughly furnished for his work. For a long time he dwelt at Nazareth, diligently preparing himself for this high service; and so well had he studied the sacred Scriptures, that at twelve years of age he astonished the doctors of the temple, " both hearing them and asking them questions." It was not until after his severe trial in the wilderness, where his faith and knowledge were put to the test of the most artful and severe of all opposer’s; nor until he was about thirty years of age that he began his wonderful career. From " that time," we are told, " Jesus began to preach, and to say. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Besides this, he was God as well as man; the eternal Logos: who was set up from everlasting. When God prepared the heavens he was there; when the wondrous method of man’s redemption was devised he was there; and before the hills were settled, or the mountains brought forth, he engaged to occupy the prophetic office, and himself to become the preacher of that glorious gospel of which he was the author. When he entered upon his ministry, therefore, the great subjects and objects of it, were those with which he was perfectly familiar, and which he well understood how to present. He made no display of human learning, but a rich and convincing exhibition of God’s truth. It was not the philosophy of the schools of which he spake, nor did he amuse nor confound his hearers with dissertations upon the traditions of the elders, and the commandments of men; nor did he confine himself to a narrow circle of Christian truth and morals. He spake of God as no other had spoken; of the spirituality of his nature and worship; of the necessity of knowing him in order to attain eternal life. He spake of the law of God in its unchanging obligations and searching spirituality; rectifying the errors of those who flattered themselves that one object of his coming, was to lower its claims to the level of human infirmity; and reading them lessons upon its holiness and inviolability, which taught them that he was not more the advocate of the true faith, than a sound morality. He spake of the sinful character and lost condition of man everywhere affirming that they were not the righteous that he came to call, but sinners to repentance. He largely insisted on that obduracy and strength of human wickedness, which, when thoroughly taught, aims so fatal a blow at self-sufficiency and self-glorying, as to throw the best as well as the worst sinners, upon the resources of omnipotent grace. He spake of the necessity of the new birth or that radical transformation of character, by which the enmity of the carnal mind is slain, and the controlling principle of supreme love to God, is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. He discoursed largely of the effects and evidences of this spiritual change on his inward and outward man. On the one hand, he set at naught the claims of a proud morality, and instructed men that " except their righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, they can in no case enter the kingdom of heaven;" and on the other, he taught them that a religious sentimentalism is as far from true religion, as a lifeless morality, and that only those are his disciples, who " hear the word of God, and do it." No preacher ever inculcated a more devotional spirit; it was in one of his discourses that he taught men how to pray, and gave that great model of prayer, which so beautifully comprises all that true piety desires. When he spoke of the way of life for the fallen, he taught that there was but one. On this all-important topic his language is, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me:" " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." When he spoke of the obligation and duty of men, in view of this revealed salvation, his teachings are, " This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath sent;" " Come, for all things are now ready;" " Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." He spoke, too, of the privilege and blessedness of those who receive this salvation; of the responsibility, and guilt, and doom, of those who reject it. As the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, he also lifts the veil from future things; tells of the resurrection, both of the just and the unjust; announces the final judgment, where he himself will sit and decide the destinies of men; brings life and immortality to light; unfolds the glories of that heaven where he dwelt from eternity, and premonishes the world of that place of torment, to which all the incorrigible are doomed, and which is " prepared for the Devil and his angels." In every view he was the most instructive of preachers. Erase his instructions from the Bible, and you erase its most sublime lessons of wisdom, and those very lessons which the world most needs. The Saviour sympathized with these wants, and drew from his own redundant resources those instructive truths which were best likely to lead men to repentance, and promote their holiness, happiness, and usefulness when they have become Christians. "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." This was his prayer, and this involved the great principle on which he conducted his ministry. It was teeming with truth; rich in the doctrines of grace; resplendent with those great evangelical principles, which the Holy Spirit has ever employed for the conversion of men, which form the substance of the gospel, and constitute the great torch-light of the nations as lifted up from the cross of its Victim Teacher. In the next place, he was a hold and fearless preacher. Though meek and gentle as a Lamb, his nature was bold and fearless. "Well did this moral courage become him as a " Leader and Commander to the people," and as the " Captain of their salvation," called as he was to contend with deeply embedded errors, with pervading vices, with subtle enemies, with torpid indifference, with flesh and blood, and principalities and powers in high places. The gospel which he preached was " to the Jew a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishness." Such were the fierce passions and hostile array of a world that lieth in wickedness, that not to oppose them would be to give falsehood the victory over truth; while to oppose them effectively, however meekly, would seem to be like sending division and a sword.

There is an indiscretion, and blustering foolhardiness in some preachers, which finds no warrant in his ministry. His counsel to those whom he early sent forth was, " Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Never was this complex character so beautifully exemplified, as throughout the whole of his ministry from first to last. It was early predicted of him, that as God’s servant, " he should deal prudently;" that " the Spirit of the Lord should rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord." A recurrence to his preaching as given by the Evangelists is the best comment upon this prediction. In his selection of times and places of preaching, of men and classes to whom he preached, and the truths that were adapted to their state of mind, he was the wisest and most prudent of preachers. He would not put a "piece of new cloth into an old garment," nor " new wine into old bottles;" nor " cast pearls before swine." He would not allow himself to be ensnared by the subtle priests and elders; nor by the shrewd lawyers of the Synagogue; nor by the learned Pharisees who " took counsel that they might entangle him;" nor by the unbelieving Sadducee’s; nor ever led astray by the bigotry of his disciples. Except upon the great objects of his mission, he was a man of remarkably reserved and cautious habits, and was well apprised of the importance of his own injunction, " Beware of men!"

Yet did the work to which he was called make exacting demands upon his courage and faithfulness. There were truths which he preached, which, if he was not dismayed in the utterance of them, threw his audience into dismay; and which, though uttered without vehemence and without impetuosity, excited the vehemence of their hostility. The prediction just referred to which speaks of his prudence, affirms, that " he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." His words did not always descend as the dew of heaven; but sometimes, like the piercing hail, the sweeping whirlwind, the destroying sword, and the consuming fire. He was a tremendous preacher of those obnoxious truths which have thrown the world into consternation. There are those in the present age who are great sticklers for orthodoxy, who, at the same time, are not a little sparing of those great truths which he uttered so fearlessly that at one time his hearers led him to the brow of the hill in order to cast him down; at another, his nominal disciples went back and walked no more with him; and at another, the Jews took up "stones to stone him." The Bible does not record any such preacher of terror as that divine Saviour, who, in one short discourse, thrice utters the words, "There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;" and in another equally short, thrice declares, that in that wretched world, " the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." The rulers of the Jewish people were no doubt jealous of his power, but they were still more embittered against his doctrine. The fire was long burning in their bosoms. Both the remote and proximate causes of the hostility which led them to nail him to the cross, was their enmity to the truth, and to him as its undaunted advocate. For nothing more than his faithfulness as a preacher did they become his infuriate enemies. They became weary of being thus goaded by the truth, and at length cried out, " Away with him! Crucify! crucify!"

He drew the line so distinctly between the righteous and the wicked, that he did not suffer men to indulge presumptuous hopes without rebuke. Were they as amiable as the young Jewish ruler, he convinced them of their self-deception; as loud in their professions of piety as the Jewish teachers, he unveiled their clamorous pretenses; as self-righteous as the Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray, he hesitated not to blast all their self-righteous expectations. He had no desire to give offense; yet he would not divest the truth of its repulsiveness to the carnal heart, nor rob it of its sting. He was not wanting in kindness, nor did he lack the boldness to call men and things by their right names. No religious teacher was ever so fearless in this respect, and so impartial in his personal application of the truth to all classes of men, whatever their condition in the church, or in the world. One great object of his preaching would have been lost, if he had so preached as to leave the impression upon the minds of his hearers that he had no special relevancy to one man more than another. There was no such indistinctness in his views, and therefore no such indefiniteness in his instructions. The great object of his sermon on the mount; of his parable of the ten virgins; of the good fish and the bad; of the tares and the wheat, was to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked; between the true and the false, the genuine and the spurious in piety, however men might be startled by the distinction, and however discouraging such preaching might be regarded. That which gave to his preaching its remarkable directness was the fact that it concerned his auditors, and had immediate regard to their character and duty. When he uttered the parable of the vineyard, the " Jews perceived that he had spoken the parable against them." When he discoursed with the woman of Samaria, her own conscience extorted the confession, " Come see a man who told me all things that ever I did." When he said to the accusers of the offending woman, " He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her," they were " convicted by their own conscience, and went out one by one." Not unfrequently he was more bold and personal. He said to the multitude who so eagerly and ostentatiously followed him, " I know you that ye have not the love of God in you." He told the Jewish people that " they were of their father, the devil, and the lusts of their father they would do." To the Scribes and Pharisees he uttered these tremendous words, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Under circumstances which the fastidious taste of the age in which we live would have regarded as the claims of silence upon his courtesy, and when an invited guest in the splendid banquet-hall of a princely Pharisee; he could not suppress the rebuke, " Ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness;" "Woe unto you. Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe unto you lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens, grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch them not with one of your fingers." No influence of men in power could dishearten, no danger intimidate him. He would not allow the customs of the world to embarrass him in the work which God had given him to do. This is boldness; calm, deliberate boldness. It was much to say of John Knox, " Here lies one who never feared the face of man:" but it is not much to say of him whom the fearful terrors of the cross could not appall, and whose words were soberness and truth. Nor may the fact be overlooked, in the next place, that he was an impressive and powerful preacher. In the legitimate sense of the term, he was popular and interested the multitude. He never preached to empty synagogues; and when he occupied the market or the mountain side, they were not hundreds that listened to his voice, but thousands. It is recorded of him, that " his fame went throughout all Syria;" and that " there followed him great multitudes of people from Decapoliss, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan." On that memorable day when he went from the Mount of Olives to Judea, "a great multitude spread their garments in the way, and others cut down branches from the trees," and all cried "Hosannah to the Son of David!" After he uttered the parable of the vineyard, the rulers " sought to lay hold of him, but feared the peopled. When he " returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, there went out a fame of him throughout all the region round about," and he "was glorified of all, and great multitudes came together to hear him." So much was he, for the time, the idol of the people, that the chief priests and Pharisees were alarmed at his popularity, and said among themselves, " If we let him then alone, all men will believe on him; behold, the world is gone after him." He was the man of the people, and advocated the cause of the people. We are told that "the common people heard him gladly." He was " no respecter of persons." He was the preacher to man, as man. He never passed the door of poverty, and was not ashamed to be called "the friend of publicans and sinners." His gospel was and is the great and only bond of brotherhood; nor was there then, nor is there now, any other universal brotherhood, than that which consists in love and loyalty to him. He was the only safe reformer the world has seen, because he so well understood the checks and balances by which the masses are governed. His preaching, like his character, bold and uncompromising as it was, was also in the highest degree conservative. He taught new truths, and he was the great vindicator of those that were old. All these things made him a most impressive, powerful, and attractive preacher. His very instructiveness, prudence, and boldness, interested the people. They respected him for his acquaintance with the truth, and honored his discretion and fearlessness in proclaiming it. This is human nature; men love to be thus instructed; they come to the house of God for that purpose. A vapid and vapory preacher may entertain them for the hour; a smooth and flattering preacher may amuse them; a mere denunciatory preacher may produce a transient excitement; but such is the power of conscience, and such the power of God and the wants of men, that, though their hearts naturally hate God’s truth, they will crowd the sanctuaries where it is instructively, and fearlessly, and discreetly urged, while ignorance, and error, and a coward preacher, put forth their voice to the listless and the few.

Jesus uttered the truth with great simplicity and plainness. His thoughts were clear; the meaning of his words was manifest; his sentences were unaffected and artless; there was no complication of argument or illustration in his discourses; they were all the natural and simple expression of his own intelligent and pure mind. They were intelligible to the meanest capacity. He meant they should be intelligible; and would sometimes even make a pause in his discourse, and ask his hearers if he was understood. He would then repeat some uncomprehended thought in different forms. He was like a watchful shepherd leading his flock; he would retrace his steps, and go back again and again, until every stray lamb was brought into green pastures. He took great pains to interest his audience; he knew they must be interested if they were profited by his preaching. Sometimes he would utter the substance of a discourse in a single sentence, so terse and striking that it could never be forgotten. You read a sermon in such a sentence as this: " Ye are the salt of the earth;" as this: "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things;" as this: " The tree is known by its fruits; as this: "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also;" and as this: " If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch;’’ and as this: " If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Sometimes he would select a metaphor that would carry truth to the conscience like a thunderbolt. And sometimes he would adorn his thoughts, but with flowers, such as a child might gather among the grass, and lilies of the field.

It deserves remark also, that his preaching savors more of illustration than argument. He came to bear testimony to the truth, and as God’s witness. It was his own truth, and needed not argument to substantiate it. Those who received him as God’s Messenger, received his message; while those who would not receive the message on the authority of the Messenger, would not be convinced by argument. But while he took comparatively little pains to demonstrate the verity of what he uttered, he felt the importance of illustrating and impressing it. Nor did he fail to do so by the most fitting and affecting methods. When he would rebuke the aspiring spirit of his disciples, he " took a little child and set him in the midst of them, and said unto them. Except ye become as this little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." When he would read them the lesson of mutual condescension, he took a basin of water and washed their feet, and said unto them, " If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, so ought ye also to wash one another’s feet." When he would inculcate the danger of apostasy, he related the parable of the Relapsing Demoniac. To inculcate the vanity of riches and earthly hopes, he rehearsed the narrative of the Rich Fool. To impress upon the minds of men the aggravated sinfulness and danger of neglected opportunities, he uttered the parable of the Barren Fig Tree. Other preachers do not, in this respect, follow his example, for the obvious reason that they are unable to follow it. With the single exception of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, their attempts to do so, have been a failure. The design of all Christ’s parables was to illustrate and enforce some great truth. The parable of the Merchant selling goodly Pearls — the parable of the Talents — the parable of the Good Samaritan — of the Gospel Supper — of the King preparing for War — of the Piece of Lost Silver — of the Unjust Steward — of the Unjust Judge and Widow — of the Pharisee and Publican — of the Laborers hired at different hours — of the Thief in the Night — of the Children in the Market Place — and of the Strong Man keeping His House was each designed to present in living imagery, and strong and graphic characters, its corresponding and important truth. It was thus he held the attention of his hearers, and kept the avenues of their minds open to what would otherwise have been to them cold and uninteresting doctrines. But it was the ardor and urgency of his preaching that gave it its greatest interest. His own mind and heart were intent on his ministry, and his whole soul absorbed in his work. There was no affectation of zeal, but the honest and strong emotions of a preacher who felt for the glory of God and the salvation of men, as never man felt. We cannot think of Christ as a cold and dull preacher; the thing was impossible. When we hear him say, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God;" " Strive to enter into the strait gate, for many I say unto you shall seek to enter in, but shall not be able;" " What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" we know what it was that made his discourses differ from cold dissertations on morality, and frigid philosophical lectures, and the tame preaching of many a Christian pulpit, that plays around the head, and never aims its arrows at the conscience, or the heart. It was this that made him eloquent. There was heart within him; there was heart in his preaching, and what he most desired was the hearts of those who heard him. It was the soul that he longed to gain, and to free it from condemnation and death. Honor he sought not, and was content that men should " turn away their faces from him for shame." Gold and silver he had none, nor did he seek them. He knew they would melt away; brilliant gems, and splendid palaces would all vanish. Literary reputation he did not ask for; science and the arts, after having accomplished their ends, would remain only among the treasures of earth. He was God’s Minister, and set to watch for souls as they that must give account. He was the Minister of that gospel in which are " hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;" which changes not with the discoveries and the convulsions of time; which saves the soul from death; and whose true value is known only when all things earthly pass away. The preaching of Christ was also distinguished for its affectionate tenderness. There are favored moments in the preaching of almost every minister, when he catches a portion of the spirit of his divine Master; it warms his heart, illumines his countenance, gives tenderness even to the modulations of his voice, and he speaks as one who has been in the mount with God. When the Proto-martyr Stephen preached in the presence of the blood-thirsty men who condemned him, " all that sat in the Council looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel." What is so unusual with other preachers, was habitual, was uniform with the Great Teacher. The unequaled loveliness of his personal character was a pledge of his deep interest both in the truths he uttered, and in the salvation of men. This perfect holiness imparted a sanctity to the excellence of his natural character and gave to it that heavenly sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling which rendered him so acutely alive to human joy and woe. The sins and miseries of men affected his holy mind, as no other mind was ever affected. His sympathy was perfect; " in all their afflictions, he was afflicted;" their joy filled him with gladness. One would think that the most obstinate rebel would have been silenced, and the most shamefaced and trembling penitent have been encouraged by those illustrations of divine compassion which are so strongly marked, and of such touching pathos in his ministry. The gentlest emotions dwelt in his bosom, and the gentlest words flowed from his tongue. He shook the Tree of Life not for its fruit only, but for its budding promises. " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." He would revive the spirit of the humble, and wipe away the tears from the mourner’s cheek. The meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace-makers, the persecuted, and the reviled found in him the words of encouragement and consolation. He knew the character of men; and when he saw them, in all their disquietude, helplessness and misery, wandering and bewildered, and thirsting for good which they knew not how to obtain; often would he ascend some eminence from which he might command a view of the people, and there proclaim, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Those there were to whom he preached, who felt the burden of their sins, and were oppressed by remorse; whose spirit drooped and who found no relief from their anguish; who were uncomforted and without a resting-place; and to them he would utter the soothing invitation, " Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Did some company of wretched sinners stand before him who had wandered far from God, and in the wilderness where they were wandering found only the husks which the swine do eat, and with no light to cheer, and no clue to guide them back to their heavenly Father’s house; he would paint before their eyes some prodigal youth and favorite son perishing with hunger, doubting, resolving, coining to himself, returning, welcomed, and weeping upon his Father’s bosom. They were not unkind thoughts nor words of harshness when he said to the detected woman, " Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more;" nor when he said of her who stood behind him weeping, and washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with the hair of her head, " She loved much, and hath much forgiven!" nor when after the seeming severity by which he put another’s confidence to the test, as though he would crush the dog that crouched at his feet, he said to her, " O woman! great is thy faith; be it unto thee, even as thou wilt." How beautiful a scene was that when, with the love of heaven beaming in his countenance, and the grace of heaven flowing from his lips, he turned to the captious Pharisees, and taking little children into his arms, said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven!" Look too at the picture so delightfully exhibited by John, where Mary and Martha tell him of the death of Lazarus, and Mary falls down at his feet weeping. The depressed and afflicted spirit of these bereaved sisters excited the workings of that compassion which was all tenderness and love. He entered into their sorrows, and mingled his tears with theirs. " When he saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled." With memorable solemnity he had just said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me shall never die;" yet as they led him to the grave of Lazarus, " Jesus wept." He often wept, but we do not read that he ever wept for his own sufferings. When he was going to the cross, he turned round and said to the women who followed him, " Weep not for me." A tear trembled in his eye when he looked upon fallen Peter; the look that melted and rebuked this hasty disciple, was the mingled look of rebuke and love — love which even he perjured denial of his Lord could not extinguish. And when after his resurrection, he would have his. Apostles meet him on the mountain in Galilee, and feared that this fallen disciple might not deem it fitting for him thus to meet his Lord; what tenderness was that which condescended to mention him by name, " Go tell my disciples and Peter that I go before them into Galilee, there shall they see me!" Yet was he as holy as he was kind. His knocks at the door of the human heart are at first gentle, and never wax to the thundering voice of terror, except when his long-suffering is exhausted. When he stood over Jerusalem, it was not in stern and ill-omened silence, but in the burstings of grief. It was the place of his fathers sepulchers; the glory of the Hebrew people; the pride of the world; the Mount Zion that he loved. He gazed long on that ill-fated city and wept over it. Next to Gethsemane and Calvary, it was his hour of sadness. They were not angry words that he uttered; they were wrung from his bosom. His lips proclaim his emotions, and his voice well nigh fails him, as he exclaims, " O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!" How august the scene, yet how unutterably tender! Was there ever such a preacher! The incarnate God — Mary’s Son — humanity in Deity, preaching the glorious gospel to this lost and miserable world!

There is one more characteristic of Christ as a preacher, which gave him still greater pre-eminence and glory. I mean the perfect consistency between his preaching and his character. In this he stands alone the single polar star of the moral hemisphere. Every truth he uttered had its ante-type in his own thoughts; every holy affection he inculcated had its counterpart in his own heart; every duty he enjoined shone out in faultless perfection in his own life. The most captious of his enemies could, in no instance, turn upon him and say, " Physician, heal thyself." There was no such preaching as his holy life everywhere and always exemplifying, and thus enforcing the gospel he uttered. He once said to the multitude and to his disciples, "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not." This reproach, to some extent, belongs to every preacher of the gospel the world has seen, save one. Though in this he is most fitly the object of our imitation, yet how imperfectly is he imitated! Compared with his, the lives of the best of ministers neutralize, if they do not countervail their teaching. Yes, this is an humbling and abasing thought; but its verity and the force of it are too obvious, and sometimes too startling to be denied. And while we despair of successfully imitating his personal excellence, let us honor him by the effort to become more and more like him. It should have an effect upon us as ministers and as hearers, to keep his glory as a preacher more steadily in our view. O that we could see more of Christ in our ministry, and more of the power of his gospel in those who attend upon it. It was not for want of power in him as a preacher, that his ministry was so ineffectual in the conversion of men. " He came to his own, and his own received him not;" he " was rejected of that generation." And while this is fearful demonstration of their obduracy, and shows how the men of Nineveh, and the Queen of the South, and Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up in the judgment against that generation and condemn it, because a greater than Jonas or Solomon were there; it is at the same time among the proofs that the days of his ministry on the earth were not the days of his triumph, but of his humiliation. He was not as yet to be the conqueror, but to travel in chains to the cross and the grave. Influences there were which he was yet to control. The day of his exaltation was coming, in which he would lead captivity captive, and give gifts to men that the Lord God might dwell among them; influences which would manifest more brightly than ever his glory as a preacher, and a day of glory when all nations should bow before him. There were’ truths also he could not inculcate, because they were not as yet truths. While he lived he could not inculcate them, because they were the great moral lessons of his death. "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth," saith he, " will draw all men unto me." Herein is our privilege above his, and those who hear us above those of the people to whom he preached. We preach Christ actually crucified. It is not Christ the preacher alone of which we preach and you hear, but it is Christ the sufferer. The most impressive lessons he ever taught were those when, in silent agony, he hung in Calvary. I bow my knee before that cross. I thank God that he allows me to preach " Christ crucified." This is the lesson he himself is now reading to you, to me, to all, from his throne in the heavens. This mighty healer now looks down upon this hospital world, to cheer and revive it; upon this dungeon world, to break the chains of its spiritual bondage; upon this vast dormitory of sin and sepulcher of death, to bid the sleeping awake and the dead live. He is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.