from ver. 8, and affirms the same thing. The passage is of considerable dogmatic
importance. The perverted interpretation became in after .times one of the mainstays,
indeed by far the chiefest one, of the Romish theory of an infused righteousness being
the ground of our confidence toward God : which the true explanation excludes, yet
at the same time affirms this great truth, that God's justification of the sinner is not,
as the Romanists 'say we hold it, an act merely declaratory, leaving the sinner as to his
real state where it found him, but a transitive act, being not alone negatively a for-
giveness of sin, but positively an imparting of the spirit of adoption, with the sense of
reconciliation, and all else into which God's love received and believed will unfold
itself
t ^Xaaiprifiuv aS Opposed to cv(prijiiiv.
168 TflE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC.
the Scripture,) and then, to speak something of an evil omen. Only
the monotheistic religion included in blasphemy not merely outward
words of cursing and outrage against the Name of God, but all snatch-
ings on the part of the creature at honors which of right belonged only
to the Creator. (Matt. xxvi. 65; John x. 36.) If he who thus spake
had not been the only-begotten Son of the Father, the sharer in all preroga-
tives of the Godhead, he would indeed have blasphemed, as they deemed,
when he thus spake. Their sin was not that they accused him, a man,
of blasphemy ; but that their eyes were so blinded that they could not
recognize any glory in him higher than man's ; that the light shined in
the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.*
It is not for nothing that it is said that Jesus perceived " in his Spirit "
that such thoughts were stirring in their hearts. (Mark ii. 8.) These
words, " in his Spirit " are not superfluous, but his knowing faculty,
that whereby he saw through the thoughts and counsels of hearts, and
knew what was in man, is here attributed to his divine Spirit. f And
these counsels he revealed to them ; and in this way first he gave them
to understand that he was more than they esteemed,:]: since thoughts of
hearts were open and manifest to him, while yet it is God only who
searches hearts, (I Sam. xvi. 7 ; 1 Chron. xxviii. 9; 2 Chron. vi. 30 ;
Jer. xvii. 10,) it is only the divine Word of whom it can be said, that
"he is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb.
iv. 1-2.)
Nor is it merely generally that he lays bare their thoughts of him,
as being hard and evil, but he indicates the exact line which those
thoughts were taking ; for the charge which they made against him in
their hearts, was not merely that he took to himself divine attributes,
but that, doing so, he at the same time kept on the safe side as regarded
detection, taking those wherein, by the very nature of things, it was not
possible to prove him a false claimant. They were murmuring, no doubt,
within themselves, "These honors are easily snatched j any man may
go about the world claiming this power, and saying to men, ' Your sins
are forgiven you ;' but where is the evidence that this word is allowed and
* Augustine {Enarr. 3* in Fs. xx.xvi. 25) : Quis potest dimittere peccata [ini-
quiunt] nisi solus Deus? Et quia ille erat Deus, talia cogitantes audiebat. Hoc verum
de Deo cogitabant, sed Deum praesenteni non videbant. Fecit ergo . . . quod
videreiit, et dedit quod crederent.
t Grotius: Non ut Propheta> per afflntum, sed suo Spiritu.
X Gerhard {Harm. Evang ,c. 43) : .Tesus igitur exponens PlKirisjEis quid taciti apud
86 in intimis cordium recessibus cogitabant, ostendit se plus esse quiim hoininem ; et
e&dem potestate, divina scilicet, qua secreta cordium videat, se eiiarn peccata remitlere
THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC. 169
ratified in heaven ; that what is thus spoken on earth is sealed in heaven ?
In the very nature of the power which this man claims, he is secure
from detection ; for this releasing of a man from the condemnation of
his sin is an act wrought in the inner spiritual world, attested by no outer
and visible sign ; therefore it is easily claimed, since it cannot be dis-
proved." And our Lord's answer, meeting this evil thought in their
hearts, is in fact this : " You accuse me that I am claiming a safe power,
since, in the very nature of the benefit bestowed, no sign follows, nothing
to bear witness whether I have challenged it rightfully or not ; but now I
will put myself to a more decisive proof. I will speak a word, I will
claim a power, which if I claim falsely, I shall be convinced upon the
instant to be an impostor and a deceiver. I will say to this sick man,
^ Rise up and walk;' by the effects, as they follow or do not follow,
you may judge whether I have a right to say to him, ' Thy sins be for-
given thee.' "*
In our Lord's argument it must be carefully noted that he does not
ask. Which is easiest, to forgive sins or to raise a sick man ? for it could
not be affirmed that that of forgiving was ea.sier than this of healing;
but, " Which is easiest, to claim this power or to claim that ; to say,
Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk ? That is easiest,
and I will now prove my right to say it, by saying with effect and with
an outward con.sequence setting its seal to my truth, the harder word.
Arise and walk. By doing that, which is capable of being put to the proof,
I will vindicate my right and power to do that which, in its very nature,
is incapable of being proved. By these visible tides of God's grace I
will give you to know in what direction the great under currents of his
love are setting, and that both are obedient to my word. From this
which I will now do openly and before you all, you may conclude that
it is no ' robbery ' (Phil. ii. 6,) upon my part to claim also the power
* Com k Lapide : Qui dicit, Remitto tibi peccata, mendacii argui non potest, sive
ea revera remittit, sive non, quia nee peccatum nee peccati remissio oculis videri potest ;
qui autem dicit paralytico. Surge et ambula, se et famam suam evidenii *alsitatis peri-
culo exponit ; re ipsa enim si paralyticus non surgat, faisitalis inposturae et mendacii
ab omnibus arguetur et convincelur. . . Unde signanter Christus non ait, Quid est
facilius, remittere peccata, an sanare paralyticum, sed dicere, Dimittuntur tibi pec-
cata, an dicere, Surge et ambula? Jerome (Co?nm. in Matth., in loc.) : Utrum sint
paralytico peccata dimissa, solus noverat, qui dimittebat. Surge autem et ambula, tarn
ille qui consurgebat, quam hi qui consurgentem videbant approbare poterant. Fit
igitur caraale signum, ut probetur spirituale. Bernard {Be Divers., Senn. 25) : Blas-
phemare me blasphematis, et quasi ad excusandum visibilis curationis virtutem, me
invisibilem dicitis usurpare. Sed ego vos potius blasphernos esse convinco, signo pro-
bans visibili invisibilem potestatem.
12
170 THE nrOAUNG OF THE PARALYTIC.
of forgiving men thoir sins."* Thus, to use a familiar illustration of
our Lord's argument, it would be easier for a man, equally ignorant of
French and Ciiinese, to claim to know the last than the first ; not that
the language of itsr-lf is easier; but that, in the one case, multitudes
could disprove liis claim ; and, in the other, hardly a scholar or two in
the land.
In the words, ^^ power on earth,'^ there lies a tacit opposition to
"poioer in heaven." " Tliis power is not exercised, as you deem, only
by God in heaven ; but also by the Son of man upon earth. f Mr has
brought it down with him here, so that it, which, as you rightly assert,
is only exercised by him wlio dwelleth in the heavens, has yet, in the
person of the Son of man, descended also upon earth.:}: Here also is
one who can speak, and it is done." The only thing which at all sur-
prises, is our Lord's claiming this power as the " Son of man." It is
remarkable, since, at first sight, it might appear that this of forgiving
sins being a divine attribute, the present was not the natural time for
specially naming himself by this name, it being as the Son of God, and
not as the Son of man, that he remitted sins.§ The Alexandrian fathers,
in their conflict with the Nestorians, made use of this passage in proof
of the entire transference which there was, of all the properties of
Christ's divine nature to his human ; so that whatever one had, was so
* Maliloiiatus, with his usual straightforward meeting of a difficulty, observes here,
Poterit autein aliquis merito dubitare, quomodo Christus quod probandum erat, conclu-
dat. Nam si remittere peccata erat re vera difficilius, dum experieiitia curati paraly-
tic! docet se quod re ipsa facilius est, posse facere : non bene probat posse et se peccata
remittere, quod erat difficilius. Respondeo, Christum tantum probare voluisse sibi esse
credendum, quod bene probat ab eo, cujus probatio erat difficilior ; quasi dicat, Si non
fallo cum dice paralytico. Surge et ambula, ubi difficilius est probare me verum dicere,
cur creditis me fallere cCim dico, Remittantur tibi peccata tua ? Denique ex re, quaj
efiectu probari potest, in re, quae probari non potest, sibi fidem facit. Augustine {Exp.
ad Bom. § 23) : Declaravit ideo se ilia facere in corporibus, ut crederetur aninias pecca-
torum dimissione liberare ; id est, ut de potestate visibili potestas invisibilis mereretur
fidem .
t We have in Matt. xvi. 19 ; xviii. IS, parallels to this passage in their opposition
of " on earth" and " in heaven ;" but, at the same time, inadequate parallels, since the
Church binds and looses by no inherent, but by a committed, power.
t It has been beautifully said of the Church, Facit in terris opera cajlorum. This
of course must be first and eminently true of him in whom the Church consists, and
the words find their fulfilment here.
§ Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 1. 4, c. 10,) supposes that by the use of this term our
Lord wishes to throw back his hearers upon that one Old Testament passage, (Dan.
vii. 13,) in which it occurs, and in whicli the mystery of all judgment, and therefore of
all absolution, being in a man, is indicated. Cf John v. 27.
THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC. 171
far common that it might also be predicated of the other.* It is quite
true that had not tlie two natures been indissolubly knit together in a
single person, no such language could have been used ; yet I should
rather suppose that " Son of man " being the standing title whereby the
Lord was well pleased to designate himself, bringing out by it that he
was at once one with humanity, and the crown of humanity, he does not
so use it that the title is in every instance to be pressed, but at times
simply as equivalent to Messiah.
Having said this much to the gainsayers, he turns to the poor man
with the words, " Arise, take tip thy bed,f and go unto thine house,"'^ in
his person setting his sea! to all the prerogatives which he had claimed :
so that this miracle is eminently what indeed all are, though it is not
equally brought out in all, " a sign," an outward sign of an inward
truth, a link between this visible and a higher and invisible world.
" A?ul immedialely he arose, took up the hed,^ and went forth before thetn
all ;''^ they who before blocked up his path, now making way for him,
and allowing free egress from the assembly.
Concerning the effects of this miracle on the Pharisees, the narration
is silent, and this, probably, because there was nothing good to tell ; —
but of the people, far less hardened against the truth, far more receptive
of divine impressions, we are told " they were all amazed, and glorified
God;" altogether according to the intention of the Saviour, praising
the author of all good for the revelation of his glory in his Son. (Matt.
v. 16.) There was a true sense upon their part of the significance of
this fact, in their thankful exultation that God " had given such power
unto men." Without supposing that they very accurately explained to
themselves, or could have explained to others, their feeling, yet they felt
rightly that what was given to one man, to the Man Christ Jesus, was
* See Cyril of Alexandria, in Cramer's Catena, in loc.
t Kpip/3aTQs= grabatus (in Luke, KXtviSiov) a mean and vile pallet used by the
poorest = (T/cffurotif, d(rKdvrrii, It is a Macedonian word, and was entirely rejected by
Greek Purists. (See Becker's Charikles, v. 2, p. 121.) In relation to this, Sozomen
tells a curious story of a bishop in Cyprus, who, teaching the people from this scrip-
ture, and having to repeat the Lord's words, substituted (TKiinruv? for KpaP/Saro?, and was
rebuked by another bishop present, who asked him if the word which Christ used was
not good enough for him to use.
t Compare Isaiah's words, (xxx. iii. LXX.) when he is recounting the promises of
Messiah's time : la'^vaare, ^c'lpe; di/eificvat, kuI yovara napaXcXv^tva.
§ Arnobius, {Con. Gen., 1. 1, c. 45,) speaking generally of Christ's healings, but,
of course, with allusion to this, magnifies the contrast of his so lately being carried
on, and now carrying, his bed : Suos referebant lectos alienis paulo ante cervicibus
lati.
172 THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC.
given for the sake of all, and ultimately to all — that it was indeed given
'^ unto men ;'' — that he possessed these powers as the true Head and
Representative of the race, and therefore that these gifts to him were
a rif^htful subject of gladness and thanksgiving for every member of
that race.
X.
THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER.
Matt. viii. 1 — 4 ; Mark i. 40 — 45 ; Luke v. 12 — 16.
It is said in one place concerning the apostles' preaching, that the
Lord confirmed their word with signs following. (Mark xvi. 20.)
Here we have a very remarkable example of his doing the same in the
case of his own. For, according to the arrangement of the events of
the Lord's life which I follow, and according to the connection of the
events as it appears in St. Matthew, it is after that most memorable dis-
course of his upon the Mount, that this and other of his most notable
miracles find place. It is as though he would set his seal to all that he
has taught; — would approve himself to be this prophet having right to
hold the language which there he has held, to teach as one having
authority.* He had scarcely ended, ere the opportunity for this
occurred. As he was descending from the mountain, " there came a
leper and worshipped him," one, in the language of St. Luke, ^^full of
leprosy," so that it was not a spot here and there, but the disease had
spread over his whole body : he was leprous from head to foot. He had
ventured, it may be, to linger about the outskirts of the listening crowd,
and now was not deterred by the severity of the closing sentences of
Christ's discourse, from coming to claim the blessings which at its
opening were proclaimed for the suffering and the mourning. Here,
however, before proceeding to treat more particularly of this cure, it
may be good, once for all, since the cleansing of lepers comes so fre-
quently forward in the Gospel history, to say a few words concerning
that dreadful disorder, and the meaning of the uncleanness which was
attached to it.
* Jerome (in loc.) : Recife post praedicationem atque doctrinam sigiiorum offertur
occasio, ut pervirtutum miracula praeteritus apud audientes sermo firmetur.
174 TflE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER.
And first, a few words may be needful in regard of a misapprehension,
which we find in such writers as Michaclis, and in all indeed who can see
in the Leviiical ordinances little more for the most part than regulations
of police or of a board of health, or at the best, rules for the well ordering
of an earthly society; who will not recognize in these ordinances the
training of man into a sense of the cleaving taint which is his from his
birth, into a sense of impurity and separation from God, and tlius into a
longing after purity and re-union with him. I allude to the common
misapprehension that leprosy was catching from one person to another ;
and that they who were suftering under it were so carefully secluded
from their fellow-men, lest they might communicate the poison of the
disease to them ; as in like nmnner that. the torn garment, the covered
lip, the cry " Unclean, unclean," (Lev. .-fiii. 45,) were warnings to others
that they should keep aloof, lest unawares touching the lepers, or draw-
ing into too great a nearness, they should become partakers of their dis-
ease. A miserable emptying this, as we shall see, of the meaning of
these ordinances.* All those who have examined into the matter the
closest are nearly of one consent, that the sickness was incommunicable
by ordinary contact from one person to another. A leper might trans-
mit it to his children,^ or the mother of a leper's children might take it
from him ; but it was by no ordinary contact transferable from one per-
son to another.
All the notices in the Old Testament, as well as in other Jewish books,
confirm this view, that it was in no respect a mere sanitary regulation.
Thus, where the law of Moses was not observed, no such exclusion ne-
cessarily found place; Naaman the leper commanded the armies of Sy-
ria, (2 Kin. V. 1;) Gehazi, with his leprosy which never sliould be cleansed,
talked femiliarly with the king of apostate Israel. (2 Kin. viii. 5.) And
even where the law of Moses was in force, the stranger and the sojourner
were expressly exempted from the ordinances in relation to leprosy ;
which could not have been, had the disease been contagious, and the
motives of the leper's exclusion been not religious but civil, since the
* Even Michaelis, greatly as he loves to fiiul a trivial explanation for each ordi-
nance of the Mosaic law, yet allows {Mos. llechl, v. 4, p. 255,) that this cannot have
been the object of ihese ; but explains them as warnings to all other men lest they
should unawares come on so disgusting a spectacle as the leper would present But
Scripture neither flatters nor knows any thing of such hard-hearted sentimentalities.
Rather the poet expresses the true feeling which it would bring about in us, when he
exclaims, —
" But welcome fortitude and patient cheer,
^nd frequent sight of what is to be borne."
t See Robinson's Biblical Eesearches, v. 1, p. 359.
THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. 175
danger of the spreading of the disease would have been equal in their
case and in that of native Israelites.* How, moreover, should the Le-
vitieal priests, had the disease been this creeping infection, have them-
selves escaped the disease, obliged as they were by their very office to
submit the leper to such actual handling and closest examination ?
Lightfoot can only'explain this by supposing in their case a perpetual
miracle.
But no; the ordinances concerning leprosy had quite a different and
a far deeper significance, into which it will be needful a little to enter.
It is clear that the same principle which made all that had to do with
death, as mourning, a grave, a corpse, the occasions of a ceremonial
unclean ness, inasmuch as all these were signs and consequences of sin,
might in like manner, and with a perfect consistency, have made every
sickness an occasion of uncleanness, each of these being also death be-
ginning, partial death — echoes in the body of that terrible reality, sin
in the soul. Bui instead of this, in a gracious sparing of man, and not
pushing the principle to the uttermost, God took but one sickness, one of
these visible oulcomiiigs of a tainted nature, in which to testify that evil
was not from him, that evil could not dwell with him ; he took but one,
with whicli to link this teaching, and that it might serve in this region of
man's life as a substratum for the training of his people into the recog-
nition of a clinging impurity, which needed a Pure and a Purifier to
overcome and expel, and which no method short of his taking of our
flesh could drive out. And leprosy, which was indeed the sickness of
sicknesses, was through these Levitical ordinances selected of God from
the whole host of maladies and diseases which had broken in upon man's
body ; to the end that, bearing his testimony against it, he might bear
his testimony against that out of which it and all other sicknesses grew,
against sin, as not from him, as grievous in his sight; and the sickness
itself also as grievous, not for itself, but because it was a visible mani-
festation, a direct consequence, of the inner disharmony of man's spirit,
* See all this abundantly proved in pp. 1086 — 1089 of the learned dissertation by
Rhenferd, De Lepra Cutis HebrcBorinn, which is to be found in Meuschen's Nov.
Test, ex Talm. illusl., p. 1057. He concludes his disquisition on this part of the sub-
ject with these words : Ex quibus, nisi nos omnia fallunt, certe concludimus, praecipuis
Judaeorum niagistris, traditionumque auctoribus nunquam in mentem incidisse ullam
de leprae coniagio suspicionem, omnemque banc de contagiosa lepra sententiam, pluri-
mis antiquissimisque scriptoribus seque ac Mosi plane fuisse incognitam. Compare the
extract from Balsamon, in Suicer's Thes., s. v. Actt^os, where speaking of the customs
of the Eastern Church, he says, " They frequent our churches and eat with us, in
nothing hindered by the disease." In like manner there was a place for them, though
a place apart, in the synagogue.
176 THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER.
a commencement of the death, which through disobedience to God's per-
fect will, had found entrance into a nature made by God for immortality.
And terrible indeed, as might be expected, was that disease, round
which this solemn teaching revolved. Leprosy was indeed nothing
short of a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all
the humors, of life; a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so
that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away. Aaron
exactly describes the appearance which the leper presented to the eyes
of the beholders, when, pleading for Miriam, he says, " Let her not be
as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out
of his mother's womb." (Num. xii. 12.) The disease, moreover, was
incurable by the art and skill of man;* not that the leper might not
return to health ; for, however rare, such cases are yet contemplated in
the Levitical law. But then the leprosy left the man, not in obedience
to any outward means of healing which had been applied by men, but
purely and merely through the good will and mercy of God. This
helplessness of man in the matter, is recognized in the speech of the
king of Israel, who, when Naaman is sent to him that he may heal him,
exclaims, " Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth
send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy ?" (2 Kin. v. 7.) The
leper, thus fearfully bearing about in the body the outward and visible
tokens of sin in the soul, was handled throughout as a sinner, as one in
whom sin had reached its highest manifestation, that is, as one dead in
trespasses and sins. He was himself a dreadful parable of death. It
is evident that Moses intended that he should be so contemplated by all
the ordinances which he gave concerning him. The leper was to bear
about the emblems of death, (Lev. xiii. 45,) the rent garments, that is,
mourning garments, he mourning for himself as for one dead ; the head
bare, as they were wont to have it who were in communion with the
dead, (Num. vi. 9 ; Ezek. xxiv. 17 ;) and the lip covered. (Ezek.
xxiv, 17. )f
Jn the restoration, too, of a leper, exactly the same instruments of
cleansing were in use, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet, as
were used for the cleansingof one defiled through a dead body, or aught
pertaining to death, and which were never in use upon any other occa-
sion. (Compare Num. xix. 6, 13, 18, with Lev. xiv. 4 — 7.) No doubt
* Cyril of Alexandria calls it TdQnj uiiK uUtum'.
+ Spencer calls him well, sepuicrum ambulans ; and Calvin : Pro mortuis habiti
sunt, quos lepra h. sacro caetu abdicabat. And when through the Crusades leprosy had
been introduced into Western Europe, it was usual to clothe the leper in a shroud, and
to say for him the masses for the dead.
THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. 177
when David exclaims, " Purge me with hyssop, and 1 shall be clean,"
(Ps. li. 7,) he in this allusion, looking through the outward to the in-
ward, even to the true blood of sprinkling, contemplates himself as a
spiritual leper, as one whose sin had been, while he lived in it, a sin
unto death, as one needing therefore absolute and entire restoration from
the very furthest degree of separation from God. And being this sign and
token of sin, and of sin reaching unto and culminating in death, it naturally