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This son was under his roof; he was ill at home; and when he was miraculously cured, the whole house, from the highest to the lowest, recognised the claims of Jesus, accepted the good news, and became followers of the Lamb of God! While noble and ignoble are on a level in the sight of God, yet it is a great point gained when a person. of high rank, great power, extensive influence, is brought to know, and love, and feel the gospel. You ask why? Because he occupies a loftier pinnacle, he is the observed of all observers; and according to a law in this world, the example of those who tread the high places of the land. descends with rapid power, so much so that a country reflects very much its court; as the high are, the humble generally become. I believe, therefore, that on the aristocracy of the land there rests a weighty responsibility. Therefore I rejoice to see, in the present day, our nobles taking the chair, and appearing on the platforms, at meetings of our Sunday-schools, day schools, and ragged schools, and advocating, what is really the substance and the sinews of our strength and stability, the Christian enlightenment of the humbler classes of society. We may rest assured, if the lower stratum of the pyramid becomes disorganized, the apex, however it may reflect the sunbeams, will soon be overturned. The safety of the country is in the Christianization of the great masses that lie below; and those noblemen and persons in the highest classes, who wish to learn how tottering their position may be, should occasionally take a plunge into the alleys and lanes of London, and they will see how much is to be done, before they can lay their heads upon their pillows, and feel that they are secure; before, above all, they can stand at the judgment-seat, and remember they have done what they ought to have done.

In the next place we learn, from the study of this mi

Is

racle, that we may pray-and here is a very precious lesson -that temporal affliction may be averted from us. there any one present who feels the touch of death is upon him, that the cold shadow of the grave, as the issue of some lingering disease, begins to overcloud and darken him? It is not forbidden to you, my brother, my sister, to pray that you may be healed. Is there any one in this assembly who has a friend labouring under some lingering disease, a son or daughter drawing near to the gates of the tomb? It is not forbidden to you, it is not unscriptural, to pray, to pray fervently, that God would be pleased to spare that son, and preserve that daughter, and keep to you that friend. The nobleman so prayed for his son, and his heart's desire was answered. Is there a mother here whose babe is dying? Do you gaze sadly upon its fading life—pronounced to be so by the skill that has attended it? May you pray, "O Lord, spare this beautiful flower, this memorial of departed Eden; let it not be blasted; we would gather it into our bosom; we would tend it, water it, and nurse it a little longer; spare it, O Lord?" May you pray so? Who will forbid you? Not Jesus, for he prayed, in his agony, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" but he added, what I trust you will have grace to add, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt."

My dear brethren, if we thus bring the sicknesses of our friends, our sons and daughters, to the Saviour, may we bring especially their souls to him! We can bring their spiritual condition, in the sight of God, to the Saviour anywhere. Bring your children to Christ, to be blessed by him; by sympathy, by Christian education, by love, by prayer, and, lastly, by your example. They are precious. These children in the streets are not weeds, and are not to be crushed under the feet of the thoughtless traveller; they are flowers-faded flowers, I admit, soiled and injured

flowers; but your hand may replace them, raise them, and nurse them, and bring them below the beams of a better sun, the rains of a better influence, and they will bloom again like flowers of Paradise. So we shall hasten to that day in which the inhabitant shall not say, "I am sick," and the healing of the nobleman's son shall prove a faint foreshadow of the healing of all that is diseased.

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LECTURE III.

THE SOLDIER'S SICK SERVANT.

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. -MATT. viii. 5-13.

I WILL preface the exposition I give of this interesting miracle by some remarks in continuation of those I have already made on the nature of the miracles of our Lord.

It is not uninteresting to contrast the miracles performed by our Lord with those performed by his most distinguished servants in the Old Testament dispensation. In looking at the miracles performed of old, and prior to the advent of Christ, it seems as if they were done with greater difficulty, not because God was less mighty, but because his omnipotence was not so largely bestowed. For instance, Moses, in removing the leprosy of his sister, wrestles and persists in prayer, "Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee;" but when we read the record of the Saviour's miracle in

an analogous circumstance, we find simply his touch; his accents are, “Be thou clean," and the party is so. Elijah prays long, and sends his servant seven times before the rain begins to appear; Christ speaks, and the winds are hushed, and the waves are still. Elisha, with great effort, and after partial failure, restores the life of the Shunammite's child; our Lord speaks to the dead, "Come forth," and the dead come forth accordingly. This was owing partly to the less glorious dispensation; partly to the greater remoteness from that day when the earth shall be restored, and all its discord shall be reduced to harmony; and partly to illustrate a principle which pervades the Acts of the Apostles, as well as Genesis and the Pentateuch, namely, that Christ's miracles (and this is a very important and striking evidence of the deity of Christ) were done directly by himself, while the miracles performed by the apostles and patriarchs and prophets were done, as acknowledged by themselves in fact, in virtue of a delegated power. Thus, for instance, when Moses divided the Red Sea, "Stand still, and behold the salvation of God, which he will show unto you," he referred the miracle, whatever it might be, to the instant power, and therefore to the exclusive glory, of God. When the apostles performed miracles, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, they were done with such a preface as the following: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk," and again, "Eneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." But when Christ performed a miracle, he said, "I will, be thou clean;" and again, "I say unto thee, arise." Now you have, in the very peculiar language used by the apostles when they put forth miraculous power, proof that theirs was a borrowed power, a reflected influence; but when Jesus performed the miracles, you can see that it was not the act of man, but the touch of that finger that created

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