LAW AND LIFE
‘When He was come down from the mountain great multitudes followed Him.’
Matthew 8:1
The mount from which our Lord descended to work this miracle of healing was the Mount of the Beatitudes.
I. The two mounts.—As the scene of that sermon rises before us, in all its sweet attractiveness, we are reminded, by contrast, of another mountain and another lawgiving; the mount even to approach which was death; the mount on which stood, in solitary, isolated, unseen community with God, the great lawgiver of the Jews, and from which he descended, but not, as Christ, to heal and to bless, but to denounce and punish.
II. Points of difference.—What is it, then, that constitutes the real difference between these two scenes? Not that Christ has proclaimed to us an easier law than that of Moses. On the contrary, His laws are far harder of fulfilment, setting before us a higher ideal of life. Why should the one be pictured as a law of misery and terror, and the other of blessing and attractiveness? Consider the laws (equally Divine) of the kingdom of Nature. Not one of these can be braved or broken with impunity. But there is this difference between these great laws of Nature and the law of righteousness in Christ’s kingdom, that, when we understand the former, we can obey them. But this is just what we cannot do as regards the law of righteousness. Do we not know that we are constantly transgressing and falling short of the perfect law of God?
III. Not law, but life.—What the world needs, and has ever needed, is not law, but life; the grace and power faithfully to fulfil the moral law. And this it was that Christ came to give us (St. John 10:10). He came not merely to give Himself for us, but to give Himself to us; to dwell in us. This it is which makes the essential difference between His law and that of all other law-givers.
IV. We must come down to others.—And ought we not to learn from this scene the great secret of all work for Him?—that it is not enough that His disciples should preach to men—nay, that it is not enough that we should set the example of what we preach, but that we should do as He did, come down to others—as He alone of all teachers came down, and that from the highest place, to mingle with the suffering multitude—that we should strive to seek and save that which is lost.
—Archbishop Magee.
Illustration
‘We are told in the Gospel to come to Jesus, to believe on Jesus, to live the life of faith in Jesus; we are encouraged to lean on Him, to cast all our care on Him, to repose all the weight of our souls on Him. We may do so without fear: He can bear all; He is a strong rock; He is Almighty. It was a fine saying of an old saint, “My faith can sleep sound on no other pillow than Christ’s omnipotence.” He can give life to the dead; He can give power to the weak; He can “increase strength to them that have no might.” Let us trust Him and not be afraid. The world is full of snares: our hearts are weak. But with Jesus nothing is impossible.’

THE SIGNIFICANT UNIT
‘And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’
Matthew 8:2
I. Alone with the Saviour.—Out of the great multitude there came a leper. Here we have a broad plural—the great multitude, and the significant unit—a leper from out of the midst. Out of the multitude—they always make room for him. There is always room for the leper. He was avoided by everybody, that is the natural tendency; there is a solitariness about him. We are absolutely alone in our own sins, and that is why we should be alone with our own Saviour. So the man forced his way through the multitude, and came to the feet of the Saviour.
II. The leper’s prayer.—There was no difficulty about his prayer. Leprosy sharpens wit; leprosy gives point to prayer. The leper’s prayer, ‘Lord, if Thou wilt,’ is like the Lord’s prayer, Who became sin for us, when he said, ‘Father, if it be possible … Thy Will, not Mine, be done.’ ‘If Thou wilt’: you cannot add one touch of beauty to this short prayer. It is the depth of misery crying to the depth of mercy. Take away the personal petition, and put our own in. Let us fill up the form with our own need. What shall we say? ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me strong … penitent … happy.’
III. Trouble drives to the supernatural.—The great, big, strong, healthy man cannot help the poor leper. No; what we want is the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief to help us in our trouble. It is not God’s will that there should be sin and sicknesss, and suffering and death. It is not God’s will that there should be a loathsome leper. Sickness and sorrow, repentance and death, are here judicially. They cannot be dispensed with; without them the world would go mad. They are God’s constables, and they cannot be dispensed with. This is the answer to the strange frequent question, Why does God allow leprosy, suffering, and death? We shall see these things when we stand on the steps of eternity.
IV. The Lord touched him.—His healing touch, could it be contaminated? No. Would the Lord Jesus ever say ‘No’ to a leper who asked to be cleansed? He has said ‘No’ to Scribe, Pharisee, Sadducee, and Herodian. But the poor leper came to Him in trust and trouble, and got ‘Yes.’ So we see Him, and so He is always. Go to Him in whatever trouble you have.
The Rev. A. H. Stanton.
Illustration
‘Our Lord wills in heaven all that is done on earth in His name by His Church, which is His Body; but He, nevertheless, or rather for that very reason, puts forth the hand of His Body upon earth, the ministers and stewards of His mysteries, and by them touches and heals the leprous soul.’

SIN AND ITS CLEANSING
‘And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean.’
Matthew 8:3
These words, spoken to a leper, were the very last words that any one, save He Who spake them, would have dreamed of saying. Most men, if they had spoken at all, would have bidden him keep his distance. But the words on the lips of Jesus were words of real authority, and a mysterious virtue went forth simultaneously with them from the Speaker, and made the leper whole—‘Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.’
I. A great example to be followed.—The words of Jesus not only express the tenderest pity for the sufferer, but likewise His abhorrence of the disease which caused his suffering. The mind of Christ is to be the mind of His followers. If it was His mind to wage war upon disease, it is to be the mind of His followers too.
II. Deep spiritual truths which concern every one.—Leprosy was God’s own picture of the soul’s disease which He calls by the name of sin. When then Jesus said, ‘Be thou clean,’ and by His Divine power made the leper clean, it is to us a most blessed revelation of how the cleansing of the soul can be brought about. Now, by the cleansing of the soul we mean—
( a) The removal of the guilt that attaches to every human soul by reason of sin. There is no human power that can release the soul from that guilt. We are meant to learn the stupendous lesson that the Son of God was manifested, and that He lived and died that death upon the cross on purpose that He might say to the leprous soul, ‘Be thou clean.’ And He does say it. He said it again and again on earth; He has said it over and over again through the ages, by the ministry of His Church. That cleansing is conditional upon—
( b) The cleansing of repentance. Repentance means the actual forsaking of sin, and nothing less. Repentance is impossible to a man or woman left to themselves. Jesus was exalted that He might give repentance, and He is ready to give it to the soul that seeks for it, and to say, ‘Be thou clean.’
( c) This cleansing of repentance is the one sure guarantee of the cleansing of pardon. How do you know that God has forgiven you your sins? The voice of Christ still says to us, ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee’; but He says it upon the one condition which can never be left out of sight, that thou art ready, and willing, and anxious to forsake thy sins; when thy penitence is sincere, and when thou hast placed the sacrifice of thy penitence at the foot of the cross, then the voice comes forth, ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee.’
Dean P. F. Eliot.
Illustration
‘Leprosy appears to be a mysterious disease, the cause of which doctors do not know. It is not peculiar to one nation—Norwegians, Italians, Spaniards, Hindoos suffer from it, as well as Syrians.… One curious fact is that townsmen do not suffer from it, though the lepers live close to the towns.… The dreadful plague does not become manifest before the age of twelve, nor later than forty-five. The patients suffer pain at first, and, in later stages, much distress; then physical strength and animal life dies out, and they are, in their own words, “like oxen,” without feeling or intellectual power, scarcely conscious of the outer world; their voice becomes changed to a feeble whine, husky and querulous; their joints and features waste away, and swelling and black discoloration ensue. The flesh decays, until the appearance of an advanced case is ghastly in the extreme; and a raw wound may be burnt with an iron in their bodies, producing only a slightly pleasing sensation. They die finally of leprosy. The lepers at Jerusalem live in huts near the S.W. corner of the town, inside the wall, and marry lepers, and the disease, which reappears in their children, thus becomes hereditary.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE LEPER AND THE SAVIOUR
I. The leper.—This man, without a precedent to guide him, was perfectly confident about the competence of Jesus to heal his disease. This is a remarkable fact. It is more remarkable still when we remember that to cure leprosy was rightly regarded as the prerogative of God alone; and so, under the circumstances, the use of the expression ‘Lord’ probably points to a perception, on the part of him who used it, of the Divine character and authority of the Prophet of Galilee.
II. The Saviour.—Our Lord was not at all displeased at the leper’s intrusion into His presence. Unquestionably, it was a liberty; more than this, it was a violation of order. Jesus took in the whole situation at a glance, and the exceptional bodily misery of the man, and his anxiety on account of sin and his sense of personal demerit disposed the heart of the Lord to compassion. He ‘put forth His hand and touched him.’ It was, of course, quite unnecessary for Jesus to do this. The mere utterance of a word would have been enough. And besides, it startled the crowd to see the Prophet of Galilee incurring the risk of ceremonial pollution. Here we see the Saviour’s desire to set before His followers the true nature and method of redemptive work.
III. The touch of Christ.—Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost; and, in order to achieve His purpose, hesitated not to touch the open sores of humanity, by extending the blessings of His loving companionship to the publican and the sinner, to the harlot and the drunkard, to the lowest and most degraded of mankind—if, by such means, He might hope to deliver them. The story of the leper shows us that there is no degradation so profound that Christ cannot lift us up out of it; no guilt of so deep a dye that it cannot be washed out in the precious blood of the Atonement; no pollution so foul, or so ingrained in the soul, that it cannot be counteracted and cast out by the Almighty Spirit of God.
—Prebendary Gordon Calthrop.
Illustration
‘A sailor, who met with a serious accident, was carried to a London hospital. The poor mother hurried to the building to see her son. She stole softly to his bedside, and gazed at her unconscious boy. She dare not speak, but gently laying her hand on his fevered brow she let it rest there a moment, and then noiselessly crept from the room. The watchful nurse heard the comatose sleeper murmur the words, “ Her touch!” and, rousing himself, he added, “Surely my mother has been here; I knew her touch!” Ah! there was an electric thrill of sympathy in that touch, which told its own tale to the dying man. So the touch of Christ is unlike any other touch.’

FAITH AND ITS POWER
‘As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.’
Matthew 8:13
In some respects this centurion is one of the most interesting figures in the Gospel-history.
I. The characteristics of his faith.—It was:—
( a) Of gradual growth. He must somehow have been led to see that, however superior the Romans were to their Jewish subjects in all the qualities that build up empires and promote material success, the Jews were in possession of a higher truth than any known to their conquerors. Before the centurion made up his mind to apply to our Lord, he must have satisfied himself that he was making application to a superhuman person.
( b) Marked by thoroughness. There were no flaws running through it. The power of our Lord over disease was just as real to him as his own authority as an officer in the Roman army. It was a vigour and a degree of faith most remarkable in a man of heathen antecedents.
( c) Marked by humility. True faith is not insensible to the tenderness of God, but it is always alive to His awful majesty.
II. The power of faith. Here are some reasons of the power of religious faith:—
( a) It involves knowledge. Faith is a telescope which discovers to the beholder a world of facts not visible to the naked eye.
( b) It is a test of the disposition of the soul. Nothing blinds the spiritual eye so surely as a scornful temper. The habit of insincerity, too, is fatal to faith.
( c) It sets the soul in motion. It embodies the element of will.
III. Faith does not create, it only apprehends its object.—Divine facts are wholly independent of our consciousness. They are ‘objective,’ though they must be most assuredly apprehended by our consciousness if they are to be blessings to us.
IV. ‘As thou hast believed.’—These words are true to-day of ( a) Nations; ( b) Churches; ( c) Souls.
—Canon Liddon.

THE DIVINE CONSOLER
When the even was come … healed all that were sick.’
Matthew 8:16
It is easy to imagine the scene. Our Lord had healed St. Peter’s mother-in-law of a great fever that very day, and now at eventide they carry the sick ones of Capernaum to His feet. He lays now on one, now on another, His pure and gentle hands, and heals them all. Take up a map of the world, and the vision widens, and from north, south, east, and west the sin-sick sons of Adam come to Him for Divine healing.
I. The guilty.—In the religion of the twentieth century are many hopeful signs, but there seems to be a great absence of the deep conviction of sin our fathers felt. There is only one Saviour.
II. The tempted.—To such this text is a healing word ( Hebrews 2:18).
III. The disappointed.—The sweetest pleasures of the world are like fairy gold that turns to dust and dross! But Christ never disappoints those who trust in Him.
IV. The sorrowful.—‘Christianity is the religion of the sorrowful.’ Not the religion of sorrow, but for sorrow. Human sympathy is sweet, even the sympathy of a little child. How sweet and precious must the sympathy of the Divine and human Saviour be! On all sides there are the lonely and the bereaved, who have lost friends and relations, and whose sorrows are too deep for words or tears. But Christ is the Saviour. Christ is the Teacher. Christ is the Great Consoler too.
—The Rev. F. Harper.
Illustrations
(1) ‘When Principal Tulloch died, Queen Victoria sent his son a letter of condolence, in which she wrote, “No more, never again! These dreadful words I have so often had to repeat make my heart turn sick. God’s will be done. I again have lost a dear and honoured friend. My heart sinks within me when I think I shall not again on earth look on that kindly face. I have lost so many, and I feel so alone.” ’
(2) ‘A woman, broken-hearted by the death of her husband, spoke of being chiefly comforted by the visits of a little girl, who, when asked what she did, replied, “I only put my cheek against hers, and cry when she cries.” ’
(3) ‘If His deeds of power were done, not for Himself, but for others, it was love that prompted them. And what a sympathetic love! “Himself bare”—as though they were His own! Eminently true of the great atoning work, it was His people’s sin that crushed Him, breaking the heart that could no longer bear the load. But true also of every evil of humanity, that “in all their affliction He was afflicted” ( Isaiah 63:9). And consider, in this respect, His individual tenderness: He did not heal en masse, but upon each He laid His hands, to each He spoke words of love, entering thus in detail and minutely into the realisation of His people’s woes. But at what cost! For consider the exhausting effect of true heart-sympathy. “Virtue is gone out of me” (St. Luke 8:46; see also Matthew 6:19). Yes, indeed, His healing work was draining His own vital power. Thus was He proved to be the All-loving One.’

A THREEFOLD FOLLOWING
‘But Jesus said unto him, follow Me; and let the dead bury their dead.’
Matthew 8:22
Whither must we follow Christ?
I. Along the road He trod.—That was the road of self-denial, self-abnegation, of poverty, of homelessness, of the base man’s hatred and the proud man’s scorn.
II. On the road of toil.—It was the first law of Eden, ‘Work’; and though the work was changed to toil by a penal decree, even that toil by faithful obedience has been transformed into an honour and a blessing.
III. In the strength of enthusiasm.—He must be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And herein, too, he must let the dead bury their dead. For the dead of this world hate this fiery spirit. ‘Above all, no zeal,’ said the witty, crafty, successful statesman. ‘Fervent in spirit,’ said St. Paul.
—Dean Farrar.

CHRIST’S POWER OVER NATURE
‘The ship was covered with the waves.’
Matthew 8:24
The quieting or peace-making power of Christ overcoming all disorder, is what we feel most in this account of the stilling of the storm.
I. Absolute helplessness.—Most men, at some time in their lives, have known what it is to touch the last limit of strength. The powers that overmatch us, tire us out, and run us down, are various—time, hereditary maladies, sudden sickness, the superior strength of other people serving their own interests against us. Most plainly it is a part of God’s scheme of mercy to lead us, in our self-confidence and self-will, every one of us, to just that point, so that when we are obliged to stop trusting or calculating for ourselves, we shall come willingly to Him.
II. Seeking Christ.—When, at last, the voyager comes sincerely and anxiously to that, and utters the prayer, Christ does not refuse him because he did not call sooner, or because when he prayed his prayer was not the purest and loftiest of prayers. Hardly any heart’s prayer is that, when it is first agitated under the flashing conviction that it is all wrong. While its deep disorder is first discovered it can think only of being delivered. ‘Lord, save us, we perish!’ The Gospel approves and blesses such asking. When they have gone deeper into the real motives of disinterested religion, and have drunk more deeply of the Spirit of Christ Himself, their petitions will rise to loftier ranges of spiritual desire. At present this patient Intercessor and Redeemer accepts the crudest supplication, so only it comes out of a penitent, contrite heart, and is directed to Him. This is enough. He fosters the faintest glow of faith. He cherishes the nascent, half-formed purpose of obedience.
III. God in everything.—The Person of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, is the actual bond of a living unity between the visible world of nature and the invisible world of God’s spiritual kingdom. Scholars will never explore nature thoroughly, or right wisely, till they see this religious signification of every law, every force, and every particle of matter, and explore it by the light of faith. God is in everything or in nothing—in lumps of common clay, as Ruskin says, and in drops of water, as in the kindling of the day star, and in the lifting of the pillars of heaven. The naturalists of antiquity were quite as original and acute, in the purely intellectual quality, as the moderns. But none of them, of any nation, ever really grasped this doctrine of creation till Christ revealed it. Hence, Christ must be Lord of life and death, of seas and storms, of diseases and demons, of every mystery and might and secret of created things. ‘The winds and the sea obey Him.’
IV. True use of miracles.—The miracle thus discloses to us the true practical use both of the gospel miracles themselves, and of every other gift and blessing of heaven, in leading us up in affectionate gratitude to Him who stands as the central figure among all these visible wonders, and the originator of all the peace-making powers which tranquillise and reconcile the turbulences of the world. The wonders fulfilled their office when they gained men’s ears and hearts for their Redeemer. Feeding on Him, dying with Him, at liberty with His freedom, walking daily in His light, forgiven through His mediation, enriched and sanctified by His intercession—what can the brave and true Christian need more? ‘When He giveth peace, who then can make trouble?’
—Bishop Huntingdon.

THE SECRET OF CALM
‘And there was a great calm.’
Matthew 8:26
It is important to know the real secret of a quiet spirit under jarring influences.
I. An act of supernatural power.—The first thing is this: it must be by an act of supernatural power. It is not in man to hush himself to rest. There must be a Divine command, ‘Peace, be still!’ And we must listen for this stilling voice, which the ear of faith can hear even in a hurricane!
II. A secret power.—Akin to this, there is a secret power—pervading and over-ruling all the confusion and all the mystery—which gives everything a purpose, and a preordained limit, which it cannot pass. The wind and storm may rage as forces which appear to own no control; but, nevertheless, they are ‘the winds and storms fulfilling Thy word.’
III. The presence of Christ.—The simple presence of Christ in that ship would have been enough without the miracle! Could anything really hurt that, where He was? We have all felt the calm and peace of the companionship even of a man whom we love and trust. What must it be, if we could only realise it, that Jesus is here, a Brother, a Saviour, a God, at our very side. And nothing can change that.
IV. The discipline of life.—Nevertheless, there will be, and there must be storms; and there will be, and there must be calms; and strangely set, in wonderful order, so long as this world lasts. It does not follow, because smooth to-day, we shall not be tossed again to-morrow. To believe in ‘calm’ when the ‘storm’ is raging is what we all have to learn. To every storm there is a lull; and in God’s equal equipoise, the fury of the tempest will always be balanced by the sweetness of the calm.
The Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
‘St. Augustine says: “We are sailing in this life as through a sea, and the wind rises, and storms of temptation are not wanting. Whence is this, save because Jesus is sleeping in thee? If He were not sleeping in thee, thou wouldst have calm within. But what means this, that Jesus is sleeping in thee, save that thy faith, which is from Jesus, is slumbering in thine heart? What shalt thou do to be delivered? Arouse Him and say, Master, we perish. He will awaken; that is, thy faith will return to thee and abide with thee always. When Christ is awakened, though the tempest beat into yet it will not fill thy ship; thy faith will now command the winds and the waves, and the danger will be over.” ’

A TERRIBLE PRAYER
‘And when they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts.’
Matthew 8:34
This is the most terrible prayer that ever man uttered to God. There was Christ the Saviour, Christ the Healer, coming to them: coming to them, too, in all the power of His great goodness. He had just shown it in His stilling of the tempest, when even the winds and the sea obeyed Him. He had just shown it in His rescuing the poor man who was tormented by the devils.
I. A warning.—We often find people wishing that they had lived in our Lord’s own days, and fancying that if they had seen Him work His miracles, and heard Him preach His sermons, then these things would have exercised such a power over them that they could not have helped being very much better people than they now are. This incident is meant to stop all such false notions. Christ manifested Himself to these people with some of His very greatest miracles, casting out even a legion of devils—real evil spirits—from a person they all knew; and all that came of it was that they only wished to be well rid of Christ. So it might be with us, and you may be sure that so it would be with all those people who turn away from the Church’s teaching now. Those who will not believe and pray now, would have rejected Christ then, however little they may think it. Nay, if Christ were to come to them, they would find so little in Him to please them that they would do as these people did in the Gospel, and pray Him to depart out of their coasts.
II. The reason why.—What was it that these people clung to so much as to make them wish to get rid of Christ? The answer is very instructive. It was their property. They were afraid for their goods. It was the destruction of the swine that went against them. You know that swine were forbidden creatures by the Law of Moses, so that these people had no right to keep them at all. Our Lord’s permitting the destruction of the swine touched the consciences of those people at once. It was the same thing as letting them feel that He could not come among them without their faults being brought to light, without their having to give up their sins, their ill-gotten gains, and whatever else there was that was wrong.
III. The question for us is—may not many of us be just like these persons who asked Jesus to depart? Could we bear it if we, for conscience sake, were called upon to submit to any real loss. There is hardly a house which would not have to suffer some loss, if Christ were to come and destroy whatever we have got wrongfully, as He destroyed those swine.
IV. The meaning of loss of fortune.—May not the destruction of these swine teach us a great lesson as to the meaning and notion of those losses of fortune, those losses of property or social position, or whatever else men delight in, which so often come upon us? When God suffers some heavy loss to fall upon a man, it is often with the view of rousing his conscience to see the things which stood between him and Christ.