not that His ability or power is restricted, but that it would be inconsistent with his attributes as revealed to us. So too we say of an upright man, that he is incapable of a vicious or base action. In the present instance, the circumstance which rendered it incompatible with our Lord's character and established course of ministry, and in that sense impossible, for him to perform many miracles, was the want of faith described in the ceding verse. For even the sick were not usually healed without possessing this qualification; and accordingly, he sometimes tells them that it is their faith that has made them whole.

pre

CHRIST'S MISSION OF HIS APOSTLES IN PARTIES OF TWO TOGETHER.

Ver. 7-13.

And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: but be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto

And they went out,

you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. and preached that men should repent. many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.

And they cast out

The first and most obvious reason for this mission seems to have been, the dispersion of the good-tidings of Christ and his miracles, and the baptism of those who should listen to the report. And yet, it is certain, that so far from requiring his apostles generally to be the heralds and preachers of these his sayings and doings, our Lord was continually checking the free dispersion of them. The natural course of his ministry seems rather to have required his interposition to check the indiscriminate spreading of his fame, than to encourage and command it. All was soon to be "made known," and "proclaimed on the house-tops;" but, as yet, it was, in some measure, a "secret," whispered in the ear, and confined to the closet. To the disciples only, it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the unheeding multitude he spake in parables. Why then this mission of the apostles to preach and to perform miracles?

It was not simply the publication of his own miracles and of the truths which they attested that he was wont to forbid; but the injudicious, irregular, indiscriminate, publication of them. What he laboured to prevent was the casting of the pearls before swine, the scattering of the good seed where there was no soil. Such a mission as this of the apostles, divided into six parties, might have been requisite in order to give all an equal chance of becoming his disciples, and thereby sharing in their privileges. Each party meanwhile may be supposed to have been guided in their ministry, by a rule of discrimination no less strict than that which marked their Master's.

Another very important object, however, presents itself, as connected with this mission of the apostles during his lifetime. It might have been designed to give them a foretaste and experimental proof of his spiritual presence, support, and guidance of them, when after his ascension they should be permanently separated from his presence in the flesh; even as Moses and Aaron, in their mission to Pharaoh, went through a probation, and acquired a practical conviction of

God's miraculous assistance, before they were called on to perform the adventurous task of conducting the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness. No situation is conceivable which would more require a provision of this sort—a confidence founded on actual experience of support and guidance by their unseen Lord-than the situation of the apostles, when called on to begin their ministry, after that he had ceased to be manifested in the flesh. It is true, that the miraculous strengthening of the promised Comforter might (as we suppose) have been made sufficient to supersede the need of all this precaution; but it is equally true, that its assistance does not in the course of their ministry seem to have been designed to supersede natural means; but only to accomplish that for which no natural provision could suffice.

Accordingly, the whole arrangement of the embassy on which the apostles were now sent, shews a bearing upon this point. stance was so ordered, as to

Every circumimpress them

throughout this journey with the sense of miraculous support from their absent Master. They were to take no provision-no clothes-to claim

When

shelter and hospitality without scrip or purseto heal the sick, and to cast out devils. the period approached too for the final separation, for which this had proved and prepared them, he reminds them of all this; in order that the effect intended by it might not be lost on them : "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing?"

The cure of the sick seems from this account to have been performed through the ceremony of anointing, and was probably attached to it. It gave rise to the practice of anointing the sick still observed in the Romish Church-a practice which is now superstitious, because the miraculous efficacy attached to it for a time by divine appointment has manifestly been withdrawn.

DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Ver. 14-29.

And king Herod heard of him; (for his name was spread abroad :) and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I be

d Luke xxii. 35.