CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT LIGHT.

Leaving Nazareth, Jesus came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light: and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. - MATT. iv. 13–16.

MANY centuries before the appearing of Jesus, Isaiah spake this word of comfort to his afflicted countrymen. Over their land he assured them that an invading host from Assyria should spread itself like a flood. Still, in the midst of fear and darkness, God should be with them, and a brighter day should rise. The passage

referred to in the Gospel, as given by a later translator, reads thus:

"The darkness shall not remain where now is distress;

Of old he brought the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali into contempt;

In future times shall he bring the land of the sea, beyond Jordan, the circle of the Gentiles, into honor.

The people, that walk in darkness, behold a great light;

They who dwell in the land of deathlike shade,

Upon them a light shineth."

Without investigating the principle upon which the Christian Apostles, themselves Jews, and their contemporaries who believed the Prophets and the accomplishment of their words in Jesus, either grounded their judgment or proceeded to prove his divine dignity by means of these ancient oracles, we may say thus much at least. The Prophets saw the Divine Presence in every deliverance and every blessing granted to their nation. Those oracles in particular with which this passage is connected bear, as we might say, for their watchword the majestic phrase, turned to a significant personal designation, GOD IS WITH US. And if ancient darkness disappears, and for contempt there is glory, —if over men walking or dwelling even in shades like those of death, a light, a great light, shineth, -this is but effect and manifestation of the present Divinity. Just so during those later centuries of depression and servitude, just so now he whom his disciples accounted the destined deliverer and king of a subdued nation hath appeared upon earth, among the people whom he was to save and govern, he bears to their thought the character, his person is symbol, of the same Divine Presence. This is the majestic form of God with us.

The idea is perpetuated in the Church. Through all Christian ages, Jesus has appeared,

in one method or another, the expression of God

with man. To many he has been the second person in the Godhead, whereof the Father is fountain; to some of ancient and modern times, no other than the Divine Soul embodied, informing human nature, ascending into glory one with the Father; to such as have not been able to accept either of these views, he has yet stood forth as the man full of the Holy Spirit, so near to God, so faithful to his word, so penetrated by the celestial influence, so obedient to the Father, so benignant to mankind, bearing a commission so exalted, and speaking and living so completely in the name of the Eternal, that they confess and feel him to be not less than his Son and Image. But in either of these views, the latter quite as really as the former, we see how natural it may be to transfer to this one acknowledged and glorious expression and form of the Unseen Presence, images and representations of the same Presence in other, if less, yet analogous historical instances. Thus, if once a child, set forth as gift and pledge of deliverance, is named by the Hebrew phrase which we translate God with us, how natural that the Hebrew Christian should transfer the name to one acknowledged and honored as real and everlasting Redeemer, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God! Equally natural, that, as he

read of old oppressive darkness removed, by the divine gift of light and peace, from the lands of Zebulon and Naphthali, he should apply the description as over the same lands he saw the greater light shine, revealing the Father and opening heaven. If as logic it may be powerless to us, yet as symbol it retains its truth and beauty.

We may proceed further. Besides the historical parallel, there is the natural. As the Lord God is truly sun, the sun as centre, life, and light of the universe, so whatever comes of him, the least and the greatest, the protection of a man or a nation, and the redemption of the world, is light, some ray from his infinite fulness. And as we rise from one degree of irradiation to another, from the lowest form of nature through the realms of growth and life, of thought and action, in the successions of the ages, what shall hinder our accumulation of all we can gather to brighten our conceptions, and to illustrate the whole realm of spirit? Thus Nature and History, seen on the higher side, shall for ever show to us something greater than the superficial fact. Above and through the clouds which both raise shineth evermore the Great Light.

SECTION I.

DISPERSION OF THE DARK.

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. — MATT. iv. 17.

No human eye saw the processes by which sun or stars grew from the first rudiments to the fulness of beauty with which for ages the one has crowned our day, the other adorned our evening. Nor are all the processes given us in the course of the grander spiritual formation. Some of them appear in the record, however; and the whole may be illustrated, though but imperfectly, from the consciousness which we reach through experience of the Divine revelation in our own souls. Hitherto the whole thought concerning Jesus has regarded what we may reverently call the formative process. That process, in one method or another, went on through his earthly life; but after he leaves the wilderness, it ceases to be predominant in our contemplation of him. Thenceforth he seems to us, not the growing man, but the perfected prophet; not the private person, but the image of God to mankind; no longer the crescent orb filling itself with beams from above, but the great light, all rounded and full, whose rays can never cease to descend on all below, to spread