John 6

Joh 6:1-13.

FIVE

THOUSAND

MIRACULOUSLY

FED.

(See on

Mr 6:31-44).

3. a mountain--somewhere in that hilly range which skirts the east

side of the lake.

4. passover . . . was nigh--but for the reason mentioned

(Joh 7:1),

Jesus kept away from it, remaining in Galilee.

Joh 6:14-21.

JESUS

WALKS ON THE

SEA.

(Also see on

Mr 6:45-56).

14, 15. that prophet--(See on

Joh 1:21).

15. departed . . . to a mountain himself alone--(1) to

rest, which He came to this "desert place" on purpose to do

before the miracle of the loaves, but could not for the multitude that

followed Him (see

Mr 6:31);

and (2) "to pray"

(Mt 14:23;

Mr 6:46).

But from His mountain-top He kept watching the ship (see on

Joh 6:18),

and doubtless prayed both for them, and with a view to the new

manifestation which He was to give them of His glory.

16, 17. when even was come--(See on

Mr 6:35).

entered into a ship--"constrained" to do so by their Master

(Mt 14:22;

Mr 6:45),

in order to put an end to the misdirected excitement in His favor

(Joh 6:15),

into which the disciples themselves may have been somewhat drawn. The

word "constrained" implies reluctance on their part, perhaps from

unwillingness to part with their Master and embark at night, leaving

Him alone on the mountain.

went--rather, "were proceeding."

toward Capernaum--Mark says

(Mr 6:45),

"unto Bethsaida," meaning "Bethsaida of Galilee"

(Joh 12:21),

on the west side of the lake. The place they left was of the same name

(see on

Mr 6:32).

Jesus was not come to them--They probably lingered in hopes of His

still joining them, and so let the darkness come on.

18, 19. sea arose, &c.--and they were "now in the midst of it"

(Mt 14:24).

Mark adds the graphic and touching particular, "He saw them toiling in

rowing"

(Mr 6:48),

putting forth all their strength to buffet the waves and bear on

against a head wind, but to little effect. He saw this from His

mountain-top, and through the darkness of the night, for His heart was

all with them; yet would He not go to their relief till His own time

came.

19. they see Jesus--"about the fourth watch of the night"

(Mt 14:25;

Mr 6:48),

or between three and six in the morning.

walking on the sea--What Job

(Job 9:8)

celebrates as the distinguishing prerogative of GOD, "WHO ALONE spreadeth out the

heavens, and TREADETH UPON THE WAVES OF THE

SEA"--What AGUR challenges as GOD'S unapproachable prerogative, to "GATHER THE WIND IN HIS FISTS, and

BIND THE WATERS IN A GARMENT"

(Pr 30:4)

--lo! this is here done in flesh, by "THE

SON OF MAN."

drawing nigh to the ship--yet as though He

"would have passed by them,"

Mr 6:48

(compare

Lu 24:28;

Ge 18:3, 5; 32:24-26).

they were afraid--"cried out for fear"

(Mt 14:26),

"supposing it had been a spirit"

(Mr 6:49).

He would appear to them at first like a dark moving speck upon the

waters; then as a human figure, but--in the dark tempestuous sky, and

not dreaming that it could be their Lord--they take it for a spirit.

(How often thus we miscall our chiefest mercies--not only thinking them

distant when they are near, but thinking the best the worst!)

20. It is I; be not afraid--Matthew

(Mt 14:27)

and Mark

(Mr 6:50)

give before these exhilarating words, that to them well-known one, "Be

of good cheer!"

21. willingly received him into the ship--their first fears being

now converted into wonder and delight.

and immediately the ship was at the land--This additional miracle,

for as such it is manifestly related, is recorded here alone. Yet all

that is meant seems to be that as the storm was suddenly calmed, so the

little bark--propelled by the secret power of the Lord of Nature now

sailing in it--glided through the now unruffled waters, and while they

were wrapt in wonder at what had happened, not heeding their rapid

motion, was found at port, to their still further surprise.

Joh 6:22-71.

JESUS

FOLLOWED BY THE

MULTITUDES TO

CAPERNAUM,

DISCOURSES TO

THEM IN THE

SYNAGOGUE OF THE

BREAD OF

LIFE--EFFECT OF

THIS ON

TWO

CLASSES OF THE

DISCIPLES.

22-24. These verses are a little involved, from the Evangelist's desire

to mention every circumstance, however minute, that might call up the

scene as vividly to the reader as it stood before his own view.

The day following--the miracle of the loaves, and the stormy night;

the day on which they landed at Capernaum.

the people which stood on the other side of the sea--not the whole

multitude that had been fed, but only such of them as remained over

night about the shore, that is, on the east side of the lake; for we

are supposed to have come, with Jesus and His disciples in the ship, to

the west side, to Capernaum.

saw that there was none other boat there, &c.--The meaning is, the

people had observed that there had been only one boat on the east side

where they were; namely, the one in which the disciples had crossed at

night to the other, the west side, and they had also observed that Jesus

had not gone on board that boat, but His disciples had put off without

Him:

23. Howbeit, &c.--"Howbeit," adds the Evangelist, in a lively

parenthesis, "there came other boats from Tiberias" (which lay near the

southwest coast of the lake), whose passengers were part of the

multitude that had followed Jesus to the east side, and been

miraculously fed; these boats were fastened somewhere (says the

Evangelist)

nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had

given thanks--thus he refers to the glorious "miracle of the

loaves"--and now they were put in requisition to convey the people back

again to the west side. For when "the people saw that Jesus was not

there, neither His disciples, they also took shipping [in these boats]

and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus."

25. when they had found him on the other side--at Capernaum.

they said, &c.--astonished at His being there, and wondering

how He could have accomplished it, whether by land or water, and

when He came; for being quite unaware of His having walked upon the

sea and landed with the disciples in the ship, they could not see how,

unless He had travelled all night round the head of the lake alone, He

could have reached Capernaum, and even then, how He could have arrived

before themselves.

26. Ye seek me, &c.--Jesus does not put them through their

difficulty, says nothing of His treading on the waves of the sea, nor

even notices their question, but takes advantage of the favorable

moment for pointing out to them how forward, flippant, and superficial

were their views, and how low their desires. "Ye seek Me not because ye

saw the miracles"--literally, "the signs," that is, supernatural

tokens of a higher presence, and a divine commission, "but because ye

did eat of the loaves and were filled." From this He proceeds at once

to that other Bread, just as, with the woman of Samaria, to that

other Water

(Joh 4:9-15).

We should have supposed all that follows to have been delivered by the

wayside, or wherever they happened first to meet. But from

Joh 6:59

we gather that they had probably met about the door of the

synagogue--"for that was the day in which they assembled in their

synagogues" [LIGHTFOOT]--and that on being asked,

at the close of the service, if He had any word of exhortation to the

people, He had taken the two breads, the perishing and the

living bread, for the subject of His profound and extraordinary

discourse.

27. which the Son of man--taking that title of Himself which denoted

His incarnate life.

shall give unto you--in the sense of

Joh 6:51.

him hath God the Father sealed--marked out and authenticated for that

transcendent office, to impart to the world the bread of an everlasting

life, and this in the character of "the Son of man."

28-31. What shall we do . . . the works of God--such works as God will

approve. Different answers may be given to such a question, according

to the spirit which prompts the inquiry. (See

Ho 6:6-8;

Lu 3:12-14).

Here our Lord, knowing whom He had to deal with, shapes His reply

accordingly.

29. This is the work of God--That lies at the threshold of all

acceptable obedience, being not only the prerequisite to it, but the

proper spring of it--in that sense, the work of works, emphatically

"the work of God."

30. What sign showest thou, &c.--But how could they ask "a sign,"

when many of them scarce a day before had witnessed such a "sign" as had

never till then been vouchsafed to men; when after witnessing it, they

could hardly be restrained from making Him a king; when they followed

Him from the one side of the lake to the other; and when, in the opening

words of this very discourse, He had chided them for seeking Him, "not

because they saw the signs," but for the loaves? The truth seems to

be that they were confounded by the novel claims which our Lord had

just advanced. In proposing to make Him a king, it was for far other

purposes than dispensing to the world the bread of an everlasting life;

and when He seemed to raise His claims even higher still, by

representing it as the grand "work of God," that they should believe

on Himself as His Sent One, they saw very clearly that He was making

a demand upon them beyond anything they were prepared to accord to Him,

and beyond all that man had ever before made. Hence their question,

"What dost Thou work?"

31. Our fathers did eat manna, &c.--insinuating the inferiority of

Christ's miracle of the loaves to those of Moses: "When Moses claimed

the confidence of the fathers, 'he gave them bread from heaven to

eat'--not for a few thousands, but for millions, and not once only, but

daily throughout their wilderness journey."

32, 33. Moses gave you not, &c.--"It was not Moses that gave you the

manna, and even it was but from the lower heavens; 'but My Father

giveth you the true bread,' and that 'from heaven.'"

33. For the bread of God is he, &c.--This verse is perhaps best left

in its own transparent grandeur--holding up the Bread Itself as

divine, spiritual, and eternal; its ordained Fountain and

essential Substance, "Him who came down from heaven to give it"

(that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us,

1Jo 1:2);

and its designed objects, "the world."

34. Lord, evermore give us this bread--speaking now with a certain

reverence (as at

Joh 6:25),

the perpetuity of the manna floating perhaps in their minds, and much

like the Samaritan woman, when her eyes were but half opened, "Sir,

give Me this water," &c.

(Joh 4:15).

35. I am the bread of life--Henceforth the discourse is all

in the first person, "I," "Me," which occur in one form or other, as

STIER reckons, thirty-five times.

he that cometh to me--to obtain what the soul craves, and as the

only all-sufficient and ordained source of supply.

hunger . . . thirst--shall have conscious and abiding

satisfaction.

36. But . . . ye have seen me, and believe not--seen Him not in His

mere bodily presence, but in all the majesty of His life, His teaching,

His works.

37-40. All that, &c.--This comprehensive and very grand passage is

expressed with a peculiar artistic precision. The opening general

statement

(Joh 6:37)

consists of two members: (1) "ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVETH ME SHALL COME TO

ME"--that is, "Though ye, as I told you, have no faith in Me, My

errand into the world shall in no wise be defeated; for all that the

Father giveth Me shall infallibly come to Me." Observe, what is

given Him by the Father is expressed in the singular

number and neuter gender--literally, "everything"; while those

who come to Him are put in the masculine gender and

singular number--"every one." The whole mass, so to

speak, is gifted by the Father to the Son as a unity, which the

Son evolves, one by one, in the execution of His trust. So

Joh 17:2,

"that He should give eternal life to all that which Thou hast

given Him" [BENGEL]. This "shall" expresses

the glorious certainty of it, the Father being pledged to see to

it that the gift be no empty mockery. (2) "AND HIM THAT

COMETH TO MEI WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT." As

the former was the divine, this is just the human side of

the same thing. True, the "coming" ones of the second clause are just

the "given" ones of the first. But had our Lord merely said, "When

those that have been given Me of My Father shall come to Me, I will

receive them"--besides being very flat, the impression conveyed would

have been quite different, sounding as if there were no other laws

in operation, in the movement of sinners to Christ, but such as are

wholly divine and inscrutable to us; whereas, though He

does speak of it as a sublime certainty which men's refusals

cannot frustrate, He speaks of that certainty as taking effect only by

men's voluntary advances to Him and acceptance of Him--"Him that

cometh to Me," "whosoever will," throwing the door wide open. Only it

is not the simply willing, but the actually coming, whom

He will not cast out; for the word here employed usually denotes

arrival, as distinguished from the ordinary word, which rather

expresses the act of coming (see

Joh 8:42,

Greek), [WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. "In no wise" is an emphatic negative, to meet

the fears of the timid (as in

Re 21:27,

to meet the presumption of the hardened). These, then, being the two

members of the general opening statement, what follows is meant to take

in both,

38. For I came down from heaven not to do Mine own will--to play an

independent part.

but--in respect to both the foregoing things, the divine and the

human side of salvation.

the will of Him that sent Me--What this twofold will of Him that sent

Him is, we are next sublimely told

(Joh 6:39, 40):

39. And this--in the first place.

is the will of Him that sent me, that of all--everything.

which He hath given Me--(taking up the identical words of

Joh 6:37).

I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day--The

meaning is not, of course, that He is charged to keep the objects

entrusted to Him as He received them, so as they should merely

suffer nothing in His hands. For as they were just "perishing"

sinners of Adam's family, to let "nothing" of such "be lost," but

"raise them up at the last day," must involve, first, giving His

flesh for them

(Joh 6:51),

that they "might not perish, but have everlasting life"; and

then, after "keeping them from falling," raising their sleeping

dust in incorruption and glory, and presenting them, body and soul,

perfect and entire, wanting nothing, to Him who gave them to Him,

saying, "Behold I and the children which God hath given Me." So much

for the first will of Him that sent Him, the divine side

of man's salvation, whose every stage and movement is inscrutable to

us, but infallibly certain.

40. And this--in the second place.

is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son

and believeth on Him--seeing the Son believeth on Him.

may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last

day--This is the human side of the same thing as in the

foregoing verse, and answering to "Him that cometh unto Me I will in

no wise cast out"; that is, I have it expressly in charge that

everyone that so "beholdeth" (so vieweth) the Son as to believe on Him

shall have everlasting life; and, that none of Him be lost, "I

will raise him up at the last day." (See on

Joh 6:54).

41-46. Jews murmured--muttered, not in our Lord's hearing, but He

knew it

(Joh 6:43;

Joh 2:25).

he said, I am the bread, &c.--Missing the sense and glory of this,

and having no relish for such sublimities, they harp upon the "Bread

from heaven." "What can this mean? Do we not know all about Him--where,

when, and of whom He was born? And yet He says He came down from

heaven!"

43, 44. Murmur not . . . No man--that is, Be not either startled or

stumbled at these sayings; for it needs divine teaching to understand

them, divine drawing to submit to them.

44. can come to me--in the sense of

Joh 6:35.

except the Father which hath sent me--that is, the Father

as the Sender of Me and to carry out the design of My mission.

draw him--by an internal and efficacious operation; though

consonant to their moral nature

(So 1:4;

Jer 31:3;

Ho 11:3, 4).

raise him up, &c.--(See on

Joh 6:54).

45. written in the prophets--in

Isa 54:13;

Jer 31:33, 34;

other similar passages may also have been in view. Our Lord thus falls

back upon Scripture authority for this seemingly hard saying.

all taught of God--not by external revelation merely, but by

internal illumination, corresponding to the "drawing" of

Joh 6:44.

Every man therefore, &c.--that is, who hath been thus efficaciously

taught of Him.

cometh unto me--with absolute certainty, yet in the sense above

given of "drawing"; that is, "As none can come to Me but as divinely

drawn, so none thus drawn shall fail to come."

46. Not that any man hath seen, &c.--Lest they should confound that

"hearing and learning of the Father," to which believers are admitted by

divine teaching, with His own immediate access to Him, He here

throws in a parenthetical explanation; stating, as explicitly as words

could do it, how totally different the two cases were, and that only He

who is "from God" hath this naked, immediate access to the Father. (See

Joh 1:18).

47-51. He that believeth, &c.--(See on

Joh 3:36;

Joh 5:24).

48. I am the bread of life--"As he that believeth in Me hath

everlasting life, so I am Myself the everlasting Sustenance of

that life." (Repeated from

Joh 6:35).

49. Your fathers--of whom ye spake

(Joh 6:31);

not "ours," by which He would hint that He had a higher

descent, of which they dreamt not [BENGEL].

did eat manna . . . and are dead--recurring to their own point about

the manna, as one of the noblest of the ordained preparatory

illustrations of His own office: "Your fathers, ye say, ate manna in the

wilderness; and ye say well, for so they did, but they are dead--even

they whose carcasses fell in the wilderness did eat of that bread; the

Bread whereof I speak cometh down from heaven, which the manna never

did, that men, eating of it, may live for ever."

51. I am, &c.--Understand, it is of MYSELF

I now speak as the Bread

from heaven; of MEif a man eat he shall live for ever; and

"THE

BREAD WHICH I WILL GIVE IS MY

FLESH, WHICH I WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD."

Here, for the first time in this high discourse, our Lord

explicitly introduces His sacrificial death--for only rationalists

can doubt this not only as that which constitutes Him the Bread of life

to men, but as THAT very element IN

HIM WHICH POSSESSES THE LIFE-GIVING VIRTUE.--"From

this time we hear no more (in this discourse) of "Bread";

this figure is dropped, and the reality takes its place" [STIER]. The

words "I will give" may be compared with the words of institution at

the Supper, "This is My body which is given for you"

(Lu 22:19),

or in Paul's report of it, "broken for you"

(1Co 11:24).

52. Jews strove among themselves--arguing the point together.

How can, &c.--that is, Give us His flesh to eat? Absurd.

53-58. Except ye eat the flesh . . . and drink the blood

. . . no life, &c.--The harshest word He had yet uttered

in their ears. They asked how it was possible to eat His flesh.

He answers, with great solemnity, "It is indispensable." Yet

even here a thoughtful hearer might find something to temper the

harshness. He says they must not only "eat His flesh" but "drink

His blood," which could not but suggest the idea of His

death--implied in the separation of one's flesh from his blood.

And as He had already hinted that it was to be something very different

from a natural death, saying, "My flesh I will give for the life

of the world"

(Joh 6:51),

it must have been pretty plain to candid hearers that He meant

something above the gross idea which the bare terms expressed. And

farther, when He added that they "had no life in them unless

they thus ate and drank," it was impossible they should think He meant

that the temporal life they were then living was dependent on

their eating and drinking, in this gross sense, His flesh and blood.

Yet the whole statement was certainly confounding, and beyond doubt was

meant to be so. Our Lord had told them that in spite of all they had

"seen" in Him, they "did not believe"

(Joh 6:36).

For their conviction therefore he does not here lay Himself out;

but having the ear not only of them but of the more candid and

thoughtful in the crowded synagogue, and the miracle of the loaves

having led up to the most exalted of all views of His Person and

Office, He takes advantage of their very difficulties and objections to

announce, for all time, those most profound truths which are here

expressed, regardless of the disgust of the unteachable, and the

prejudices even of the most sincere, which His language would seem only

designed to deepen. The truth really conveyed here is no other

than that expressed in

Joh 6:51,

though in more emphatic terms--that He Himself, in the virtue of His

sacrificial death, is the spiritual and eternal life of men; and that

unless men voluntarily appropriate to themselves this death, in its

sacrificial virtue, so as to become the very life and nourishment of

their inner man, they have no spiritual and eternal life at all. Not as

if His death were the only thing of value, but it is what gives

all else in Christ's Incarnate Person, Life, and Office, their whole

value to us sinners.

54. Whoso eateth . . . hath, &c.--The former verse said that

unless they partook of Him they had no life; this adds, that

whoever does so "hath eternal life."

and I will raise him up at the last day--For the fourth time

this is repeated (see

Joh 6:39, 40, 44)

--showing most clearly that the "eternal life" which such a man

"hath" cannot be the same with the future resurrection

life from which it is carefully distinguished each time, but a life

communicated here below immediately on believing

(Joh 3:36; 5:24, 25);

and giving to the resurrection of the body as that which

consummates the redemption of the entire man, a prominence which

in the current theology, it is to be feared, it has seldom had. (See

Ro 8:23;

1Co 15:1-58,

throughout).

56. He that eateth . . . dwelleth in me and I in him--As our food

becomes incorporated with ourselves, so Christ and those who eat His

flesh and drink His blood become spiritually one life, though

personally distinct.

57. As the living Father hath sent me--to communicate His own life.

and I live by the Father--literally, "because of the Father"; My life

and His being one, but Mine that of a Son, whose it is to be "of the Father." (See

Joh 1:18; 5:26).

he that eateth me, . . . shall live by me--literally, "because of Me."

So that though one spiritual life with Him, "the Head of every man

is Christ, as the head of Christ is God"

(1Co 11:3; 3:23).

58. This is that bread, &c.--a sort of summing up of the whole

discourse, on which let this one further remark suffice--that as our

Lord, instead of softening down His figurative sublimities, or even

putting them in naked phraseology, leaves the great truths of His Person

and Office, and our participation of Him and it, enshrined for all time

in those glorious forms of speech, so when we attempt to strip the truth

of these figures, figures though they be, it goes away from us, like

water when the vessel is broken, and our wisdom lies in raising our own

spirit, and attuning our own ear, to our Lord's chosen modes of

expression. (It should be added that although this discourse has nothing

to do with the Sacrament of the Supper, the Sacrament has everything to

do with it, as the visible embodiment of these figures, and, to the

believing partaker, a real, yea, and the most lively and affecting

participation of His flesh and blood, and nourishment thereby of the

spiritual and eternal life, here below).

59. These things said he in the synagogue--which seems to imply that

what follows took place after the congregation had broken up.

60-65. Many . . . of his disciples--His pretty constant followers,

though an outer circle of them.

hard saying--not merely harsh, but insufferable, as the word often

means in the Old Testament.

who can hear--submit to listen to it.

61, 62. Doth this offend . . . What and if, &c.--that is, "If ye

are stumbled at what I have said, how will ye bear what I now say?"

Not that His ascension itself would stumble them more than His death,

but that after recoiling from the mention of the one, they would not

be in a state of mind to take in the other.

63. the flesh profiteth nothing--Much of His discourse was about

"flesh"; but flesh as such, mere flesh, could profit nothing, much less

impart that life which the Holy Spirit alone communicates to the

soul.

the words that I speak . . . are spirit and . . . life--The whole

burden of the discourse is "spirit," not mere flesh, and "life"

in its highest, not its lowest sense, and the words I have employed are

to be interpreted solely in that sense.

64. But there are some, &c.--that is, "But it matters little to some

of you in what sense I speak, for ye believe not." This was said, adds

the Evangelist, not merely of the outer but of the inner circle of His

disciples; for He knew the traitor, though it was not yet time to expose

him.

65. Therefore said I, &c.--that is, "That was why I spoke to you of

the necessity of divine teaching which some of you are strangers to."

except it were given him--plainly showing that by the Father's

"drawing"

(Joh 6:44)

was meant an internal and efficacious operation, for in

recalling the statement here He says, it must be "given to a man

to come" to Christ.

66-71. From that time, &c.--or, in consequence of this. Those last

words of our Lord seemed to have given them the finishing stroke--they

could not stand it any longer.

walked no more--Many a journey, it may be, they had taken with Him,

but now they gave Him up finally!

67. the twelve--the first time they are thus mentioned in this Gospel.

Will ye also go away?--Affecting appeal! Evidently Christ felt the

desertion of Him even by those miserable men who could not abide His

statements; and seeing a disturbance even of the wheat by the

violence of the wind which blew away the chaff (not yet visibly showing

itself, but open to His eyes of fire), He would nip it in the bud by

this home question.

68. Then Simon Peter--whose forwardness in this case was noble, and

to the wounded spirit of His Lord doubtless very grateful.

Lord, to whom, &c.--that is, "We cannot deny that we have been

staggered as well as they, and seeing so many go away who, as we

thought, might have been retained by teaching a little less hard to take

in, our own endurance has been severely tried, nor have we been able to

stop short of the question, Shall we follow the rest, and give it

up? But when it came to this, our light returned, and our hearts were

reassured. For as soon as we thought of going away, there arose upon us

that awful question, 'TO WHOM shall we go?' To the lifeless formalism

and wretched traditions of the elders? to the gods many and lords many

of the heathen around us? or to blank unbelief? Nay, Lord, we are shut

up. They have none of that 'ETERNAL LIFE' to offer us whereof Thou

hast been discoursing, in words rich and ravishing as well as in words

staggering to human wisdom. That life we cannot want; that life we have

learnt to crave as a necessity of the deeper nature which Thou hast

awakened: 'the words of that eternal life' (the authority to

reveal it and the power to confer it). Thou hast: Therefore will we

stay with Thee--we must."

69. And we believe,--(See on

Mt 16:16).

Peter seems to have added this not merely--probably not so much--as an

assurance to his Lord of his heart's belief in Him, as for the

purpose of fortifying himself and his faithful brethren against

that recoil from his Lord's harsh statements which he was

probably struggling against with difficulty at that moment.

Note.--There are seasons when one's faith is tried to the

utmost, particularly by speculative difficulties; the spiritual eye

then swims, and all truth seems ready to depart from us. At such

seasons, a clear perception that to abandon the faith of Christ is

to face black desolation, ruin and death; and on recoiling from

this, to be able to fall back, not merely on first principles and

immovable foundations, but on personal experience of a Living

Lord in whom all truth is wrapt up and made flesh for our very

benefit--this is a relief unspeakable. Under that blessed Wing

taking shelter, until we are again fit to grapple with the questions

that have staggered us, we at length either find our way through them,

or attain to a calm satisfaction in the discovery that they lie beyond

the limits of present apprehension.

70. Have not I chosen . . . and one of you is a devil:--"Well said,

Simon-Barjonas, but that 'we' embraces not so wide a circle as in the

simplicity of thine heart thou thinkest; for though I have chosen you

but twelve, one even of these is a 'devil'" (the temple, the tool of

that wicked one).