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mankind. They either like Him or dislike Him. Strife and conllict of opinion are the certain consequences of the Gospel really coming among men with power. The fault is not in the Gospel but in human nature. Stillness and quiet are signs not of Fife but of death. The sun calls forth miasma and malaria from the swamps it shines upon ; but the fault is not in the sun, but in the laud. The very same rays call forth fertility and abundance from the cornfield.
13. — [HoicbeU no man.. .openly. ..fear. ..Jews.] This expression of course applies specially to those who favoured our Lord. Those who hated Him would not fear to say so openly. This verse shows the length to which the enmity of the Jewish ru- lers against our Lord had already gone. It was a notorious fact among the lower orders that the heads of the nation hated Jesus, and that it was a dangerous thing to talk favourably of Him, or to manifest any interest in Him. The fear of man is a powerful principle among most people. Rulers have little idea how many things are secretly talked of sometimes among sub- jects, and kept back from them. Two hundred years ago, the Stuarts could persecute all open and out-spoken favourers of the English Puritans; but they could not prevent the lower orders secretly talking of them, and imbibing prejudices in their favour.