^ Many of the older expositors, from Victor of Antioch downward, wondered at this statement. It surprised them that our Saviour should be represented as loving one who was not prepared to give up all on earth for the sake of the Kingdom of
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heaven. Hence various attempts were made to find in the expression something less inward than real love. Some supposed that the words loved him meant kissed him. Field ^ says, " Perhaps we might translate ' caressed him ' " ; and refers to John Lightfoot, who quotes examples of Jewish Doctors getting up and kissing their disciples when they were pleased with them.
3. Why did Jesus love him ? Because He saw him as he was — pure, enthusiastic, unspoiled though unproved. It is a false and forlorn view to take of man, that there is nothing beautiful in him before he becomes saintly. The very attractive- ness of an unregenerate soul makes us the more desirous for its regeneration. But often, as a cultured tree knows nothing of the husbandries which beautified the stock from which it sprang, and thus caused its beauty, so youths know nothing of the spiritual husbandries of past days, to which they are indebted for the moral attractiveness they have to others, and the moral strength which they themselves deem sufficient. It is often very evident that the children of Christians have by nature an advantage. Often they are more lovable than others. But they must not trust a " nature " in themselves that would never have been so lovely but for the "grace" that was in their parents. There is much in common, and even in perverted, men that has a rude native grace. There is yet more in the sons and daughters of the sincerely pious that has a natural hopeful bloom about it. God loves this, and so may we.
Do you suppose that the Blessed Lord now in heaven looks with equal love upon opposite characters amongst ourselves ; say, upon the young man of pure life and clean heart and beautiful feeling, and the young man whose very soul is "a cage of unclean birds," whose tongue is profane, unchaste, or cruel, whose conduct towards his own is selfish, unmannerly, hard, ungrateful ? Ought He, we ask it with reverence, ought He so to do ? Ought Jesus Christ to confound all differences even amongst those who still " lack one thing " ? Such teaching is as unscriptural as it is immoral. It would make us shut the Bible if we read it there. It would be an argument against Christianity which all the Evidences could not parry. It would be the indication of a looseness and a roughness and a
' Notes on Translation of the New Testament, 34.
262 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
coarseness of judgment which could not be attributed without impiety to the Judge of all men. Because we believe that there is a discriminating quality — and the Gospel calls it faith — visible already, in the case of each one, as present or absent, to the eye of God ; shall we go on to say that without this or apart from this there is no essential difference between vice and virtue ? Let " the Judge of all the earth do right," however it may fit in with our ideas or with our theologies. Be not rash in fixing the great gulf — wipe not out the " Jesus loved " in your zeal to hurry towards the " one thing thou lackest." ^
It was not in vain that the young ruler kept the Commandments ; it was because he kept them that Jesus loved him. It is not in vain that any man has lived bravely outside religion ; it is because he has done so well that Jesus desires to have him for a disciple. No faithfulness of service in any pro- vince of life, and no ministry of charity, have passed unnoticed by Him who alone understands human nature, and who is our Judge. Our Lord has a welcome for all men who will come to Him, even the thief upon the cross ; but of only one seeker in the Gospels is it written that Jesus loved him. He was not a reprobate, nor was he a Pharisee ; he was a well living and high minded man. If he had been able to make the last sacrifice, then one dares to think the young ruler would have become a chief apostle, and the rival of St. Paul. When, therefore, one like the young ruler approaches Jesus, the Master sees a man after His own heart. When such a one refuses the cross which alone can raise him to his full manhood the Master is bitterly disappointed. And that man suffers the chief loss of life.
*[[ It is a wholesome change in ethics from the modern hymns to the Old Testament Psalms; it is rising from the warm enervating plain of Italy to the cold bracing highlands of the Engadine. Not only have the Psalms an incomparable majesty which no hymn except the Te Deum rivals, and an unaffected tenderness which no hymn, except perhaps " Eock of Ages," has ever touched, but the Psalms have also an ethical tone which is wanting in many popular hymns. If the soldier of Christ wishes to brace himself for strenuous living, and the discharge of daily