(3) The disciples did not stop at this rudimentary state of faith, in which they merely believed in Jesus. They continued to believe in Him ; but to this they added in later life many and illustrious spiritual attainments. But great as were their attain- ments in faith, knowledge, righteousness, and grace in after life, they were all rendered possible by this simple faith.
H Saint Cyi-an was always dwelling on the difference between bodily and spiritual medicine. A broken leg might heal com-
144 THE FIRST SIGN
pletely, or a fever be successfully fought ; and then, as he says with a stray touch of humour, the doctor v/ould be mucli annoyed if his former patients took to haunting his consulting-room. But in spiritual medicine the patient never got free of his Physician, nor was it fitting that he should.^
3. " His disciples believed on him!' Only in two places does this expression " on him " occur in all the Synoptic Gospels ; and the Apostle Paul, whose vocabulary it more closely resembles than that of any other Scripture writer, but very rarely uses it. It denotes the absolute transference of trust from one's self to another. To believe on or in a man means so much more than simply to believe him. In believing a man we confide in the mere truthfulness of his lips ; we believe that he is incapable of telling a falsehood. But in believing on or in a man, we trust the man's whole being and life, we confide in himself. The disciples of Jesus not only believed the words of Jesus, from whose lips no guile could come ; they believed in Himself as the fulfilment of all their hopes and expectations, their highest ideal of the truth. A deeper confidence than they could have in themselves they had in Him.
(1) Perhaps there were those present who believed the miracle of whom it could not be said that they believed on Him. The faith of the disciples had passed from a belief in the act to a belief in the Actor. Jesus Himself stood prominently forth in their faith. As yet they knew little of Him and of His future plans ; He had not told them who He was ; He had given them little, if any, teaching ; and thus their faith at this time was not enriched with the larger conceptions of Him which they had at a later period. It was an elementary faith; but it had the most vital and vitalizing element, because it was faith on Him.
(2) The ground of their faith was the knowledge they had acquired of Jesus. Faith finds its root in knowledge ; credulity in ignorance. Jesus had let a little of His glory shine forth in a beautiful act of power. That act gave a clue to a right knowledge of Him. By it the disciples were able to form some conception of the kind of Being He was. And that knowledge enabled them to have faith in Him. Jesus wrought the faith by the agency of His glory ; without this self-revelation the faith would never have
» Viscount St. Cyins, Pafml ^''.O
ST. JOHN II. II 145
come; the faith was thus His gift. And because of what they did know of Him, they beheved in Him for what they did not know. That is the way in which we, by understanding something of God, can believe in Him where we do not understand Him.
^ Christ required then, as He requires now, a faith based on reason and not on miracles. Consequently, a miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine ; for the doctrine must first com- mend itself to the conscience as good, and only then can the miracle seal it as Divine. " Miracula sine doctrina nihil valent." Therefore we must look in every miracle, not only for the Divine power, but also for the Divine wisdom and goodness. A miracle is not a wonder, but a sign, so that the inward meaning is more important than the outward form.^
4. If the disciples believed on Him when they saw Him furnish these wedding guests with wine, shall we not believe, who know that through all these ages He has furnished the pained and the poor with hope and consolation, the desolate and broken- hearted with restoring sympathy, the outcast with the knowledge of God's love, the sinner with pardon, with heaven, and with God ? Is not the glory He showed at this marriage in Cana precisely what still attracts us to Him with confidence and affection ? Can we not wholly trust this Lord who has a perfect sympathy guiding His Divine power, who brings the presence of God into all the details of human life, who enters into all our joys and all our sorrows, and is ever watchful to anticipate our every need, and supply it out of His inexhaustible and all-sufficient fulness ? Happy they who know His heart as His mother knew it, and are satisfied to name their want and leave it with Him.
^ All power, properly so called, is wise and benevolent. There may be capacity in a drifting fire-ship to destroy a fleet ; there may be venom enough in a dead body to infect a nation : — but which of you, the most ambitious, would desire a drifting kinghood, robed in consuming fire, or a poison-dipped sceptre whose touch was mortal ? There is no true potency, remember, but that of help ; nor true ambition, but ambition to save.^