him at one time returning to Galilee, and “ welking no more in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” Afterward, when Herod’s attention had been directed to him, and his abode even in Galilee had thus become somewhat insecure, we find him withdrawing to the more remote and less populous districts of that province. We are, moreover, informed that subsequently he had gone yet further from contact with his enemies, passing beyond Galilee into the Pheenician territory. This he did in order, it would seem, to escspe observation, for while there he “‘entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.” This course our Lord pursued for various reasons. While each particular occasion on which he courted privacy had its own specific reason, we can state in general the motives that seem to have influenced him in this direction. As already intimated, he avoided such publicity as would bring him into hostile conflict with his enemies, so as to precipitate the crisis, and hasten his death, before the proper and purposed period, Again he sought seclusion, now for required rest, oftener for more time and better opportunity of instructing his apostles for their future work and important mission, But while our Lord thus sought seclusion to prevent any interference either with the space of his ministry or with the plan of instructing his apostles, there was another eventuality which he carefully avoided, namely, any attempt on the part of the people to make him a king; as, after the miracle of feeding the five thousand, we read that, “ when Jesus perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” This was no very improbable contingency. In a moment of excite- ment, under the influence of enthusiasm, yielding to the impulse of popular feeling, they might attempt to place him at the head of a rebellion, if not a revolution, against existing authorities, and try to restore to Israel the temporal kingdom which Israel so ardently, though mistakenly, sought. This would have been a result greatly to be deprecated. It would have left a stigma on the Saviour’s name, and caused a suspicion about his design, both of which would have been most detrimental to the interests of that spiritual kingdom—the kingdom “‘not of this world,” which he came to set up. Accordingly, we find that when he had restored the deaf mute, he charged them that “they should tell no man.” Again, when he cured the blind man at Betnsaida, he sent him away to his house, saying, ‘‘ Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town ”—any townsmen he might chance to meet on his way home. Also, after the Transfiguration, “he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.” And now that they passed along (xaperopedovro) through Galilee, “he would not that any man should know it.” Even an apparent exception is easily accounted for: nor is there any real discrepancy between the injunction he laid on them after the restoration of the deaf mute (ch. vii.), to “tell no man,” and the direction he gave the demoniac (ch. v.), to “go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” No doubt it was the same district of Decapolis where both commands were given: but on the latter occasion our Lord was about to leave the district in question, so that there was no risk of his ministry being obstructed by the matter being blazoned abroad; on the former occasion he was going to tarry for a
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time in the same region, and hence he resorts to the precaution necessary under circumstances which were thus quite different.
II. He FORETELLS HIS DEATH. There were three great epochs in our Lord’s ministry. The first was that of miracles, by which he attesved the divinity of his mission ; the second was that of parables, by which he developed the nature of his kingdom ; and the third was that of suffering, by which he made satisfaction for the sins of his people. The miracles began with that at Cana; the parables, properly so called, began somewhere about the commencement of the last year of the Saviour’s work and ministry. Though his parabolic teaching began at this period to assume a more formal shape, he had all along employed on certain occasions parabolic utterances of a briefer sort. Thus, for example, in the sermon on the mount the agreement with one’s adversary there recommended is of the nature of parable; the similitude of the wise and foolish builders, with which that sermon closes, is still more distinctly para- bolic ; while subsequently, and before the beginning of his regular method of strictly parabolic instruction, we find such proverbial or brief parabolic representations as that of the new patch and the old garment, and that of the new wine and the old bottles, besides that of the creditor and the two debtors. Still, from the period indicated, his teaching by parables became more frequent and methodical. The reasons of our Lord’s adopting this method are such as the following:—1l. The harmony existing between the kingdom of nature and that of grace, and the similarity in their laws of develop- ment. 2. The adaptation te our nature of the historical element, real or ideal, contained in them. 8. The amount of truth communicable in this way to the dull apprehension of the disciples. 4. Their helpfulness to memory by linking the spiritual truth to soms familiar natural object, the frequent occurrence of the latter always suggesting the former; and: 6. A judicial veiling of the truth because of past dulness and indifference. The constant theme of his teaching henceforth consists of his sufferings and death, as is implied in the imperfect tense (é5{5aene, “he kept teaching ”) here used.