knowledge of the truth, in a
mind so pellucid and sane, justly impressed candid minds in His own day,
and is irresistibly impressive still.

Again, we judge of what is probable or improbable, credible or
incredible, mainly by its congruity with our previous belief. Is our
idea of God such that a personal revelation seems credible and even
likely? Does this supposed revelation in Christ consist with previous
revelations and with the knowledge of God and His will which those
revelations have fostered? Does this final revelation actually bring us
the knowledge of God, and does it satisfy the longings and pure
aspirations, the thirst for God and the hunger for righteousness, which
assert themselves in us like natural appetites? If so, then the
untutored human heart accepts this revelation. It is its own
verification. Light is its own authentication. Christ brings within our
ken a God whom we cannot but own as God, and who is nowhere else so
clearly revealed. It is this immediacy of authentication, this
self-verification, to which our Lord constantly appeals.

3. But a great part of the self-revelation of Christ could best be made
in action. Such a work as the healing of the impotent man was visible to
all and legible by the dullest. If His words were sometimes enigmatic,
such an action as this was full of significance and easily understood.
By this compassionate restoration of the vital powers He proclaimed
Himself the Father's Delegate, commissioned to express the Divine
compassion and to exercise the Divine power to communicate life. This
was meant to be an easy lesson by which men might learn that God is full
of compassion, ceaselessly working for the good of men; that He is
present among us seeking to repair the mischief resulting from sin, and
to apply to our needs the fulness of His own life, and that Jesus Christ
is the medium through whom He makes Himself accessible to us and
available for us.

These works were done by our Lord not only to convince the people that
they should listen to Him, but also to convince them that God Himself
was present. "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if
I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may know, and
believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him." It was this He strove
to impress on the people, that God was with them. It was not Himself He
wished them to recognise, but the Father in Him. "I seek not Mine own
glory" (ver. 50). And there