and learneth from the Father, cometh unto me.[1] As the Father hath taught me, so I speak;[2] he that is of God heareth the words of God;[3] if God was your Father, ye would have loved me![4] This is inward evidence, direct evidence. From that previous knowledge of God, as 'the Eternal that loveth righteousness,' which Israel possessed, the hearers of Jesus could and should have concluded irresistibly, when they heard his words, that he came from God. Now, miracles are outward evidence, indirect evidence, not conclusive in this fashion. To walk on the sea cannot really prove a man to proceed from the Eternal that loveth righteousness; although undoubtedly, as we have said, a man who walks on the sea will be able to make the mass of mankind believe about him almost anything he chooses to say. But there is, after all, no necessary connexion between walking on the sea and proceeding from the Eternal that loveth righteousness. Jesus propounds, on the other hand, an evidence of which the whole force lies in the necessary connexion between the proving matter and the power that makes for righteousness. This is his evidence for the Christian religion.
His disciples felt the force of the evidence, indeed. Peter's answer to the question, 'Will ye also go away?'—'To whom should we go? thou hast the words of eternal life!'[5] proves it. But feeling the force of a thing is very different from understanding and possessing it. The evidence, which the disciples were conscious of understanding and possessing, was the evidence from miracles. And yet, in their report, Jesus is plainly shown to us insisting on a different evidence, an internal one. The character of the reporters gives to this indication a paramount importance. That they should indicate this internal evidence once, as the
- ↑ John, vi, 45.
- ↑ John, viii, 28.
- ↑ John, viii, 47.
- ↑ John, viii, 42.
- ↑ John, vi, 68.
