August 24

Who went about doing good. - Acts 10:38.

THIS is the eulogium which Peter pronounced upon our Saviour. The eulogium is indeed short; but oh, how beautiful and glorious. It reminds us of David’s acknowledgment with regard to the Supreme Being: “Thou art good and doest good;” and the Saviour was the image of the invisible God.

Let us hearken to his own language, and observe what his humility must have been if he was conscious that he was only a man or a mere mortal. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;” “my Father worketh hitherto and I work;” “believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very work sake;” “I and my Father are one.” But here we can contemplate God in the face of Jesus, and are fully persuaded that the power and the patience, and the tenderness and the readiness to relieve and pardon by which he was distinguished in the days of his flesh, are the attributes of the Deity. In him we may place all our confidence; in him our peace is secured; and in him our joy is fulfilled. We here find what only can meet our souls’ necessities: “God manifest in the flesh.” And here we hold communion with the Father of our spirits-

“While Jews on their own works rely,

And Greeks of wisdom boast,

I love the incarnate mystery,

And there I fix my trust.”

Oh, how delightful it must have been to have followed him, while he was upon earth, from place to place, as in these journeys of mercy he went about doing good; and to have stood by him while he fed the hungry multitude upon the grass; while he opened the eyes of the poor beggar by the wayside; while he raised the widow’s son to life and delivered him to his mother; while he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom to the poor; while the common people heard him gladly; and while he healed all manner of diseases among them.

This pleasure we may in a degree enjoy even now, as we peruse by faith the evangelical history, where the sacred writers have recorded the works of their honoured Lord with unexampled simplicity and faithfulness.