7 Aug 1815

Jug True

(3)

Nazareth Sermon

Supposing the deficiency to him had inability for the immediate cause, unbelief serves very well for the immediate cause of that cause. Not so supposing it to [have] MS ‘had’. unwillingness for its immediate cause: pure unwillingness without any admixture of inability: upon this bare word he could not get them to believe. Miracles were what they called for or at least looked for. Was this a reason for the forbearance to work miracles? On the contrary it is by this reason and by this alone that the working of miracles could be justified, if they believed without any miracle, why expend upon them any such pretious article. According to Mark he found himself unable to give to these people for the belief he demanded at their hands the ground which they required, and yet at the same time when instead of the required belief he got nothing from them but disbelief, he marvelled at it. Just as if he had said of a baker that upon a strange customer coming to his shop to buy a penny roll, and that upon the baker saying down with your penny or you shall not have the roll the customer walked out of the shop without buying the roll; his doing so was matter of wonder to the baker.