him  \\ith  astonishment.  But  as  he  performed
no  miracle  in  their  city,  they  were  offended
at  him.  Perhaps  they  thought  the  jjlace  of
his  residence  should  have  been  his  peculiar
care ;  and,  as  he  could,  with  a  single  word,
heal  the  sick  at  a  distance,  not  a  single  per-
son in  Nazarctli  should  have  been  afflicted  with
any  kind  of  disease.  That  they  really  enter-
tained sentiments  of  this  kind,  seems  plain  from
our  Saviour's  own  words :  Ye  will  surely  say
to  me.  Physician,  heal  thyself:  ivhatever  we  have
heard  done  in  Cajternuum,  do  also  here  in  thy
country; — evidently  alluding  to  the  great  and
benevolent  miracle  he  had  \\'rought  on  the
nobleman's  son.
But  the  holy  Jesus,  by  enumerating  the  mi-
racles Elijah  had  done  in  behalf  of  the  widow
of  Sarepta,  who  was  a  heathen ;  and  the  inha-
bitants of  an  idolatrous  city,  in  the  time  of  fa-
mine, when  many  widows  in  Israel  perished
with  hunger;  and  of  Naaman  the  Syrian,  who
was  cured  of  his  leprosy  by  the  prophet  Elisha,
when  numbers  of  Jews,  afflicted  with  the  same
loathsome  disease,  were  suffered  to  continue
in  their  uncleanness ;  sufficiently  proved  that
the  prophets  had,  on  some  extraordinary  oc-
casions, wrought  miracles  in  favour  of  those
whom  the  Israelites,  from  a  fond  conceit  of
their  being  the  peculiar  favourites  of  heaven,
judged  unworthy  of  such  marks  of  particular
favoiu".
