"When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. (14) And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick. (15) And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. (16) But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. (17) And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. (18) He said, Bring them hither to me. (19) And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. (20) And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. (21) And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children."
I pray the Reader after he hath duly pondered the many blessed instructions contained in this miracle, to attend to one feature in our Lord's character, which can never be too often regarded, nor too affectionately valued; I mean the movement of Christ's heart upon this occasion, which is here sweetly noticed and testified, in the immediate act of healing the sick among the multitude. It ought to be our chief delight to notice, in every act of Jesus where it is more immediately recommended to our view, those actions of our Lord where his human feelings are brought forward to our observation. What can be so truly blessed as to mark the tendencies of Christ's love to his people, in that very nature of ours which he hath taken into union with the Godhead, and in which, and through which, the mercies of his divine nature flow to us in a way and manner which are peculiarly his own; that is to say, the mercies and compassion of the God-Man Christ Jesus! Oh! what an endless subject of joy ariseth to the mind of the redeemed, when properly considered from this one point of view! The mercies and compassions of my God and Savior, are the mercies and compassions of God, for He is One with the Father over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But they are no less the mercies and compassions of the Man Christ Jesus, for, verily, He took not on him the nature of Angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, and on purpose that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. So that by this blessed compound of the two natures, his Godhead gives him an infinite fulness to supply all mercy towards his redeemed, and his Manhood gives him a fellow feeling, that those mercies come to us through an human channel, and in, and by both, they are the sweet, precious; and most affectionate compassions of the God-Man Christ Jesus, who is the Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him which filleth all in all. And, Reader! without amplifying, in this place, the subject, think what will be the communications of glory, if such be now the communications of grace, when we shall see him as he is, and we shall know even as we are known!