'Thou,¹ even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men.' In the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, God says: 'I ² the LORD search the heart, I try the reins.' And St. Peter says, 'God, ³ which knoweth the heart, bare them witness;' that is to say, by giving the Holy Spirit to the gentile converts He testified to the sincerity of their faith, which He alone knew for a certainty. Now St. Matthew, in telling how some of the Jewish Scribes thought within their own hearts that the Lord Jesus Christ's words to the man sick of the palsy whom He was about to heal, 'Son ⁴, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven,' were blasphemous, says that Jesus knew their thoughts.⁵ It is evident that He also knew the thoughts of the sick man and discerned that the thing for which he longed even more than for healing of his body was forgiveness of his sins. On another occasion, when Christ healed a man possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, the Pharisees blasphemously circulated among the people in private the saying that the Lord Jesus did this by the power of Satan.⁶ St. Matthew then says that the Lord Jesus Christ, 'knowing their thoughts,⁷ said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Here again it is told us that Christ exercised what is distinctly a divine ⁸ attribute.

St. John records Christ's conversation with Nathanael.¹ When Nathanael was still 'coming' to Christ, and therefore was some distance from Him, the Lord Jesus pronounced an opinion about him, which showed His knowledge of his character, though Nathanael had evidently never seen Christ before. He said to His disciples regarding Nathaniel. 'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.' When Nathanael came close enough to be spoken to, the Lord Jesus apparently addressed him by name, for Nathanael was astonished and said, 'Whence knowest Thou me?' Christ's reply was full of a meaning which Nathanael alone understood: 'Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.' When we remember that it was the custom of the pious Jews at that time to go under a fig tree to worship God in private, we can understand that these words of Christ, coupled perhaps with something in His tone of voice, showed Nathanael that whatever the special object of his prayer that morning had been, when no one was present with him but God, it was thoroughly well known to the Lord Jesus. Hence Nathanael replied, ' Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art King of Israel,' acknowledging Him to be the promised Messiah. It was evidently Christ's knowledge of his thoughts and of what he had asked of God in prayer that led him at once to believe in the Deity of the Lord Jesus. Christ