like a secret flame pent up in my breast, must either have vent or consume me: and the sequel is in the same spirit, "and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." But though we may not have here a direct prophecy of a future event, we have a powerful assimilation between two most eminent personages, at very distant periods, breathing one and the same spirit, aiming at one and the same end: and this similitude partakes of the nature of prophecy. And the whole leads us to this conclusion, that there may be predictions, resemblances, analogies in Scripture, hitherto concealed even from the wise and prudent, to be hereafter unfolded, or perhaps reserved for the instruction and delight of the kingdom of heaven, when there shall be in Scripture nothing obscure, or hard to be understood. What a motive is this, now to listen to the command of Christ. "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." In this passage of our Lord's history, as in all Scripture, we have many things "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." To which I subjoin the prayer of the Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 2. If such were the dignity which the Son of God assumed, and the authority which he exercised, while he tabernacled with men upon earth, attended by a few simple Galileans, is it not a matter of very serious concern to meditate on the majesty and importance of his coming to judge the quick and the dead? If his presence was thus awful and tremendous when armed with only “a scourge of small cords," what must it be, when "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." In this judgment to come we are all equally interested, and we are furnished with a present rule of judgment in the 1. We have a humiliating view of the decisions of conscience and the dictates of treachery and deceitfulness of the human the word of God. Happy is that man who heart. The very persons who considered it understands, believes, and improves the testias a crime to eat bread with unwashen mony of those faithful and true witnesses; hands," could quietly digest the profanation who, knowing the terrors of the Lord, is perof the temple and of the worship of God. suaded to flee from the wrath to come, and Such self-delusion do men practise every | to lay hold on eternal life. "He that beday. They treat their own infirmities as lieveth on him is not condemned; but he that some mothers do very homely, wayward, or believeth not is condemned already; because even deformed children, who not only show he hath not believed in the name of the only them all possible indulgence themselves, but begotten Son of God. And this is the conare offended if others adopt not their fond-demnation, that light is come into the world, ness and partiality. At the same time, the and men loved darkness rather than light, slightest blemish in the character of another because their deeds were evil. For every is quickly seen and severely censured. The one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither deception is frequently carried much farther. cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be A man shall actually discern and rigidly reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh condemn in his neighbour, the very fault to to the light, that his deeds may be made which he himself is notoriously addicted. manifest that they are wrought in God." The proud person can endure no one's pride These last words open a brighter prospect, but his own; the passionate stand astonished and disclose to us "the Son of man coming at the transports of those who are hasty like in the clouds of heaven, with power and great themselves and who are so severe upon glory, and sending his angels with a great hypocrisy as the hypocritical? Every lesson sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather taught by the great Teacher has a foundation together his elect from the four winds, from in human corruption, and has a tendency to one end of heaven to the other." Then shall correct it, and this is an important one: he be "glorified in his saints, and admired in "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For all them that believe." Thus are good and with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be evil, death and life, the blessing and the judged and with what measure ye mete, it curse set before us. Thus all that is terrible shall be measured to you again. And why in justice, armed with almighty power, adbeholdest thou the mote that is in thy bro- dresses itself to our fear, and all that is ther's eye, but considerest not the beam that amiable and alluring in unbounded goodness is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say and love, expands to our hope, "an inheritto thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out ance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that of thine eye and, behold, a beam is in thine fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." May we this day know him as a Saviour whom we must in that day meet as a judge. May we have wisdom to comply with the counsel of him, as a friend, whom it is certain and utter ruin to encounter as an adversary. "Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation." 3. Take care, frail, ignorant, erring man, how thou proposest to thyself the purifier of the temple as a pattern of zeal. "It is good," saith the apostle, "to be zealously affected always in a good thing;" but unless zeal be directed by prudence and knowledge, it may produce incredible mischief. There is a zeal about trifles, which diverts the mind from objects of serious importance. Battles have been fought, and volumes written to determine the posture in which the sacrament ought to be received, and the habit to be worn by the priest in reading the service of the church. While contention about such non-essentials waxed hot, the spirit of piety and prayer grew cold. There is a zeal which is the offspring of prejudice and habit. It actuated Saul of Tarsus, when "he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison;" and while he "yet breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord:" and when, speaking of himself, he says: "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests: and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." There is a vainglorious, ostentatious zeal, which cannot bear to pass unobserved, which must be fed with public attention and admiration. Such is that which inspired Jehu, when he exultingly challenged applause: "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." There is a malignant, intolerant zeal, which pities not, spares not. Even the disciples James and John were under its influence, when a village of the Samaritans refused to receive their Master, "Lord," say they, "wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?" and it received a just and severe reprehension from the mouth of Christ: "He turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." The disciples themselves became the victims of this fiery, exterminat ing zeal, as Christ predicted concerning them. "They shall put you out of the syna. gogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." Thus the hard measure which they would have meted to others, was measured out unto themselves. But there is a zeal, as well as a doctrine, "which is according to godliness:" a pure and lambent flame of love to God, which admits of no mixture of human passion, which views every object through the medium of Deity, and aims but at one end, that God may be glorified. This excellent spirit will never think of doing God service, by showing unkindness or cruelty to man. But it is so rare and so easily counterfeited, that even its emotions are to be regarded with a jealous eye, for there is no small danger of a man's mistaking the ebullitions of his own mind, for the impulse of God's spirit, especially in cases where guilt is to be condemned and vengeance executed. David made a wise and happy choice, when constrained to submit to one of three great evils. "I am in a great strait;" said he, "Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great) and let me not fall into the hand of man." I like not to see the scourge, the sword, the torch voluntarily assumed by one of like passions with myself. In vehement attempts to reform abuse, I should tremble to think of their degenerating into a rage to destroy. The tremendous attribute of vengeance, God will confide to no hands but his own, but he permits man to carry the imitation of divine mercy as far as he can. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome, of evil, but overcome evil with good." 4. Mark the power of conscience, and learn to secure its testimony in your favour. What made cowards of those gross and brutal men? An ill conscience. What chased away a multitude before one man? An ill conscience. What overawed a rapacious priesthood and a licentious populace? An ill conscience. Conscience drove our guilty progenitors to seek concealment "from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the garden." Conscience sent out murderous Cain "a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth," under the dire apprehension that every one who found him would slay him. It is conscience that dictates the unavailing cry to despairing wretches, who in bitterness exclaim "to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" But what, in opposition to this, is the source of a Christian's composure and satisfaction? "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world." Herein consisted the triumph of the apostle over the fear of the Roman governor, and over the oratory of Tertullus: "Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men." And this constitutes the triumph and the security of every believer in Christ Jesus: "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and ex perience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." Though the buyers and sellers were abashed and put to flight, some of the consequential cavillers, who are to be found in every age, and in every society, maintain the ground, and call for the commission under which Jesus acted. "Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, what sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" This furnished him with a fair occasion of bringing forward the peculiar and distinguishing doctrine of his religion, the resurrection of the body, which was soon to be exemplified in his own resurrection from the dead, as "the first fruits of them that sleep.” This will accordingly constitute the subject of the next Lecture. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ." HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST. LECTURE CXXVI. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thon doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? but he spake of the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast-day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men: and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.— JOHN ii. 18-25. THE actions and events of Christ's life are the basis on which the truth and importance of his doctrine rest, and the solidity of the foundation must be estimated from the structure which it supports. The foundation of a building lies buried under ground, and cannot be examined by the eye; but when we behold a stately, lofty, and venerable pile, which has withstood the attack of ages, and which still presents undiminished beauty and strength, we justly reason from what we do see to what we do not; and we feel ourselves constrained to applaud the excellency of the design, from the perfectness and durability of the execution. "Behold," saith the Lord God, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, more than seven centuries before the fabric began to appear, "behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corher stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth sha"! not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." Here is the design of the sovereign Architect, not sleeping like many a beautiful human plan in the portfolio of the artist, never to be realized, but quick with the spirit of life, already executed "in the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will," and to arise, in due time, the wonder of angels and of men. This building of God at length began to appear and to ascend. But it accorded not with human ideas of grandeur and magnificence. The very depositaries of the original design, were the first to resist the completion of it, because it justified not their prejudices and prepossessions. Their opposition, however, served only more illustriously to display the manifold wisdom and goodness of God, and to expose the weakness and folly of man. Had the edifice been of man's devising and rearing, it could not have stood "the wash of what passed, jealous of their honour, and considering their prerogative as invaded; they, as men having authority, demanded a sign. From their general character, and from the inefficacy of this and other signs afterwards given, we know from what motive the present demand was made; not in the spirit of meekness, not from the love of truth, not to obtain conviction; but in the hope of finding occasion to censure, or of putting the assumed authority of Christ to a test which it could not stand. ing of a tide," for the "foolish man built his | cuted judgment: and so the plague was house upon the sand: and the rain descend-stayed. And that was counted unto him ed, and the floods came, and the winds blew, for righteousness unto all generations for and heat upon that house; and it fell and evermore." Did not the sign, in the present great was the fall of it." But infinite Wis-instance, appear in the act? Did not the dom founded the fabric of Christianity upon great Reformer authenticate his powers by a rock. The rains have descended, the floods the manner in which he exercised them, have come, the winds have blown and beaten and by the effect which they produced? upon this house, but it has not fallen; for it is Did the guilty resist? Did they call in founded upon a rock. question his authority? Did they drag In the gospel history we behold the him, in their turn, to the tribunal? No, groundfloor or platform of the Christian re- they feel his ascendant, and shrink from ligion. It principally consists in a narration his rebuke. Who, then, call for a sign? of plain, unadorned facts, well authenticated Not the offenders; they had received suffiindeed, but recommended by no artificial cient evidence: not the populace, for they polish, and deriving all their importance and must have been equally overawed and coneffect from their own native truth and ex-founded. The rulers of the Jews hearing cellence; serving, nevertheless, as a solid of this singular transaction, some of them, support to the precepts, the promises, the perhaps, being on the spot, and eye-witnesses predictions, the doctrines, the consolations of our most holy faith. Take, for instance, the event which our blessed Lord, in the passage which has now been read, foretold concerning himself, namely, that the temple of his body should be destroyed, and in three days raised up again. Now when this event actually did take place, not only was the veracity of Jesus, as a prophet, completely established, but a foundation was laid of sufficient strength to sustain the whole weight of the Christian's hope, of a resurrection to life and immortality. We shall, therefore, A sign is given them, and a most refirst consider this all-important doctrine, in markable one it is. "Jesus answered and the history which is the foundation of it, and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in then in the superstructure reared. three days I will raise it up." Whatever In purifying the temple from the abomi-construction the Jews might put on these nations practised in it, Jesus had undoubtedly assumed the authority of one invested in the office of magistracy, or with the character of a prophet. That he was no magistrate all men knew, and he never pre-sign to mislead. The action and emphasis tended to it. To have acted in this capacity with which he spake, clearly pointed out the might have been considered an usurpation. object. The general attention had just been As a prophet, then, and only as a prophet, directed to a temple made with hands, a could he appear in the character of a public temple wickedly profaned by an abominable reformer. But it is requisite that a prophet traffic, which was connived at by its proshould produce his credentials. This sug- fessed conservators, and whose honour had gested the demand: "What sign showest been so nobly vindicated by a stranger. That thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these stranger had already attracted general nothings?" which plainly implied, that one tice by the singularity of his speech and deacting under a commission from heaven, was portment; every eye was fixed upon him, obliged to support his claim by a sign from his every attitude and gesture were observed, heaven. But is there need to produce su- and these plainly indicated that the temple pernatural testimony to a right to reform to be destroyed, and raised up in three days, known, public, flagrant abuse? Did not could not be the venerable pile in the court their own history furnish a noted instance of which this conversation passed. When of a pivate person's assuming the sword of he afterwards foretold the approaching dejustice, and acting at once as judge and exe-struction of that temple, he expressed himcutioner, in the case of open and gross vio- self in terms not liable to misapprehension. lation of the divine law; that of Phinehas," As he went out of the temple, one of his who was but the grandson of Aaron the priest? He not only became liable to no censure, but obtained a deathless name, and an honourable office for his seasonable interposition. "Then stood up Phinehas, and exe words, what Jesus intended to convey is obvious, and it was in every point justified by the corresponding event. He who is simplicity and truth itself could have no de disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering, said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that snall not be thrown down." Now he points to an edifice infinitely more sacred. From both the first and second houses built on mount Zion the glory had long since departed. The sensible tokens of the divine presence were withdrawn. The holy oracle was no longer consulted by Urim and Thummim. But in Him, who was the only glory of the second house, “dwelled all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” and the destruction of this temple he thus predicts as a sign not to the men of that generation only, but to all ages, even to the end of the world. From the very nature of prophecy, a vail must be drawn between the prediction and the event. "Hope that is seen is not hope," and "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Christ indulges not those unbelievers with an immediate display of his miraculous power, in support of his pretensions to the character of a prophet, which they could easily have explained away, or misinterpreted; but he refers them to a sign shortly to be exhibited, which should be at once the exact accomplishment of a wellknown prediction, and the greatest miracle that can possibly exist. That the misconception of the Jews was perverse and affected is evident from this, that when they had actually fulfilled the part of the prediction which depended on themselves, by destroying that sacred temple, we find them labouring under the most dreadful apprehension that Jesus would accomplish the other part, which depended on him, and they employ every precaution which terror could suggest, to prevent and defeat it. "The chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first." And when the astonished watch came into the city, and made report to their employers of "all the things that were done," did it produce conviction? No, it only filled them with mortification, and kindled rage. "The chief priests, when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you." To what purpose then, ask for a sign? They resist and reject the most illustrious, which, with reverence be it spoken, God himself could give, thereby approving the truth of wha Jesus on another occasion said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." 66 'Destroy this temple." Let it be observed, that this is simply a prediction or supposition, and not a precept, equivalent to, ye will destroy this temple, or though ye should destroy this temple. It is a mode of expression that frequently occurs in Scripture. Thus in the Old Testament, Joseph says to his brethren, "this do, and live," that is, do this and ye shall live. Thus God speaks to Moses, "Get thee up into this mountain, and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people," meaning evidently, thou shalt die in the mount, and shalt be gathered unto thy people. Thus, Isaiah viii. 10, "Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand:" that is, though ye take counsel together, and though ye speak the word. And in the New Testament, the word of Christ to Judas, "that thou dost, do quickly," cannot be considered as a command to accomplish his plan of treachery, but merely as an intimation that he was seen through, and that under the impulse of a diabolic spirit, he was hurrying on to commit that dreadful enormity. Thus Paul exhorts, "Be angry and sin not;" surely not as if he meant to encourage violent transports of wrath, but in the event of a man's giving way to a fit of passion, the apostle means to guard him against excessive indulgence in it, by restricting its duration to the going down of the sun. tice did Jesus give, not to his disciples enly, but to all who came to worship in the temple, "of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem;" that it should be effected by the hand of violence, not by decay, but by destruction, and that his own countrymen should be the perpetrators of it. This declaration was frequently repeated, and became plainer and plainer, till the fact justified every particular of the prediction. This early no "This temple." Our blessed Lord in this place and elsewhere denominates his body a temple, as declaratory of his superiority to the lofty pile on mount Zion, even in its greatest glory, much more in its then degraded, defiled state. "I say unto you," addressing himself to the Pharisees," that in this place is one greater than the temple," because Deity resided continually and inseparably in him, as the Jews believed he did in that which was built by Solomon, in answer to that petition; "O Lord my God, hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day: that thine eyes may be opened toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there;" according as it was foretold by Moses near five centuries before: "Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there." Josephus informs us that not only did the answer |