is offered to mankind by Christ, and that they are not to be heard which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." A lawyer, who was a Pharisee, next came forward to try him by inquiring which was the great commandment of the law; a question much litigated among their doctors. Some held it to be the law of sacrifices, some that of the sabbath, others that of meats or of purifications. Jesus answered, that the great command was an entire and perfect love of God, and that this leads to the second, the love of man, a due performance of which must comprehend all positive and negative precepts; for, as the apostle says, "love is the fulfilling of the law;" and the whole is briefly summed up in this precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The Scribe was struck with the propriety of his reply, and answered that he had determined rightly; and Jesus commended him by declaring, that he was not far from the kingdom of God. And now having baffled their devices, he in his turn, to try their knowledge of the Law, put to them a question—whose son they conceived the Messiah to be. They answered, without hesitation or suspicion of his drift, "The son of David." This he followed up by a second-how David, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, could then acknowledge him for a superior, which he did by calling him his Lord. Had this son been a mere man, with what propriety could he bestow this title on a remote descendant, to whom he could owe no obedience, and who would have no existence till a thousand years after his death? This they were unable to answer; nor will any have better success who deny the divinity of David's Son and Lord, of him, who is both the root and the offspring of his progenitor, the descendant of that king of Israel according to the flesh, but whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting. The orthodox scheme alone can solve this seeming paradox. With this question he finally silenced his insidious enemies, whose ingenuity, though not their malice, was exhausted. Jesus thus effected one great object of his public teaching, the exposure of them to the multitude, who heard him gladly, and to those who had ears to hear, he had afforded matter for meditation on the real character of the Messiah, and on his own title to the office. 114. He sharply reproves the Scribes and Pharisees, and finally leaves the Temple. Matt. xxiii. He then turned to the multitude, and cautioned them to observe the instructions of the Scribes and Pharisees as authorized teachers, but not to imitate their conduct, as they contrived by plausible pretences to evade the performance of the duties they enjoined. He also warned them against their love of applause, and seeking worldly honours and distinctions, and, as he was no longer under restraint from fear of being apprehended before his time, he exposed, without reserve, the hypocrisy of these blind guides, and the pernicious casuistry with which they explained away the moral law; and endeavoured to compensate for the omission of their highest duties, as justice, charity, and fidelity, by a scrupulous performance of the minutest external injunctions, such as the tithing of garden herbs. While he condemns their dispensing with oaths, he confutes their sophistry by declaring, as in the Sermon on the Mount, that every oath, the matter of which is lawful, is obligatory, because when men swear by the creature, if their oath has any meaning, it is an appeal to the Creator. He reproached them with resembling in character their forefathers, who had killed the ancient prophets, and called upon them to fill up the measure of their national guilt by destroying him. His language implies that there is a certain measure to which a nation's iniquity is allowed to rise, and that before punishment is inflicted, it must be filled up by succeeding generations adding their own crimes to those of them who preceded them. He at the same time declared that their ruin was brought upon them by themselves, for he had sent unto them from time to time prophets and instructors, and had ever been ready to protect them as the parent bird gathers her brood under her wings. He ended with a is offered to mankind by Christ, and that they are not to be heard which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." A lawyer, who was a Pharisee, next came forward to try him by inquiring which was the great commandment of the law; a question much litigated among their doctors. Some held it to be the law of sacrifices, some that of the sabbath, others that of meats or of purifications. Jesus answered, that the great command was an entire and perfect love of God, and that this leads to the second, the love of man, a due performance of which must comprehend all positive and negative precepts; for, as the apostle says, "love is the fulfilling of the law;" and the whole is briefly summed up in this precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The Scribe was struck with the propriety of his reply, and answered that he had determined rightly; and Jesus commended him by declaring, that he was not far from the kingdom of God. And now having baffled their devices, he in his turn, to try their knowledge of the Law, put to them a question—whose son they conceived the Messiah to be. They answered, without hesitation or suspicion of his drift, "The son of David.” This he followed up by a second-how David, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, could then acknowledge him for a superior, which he did by calling him his Lord. Had this son been a mere man, with what propriety could he bestow this title on a remote descendant, to whom he could owe no obedience, and who would have no existence till a thousand years after his death? This they were unable to answer; nor will any have better success who deny the divinity of David's Son and Lord, of him, who is both the root and the offspring of his progenitor, the descendant of that king of Israel according to the flesh, but whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting. The orthodox scheme alone can solve this seeming paradox. With this question he finally silenced his insidious enemies, whose ingenuity, though not their malice, was exhausted. Jesus thus effected one great object of his public teaching, the exposure of them to the multitude, who heard the rich, that it is not enough that their alms be large, but that they should bear a due proportion to their means". 116. Jesus, on taking leave of the Temple, foretels its destruction, and afterwards on the mount of Olives declares to four of his Apostles the signs that shall precede his coming. Matt. xxiv. xxv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi. THE disciples, as they were departing, endeavoured to draw our Lord's attention to the magnificence of the temple, meaning thereby to intimate their regret as well as wonder at its predicted destruction; but he simply replied, that the time was coming when not one of these stones should be left standing upon another. Nothing could appear less probable, for the Romans had as yet no motive to injure one of their own provinces; and even when Jerusalem was taken after a siege of nearly five months, Titus on entering, and looking up at the towers, which the Jews had abandoned, exclaimed, Surely we have had God for our assistant, for what could human hands or machines do against these towers? He was anxious to save the temple out of regard to its sanctity, or the wish of preserving such a distinguished memorial of his victory; but the pertinacity of the infatuated people, and the fury of his soldiers, were the means through which the Almighty defeated his purpose. The Jews themselves first set fire to it, and then the Romans; and his endeavours to extinguish the flames were unavailing. The very foundations were afterwards dug up in search of buried treasure; and the words of Micah (iii. 12.) were literally fulfilled, "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed up as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps of stones." Our Lord's prophecy was most exactly verified about forty years after it was uttered; and it is not a simple prediction of the fact, but consists of a variety of minute particulars, such as the city being surrounded with Our liberality is relative to our wealth; it consists not in the value of our gifts but in the habit of the giver; and he who gives the least of all may be the most liberal of all, if what he gives bears the highest proportion to his substance. Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, iv. 1. a trench, the unparalled misery of the besieged, and the complete destruction both of town and temple, which could never have been predicted except by a true prophet, and the literal fulfilment of which would never have been known, unless it had pleased Providence to preserve to us the best commentary upon it, in the minute detail of the siege, by Josephus, who was in the Roman camp, who was not a Christian, and had probably never heard of the prediction. When they had withdrawn to the Mount of Olives, where they were alone, his four confidential disciples asked when these things should be, and what should be the sign of his coming, and of the end of the world which was to follow his advent. Great, says Dr. Hales, has been the embarrassment and perplexity of commentators concerning the meaning of this enquiry, and four hypotheses are still afloat on the subject. The first confines the whole enquiry to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem; the second connects with it Christ's second advent in the regeneration, according to Jewish expectation; the third substitutes for this advent the last, accompanied with the general judgment; and the fourth, which unites all the preceding into the three questions, he himself supports. Certainly several of the phrases are, according to our ideas, more suitable to the final and more important coming of the Son of Man at the last day, to judge the whole human race, than his coming through the agents of his providence, the Roman troops, to take vengeance on his apostate people, and to terminate the Jewish dispensation. But our Lord's positive declaration, that the existing generation should not pass away till all these things were fulfilled, necessarily limit such expressions as the darkening of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars, and the shaking of the powers of heaven, to the destruction of Jerusalem; nor is the use of these figures to denote a temporal calamity, so harsh and bold as it may appear, to persons not so familiar as the disciples were with the language of ancient prophecyo. The Isaiah describes the future fall of Babylon in the same imagery, (chap. xiii.) "Behold the day of the Lord cometh, for the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be |