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Christ's order, and in his method we shall go on successfully with our work. We lose all by inverting it; and are never so blind and so foul inwardly, as when we deceive the world and ourselves with an outward washing.

O Jesus, do thou cleanse that which is within, with thy word, thy blood, thy Spirit. For till thou dost, we are all filthy and polluted, and thou, therefore, camest into the world, that we might know and abhor the evil that is in us, and by thee be presented to God with pure and clean hearts.

27. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean

ness.

Would the sight and stench of a corpse, putrefying in the grave, offend thee? Thou art the man, and just so abominable to God, when thou hast begun thy work at the wrong end, and covered up a rotten inside with a beautiful appearance; it may be very beautiful; civility, prayers, almsdeeds, and other things of a like kind.

28. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

If this does not put us upon examining ourselves, we are in great danger of being the persons here described.

29. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous.

What could be more plausible than their building and adorning the tombs of the prophets, professing an abhorrence of the sin of their fathers in putting them to death, and doing all they could to wash their hands of their blood? Will nothing do with the deep-searching Jesus, but the correspondent sincerity of the inner man? No; he has a heavier charge than ever to bring against them, grounded on this very circumstance of their owning themselves to be the descendants of such ancestors.

30. And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

They owned they were their children; and he tells them they were truly so in all respects, whether they would own it or not, of the very same nature, and altogether as bloodthirsty; which they soon proved by crucifying Christ, and persecuting his followers.

32. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

They would; nothing could prevent it; he gives them up to their desert. We learn from hence that the sins of the fathers and the children, both together, go to fill up a certain measure, known to God; and that when it is filled up, destruction is at hand. This was then the unhappy case of the Jews; and no age or nation can be sure it will not be their own, but by not adding their sins to those of their forefathers.

33. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Then it is plain that their sufferings in this world would be no discharge from the much greater sufferings of the next. And what we have to consider for ourselves is, whether God is not the same, and sin the same now, that they were then.

34. Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes :

Hear this. Bless God that he has sent them to you; and let this be your ruling thought and fixed persuasion, that if you would be truly wise, you must part with all your own wisdom, and submit as babes to their teaching.

34. And some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

You have them not to kill, and think verily you would

not have done it. But there is no way to be sure of this, but by showing a sincere regard to their writings: for they are true disciples of Christ. Break open the rotten sepulchre of the heart; call loudly for its cleansing, and give no more allowance for a smooth outside than he did; and what they say after him is very grating to human nature, and will either amend or provoke its graceless passions. It is a great mistake to suppose that the scribes and Pharisees were such monsters of wickedness, as never appeared but once in the world: you would be amazed to hear of their great strictness in many respects; and yet, trusting in themselves, and having not the Spirit, they were the men here described. And why is their character here given, but that they may stand as representatives of all mankind in the same circumstances, especially in the point of persecution, which is not the sin of the worst of men only, but hardly ever to be rooted out of our natures ?

35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

As if, with their blood-thirsty disposition, they had a hand in all the righteous blood that was shed from the beginning of the world. This is a great mystery. We must confess that the justice of God is an unknown depth, and not to be fathomed by our line.

37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

This expression is affecting, and the similitude as lively an image as all nature can afford, of his tenderness and love for that devoted city and people. He calls to them; his bowels yearn for them; he mourns over them; but if they will not hear, if they will not be gathered under his wings,

mark it well, he cannot save them. Sinner, he speaks to thee and to me. O that I had his compassionate heart for thee, and thou hadst a true feeling of it for thyself!

38. Behold, your house [the temple] is left unto you desolate.

The great inhabitant had left it, and its destruction was inevitable. We hear our own doom in worse than temporal judgments, whenever we forsake him. Never delude yourselves with a confused hope of mercy, in an impenitent state, till you can blot this passage out of Scripture.

39. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Though they rejected him then, the time will come for the general conversion of their nation to the faith of Christ; which he here foretels, and is the subject of many prophecies. Now is the time of his coming to us, which only can be witnessed by our faith in him, and acceptance of him for salvation. Lord, grant that we may rejoice in it, fly to thee as a sanctuary from the guilt of sin, and the purifier of our souls, and say from our own happy experience, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

SECTION LXIII.

Chap. xxiv. ver. 1–51.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE.

1. And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

The disciples supposed Christ would be as full of admiration at the beauty and stateliness of it as they were, and confirm them in their opinion of its duration. It was

newly rebuilt, and yet near its final destruction. blind is man in the things of futurity!

2. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

This accordingly came to pass about thirty-nine years after, in the most remarkable destruction that ever befel any place or people.

3. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coning, and of the end of the world?

Whatever the disciples understood by these words, Christ knew how to give them an important meaning, and answers distinctly to the two parts of the question; making the one relate to his coming to the destruction of Jerusalem, the other to his coming to judgment. And these, with his help, we will endeavour to distinguish as we go along.

4. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

This concerned them more, as it does men at all times, than to be curious about knowing what will be hereafter.

5. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

But not those who have the true Christ by a true faith; they are proof against all imposture. 1 John ii. 20.

6. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Hence we learn, that we need not be troubled in the worst of times. And we shall not, if we truly believe that all things work together for good.to them that love

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