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have no easy matter in accomplishing their purpose of deceiving or embarrassing him. But a circumstance, to them unexpected, seems to have excited their fears, and to have combined them all at once in union against him.

This

In his journeys to Jerusalem before the period of which we are now speaking, our Lord. had studiously sought retirement, and had shunned observation. But at this time he went up, as it were, in a triumphal procession'. He himself knew that he was going to be offered up as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. was his triumph and his crown. But the rulers of the Jews, little aware that his kingdom was not of this world, were afraid that he was about to take from them and to assume to himself their temporal dominion. His disciples and the multitude, who, even before this, had entertained the idea of seizing him by force and making him a king, it is probable imbibed the same opinion. His permitting them to

1 Matt. xxi.

act as they did, we may believe served to encourage these expectations. He allowed them to strew their garments in his way; to wave branches of the palm trees around him, and to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." In conformity with all this was the authority which he assumed when he arrived in the city. The first thing which he did, on his entering Jerusalem, was to go to the temple, and with indignation to cast out all those who sold and bought there, exclaiming, "It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." And when some of the Pharisees, pretending to be indignant at the shouts of his disciples, desired him to rebuke and to repress them, his answer was, "I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out 1." And when they were still further irritated by the children, who, in their usual spirit of imi

tation, continued their exclamations, after all others were silent, this was his obser

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vation; yea, have ye never heard, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise2 ?"

All this seems to have agitated the rulers, and to have made them believe that he really was come to claim the regal power. This idea caused them to join together against him; to hush their own feuds, and to unite for this one end.

The persons who, for the purpose of entangling him in his talk, came to him in the temple, were the Herodians, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees. Much as they differed in general, in the first instance, they were all united in one enquiry, determined to try him on a point which involved no disagreement or dispute among themselves. The question was, "By what authority doest thou these things, or who gave thee this authority?" Simple, and perhaps natural, as this interrogation might appear in its primary sense, there lurked under it a considerable de

1 Matt. xxi. 16.

gree of subtilty. For the difficulty into which they thought they had led him was very great. Had he said that he derived his authority from heaven, they would, as they had before done, have reproached him for his extraction from Nazareth, have denounced him as an impostor, and used it as a fertile source of judicial accusation. Had he spoken of his own power, they would have arraigned him for arrogance and presumption. But he replied by another question: "the baptism of John was it from heaven, or of men?" Thus were they led into the same difficulty as that into which they were endeavouring to lead him. For if, as they themselves acknowledged, they said “ of heaven," they must have confessed that our Saviour himself, to whom John bare testimony, was also of heaven; and if they said "of men," they feared that they should be stoned to death by the people, who all held John as a prophet. They replied, therefore, that they could not tell; and as they were silent on the

subject of his enquiry, he was also justified in being so with respect to theirs.

Thus were his enemies silenced, and at first it is probable were somewhat abashed; when, to add to their confusion, and to shew them that the secrets of their hearts were not hid from him, he proceeded to speak to them a parable. It is that of the husbandman and the vineyard; a parable as close in its application as it was severe to those to whom it was addressed. Nor was it lost on the hearers. They felt its force; they perceived that they were themselves the husbandmen, that the vineyard was the world, and that the servants sent, from time to time, to claim the fruit, were the prophets and teachers appointed, at various periods, by God, to declare his will to his people. They perceived that by the Son, our Saviour meant himself, whose life they sought, and that the termination of the parable, in the destruction of the heir, so far as their intentions could be effectual, was near at hand. And yet, so far from re

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