their enmity, and how they would do all in their power to wreak it on him. There are many passages which might be pointed out, which express this, but those to which it will be sufficient, at present, to draw your attention are the following; "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?" " I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you 2." "If ye were Abraham's children ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham."

Connected with this foreknowlege of the enmity of the pharisees, and the effects of it, is the explicit manner in which our Lord revealed to his disciples, not only once, but frequently and minutely, his approaching death and sufferings. "From that time forth," says St.

1 John vii. 19.

2 John viii. 37. 39. 40.

2.

Matthew, "began Jesus to shew unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed 1." Some particulars, which nothing but miraculous knowledge could have imparted, he revealed to them. His being betrayed is one of them; "the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him 2 ;" and the manner of his death is another; "they shall comdemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him;" which sentence is a brief, but almost a direct historical account of what really befell. Connected with this are the figures under which he spoke of his sufferings. "If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me," and, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up "."

1 Matt. xvi. 21.

3 Matt. xx. 18.

5 John iii. 14.

There is

2 Matt. xvii. 22.
4 John xii. 32.

one circumstance here, which, though it often has been mentioned, cannot too frequently be brought to our notice. We observe that our Saviour, while alive, constantly declared that he should be put to death, and that this was one of the necessary consequences of his mission. He therefore rested his character upon the truth of a prophecy, which, if fulfilled, would subject him to the greatest sufferings. Surely he only who knew that this must really befall him, and that such was essentially connected with his office, would have ventured on assertions, the completion of which was to fall so heavy on himself.

An argument of a similar nature may be drawn also from the candid way in which he communicated to his followers, that they were to participate with him in these sufferings. "Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings, for my sake, for a

testimony against them and the Gentiles1." A perfect foreknowledge of this, of the attachment of his followers, and of the spiritual strength which he knew would be afforded them from above, could alone have dictated this revelation. For surely, no impostor, whose only aim could be to obtain for himself worldly popularity and a multitude of disciples, would have revealed to these very disciples, that the end of their attachment to him would be, that they would be persecuted by his enemies. In the usual way of the world, such an argument would have driven them from him, and not have led them to him.

But when he declared that the Jews would put him to death, he, at the same time, no less explicitly stated that they would wreak their vengeance in vain, for that on the third day he would rise from the dead. When he tells his disciples that he is to be killed, the sentence, however, terminates with the assertion that,

"on the third day he shall rise again 1." To his enemies, when demanding of him "What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" the answer was, "destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And upon a similar occasion these were his words, “a cruel and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but no sign shall be given it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"." And it was from the circumstance of this prophecy having been current through the whole country, that, after our Lord's crucifixion, the chief priests sought and obtained from Pilate a guard of soldiers to watch his sepulchre, which brings them in as most important witnesses to the truth of his resurrection, and of the fulfilment of this prophecy.

1 Matt. xx. 19.

2 John ii. 19.

3 Matt. xii. 39.