SECTION LV. DOOM OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES-CHRIST LEAVES THE TEMPLE. MATTHEW Xxiii. 34-39; JOHN xii. 37-43. AND now, in a tone of unspeakable majesty and solemnity, the Lord drops for a time the character of Jesus of Nazareth, and speaks as the Sovereign of the Jewish nation. : "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and Scribes; 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 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. Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation." The Lord had just said, "Fill ye up the measure of your fathers." When a vessel is filled to bursting, and gives way, not only the last quantity which is put in comes out, but the whole contents, some of which may have been long in the vessel, rush forth at once. Thus it is with human guilt and punishment. Crime goes on accumulating. Every generation if not better, is worse than that which went before it. Men become bolder, more ingenious in the practice of cruelty, lust, and rapacity from the example of their forefathers. And as guilt accumu lates, so does its destined retribution. And at last, when wrath is filled up to the uppermost,* it bursts forth, and all the judgments due to the crimes. hitherto left unvisited burst on those who are the inheritors of their fathers' deeds. This has been seen again and again in the history of the world,† and on a smaller scale, of individuals. The words, "from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias," &c., have occasioned some difficulty. They have a proverbial character-" from the first martyr to the last." The whole passage seems to contain an allusion to that in 2 Chron. xxiv. 18-25, where, in accounting for the troubles of Judah, the writer says, "And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto the Lord; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Thus we read in Genesis xv. 16, "In the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." An example may be seen in the history of France. The French Revolution was the reckoning for the accumulated crimes of the old French monarchy-the cruelties and wrongs of the Middle Ages, the massacres of the Albigenses and the Huguenots, the oppression of the poor, the corruption of the nobility, the profligacy of the court in the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV.-all came on the heads of that generation; and this not simply by positive decree, but as effect follows cause, for a long course of cruelty, profligacy, and atheism had made the people cruel, profligate, and atheistical, and as soon as the barriers were broken down, the pent up floods of wickedness burst forth, and swept all before them. Any nation which is pursuing a course of tyranny and oppression, with seeming impunity, may well tremble for its future fortunes. Zechariah the son of Jehoiada* the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, 'Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, He hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it.'" The Lord did look upon it and require it, even in that generation, "for the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the Lord delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash. And when they were departed from him, for they left him in great diseases, his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died." But a succeeding generation revived, and far surpassed this old murder of God's ambassador, by the yet more deadly crime of the murder of Christ and His apostles, and thus taking to themselves the crime, they brought down on themselves the judgment. They endorsed, as it were, the murder of the prophet, and accepted the curse which he left on his murderers. Thus they who apostatize from the faith of Christ, and return to the ranks of his enemies, Called in the Gospels for some reason, or by mere mistake, which commentators are unable to account for, the "son of Barachias." Evidently the same person is meant. It was the extraordinary circumstances of his death, and his appeal to God, which rendered him so fit an instance for the Lord's purpose. are spoken of in Heb. vi. 6, as crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, because they justify and sanction by their example the crime of His crucifiers. And now the Lord has done with these men. St. John* remarks respecting them, "Though he had done so many miracles before, yet they believed not on Him that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again"-for the reason that Isaiah mentions-" He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.† These things said Esaias, when He saw His glory, and spake of Him." But were all alike? No; for St. John adds, "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." They could not bear * Ch. xii. 37-43. + Whatever these awful words, which recur frequently in Scripture, may mean, it is certain they cannot mean this: that God interferes to make any one hard and obstinate, who, but for such interference would be yielding and penitent. He wills all men to be saved and to come to repentance. But the very things which soften a soul in one stage of sin, embolden and harden it in another; and we have frequent intimations that when men have arrived at a certain stage of enmity to God, a stage when there is no hope of their conversion, when, especially, every messenger whom God sends to warn them is treated with determined insult and cruelty, then, not only does God say, "Let them alone," but He actually orders things so that they shall work out their own wicked will unchecked, and give full proof what manner of men they are. to forfeit their respectability, or the favour of their party; so, though inwardly convinced that Jesus was the Christ, they kept their convictions to themselves, waiting to see what turn events would take, and thus they did nothing to check the torrent of persecution, and sharing the guilt of the majority, they were involved with them in one common doom. But the Lord would not leave the temple for ever with words wholly of wrath and judgment. He breaks forth into a tender lamentation, which shows how perfectly consistent is the union of holy severity against sin with holy love. "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! is left unto you desolate. ye shall Behold, your house For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth till shall say, 'Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."" With this glimpse of hope in the far future, Christ turns and leaves the temple. But as He did so, His eye seems to have been arrested for the moment by a sight which He could not pass unnoticed by. "And He looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites"*-very small coin, " which make a farthing," St. Mark says: "And He called unto Him His disciples, and saith unto them, 'Verily, I say That this poor widow hath cast more in, unto you, * Luke xxi. I—4. |