by a stranger. That stranger had already attracted general notice, by the singularity of his speech and deportment; every eye was fixed upon him, his every attitude and gesture were observed, and these plainly indicated that the temple to be destroyed, and raised up in three days, could not be the venerable pile in the court of which this conversation passed. When he afterwards foretold the approaching destruction of that temple, he expressed himself in terms not liable, to misapprehension. "As he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus. answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Now he points to an edifice infinitely more sacred. From both the first and second houses built on mount Zion the glory had long since departed. The sensible tokens of the divine presence were withdrawn. The holy oracle was no longer consulted by Urim and Thummim. But in Him, who was the only glory of the second house, "dwelled all the fulness of the godhead bodily," and the destruction of this temple he thus predicts as a sign not to the men of that generation only, but to all ages, even to the end of the world. From the very nature of prophecy, a veil must be drawn between the prediction and the event. Hope that is seen is not hope," and "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Christ indulges not those unbelievers with an immediate display of his miraculous power, in support of his pretensions to the character of a prophet, which they could easily have explained away, or misinterpreted; but he refers them to a sign shortly to be exhibited, which should be, at once, the exact accomplishment of a well known prediction, and the greatest miracle that can possibly exist. That the misconception of the Jews was perverse and

affected is evident from this, that when they had actually fulfilled the part of the prediction which depended on themselves, by destroying that sacred temple, we find them labouring under the most dreadful apprehension that Jesus would accomplish the other part, which depended on him, and they employ every precaution, which terror could suggest, to prevent and defeat it. "The chief priests and pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people. He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first." And when the astonished watch came into the city, and made report to their employers, of "all the things that were done,' did it produce conviction? No, it only filled them with mortification, and kindled rage. "The chief priests, when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, say, ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governour's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you." To what purpose, then, ask for a sign? They resist and reject the most illustrious, which, with reverence be it spoken, God himself could give, thereby approving the truth of what Jesus on another occasion said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

Destroy this temple. Let it be observed, that this is simply a prediction or supposition, and not a precept, equivalent to, ye will destroy this temple, or, though ye should destroy this temple. It is a mode of expression that frequently occurs in Scripture. Thus in the Old Testament, Joseph says to his bre

thren "this do, and live," that is, do this, and ye shall live. Thus God speaks to Moses. "Get thee up into this mountain, and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people," meaning evidently, thou shalt die in the mount, and shalt be gathered unto thy people. Thus, Isaiah viii. 10. "Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand :" that is, though ye take counsel together, and though ye speak the word. And in the New Testament, the word of Christ to Judas, "that thou dost, do quickly,' cannot be considered as a command to accomplish his plan of treachery, but merely as an intimation that he was seen through, and that under the impulse of a diabotical spirit, he was hurrying on to commit that dreadful enormity. Thus Paul exhorts, "Be angry and sin not;" surely not as if he meant to encourage violent transports of wrath, but in the event of a man's giving way to a fit of passion, the apostle means to guard him against excessive indulgence in it, by restricting its duration to the going down of the sun. This early notice did Jesus give, not to his disciples only, but to all who came to worship in the temple, "of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem;" that it should be effected by the hand of violence; not by decay, but by destruction, and that his own countrymen should be the perpetrators of it. This declaration was frequently repeated, and became plainer and plainer, till the fact justified every particular of the prediction.

"This temple." Our blessed Lord in this place and elsewhere denominates his body a temple, as declaratory of his superiority to the lofty pile on Mount Zion, even in its greatest glory, much more in its then degraded, defiled state. "I say unto you," addressing himself to pharisees, "that in this place is one greater than the temple," because Deity resided continually

and inseparably in him, as the Jews believed he did in that which was built by Solomon, in answer to that petition; "O Lord my God, hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee today that thine eyes may be opened toward this house, night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there :" according as it was foretold by Moses near five centuries before: "Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there." Josephus informs us that not only did the answer to Solomon's prayer imply a real and sensible residence of Deity, but that it was the universal belief of the Jews and of the strangers who visited Jerusalem, that there was an ingress of God into the temple, and a habitation in it; and, in another place that God descended and pitched his tabernacle there. The Jews themselves, however, admitted, that whatever glory these expressions might signify was now departed. To restore that glory, and to bestow it on the second temple in more abundant measure than the first ever possessed was the end of Christ's mission; and in him was the prediction fulfilled: "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts." He was that oracle by whose answers all light and truth were emitted; the true Schechinah who had the spirit without measure: he was anointed with the "oil of gladness above his fellows," and thus in all respects greater than the temple. That temple, says he, which you have defiled I have cleansed: and this temple of my body, which you are going to destroy, I will raise up again.

When this prediction was verified by the matter of fact, that fact became the foundation of one of the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, the resurrection of the dead. Jesus early taught and frequently repeated it, that it might be clearly understood and carefully remembered. The impostor is at pains to conceal his

purpose till it is ripe for execution. He fears prevention, and therefore endeavours to take you by surprise. The thief gives no warning of his approach, but comes upon men while they sleep. The true prophet discloses his design, prepares, forwarns, puts the person who doubts or disbelieves upon his guard, bids defiance to prevention. His own resurrection, and the doctrine of a general resurrection, which is founded upon it, were not barely hinted at, or declared in obscure and equivocal terms. They were not the casual topic, and for once only, of private conversation with his disciples. No, this was a leading, a commanding object, presented continually to view, placed in the strongest light, announ ced with equal fairness and simplicity, to friends and to enemies. 66 And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and the third day he shall rise again." He declares the same truth thus openly in the court of the temple. He repeats it in the presen c. and hearing of the multitude, "when the people were gathered thick together, then certain of the scribes and of the pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign 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." The sadducees, opponents still more virulent than the pharisees, perfectly understood him as meaning on the basis of his own, to establish the belief of a resurrection of the body; for they argue with him on the subject, and frame a case which they supposed would reduce the