real enemy against which they ought to struggle; the slavery, from which it was necessary that their Redeemer should free them. All this was calculated to exasperate the minds of the Jews against a Saviour, in whom they found not what they most anxiously looked for, and found what they most of all disliked to find. Every discourse of his added to their anger and their disappointment. They determined, therefore, to destroy him, whom they would not receive, and could not answer; one, whose pretensions could only be established on the ruins of their worldly hopes. Taking advantage of his having, on more than one occasion, healed the sick on the sabbath day, they accused him of being a sabbath-breaker, and so an enemy to the law of Moses; justly deserving, therefore, in the eyes of every zealous Jew, of the punishment of death. A solemn decree, to this effect, had gone forth against him; and orders had been issued by the Jewish senate," that if any man knew where he were" at the feast,

which, as a Jew, he was bound to attend, "he should show it, that they might take him 1."

It was at this particular juncture, when all our Saviour's enemies had united for his destruction, and had, in a great measure, arranged the mode of proceeding best calculated to effect their object, that Jesus at once laid aside his usual character of retirement and caution, and assumed the attitude of publicity and defiance. Hitherto, when they persecuted him in one city, he had fled to another; when they sought to kill him in Judea, he walked in Galilee; when they wished to destroy him at Nazareth, he went privately down to Capernaum; when they took up stones to cast at him, he hid himself, and escaped. But now, his conduct is altogether changed. In spite of the warning of his disciples, "the Jews of late sought to kill thee, and goest thou thither again 2?" he goes boldly to Jerusalem; he rides through the streets, in

order that his public entrance may be the more conspicuous; he rebukes not, but rather encourages the people, when they strew garments and branches in his path, as at the advance of a kingly personage, and hail him with loud hosannas, as the royal son of David. In this solemn pomp, he enters the temple of God, as his own rightful possession; and, to the dismay and mortification of those who fancied they had a right to regulate its services, he proceeds, with all the authority of a monarch, to reform its abuses, casting out from its precincts, all those who had, from time immemorial, been allowed by the priesthood to pollute its sacred courts with the articles of their worldly traffic and gain; and all this in the very face, and in defiance of those who had the authority', and had openly proclaimed their

1 It would be irrelevant, here, to enter fully into the discussion of the very intricate and much agitated question respecting the extent of authority possessed by the Jewish Sanhedrim, during the period of our Saviour's ministry. It may be sufficient to remark, that the Author is inclined to agree with

intention, to put him to death. They are doomed, however, to look on in all the misery of impotent hatred. "The chief of the people," says the evangelist, "sought to destroy him, and could not find what they might do; for all the people were very attentive to hear him " Thus, then, on this very remarkable occasion, did he exhibit, as I have before said, the three great evidences of his divine nature and mission. His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, fulfilled a prophecy, till then not understood; "these things," says St. John, "understood not his disciples at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him "."

those who maintain that the power of inflicting capital punishments was still retained by them, in all matters which concerned their religion; in other words, that they were allowed to enforce, as well as practise, the requisitions of their law,-which necessarily implies the power of punishing with death. See the subject fully discussed, in "Biscoe on the Acts of the Apostles," chap. vi.

His supernatural power was exhibited in the submission of so large a crowd, as were now polluting the temple, to his sole authority; and his piety, in the act itself, and its motive," It is written," says he," my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves 1."

دو

Such is the substance of one of those portions of Scripture which our Church has selected for the edification of its members at the opening of this solemn season of Advent; a season which has, from the primitive times of Christianity, been observed with religious strictness, as preparatory to an event, in which we are, beyond all others, deeply concerned,the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The observance of times and seasons has a natural, as well as a religious propriety; the man of the world adopts it, as well as the good Christian. The memory, to whatever object it may be directed, requires artificial aids to strength

1 Matthew xxi. 13.