OBS.-When the delicate and self-sacrificing love of Mary is contrasted with the impure thirst of Judas for gold, the whole occurrence appears in a clear light, and furnishes important instructions. To the former the most costly object which she possesses, does not seem too precious to be employed in rendering honor to her Lord; to the latter no artifice seems too base by which his love of money may be gratified. Mary yields, in her simplicity, to the impulse of her loving heart; her purpose is accomplished, and she performs an act, the deep significance of which she does not herself understand, or of which she has perhaps merely an indistinct conception. Judas yields to the Satanic impulse of his heart, and, without clearly understanding or suspecting the nature of the results, he too accomplishes his purpose. Mary's act is beheld with admiration in every age; the act of Judas strikes every sensitive heart with horror and dismay.

§ 147. The Messiah's Entrance into Jerusalem.

1. Matt. 21: 1, &c. (Mark ch. 11; Luke ch. 19; John ch. 12.) On the next day (Sunday), Jesus prepares to enter the city of Jerusalem. By applying the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 (§ 109. 2) to himself, he announces openly and distinctly to the world that he is the Messiah; he rides into the city "sitting upon a colt the foal of an ass." When the tidings that he was approaching reached the people who were assembled in large numbers for the purpose of keeping the feast, they hastened to meet him with branches of palm-trees in their hands; they spread their garments in the way, and joyfully exclaimed: "Hosanna!" (that is: Lord, help! or, Save, O Lord! see Ps. 118 25, 26.) "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest." But the Pharisees said among themselves: "Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him." Some of them desired him to restrain the people, but he answered: "I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." When he was come near he looked with grief at the city, and amid the loud rejoicing of the people, he said, as he wept over the city: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." For he saw in spirit all the misery and the ruin which the impenitence of the city brought upon itself.

OBS. 1.-Christ had hitherto carefully suppressed every attempt of the people to proclaim him as the Messianic king. He could have successfully adopted the same course on the present occasion, but his "hour" had now arrived, and he even encourages the enthusiasm of the people, to which a new impulse had been communicated by the restoration of Lazarus to life. Still his measures are even now adapted to show by the humility and lowliness of his appearance, the contrast between his kingdom and the kingdoms of the world.— It was indispensable that his Messianic royal dignity should be publicly acknowledged at the proper time; if the people had been silent, the very stones would have proclaimed him with loud hosannas; it was, nevertheless, equally indispensable that this public recognition should immediately precede his last and most severe sufferings. An external connection between the "Hosanna" of the people and their demand: 66 Crucify him, Crucify him," was established through the hatred of the Pharisees - an internal connection was established through the counsel of God; for the throne on which Christ should appear when taking possession of dominion over the whole world, was the cross.

OBS. 2.-"The day on which Christ first showed himself on this occasion, in Jerusalem - the tenth of the first month, Nisan, was doubtless chosen by him designedly; it was the day appointed (according to Exodus 12: 3) for selecting the paschal lamb of the Old Testament. No one, however, besides himself, then knew that He was chosen to be himself the true and eternally valid paschal lamb."

2. Mark 11: 12, &c. (Matt. 21; Luke 19.)- On the next day (Monday), when the Lord again entered the city (for during this period he usually retired in the evening to the peaceful domestic circle which he found in Bethany), he laid the symbolically significant curse on the fig-tree, which was full of leaves but furnished no fruit (§ 137. 2). He then proceeded to the temple for the purpose of repeating the act which he had performed at the commencement of his public ministry (John 2: 13, &c.); in virtue of his Messianic and prophetic authority, he cleansed the temple which was again defiled by the traffic of buyers, sellers and money-changers who had resumed their places in the court of the Gentiles. Even the children greeted the Son of David with their hosannas, and when the Pharisees expressed

their displeasure, he replied: "Have ye never read (Ps. 8:2) Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" (Matt. 21: 15, 16.)

§ 148. The Counsel taken by the Enemies of Jesus against Him.

1. Matt. ch. 21.-Immediately after the restoration of Lazarus to life, the Sanhedrin had resolved to put Jesus to death. "If we let him thus alone," they said, "all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come, and take away both our place and nation." Caiaphas, the high-priest of that year, replied: "Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." In this remarkable saying, the counsel of Satan and the counsel of God wonderfully come together, in order to accomplish that which the eternal grace of God "determined before to be done" (Acts 4: 28); it is, likewise, not only the language of the cunning and malice of the high-priest, but also the last prophetic declaration that proceeded from the gift of prophecy attached to the office of the high-priest (John 11:46-53).

2. Matt. 21 23, &c. - The occurrences of the preceding days brought this resolution of the Sanhedrin to maturity. As Jesus was teaching in the temple on the next day (Tuesday), the chief priests and elders demanded of him the evidences of his authority to exercise the office of a prophet. As these were already furnished in part by the mission of John the Baptist, the Lord answered on this occasion by proposing the question: "The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?" Embarrassed by their fear, on the one hand, of the people who held John as a prophet, and, on the other, of the reply which Christ could make, they were compelled to say: "We cannot tell." Then the Redeemer said to them: "Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things." For the purpose of convincing his enemies that the position which they assumed, excluded them from the kingdom of God, he subjoined the three parables of the two sons, sent by their father into the vineyard, of the vineyard let out to husbandmen, who slew the householder's servants, and last of all his son also, and of the marriage of the king's son (§ 137. 3).

3. Matt. 22: 15, &c. -The Pharisees now adopted a new plan, in consequence of which they combined with the officers attached to the court of Herod (who were favorable alike to the sect of the Sadducees and the Roman power), in proposing a captious question to Christ: "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar, or not?" An affirmative answer would, as they were persuaded, arouse the wrath of the people, while a negative answer would lead to a judicial inquiry on the part of the Roman government. But the Lord penetrated their malicious designs, and plainly taught them that the image of the Roman emperor on the coin in his hand testified, that since they had not given unto God the things that are God's, they deserved the chastisement of giving by compulsion to the emperor or Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's. The power of truth in the answer of Christ, and the consciousness of their own guilt which it produced, rent asunder the snare in which they had hoped to entangle him, and they departed with shame.

4. Matt. 22: 23, &c. On the same day the Sadducees approached the Lord for the purpose of displaying their profane wit by relating the tale of the seven husbands of one woman; they had, no doubt, frequently embarrassed others with success by the same means, and compelled them to confess their inability to determine of which of the seven brethren the woman should be the wife in the resurrection. The Redeemer repelled the shaft which their unholy levity directed against him, by teaching them that "in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven;" and he explained to them that the very name, "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," by its deep import, bore witness against their unbelief. He instructed one of the Pharisees who was governed by better motives than the majority of the sect, concerning the great commandment in the law, and proposed to the others the question: "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?" They readily answer: "The son of David," but cannot solve the problem that David's son is also David's Lord; and from that day no man ventured to ask him any more questions.

§ 149. Christ's Predictions respecting the Destruction of Jerusalem and the End of the World.

1. Matt. ch. 23, 24. - The Lord now proceeds to bear witness in the most emphatic and uncompromising manner, in the presence of the people and his disciples, against all Pharisaic hypocrisy, and against all righteousness derived from outward works. He addresses the Pharisees, and exclaiming with solemnity eight times: "Wo unto you!" he exposes the hidden Satanic depths of their hearts, alienated as they are from God, and announces that their course is inevitably bringing the divine judgment of total ruin upon the holy city and the temple. The Redeemer, filled with holy grief, pronounced the appalling words: "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! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." When the disciples immediately afterwards directed his attention again to the buildings of the temple, he said: "Verily, I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." On reaching the mount of Olives which afforded a view of the temple and the holy city in all their splendor (§ 75. 2), the disciples said to him: "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Then the Lord distinctly portrayed, in prophetic language, the development of the kingdom of God in the last days (Matt. ch. 24).

OBS. The prophet's survey of the future, in general, is governed by influences which, in some degree, resemble the rules of perspective; prominent objects, which may be in reality remote from each other, seem, when thus surveyed, to occupy positions which are the same, or nearly the same. Now, the predictions of the Redeemer, uttered during the period in which he divested himself on earth of his divine majesty, were governed by the same laws which the prophetic views of the future, taken by ordinary prophets, observed. (Mark 13: 32 and 8 138. 1, Овs. 3.) He accordingly described the future as one entire scene, without minutely defining the succession of time in such a manner as it will actually appear, when the facts