a

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the

phets.

b

32 Fill ye up then the measure of fathers.

C

pro

a Acts vii. 51,

52. 1 Thess. ji. 15.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how ch. iii. 7. & can ye escape the damnation of hell?

xii. 34.

of their own sinfulness-of their own impenitence and pride. As Stier (quoted in Alford) remarks: "Instead of the penitent confession, 'We have sinned, we and our fathers,' this last and worst generation in vain protests against their participation in their fathers' guilt, which they are meanwhile developing to the utmost, and filling up its measure."

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31. "Ye be witnesses to yourselves." They were the genuine sons of their fathers, as inheriting the same evil and persecuting spirit. "The very men that pretended to honour dead prophets, could see no beauty in a living Christ" (Bp. Ryle); who also adds, in a note, a striking passage from "The Berlinberger Bible,' Ask in Moses' time who were the good people, they will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but not Moses-he should be stoned. Ask in Samuel's time who were the good people, they will be Moses and Joshua, but not Samuel. Ask in the time of Christ who were such, they will be all the former prophets, with Samuel, but not Christ and His Apostles."

33. "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers... damnation of hell." "Fearful words, as if they had already committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. How can ye escape? What motives leading to repentance can now affect you? What miracles (Lazarus had been raised) can persuade you? What exposure can shame you? And how had they become thus hardened? Simply by hypocrisy. "When sin has taken the peculiar form of hypocrisy, the pretence of being holy, with the reality of being wicked, their forgiveness seems to be rendered almost impossible, because hypocrisy almost precludes repentance." (Bp. H. Goodwin.) And yet may we humbly suggest that our Lord said this, "humanly speaking," after the manner of men? May we hope that, if questioned, He would have returned the same answer as He did once before, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

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:

h

35 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.

35. "Righteous Abel;" Gr., "Abel the righteous."

34. "I send unto you prophets," &c. Here is the clearest assumption of Godhead-of equality with God. I send you [¿yús ȧTOOTέ]. Just as God of old sent prophets, so Jesus the Son of God sends His prophets.

"I send you" also "Scribes," i.e., instructors in the Law, but in the New Law, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Me. Such words, of course, do not mean that of those whom He sent some were prophets, some wise men, some scribes only-in fact, none were scribes in the mere Judaic sense at all: but that whatever instructors and modes of instruction were employed in the old state of things would be more abundantly and more effectually present in the New.

"Some of them ye shall kill and crucify." They killed St. Stephen, St. James the son of Zebedee, St. James the first bishop of Jerusalem, and, according to Eusebius (quoting Hegesippus), one, at least, Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, they crucified: "After he was tormented many days, he died a martyr with such firmness, that all were amazed, even the president himself, that a man of an hundred and twenty years old should bear such tortures. He was at last ordered to be crucified." (Eus. Eccles. Hist. b. iii. c. xxxii.)

"Scourge in your synagogues" (see Acts v. 40; xxii. 19), “persecute them from city to city;" see St. Paul's confession, "I persecuted them, even unto strange cities." (Acts xxvi. 2.)

35. "That upon you may come all the righteous blood ... temple and the altar." How is it that all this blood was required of that generation? Because they had all the light of the examples

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

34.

Luke xiii. 12 Chron.

xxiv. 21.

37 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 11, 12. chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

n

m Deut. xxxii.

n Ps. xvii. 8. & xci. 4.

37. "Unto her," so N, B., C., later Uncials and Cursives; "unto thee," read in D., old Latin, Vulg.

Because, in

of those martyred saints concentrated upon them. addition, they had all the light of the example and teaching and miracles of Christ Himself. Because they had the light of His Cross and Resurrection, and of the coming of the Holy Ghost: and as they had all this light, so apparently, they had all the venom and rancour of those many generations of the persecutors and murderers of God's prophets and witnesses concentrated in them. All the hatred of goodness and truth which men seemed capable of showing was exhibited under the Cross of Jesus by that generation.

"Zacharias son of Barachias." This is a difficult place, because we read in the Old Testament of but one Zacharias, who was martyred between the temple and the altar, and he was the son of Jehoiada, not of Barachias: but he was slain in the court of the temple, and in his death he prayed that God would require it. The Prophet Zechariah, one of the minor prophets, is described in his prophecy as the son of Barachiah, but we read nothing of his martyrdom, either in the temple or elsewhere. Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, is also said to have been son of a Barachiah, and to have been murdered in the temple. little doubt that our Lord alluded to the first: and that the words

There can be

66 son of Barachiah" were not said by Him, but have been very early interpolated by some officious copier who remembered that the minor prophet was the son of Barachiah. They are not in the parallel place in Luke xi. 51.

....

37. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . . hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." These compassionate and affecting words are also a very strong and clear proof of our Lord's Godhead, for He here asserts that He has done for the people of the Jews during all their history what Jehovah had done for them when He brought

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, • Ps. exviii. 26. till ye shall say, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

eh. xxi. 9.

38. "Desolate" omitted by B., L., but retained by N, C., D., all later Uncials, almost all Cursives, old Latin, Vulg., &c.

them out of Egypt. "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him." (Deut. xxxii. 11.)

"How often." These words have been taken to prove the previous ministries of our Lord at Jerusalem, not mentioned by the Synoptics: but they surely look back to all God's dealings with His people, through the judges, through the prophets, through visitations, such as the Captivity; but Jerusalem would not be gathered.

"Ye would not." Here we have the freedom of the human will, which must conform to the will of God if the nation, or Church, or city, or soul is to be gathered, but which has the fatal power of resisting.

38. "Your house is left unto you desolate." This must not be confined to the withdrawal of the presence of Christ or of God from the Temple. It rather looks to the withdrawal of God's Spirit and grace from the whole Church and nation; so that they are now blinded, cast away, given up, "having not the Son they have not the Father." (1 John ii. 23.)

39. "Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say . . . . name of the Lord." "Ye shall not see me," and yet shortly the whole city would see Him, lifted up upon the cross: and yet they would not "see" Him. They would see in Him no suffering Messiah, no atoning Sacrifice, no Sin-Bearer, no Mediator. The "seeing" here is that of which the Lord said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see." "Till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." This is the glorious time foretold in Hosea iii.: Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days;" and by St. Paul in Rom. xi. 26: “All Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob."

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CHAP. XXIV.

AN

ND Jesus went out, and departed from the temple; and his disciples came to him for to shew a Mark xiii, 1. him the buildings of the temple.

Luke xxi. 5.

b1 Kings ix. 7 Jer. xxvi. 18.

2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, b There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Mic. iii. 12.

Luke xix. 44.

We now come to the great prophecy of the New Testament, delivered by our Lord as He sat upon the Mount of Olives in view of the magnificent structure of the temple, from which He had just departed never to return till He should come in judgment to destroy it utterly.

The disciples [Peter, James, John, and Andrew], it is said (St. Mark. xiii. 3), "asked Him privately" the question "When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" What suggested this question? It is generally assumed to have been the words respecting the overthrow of the building; but if we go back to the end of the last chapter, which we are bound to do, we shall see immediately that there is very much more there to make the disciples ask the question respecting the time. For, in the first place, "All the blood of the slaughtered saints from Abel to Zechariah was to come on that generation." Then, following upon this, "their house was to be left unto them desolate"-then Christ was Himself leaving them: but for how long? Apparently but for a short time: "Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Then follows the prediction of the utter overthrow of the building. When was all this to take place? Was it to be shortly-in a year, perhaps? According to their low and confused ideas it might be: anyhow very much, if not all, was to be fulfilled" in that generation." Then what shall be the sign of His coming? From whence was He to come? They had scarcely got themselves to believe that He would be taken

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