treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy ;' a sentence which deserves to be written in letters of gold."-ALEXANDER KNOX, Remains, III., 386, 387.

CORRIGENDUM, p. 270.

The statement that probably there was not another Christian present with Paul, to make his devotional exercises social, when he" gave thanks to God in the presence of the ship's company," is a mis-statement. From Acts xxvii. 2, it appears that "Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica," was with him, and the whole narrative bears abundant evidence to its writer, Luke, being a witness of the facts he relates respecting that eventful voyage. Even had he not used the first person plural, there is a minuteness and picturesqueness which nothing but avroa could have given to the story. The same characters remarkably belong to the narrative of the journey to Emmaus, Luke xxiv. 13-35, which gives probability to the conjecture that Luke, who keeps himself much in the shade, was Cleopas' companion on that occasion. The reader, it is hoped, will pardon the inadvertence which alone could have occasioned the mistake thus acknowledged and corrected.

EXPOSITION V.

FAITHFUL DENUNCIATIONS.

LUKE XI. 37-54.

MILDNESS of disposition and gentleness of demeanour were striking features in the character and conduct of Jesus Christ. No malignant passion disturbed the tranquillity of his bosom, no intemperate rudeness ruffled the even tenor of his behaviour. Affectionate to his friends, forgiving to his enemies, condescending to the poor, compassionate to the miserable, courteous to all men, he exhibited a perfect pattern of those amiable virtues, which, if generally cultivated and exemplified, would produce so happy a transformation on the state of human society. He did "not strive nor cry, neither was his voice heard in the streets. A bruised reed he did not break, and the smoking flax he did not quench." To instruct the ignorant, to warn the unwary, to comfort the sorrowful, to relieve the afflicted, were the employments most congenial to his dispositions; and in these and similar exercises, did he spend the period of his residence among mortals. Malignity was a feeling to which he was entirely a stranger. The unparalleled sufferings to which he was exposed excited in him no desire of revenge. Instead of hating his enemies, he pitied them; and their

grossest insults, and most outrageous cruelties, but drew forth from him sighs for their folly and wickedness, and prayers for their pardon and salvation.

The gentleness of the Saviour's character was, however, no way akin to that weak undistinguishing good nature, which seems to survey all mankind with an equal and inactive good-will, without reference to their moral qualities. It was associated with an unconquerable detestation of moral evil in all its various forms, and an unquenchable zeal to promote the cause of holiness and of God. Accordingly, we find him unfolding, not merely the consolations, but the terrors, of religious truth; we find him speaking in alarming, as well as in soothing, accents; we find him not only promising peace, and pardon, and salvation, to him who will gladly and gratefully receive what is "freely given him of God," but declaring that a miserable eternity must be the portion of the finally impenitent, unbelieving, and disobedient.

It is one of the peculiarities of our Lord, that he unites in himself qualifications, not only different, but apparently opposite. The man, the leading feature of whose character is gentleness, is generally deficient in the sterner virtues ; while, on the other hand, he who is remarkably endowed with unbending integrity, not unfrequently seems a stranger to the softer feelings of our nature, and is distinguished by a severity of deportment which goes far to make his undoubted excellencies unamiable and useless. But in the character of the Saviour, the amiable and estimable qualities, the lovely and the venerable virtues, so supported and softened each other, that his gentleness never degenerated into weakness, nor did his integrity ever assume the appearance of repulsive severity. While he pitied men's miseries, he condemned their sins; while he reproved their faults, he commiserated their sorrows.

Of the compassionate kindness of our Lord, both in word and deed, there are recorded, by the evangelists, many

beautiful examples. In the passage which now lies before us, we have a striking display of that holiness which "cannot bear them that are evil "-that integrity which knows not how to palliate sin, or flatter the sinner. The severe reproof, and indignant reprobation, of men distinguished for their wealth, their rank, their learning, and their reputation for sanctity, which these words breathe, may, on a cursory view, appear scarcely compatible with the declaration of our Lord, that he was "meek, and lowly in heart." The incongruity is, however, merely apparent. These words are not the ebullition of mortified pride, or disappointed ambition, cloaking personal malignity under the pretence of zeal for truth and holiness. They are the expression of the loathing, which the contemplation of moral evil, in some of its vilest forms, excited in a perfectly holy mind; and a declaration, by a divinely authorised revealer of the purposes of God, of the signal punishment which is awaiting such as habitually and wilfully oppose truth, from unworthy motives, and for unworthy ends.

The Pharisees were a numerous and influential body among the Jews. Their rulers, or leading men, to whom our Lord's remarks have a primary and principal reference, were possessed of a large portion of the learning of their age and nation. They were characterised by a remarkably strict attention to the ritual of the Mosaic religion, as explained and enlarged by the traditions of the elders, and by a high degree of external decorum, and apparent sanctity of deportment and manners; and they occupied many of the most important and dignified offices connected with the teaching the laws of their nation, and the administering them both in the supreme and municipal judicatories. Owing to these circumstances, they possessed an extensive and powerful influence over the public mind; and, generally indignant at the subjugation of the holy people to a foreign, a

1 Rev. ii. 2.

gentile, yoke, they were disposed to use that influence in procuring for them emancipation from that yoke, in the hope of bringing them more completely and securely under their own dominion.

These men seem to have hoped, when John the Baptist and Jesus appeared, that they might be converted into instruments for promoting these objects. With the fervid eloquence, and overawing severity, of the former, and with the winning manners, and miraculous powers, of the latter, what might not be expected in rousing the prostrate energies of the nation, and in realising the long fondly cherished dream of the sovereignty of the holy people over the gentile nations, under the Messiah, while the existing rulers secured a large share of the power and dignity connected with the administration of this new and better order of things?

2

1

But when John repelled all their advances, addressed them as "a generation of vipers," and, with unsparing fidelity, exposed their hypocrisy, and denounced their doom; when Jesus declared that, "except a man be born again, he cannot see," or enter into, "the kingdom of God;" when he proclaimed that that kingdom "came not with observation," and that, "except men's righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, they could not enter it," they were not only constrained to relinquish all hopes of turning such men into tools for accomplishing their object, but, perceiving that the prevalence of such sentiments must be the annihilation of their influence, and the disappointment of their hopes, they regarded them with the most inveterate dislike, and without being at all scrupulous as to the means employed, laboured to accomplish their destruction. John had already fallen a victim to the malignity of a profligate woman, practising on the easy temper of her princely paramour; and all danger from him was, of course, at an end. But, from the

1 Matth. iii. 7.

2 John iii. 3, 5. Luke xvii. 20. Matth. v. 20.