gleams of the richest light, which only an evening scene, like the present, can display. Nor, indeed, (even without the sacred and solema associations connected with the holy city,) would it be easy to conceive any natural situation in the world of more impressive grandeur, or likely to be seen with greater advantage under the influence of such accessaries, than that of Jerusalem, seated, as it was, upon hills of irregular height, intersected by bold ravines, and hemmed in almost on all sides by still loftier mountains, and itself formed, in its most conspicuous parts, of gorgeous ranges of Eastern architecture, in all its lightness, luxuriance, and variety. The effect may have been heightened by the rising of the slow volumes of smoke from the evening sacrifices, while even at the distance of the slope of Mount Olivet, the silence may have been faintly broken by the hymns of the worshippers.

Necessity destruc

for the

tion of the Temple at

Yet the fall of that splendid edifice was inevitable; the total demolition of all those magnificent and time-hallowed structures might not be averted. It was necessary to the complete development of the designs of Almighty Providence for the welfare of mankind in the Jerusalem. promulgation of Christianity. Independent of all other reasons, the destruction certainly of the Temple, and if not of the city, at least of the city as the centre and metropolis of a people, the only true and exclusive worshippers of the one Almighty Creator, seemed essential to the progress of the new faith. The universal and comprehensive religion to be promulgated by Christ and his Apostles, was grounded on the abrogation of all local claims to peculiar sanctity, of all distinctions of one nation above another, as possessing any especial privilege in the knowledge or favour of the Deity. The time was come when "neither in Jerusalem nor on the mountain of Gerizim," was the great Universal Spirit to be worshipped with circumscribed or local homage. As long, however, as the Temple on Mount Moriah remained hallowed by the reverence of ages, sanctified, according to the general belief, for perpetuity, by the especial command of God, as his peculiar dwelling-place; so long, among the Jews at least, and even among other nations, the true principle of Christian worship might be counteracted by the notion of the inalienable sanctity of this one place. Judaism would scarcely be entirely annulled, as long as the Temple rose in its original majesty and veneration.

1

templates

future

ruin of

Jerusalem.

Yet, notwithstanding this absolute necessity for its destruction, Jesus connotwithstanding that it thus stood, as it were, in the way of the with sadprogress of human improvement and salvation, the Son of Man does ness the not contemplate its ruin without emotion. And in all the superhuman beauty of the character of Jesus, nothing is more affecting and impressive, than the profound melancholy with which he foretels the future desolation of the city, which, before two days were passed, was to reek with his own blood. Nor should we do

justice to this most remarkable Incident in his life, if we should consider it merely as a sudden emotion of compassion, as the natural sensation of sadness at the decay or dissolution of that which has long worn the aspect of human grandeur. It seems rather a wise and far-sighted consideration, not merely of the approaching guilt and future penal doom of the city, but of the remoter moral causes, which, by forming the national character, influence the national destiny; the long train of events, the wonderful combination of circumstances, which had gradually wrought the Jewish people to that sterner frame of mind, which was about to display itself with such barbarous, such fatal ferocity. Jesus might seem not merely to know what was in man, but how it entered into man's heart and mind. His was divine charity, enlightened by infinite wisdom.

In fact, there was an intimate moral connection between the murder of Jesus and the doom of the Jewish city. It was the same national temperament, the same characteristic disposition of the people, which now morally disqualified them "from knowing," in the language of Christ, "the things which belonged unto their peace," which forty years afterwards committed them in their deadly and ruinous struggle with the masters of the world. Christianity The ruin alone could have subdued or mitigated that stubborn fanaticism, which drove them at length to their desperate collision with the quence of arms of Rome. As Christians, the Jewish people might have subcharacter. sided into peaceful subjects of the universal empire. They might

of the Jews

the conse

their

have lived, as the Christians did, with the high and inalienable consolations of faith and hope under the heaviest oppressions; and calmly awaited the time when their holier and more beneficent ambition might be gratified by the submission of their rulers to the religious dominion founded by Christ and his Apostles. They would have slowly won that victory by the patient heroism of martyrdom, and the steady perseverance in the dissemination of their faith, which it was madness to hope that they could ever obtain by force of arms. As Jews, they were almost sure, sooner or later, to provoke the implacable vengeance of their foreign rulers. The same vision of worldly dominion, the same obstinate expectation of a temporal Deliverer, which made them unable to comprehend the nature of the redemption to be wrought by the presence, and the kingdom to be established by the power, of Christ, continued to the end to mingle with their wild and frantic resistance. Immediate In the rejection and murder of Jesus, the Rulers, as their inthe rejec terests and authority were more immediately endangered, were more deeply implicated than the people; but unless the mass of the the Jews. people had been blinded by these false notions of the Messiah, they would not have demanded, or at least, with the general voice, assented to to the sacrifice of Jesus. The progress of Jesus at the

'causes of

tion of

Jesus by

present period in the public estimation, his transient popularity, arose from the enforced admiration of his commanding demeanour, the notoriety of his wonderful works, perhaps, for such language is always acceptable to the common ear, from his bold animadversions on the existing authorities; but it was no doubt supported in the mass of the populace by a hope, that even yet he would conform to the popular views of the Messiah's character. Their present brief access of faith would not have stood long against the continued disappointment of that hope and it was no doubt by working on the reaction of this powerful feeling, that the Sanhedrin were able so suddenly, and, it almost appears, so entirely, to change the prevailing sentiment. Whatever the proverbial versatility of the popular mind, there must have been some chord strung to the most sensitive pitch, the slightest touch of which would vibrate through the whole frame of society, and madden at least a commanding majority to their blind concurrence in this revolting iniquity. Thus in the Jewish nation, but more especially in the prime movers, the Rulers and the heads of the Pharisaic party, the murder of Jesus was an act of unmitigated cruelty, but, as we have said, it arose out of the generally fierce and bigoted spirit, which morally incapacitated the whole people from discerning the evidence of his mission from heaven, in his acts of divine goodness, as well as of divine power. It was an act of religious fanaticism; they thought, in the language of Jesus himself, that they were doing God service" when they slew the Master, as much as afterwards when they persecuted his followers.

"

When however the last, and as far as the existence of the nation, the most fatal display of this fanaticism took place, it was accidentally allied with nobler molives, with generous impatience of oppression, and the patriotic desire of national independence. However desperate and frantic the struggle against such irresistible power, the unprecedented tyranny of the later Roman procurators, Festus, Albinus, and Florus, might almost have justified the prudence of manly and resolute insurrection. Yet in its spirit and origin it was the same; and it is well known that even to the last, during the most sanguinary and licentious tumults in the Temple as well as the city, they never entirely lost sight of a deliverance from Heaven God, they yet thought, would interpose in behalf of his chosen people. In short, the same moral state of the people (for the Rulers for obvious reasons were less forward in the resistance to the Romans), the same temperament and disposition now led them to reject Jesus and demand the release of Barabbas, which, forty years later, provoked the unrelenting vengeance of Titus, and deluged their streets with the blood of their own citizens. Even after the death of Jesus, this spirit might have been allayed, but only by a complete abandonment of all the motives

ness with

which led to his crucifixion-by the general reception of Christianity in all its meekness, humility, and purity-by the tardy substitution of the hope of a moral, for that of temporal dominion. This unhappily was not the case but it must be left to Jewish history to relate how the circumstances of the times, instead of assuaging or subduing, exasperated the people into madness; instead of predisposing to Christianity, confirmed the inveterate Judaism, and led at length to the accomplishment of their anticipated doom.

Altogether, then, it is evident, that it was this brooding hope of sovereignty, at least of political independence, moulded up with religious enthusiasm, and lurking, as it were, in the very heart's core of the people, which rendered it impossible that the pure, the gentle, the humane, the unworldly and comprehensive, doctrines of Jesus should be generally received, or his character appreciated by a nation in that temper of mind; and the nation who could thus incur the guilt of his death, were prepared to precipitate themselves to such a fate, as at length it suffered.

Hence political sagacity might, perhaps, have anticipated the crisis, which could only be averted, by that which was norally impossible, the simultaneous conversion of the whole people to ChrisDistinct tianity. Yet the distinctness, the minuteness, the circumstantial acwhich Je- curacy, with which the prophetic outline of the siege and fall of sus pro- Jerusalem is drawn, bear, perhaps, greater evidence of more than phesied the fall of human foreknowledge, than any other in the sacred volume: and in fact this profound and far-sighted wisdom, this anticipation of the remote political consequences of the reception or rejection of his doctrines, supposing Jesus but an ordinary human being, would be scarcely less extraordinary than prophecy itself.

Jerusalem.

Embar

of the

drin.

Still though determined, at all hazards, to suppress the growing rassinent party of Jesus, the Sanhedrin were greatly embarrassed as to their Sanhe course of proceeding. Jesus invariably passed the night without the walls, and only appeared during the daytime, though with the utmost publicity, in the Temple. His seizure in the Temple, especially during the festival, would almost inevitably lead to tumult, and (since it was yet doubtful on which side the populace would array themselves) tumult as inevitably to the prompt interference of the Roman authority. The Procurator, on the slightest indication of disturbance, without inquiring into the guilt or innocence of either party, might coerce both with equal severity; or, even without further examination, let loose the guard, always mounted in the gallery which connected the fortress of Antonia with the north-western corner of the Temple, to mow down both the conflicting parties in indiscriminate havock. He might thus mingle the blood of all present, as he had done that of the Galileans, with the sacrificial offerings. To discover then where Jesus might

be arrested without commotion or resistance from his followers, so reasonably to be apprehended, the treachery of one of his more immediate disciples was absolutely necessary; yet this was an event, considering the commanding influence possessed by Jesus over his followers, rather to be desired than expected.

and

Judas.

On a sudden, however, appeared within their court one of the Treachery chosen Twelve, with a voluntary offer of assisting them in the apprehension of his Master (1). Much ingenuity has been displayed by some recent writers in attempting to palliate, or rather to account, for this extraordinary conduct of Judas; but the language in which Jesus spake of the crime, appears to confirm the common opinion of its enormity. It has been suggested, either that Judas might expect Jesus to put forth his power, even after his apprehension, to elude or to escape from his enemies, and thus his avarice might calculate on securing the reward without being an accomplice in absolute murder, at once betraying his Master and defrauding his employers. According to others still higher motives may have motives of mingled with his love of gain he may have supposed, that by thus involving Jesus in difficulties otherwise inextricable, he would leave him only the alternative of declaring himself openly and authoritatively to be the Messiah, and so force him to the tardy accomplishment of the ambitious visions of his partisans. It is possible that the traitor may not have contemplated, or may not have permitted himself clearly to contemplate, the ultimate consequences of his crime he may have indulged the vague hope, that if Jesus were really the Messiah, he bore, if we may venture the expression, a charmed life," and was safe in his inherent immortality (a notion in all likelihood inseparable from that of the Deliverer), from the malice of his enemies. If he were not, the crime of his betrayal would not be of very great importance. There were other motives which would concur with the avarice of Judas; the rebuke which he had received when he expostulated about the waste of the ointment, if it had not excited any feeling of exasperation against his Master, at least showed that his character was fully understood by him. He must have felt himself out of his element among the more honest and sincere disciples; nor can he have been actuated by any real or profound veneration for the exquisite perfection of a character so opposite to his own and thus insincere and doubting, he may have shrunk from the approaching crisis, and as he would seize any means of extricating himself from that cause which had now become so full of danger, his covetousness would direct him to those means which would at once secure his own personal safety, and obtain the price, the thirty pieces of silver (2), set by public proclamation, on the head of Jesus.

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(1) Matt. xxvi. 14-16.; Mark, xiv. 10-11.; Luke, xxii. 2-6.

(2) The thirty pieces of silver (shekels) are estimated at 37. 10s. 8d. of our present money. It