does not disdain to indulge the innocent enjoyments and temperate recreations of humanity. We have here inculcated nothing of puritanical sourness, nothing of the rigorous austerities of Stoicism. It enjoins no fastings, no painful mortifications of the flesh. It's spirit is in unison with the unadulterated affections of our constitution, The author of nature and the giver of grace is one and the same, God unchangeable and everlasting. REMAKK XL. THE expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple is such an extraordinary transaction in itself, and so very different from the customary conduct of our Saviour, that an impostor of any penetration and address (and surely prejudice itself will not deny a forger of the gospels some portion of these qualities) would have thought it madness to leave such an account, unaccompanied by any allegations to vindicate the behaviour of Jesus, and any reasons for the implicit deference of the traders to his authority. No; we have undoubtedly the authentic narrative of a historian, conscious that he was employed upon the truth, and no farther solicitous than to record it; confiding fiding in the general tenour of the history at large for consistency and corroboration. A consciousness in the traders of the indecency and profanation of their proceedings, in prostituting the courts of the Lord's house to the accommodation of their worldly purposes in so degrading a manner, would not, I think, in itself account for this ready acquiescence in our Lord's conduct. And yet daily experience is sufficient to certify the advantage, which this principle of nature can give the weak over the strong. But, if we connect with this an idea of his miraculous power, (without which indeed the cooperating cause, that is, the great multitude of applauding spectators, who accompanied him, cannot easily be accounted for) all difficulties will be removed; a beautiful coherence is discovered, and the attestation of a singular event, will accede to the divine legation, as well as the prophetic character *, of our Saviour. The whole transaction appears to me most mysterious and perfectly unaccountable in any other view; but plain, and reasonable, and consistent, and satisfactory in this. * See BISHOP HURD's most excellent Discourse on this subject in his Sermons, Now Now the unanimity of all the Evangelists in recording this piece of history is a sufficient proof of their opinion of it's importance; and this constitutes a presumption of the justness of the preceding ideas respecting it, which certainly give it this importance. I discover another mark of simplicity and truth, another presumption against all collusive management, in the different relations, which the Evangelists have left of this transaction; and of such force, as, I flatter myself, cannot be resisted. When our Saviour declares in the narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it A DEN OF THIEVES; an allusion is not intended to a nest of robbers indiscriminately, of any description, but is particular and precise. A comparison is not instituted between the traders and a band of robbers; but between a den of robbers and the Court of the Temple. By a den is here meant the savity of a rock, a subterraneous habitation, or some such place, where robbers were accustomed to secrete the CATTLE, which they had stolen. I cannot better illustrate my meaning and the pertinency of the appellation, than by producing a passage from Virgil, immediately to the purpose, * Matt. xxi. 13. Mark xi. 17. Luke xix. 46. in which the cove and regine of Cacus is described. * Rods came, and here his spacious herds Now I mamiin rate phrase a den of thieves Rohit, immage as it is related by these 20 ANS use there is nothing in the do an explanation of it. ecure to St. John's relation for an es geint; which is this: meux vitor agebat ves amnemque tenebant. a prestanti corpore tauros 2 sea of a in of thieves, if I mistake a man of true simplicity of mind, nent and exquisite learning. He He drove them all out of the temple, and the SHEEP and the OXEN*. it's : . Here is the key to this den of thieves, dropped indeed very incidentally, as it should seem, and without design for it is extremely observable, that our Saviour's charge in this Evangelist is not-Make not my father's house A DEN OF THIEVES-but-Make not my father's house A HOUSE OF MERCHANDIZE. -So then those historians, who employ the peculiar expression under contemplation, leave it wholly unintelligible in proper acceptation; and that historian, on the other hand, who had actually given the explanation, does not use the phrase. Now I defy any man to imagine a more decisive and unequivocal proof of persons, writing from the simplicity of their hearts, unaccompanied by the slightest symptom of artificial contrivance and collusion,— without the least appearance of any solicitude beyond a plain narration of the truth,-than what a comparison of our Evangelists exhibits in this instance. The conclusion is obvious: and the evidence is almost irresistible t. The reader will discover the propriety of the same inference in favour of the freedom of the * C. ii. v. 15. + Sine dubio in omni re vincit imitationem veritas : Cicero de orat. iii. 57. |