SERMON XVII.

CHRIST THE CHIEF CORNER STONE.

MATT. XXI. 42.

DID YE NEVER READ IN THE SCRIPTURE, THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER: THIS IS THE LORD'S DOING, AND IT IS MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES?

THE useful and laborious life of Jesus was now drawing fast to a close. These words were spoken on the Tuesday before his death. On the Monday night, he had gone out of Jerusalem, partly, it would seem, to avoid the malice of his enemies and partly to escape from the common people, who heard him gladly and were for making him a king. He had retired to some quiet spot with his disciples, and while they very likely were asleep, poured out his soul in prayer to his heavenly Father.

In the morning Jesus goes with his disciples towards the city. And on their road they see, afar off, a dry and withered fig-tree. It was the tree which Jesus had cursed the morning before. And Peter, calling this to

remembrance, saith, Master, the fig-tree that thou cursedst is withered away!

We may think there was a mixture of awe and surprise in these words.

There stood the tree, which but four-andtwenty hours ago was green and flourishing, now sapless-perished-dried up from the roots! Its withered branches seemed to foretell, in no obscure language, the fast-coming end of the bloody city. That mighty city teeming with people was like the fig-tree when vigorous and full of leaves. A little time, and that proud city shall be laid in the ground, and her children within her! In a few years men shall look upon the wreck of Jerusalem: the dead body (so to speak) of this mass of life and worldly-mindedness: of pride, and sloth, and luxury!

6

Ah, brethren, this tree speaks more terrible things than these! It points to the barren professor of Christianity: to the hollow formalist, and says, I was once like you: I was 6 green and gay, and full of life: but see me now! blasted! lost, without the least hope of recovery: dead under the curse of the 'Lord of Life.'

Hear it, ye worldlings; hear it, ye fruitless professors of religion! Hear it, ye that have a name to live while ye are dead!

To what purpose were the leaves of the fig-tree if, when Jesus came to seek fruit thereon, he found none? To what purpose are your water-baptism, your church-going,

your formal round of private prayer, if your hearts are unsanctified: your affections fixed on the earth? The whole of your life and conversation plainly shews that you love the world with all your heart, with all your might, with all your soul, and with all your strength. You are like this accursed tree; your morality, your decent living, your church forms, are the leaves upon it. But where are your fruits of faith? Is not Jesus coming daily to you, and finding none? What must be the end of all this? In a short time, perhaps in a few months, the sentence may go forth which will stamp you with eternal barrenness. And they that knew you; perhaps your friends: your family, may say, How soon he hath withered away!

Oh, that you would hear the words which Jesus spoke, when the disciples said this, Have faith in God. Repent and believe. Turn from your evil ways. Pray that the Lord, who is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins, would give them to you. Seek of him those desires, that mind and disposition without which you cannot be saved. Then you shall not be left, like the barren fig-tree, under the curse of the Blessed One; but you shall, like the disciples, walk with Jesus here and reign with him hereafter.

They pass on now, and come to the temple: that glorious building: the place which the

Lord had chosen to put his name there. That house which he had said should be called a house of prayer: but they, alas! had made it a den of thieves. There it was that all the sacrifices under the law were to be offered up with a deep sense of sin and in the spirit of faith. But all was pride, ignorance, superstition, and formality. The forms, the ceremonies indeed, were still kept up: but where was the life, the soul, the spirituality of their services?

Jesus knew what was in man, and saw that their sacrifices were offered with unhumbled hearts, and that when they made many prayers they only drew nigh unto God with their lips. He could compare the confessions of their mouths with the insincerity of their hearts. He could follow, (with his all-seeing eye,) the outwardly devout worshipper to the places of his sinful pleasure, to the companions of his ungodly pursuits. Nay, he could trace up every unsanctified temper, every base lust to its lurking place in the heart, and see pride, malice, envy, and all uncleanness working within, even where to human eyes every thing seemed religious and demure. And therefore it was he rebuked them so severely; Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees: hypocrites: for ye make clean the outside of the cup and the platter: but within ye are full of extortion and excess, and of all uncleanness. Thou blind pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the

platter, that the outside of them may be clean. also.

Our Lord was generally very meek and gentle. Yet he always seems to have been roused to great severity of rebuke, whenever the case of false worshippers came under his notice. Čertainly, it is easy to see, from the grief and anger he often shewed on these occasions, that such sort of persons were very offensive to him.

Now the temple of Jerusalem was full of these worldly-minded formalists, who were ever putting the forms of religion in the place of religion itself. Happy would it be for us all, my brethren, if we had reason to think, from what we see in our own day, that the temple of Jerusalem was the only house of prayer which contained such characters. But alas! we may justly fear that there are many pharisees in our own times.

These persons, (if we may judge from the likeness of their character,) had they been among the Jews when Jesus preached and taught the people in the temple, would have done as the Jews did-they would have cavilled at him, and railed against his doctrine. They asked him his authority. In vain was his love shewn in hearing the cry of the miserable, and his power in helping them. In vain did he appeal to them and say, Though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. The