66 Another circumstance, which may likewise have been intended as a minute point of coincidence in the analogy, is, that the blight of the condemned fig tree was not a partial, not a temporary one, but utter irrecoverable decay. 'They saw the fig tree withered from the roots." It was Jerusalem's final doom; and the image exhibits, to us at least, a mournful and solemn coincidence with the rejected Saviour's lamentation over the holy city, the approaching destruction of which he had pronounced only two days before. To us, indeed, it suggests a picture even more awful and awakening-the last state of God's unrepentant Church, in every age, and under all His dispensations. He hath appointed a day; and that plant of His which shall have put forth no fruit by that day, will be "withered from the roots." The dews of heaven will fall, but not to revive that plant; there will be a worm within it that dieth not; and it will be cut down and cast into a fire that is not quenched. There is yet another circumstance about this miracle, which deserves to be noticed; it is the instruction for which it gave occasion, unconnected with its emblematic purpose. Our Lord's behaviour, on the failure of his disciples to cast out the devils, and his permission to a stranger to effect what they could not, was noticed in its proper place. Here we come to a renewal of the lesson then given to them. On the apostles expressing surprise at the effect of the curse pronounced on the fig tree, he intimates to them both the extent of miraculous power with which they were to be invested, and the limitations and conditions of its exercise-limitations and conditions which were perpetually to distinguish their authority from his. His language contains, not only a promise similar to that subsequently given, of their being enabled, if they had faith, to do greater works than even those which they had seen him do;* but the caution also before given, that their miracles could not be wrought like his, by their own independent authority, but by prayer and the other forms to which he had attached his promise of success, and in which consisted their due acknowledgment of the tenure by which they held their authority. He accordingly tells them and this most solemnly-that if they bade the mountain remove and be cast into the sea, it should obey; but cautions them against the probable grounds of failure to which as dependent agents they were subject. They were to pray that their command may be effectual, and to trust that it would be so. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.- -And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; and would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the *John xiv. 12. temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine. And when even was come, he went out of the city.- -And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, and say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things. : In literal accordance with our Lord's avowal, that he taught daily in the Temple, we find him there the three first days of his final visit to Jerusalem. On the first, he merely makes his appearance; on the second, he exercises an authority which implied his having come, as the prophet expresses it, into his Temple;* on the third, the Jewish rulers demand of him the grounds of so unheard of an assumption of authority. To explain why the Temple should have become the resort of money changers, and persons who sold doves, it must be observed, that all who came up to the *Malachi iii. 1. great festivals, contributed a small sum to the treasury of the Temple. Now as many of these came from foreign countries, in which they sojourned from Alexandria and Asia Minor, for instance-it was found a convenience, and worth the while of merchants, to provide the current coin of Judæa, which alone was received for the treasury, and to exchange it, at some little discount, with those who had only the foreign coin. The offering of doves is alluded to in the account of Jesus's circumcision,* and was a custom which sufficiently explains why the traffic in doves also should have been carried on even within the courts of the Temple. As both the money and the doves were designed for sacred purposes, the traffic was, on this account, thought to be no violation of the sanctity of the house of God. That Jesus should take on himself to pronounce authoritatively that it was, and to expel these merchants, was naturally regarded, by the chief priests, as an assumption of authority which could only be warranted by an extraordinary divine commission. Had they come to him with minds disposed candidly to examine whether this were so, they would, most assuredly, have met with such an answer as might have satisfied and converted them. They came, however, in a very different temper, and they received therefore a different reply. This custom of framing his reply according to the * Luke ii. 24. temper and design of the questioner, is a feature in our Lord's discourses which deserves to be noticed; because it has given rise to an objection, that his answers to the Pharisees were not always what we might expect from the author and promulgator of the truth. To those, then, who came to him with a desire to learn, his words always conveyed some hint, at least, which would enable them to satisfy themselves; a hint, doubtless, proportioned, in its clearness, to the candour and faith which it rewarded; a hint not always, indeed, profited by, but still always given, agreeably to the promises. To him that hath shall be given.' 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' To those, on the other hand, who came to him without any disposition to learn, his replies were not, it would seem, designed to instruct; nor has the Christian reader of the account which contains these replies, any ground therefore to apply them as if addressed to himself. They were merely designed to silence, to confound, and to rebuke; and were often accordingly what logicians call arguments ad hominem. On this principle should be interpreted his answer to the Jews recorded in the tenth chapter of St. John,* and others, besides this now under consideration, in which apparently no instruction was intended. On other occasions-as, for instance, in the account given at the beginning of the preceding chapter, and that in the chapter next to this-although the persons who *Ver. 34. |