Imatges de pàgina
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times a reference to present objects of agriculture or of the spontaneous production of the fields in which he was teaching; at other times it was a figure of speech which merely recalled these scenes to the imagination. And besides this general train of images, not long before this miracle of the fig tree, and in his journey to Jerusalem, Christ had predicted the fate of the holy city and nation under a parable of the fig tree. St. Mark has omitted the parable, but St. Luke records it. These occasional omissions of each Evangelist, which, when supplied from the other, throw so much light on the consecutive method of instruction adopted by our Lord, leave us room to conjecture, that our view of his ministry would be infinitely more clear and easy, if some of the facts which all have omitted could be recovered. But He who controlled the pen of holy record knew best; and whether it be that greater exercise of docility, of faith, and of humility is called forth; or that some object is attained unperceived by ourselves, it is no doubt wisest and best that it should be so. Our duty

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is to make the best use of that light which we have; for then only, to him that hath, will more be given. Even this miracle cannot be considered as the last lesson in the connected series; for it was doubtless by way of following it up further that, after his prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, he adds, "now learn the parable of the fig tree," as if this prophecy illustrated and explained it.

In the narrative of the miracle there is something more that requires notice. The words, "for the time of figs was not yet," cannot be meant to account for Christ's disappointment, as if it were natural, but to indicate why he expected to find fruit on the fig tree. The time of gathering in figs-the fig-harvest-was not yet; and it was reasonable therefore to expect that fruit should be found on a tree, which, from its appearance at a distance, exhibited no signs of barrenness. Abundant in leaves, yet unprovided with fruit against the time of its visitation; it suggested an analogy in this respect between it and the devoted people of which it was a type; and which was truly not only barren of fruit meet for repentance, but abundant in all that outward

shew which promised much, and yet was accompanied by none.

Another circumstance, which may likewise have been intended as a minute point of coincidence in the analogy, is, that the blight of the accursed 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, and was intended to suggest, 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 still another circumstance about this miracle, which deserves to be noticed; it is the

instruction which it gave occasion to, unconnected with its symbolical import. The 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 are 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, Christ intimates to them at once 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 the promise elsewhere expressed by "these miracles, and greater than these shalt thou 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 which formed the legal 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.

CHRIST'S BEHAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE.

Ver. 11. 15-19. 27-33.

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 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,

It should be remarked, that for an offence in this respect, Moses was punished by being forbidden to enter the promised land. See Numbers xx. 7-13.

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