price of eternity, the path to heaven, the rule of our duties, and the reparation of our crimes; let us carry with it a spirit of modesty which makes us unassuming, a feeling of compunction which humbles us, a gentleness which draws us to our brethren, a charity which makes us bear with them, an indulgence which attracts their regard, a spirit of peace which ties us to them; and, lastly, an union of hearts, of desires, of affections, of good and evil on the earth, which shall be the forerunner and hope of that eternal union which charity is to consummate in heaven.

SERMON XXI.

ON THE RESPECT DUE TO THE TEM. PLES OF GOD.

MATTHEW Xxi. 12.

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves.

WHY, my brethren, did our Saviour on this occasion allow the marks of zeal and indignation to be visible in his countenance? Is this that King of Peace who was to appear in Sion armed with his meekness alone? We have seen him sitting in judgment over an adulteress, and he hath not condemned even her. We have seen the prostitute at his feet, and he hath graciously forgiven her debaucheries and scandals. His disciples wished him to make the fire of heaven descend upon an ungrateful and perverse city; but he

reproached them with being still unacquainted with that new spirit of mercy and charity which he came to spread throughout the earth. He hath just been lamenting with tears the miseries which threaten Jerusalem, that criminal city, the scene of the murder of the prophets, which is on the eve of sealing the sentence of her reprobation by the iniquitous death she is so soon to inflict on him whom God had sent to be her Redeemer. On every occasion he hath appeared feeling and merciful; and, in consequence of the excess of his meekness, be hath been called the friend even of publicans and sinners.

What then is the nature of these outrages which now triumph over his clemency, and arm his gracious hands with the rod of justice and wrath? The holy temple is profaned; his Father's house is dishonoured; the place of prayer, and the sacred asylum of the penitent, is turned into a house of traffic and avarice: and hence it is that the lightning of indignation appears now in those eyes which have heretofore beamed only with compassion upon sinners. Hence it is that he is compelled to terminate a ministry of love and reconciliation, by an act of severity and wrath similar to that with which he had opened it. For I beg you to remark, that what Jesus Christ doth here, in the termination of his career, he had already done, when, after thirty-three years of a private life, he entered for the first time into Jerusalem, there to open his mission, and to do the work of his Father. Otherwise it might have been said that he had himself forgotten that spirit of meekness and of long-suffering which was to distinguish his ministry

from that of the ancient covenant, and under which he was announced by the prophets.

Many other sources of scandal, besides those seen in the temple, doubtless took place in that city, and were perhaps no less worthy of the zeal and chastisement of the Saviour; but, as if his Father's glory had been less wounded by them, he can conceal them for a time, and delay their punishment. He bursts not forth at once against the hypocrisy of the pharisees, and the corruption of the scribes and priests; but the chastisement of the profaners of the temple can admit of no delay; his zeal on this occasion admits of no bounds; and scarcely is he entered into Jerusalem when he flies to the holy place, to avenge the insulted honour of his Father, and the tarnished glory of his temple.

Of all crimes, indeed, by which the greatness of God is insulted, I see few more deserving of his chastisement than the profanation of his temples: and this impiety is so much the more criminal, as the feelings required of us by religion, when assisting there, ought to be more holy.

For, my brethren, since our temples are a new heaven, where God dwelleth with men, they require of us the same disposition of mind as those of the blessed in the heavenly temple; that is to say, that the earthly altar, being the same as that of heaven, and the Lamb, who offers himself and is sacrificed there, being the same, the feelings of those around him ought to be alike. Now, the first state of the blessed before the throne of God and the altar of the Lamb, is a sentiment of purity and innocence. The second, a feeling of religion and internal humiliation. Thirdly, and lastly,

a state even of decency and of modesty in dress. These dispositions comprise all the feelings of faith with which we ought to enter the temples of God; a sentiment of purity and innocence; a sentiment of adoration and internal humiliation; a state of external decency and modesty in dress.

PART I. The whole universe is a temple, which God filleth with his glory, and with his presence. Wherever we go, says the apostle, he is always near us; in bim we live, move, and have our being. If we mount up to the heavens, he is there; if we plunge to the center, there shall we find him; if we traverse the ocean and mount on the wings of the winds, it is his hand that guides us; and he is alike the God of the distant isles which know him not, as of the kingdoms and regions which invoke his name.

Nevertheless, in all ages, men have consecrated places to him which he hath honoured with a special presence. The patriarchs erected altars to him on certain spots where he had appeared. The Israelites, in the desert, considered the tabernacle as the place in which his glory and his presence continually resided; and, when afterwards, they arrived at Jerusalem, they invoked him with the solemnity of incense and of victims, only in that august temple erected to him by Solomon. It was the first temple consecrated by men to the true God. It was the most boly place in the universe; the only one where it was permitted to offer up gifts and sacrifices to the Lord. From all quarters of the earth the Israelites were obliged to come there to worship him; while captives in foreign kingdoms, their VOL. II. 18