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applying that of the unjust steward; deducing an inference that "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light;" and exhorting his hearers to make themselves friends of riches by a faithful use of them. And he thus applies the parable of the unjust judge overcome by the importunity of a widow: "And shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him, and will he be long suffering with respect to them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily:" [by bringing the Roman armies upon the Jews their persecutors.]

The subject matter of our Lord's parables, recommending pious resignation in a state of poverty, humility, forgiveness, humanity, fruitfulness in good works, prayer, watchfulness, a prudent and beneficent. use of wealth, a due improvement of religious advantages, and such like worthy actions and dispositions, shews the excellence of our Lord's doctrines and the amiableness of his character: their beauty, decorum, variety, and pertinency, on occasions which did not admit of premeditation, furnish a strong presumption of his more than human wisdom and the completion of the prophecies which they contain directly proves his divine mission. So that on the whole they constitute no mean part of the internal evidence of Christianity.

fLuke xviii. 7, 8.

8 I read καὶ μακροθυμεῖ. See Grot. and Bengelius. The present is put for the future. Et patientiam habebit in illis? Vulg. That is, says Grotius, et in eorum causa lentus erit?

SECTION XI.

THAT OUR LORD SOMETIMES INSTRUCTED BY ACTIONS.

SPEAKING, as it were, to the eye by sensible representations is a very ancient kind of language. Types may be called prophecies by action. Thus the manner of our Lord's death, and the benefits of it to mankind, were presignified by the brazen serpent raised on a pole; the sight of which restored those who had been bitten by serpents.

The Hebrew prophets sometimes borrowed illustrations from casual objects; sometimes they seem to supply the action themselves; and sometimes God expressly commanded them to supply it. To give a single instance of each. "As Samuel turned about to go away from Saul, the king laid hold on the skirt of the prophet's mantle, and rent it. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day." When Joash, king of Israel, visited Elisha in the sickness whereof the prophet died, Elisha said, "« Take arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed." This was to denote that Joash should thrice vanquish the Syrians. In this and similar instances there is no doubt but that the mode of prophecy was suggested by the Spirit, though the divine agency is not recorded. Again: in the beginning of

a Numb. xxi. 8, 9. John iii. 14, 15.

2 Kings xiii. 18.

b 1 Sam. xv. 27, 28.

Jehoiakim's reign God commanded

Jeremiah to

put bonds and yokes on his neck, and send them to certain kings; thus denoting the bondage of Jerusalem, and of some particular kingdoms, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Examples of significant signs occur also in the New Testament. Pilate seems to have adopted a ceremony in the Jewish law, when he took water and washed-his hands before the multitude; intending to declare by this action, as he did in express words, that he was innocent of the blood which he was compelled to shed. When our Lord expired, "the veil of the temple was & rent in twain from the top to the bottom;" to signify that the way into the true holy of holies was made manifest by the death of Christ.

h

I allow this interpretation: but yet I am unwilling to allow "that the darkness which was spread over the land [while our Lord was on the cross] shewed the spiritual blindness of the Jews: and that the earthquakes at the death and resurrection of Christ shewed the great revolutions which should come to pass in the establishment of the gospel, and in the fall of Judaism and Paganism." I infer the reason of rending the veil from the reason of erecting it: but my mind is satisfied with contemplating the other events as wonders designed to excite awe and attention at the periods when they happened.

* Jer. xxvii. 2, 3, &c. See Cler. on Jer. xix. 10.
instances in Sir Isaac Newton on Daniel, p. 148.
Matt. xxvii. 24.
Eec!. Hist. i. 274.

• Matt. xxvii. 51. Heb. ix. 8.
i Heb. vi. 19. ix. 8.

• See more

f Deut. xxi. 6.

h Jortin:

:

But to return. The cloven tongues, like as of fire, which sat on each of the apostles on the day of Pentecost, denoted that they received the wonderful gift of speaking with divers tongues. Peter was instructed in that great mystery, the admission of the Gentiles into the Christian church, by a symbolic vision he saw in a trance a number of 1 unclean beasts, fowls and insects let down from heaven; and was commanded not to call those things common which God had cleansed. At Corinth "Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ: and when they opposed themselves and blasphemed," he shook his raiment, [thus a importing his detachment from them,] and said unto them, your blood be upon your own heads: I am clean." And while this apostle was at Cesarea in his way to Jerusalem, "there came down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus :" who "took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Spirit: so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle." I shall add one instance from the apocalypse. A mighty angel is introduced as taking ▸ up a stone, like a great mill stone, and casting it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."

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And this mode of expressing ideas by visible signs is not uncommon in ancient history. I shall allege

Acts x. 9, &c.

k Acts ii. 3. pret the text according to Neh. v. 13. P Rev. xviii. 21. See Jer. li. 64.

" Or inter.

m Acts xviii. 5, 6.

• Acts xxi. 10, 11.

г

a few proofs from among many. It is well known that Tarquin the Proud advised his son to destroy the chief citizens of Gabii, by taking the Gabinian messenger into his garden, and striking off with his staff the heads of his tallest poppies. And, about a century before this, r Thrasibulus the Milesian conveyed like counsel to Periander, tyrant of Corinth, by breaking off the highest ears of corn. Sendingland and water to the Persians was considered as a formal acknowledgment of their sovereignty. When Trajan was in Egypt, he consulted the oracle at Heliopolis whether he should successfully finish the Parthian war, and return to Rome. He received for answer a vine twig wrapped up in a napkin, and divided into many parts. This was thought to be verified by the carrying of Trajan's bones to Rome: but "Fontenelle rightly observes that the allegorical reply, as he terms it, was so general as to suit the total or partial ill success of either army. It might be proved that this emblematical language is common among almost all nations: but it is particularly adapted to the lively turn and warm feelings of the eastern nations. I proceed to shew how our Lord enjoined or employed it.

He commanded his disciples, when they departed from a house or city where they were rejected on their first mission, which was attested by signal miracles, to shake off the very dust of their feet, as a

Liv. i. 54. 'Herod. iv. 126.

Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. p. 245. ed. Huds. Macrob i c. xxiii. calls it vitis centurialis, or

that with which the centurion chastised soldiers. Juvenal viii. 247.

Hist. des oracles. c. xvi.

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w Matt. x. 14. See Luke

See Bishop Hurd's able and elegant sermons

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