reconciliation with thee, to purge our sins by the sacrifice of himself, to quicken our dead souls, and to set up in us thy kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Give us grace to receive it with all humility and thankfulness, to keep thy great goodness always in remembrance, and be faithful to it in obedience. Let thy well-beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, be the refuge and stay of our souls, and the ground of our confidence towards thee; that whenever our guilty consciences rise up against us, and the sense of our vileness terrifies us, we may be kept from despair, and delivered from all our fears, by a steadfast faith in thy mercy, and by looking to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Prepare us, we beseech thee, to receive him in repentance and faith, and with an earnest desire of his blessings; that knowing the grace and power of his first coming, in the forgiveness of our sins, and the purity of our lives, we may behold him with joy unspeakable, in the glory of his second coming, and be received into thy everlasting kingdom in heaven, through the same Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.

SECTION XLVI.

ST. MATTHEW, xxi. 12.

The Second Day.*

AND Jesus went into the temple of God. So come, Lord, into our souls, to make them pure, and sacred temples of the Holy Ghost, and cast every thing out of

*Mark, xi. 12-19. Luke, xix. 45-48. John, xii. 20—43.

them which is unsuitable to the place of God's residence: 1 Cor. vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16.

Ver. 12. And cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple-The outer court of it, in the open air. Their pretence for keeping a market there, was to accommodate those who came to the feast with beasts for sacrifice, &c. But Christ judged this to be a profanation of the holy place, and would not suffer it to be converted to common use on any account whatsoever.

Ver. 13. My house shall be called the house of prayer.Now lift up your hearts, in a devout wish that this may always be the house of prayer to you, of heavenly thoughts, holy breathings after God, and reverent attention to his word.

But

ye

have made it a den of thieves. Did he know them to be remarkably such? Or is it intimated that injustice, which in God's eyes is robbery, sticks close to buying and selling?

Ver. 14. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.-Our blessed Saviour's zeal for the house of God does not make him inattentive to the wants of the afflicted. We seldom read of the exercise of his power in judgment, but often see it exerted in acts of mercy. Wherever he was, in the temple or in a private house, in a populous city or in a desert, we find him surrounded by miserable objects, whose application for help he never rejected. We may learn from hence the kindness of his compassionate heart, and how ready he is at all times to heal the maladies of our souls. If we are sensible of our spiritual blindness and inability to walk in his ways, we do not look up to him in vain.

Ver. 15. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, &c.—they were sore displeased. Ver. 16. And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say?—

Those who will not cry, " Hosanna to the Son of David," hate and are sore displeased with those that do, and labour all they can to stop their mouths.

And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read?—Yes; a thousand times, without understanding it Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise. Let us beseech God that this may be verified in us; as it will, if we resign ourselves in humility, and an unfeigned sense of our blindness, to the great Teacher. Without him we are all babes, one as well as another, high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned; and he who alone teaches any, can teach all effectually, and make the meanest and most ignorant praise God for their conversion by him.

Ver. 17. And he left them-To their own hardness and impenitence. O Jesus! what are we when thou leavest us? And why are we given up to so sore a judgment, but because we first leave thee?

Ver. 18. Now in the morning, as he returned into the city - In the morning of this same day.

– And when he saw a fig-tree in the way, he came to it, &c. He who could blast the fig-tree with a word speaking, knew, before he came to it, that he should find no fruit on it. The design of his coming to it, was to teach us the dreadful issue of unfruitfulness, the impossibility of our bearing fruit when he withdraws his blessing, and the miraculous power of faith and prayer.

The Third Day. *

Ver. 20. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying―That is, on the morning of the third day, as the times are exactly distinguished by St. Mark, chap. xi. Ver. 21. If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall say

Mark, xi. 20-33. xii. 13. Luke, xx. 21. John, xii. 44—50.

unto this mountain, &c. - Did he say this only to the disciples, concerning outward miracles? No, verily; but we all want such a wonder-working faith for our own healing. When, therefore, thy temptation is strong, and thy sin hard to be overcome, never think of removing this mountain in thy own power, but fly to thy almighty, compassionate Saviour, who can both cleanse from sin, and give strength against it.

Ver. 21. And doubt not.-This is not added in vain. When we have a lively sense of our guilt and weakness, it is hard not to doubt: but call to mind what you know of Jesus, and that he came into the world for this very end, to convince you of his power and will to help you; that in the belief of it you might find rest to your souls, and be delivered from all your fears.

Ver. 22. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.- My friends, this is a very comfortable assurance from Christ's own mouth, and great encouragement to prayer, if we did but know what we want, and what we should ask. See first whether your great want is not want of desire for spiritual blessings; for without it there is neither faith nor prayer.

LECTURE.

THE passages to be considered from the portion of Scripture which has now been read, are Christ's casting the buyers and sellers out of the temple; the displeasure of the Pharisees, when they saw his miracles, and heard the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the "Son of David!" and his speaking to and blasting the barren fig-tree.

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Did Christ cast the buyers and sellers out of the temple, overthrowing the tables of the money-changers, and

the seats of them that sold doves, with a holy indignation against them for carrying on their worldly traffic there? Take notice of this. They had some pretence for doing what they did, viz. to have sheep and oxen ready at hand for those who came to offer sacrifice, and to furnish them with the tribute money which they paid yearly to the temple, in exchange for other things. I say, this was a plausible pretence for what they did: but it was nothing to Christ; he would at no rate suffer the place of God's worship, nor any part belonging to it, not the outer court of the temple, to be profaned by any kind of worldly business. I say, take some notice of this, and let Christ teach you what regard you are to have for the places more immediately set apart for God's worship and service. Let God's house be the house of prayer to you; and when you come there think of nothing but the proper business of it. Go directly into the church, and call to mind what you come there for, whose presence you are in, and what wants you have to be supplied. Leave your worldly thoughts behind you; leave your common talk without the gates; the church, or church porch, is no place for it, and I wish you would be advised in this respect. You would, if you yourselves were the temples of the living God. If you desired that Christ should dwell in you, and cast every thing out of you which is unsuitable to so holy a presence, you would be prepared for the instruction now before you, hear him saying, "My house is the house "of prayer," and reverence it as such, by putting your souls into a proper form and posture for the sacred business of it as often as you come there. And let this be the great use and improvement of what you have been hearing. Say to yourselves, God will dwell in my heart, as his temple, if I desire it, and will receive the Holy Spirit into it to cleanse it for him; and pray for yourselves, that you may be his sons and daughters, his