SERMON XXI.
RESPECT IN THE TEMPLES OF GOD.
"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." — Matthew xxi. 12.
Whence comes this aspect of zeal and of indignation which Jesus Christ, on this occasion, allows his countenance to betray? Is this, then, that King of Peace who was to appear in Zion armed with his meekness alone? We have seen him sitting as judge over an adulteress, and he hath not even condemned her. We have seen at his feet the prostitute of the city, and he hath graciously forgiven her debaucheries and scandals. His disciples wanted the fire of heaven to descend upon an ungrateful and perverse city; but he reproached them with being still unacquainted with that new spirit of mercy and of 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 murderer 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, he hath been called the friend even of publicans and sinners.
What then are the outrages which now triumph over all his clemency, and arm his gracious hands with the rod of justice and of 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 of avarice: this is what calls the lightning into those eyes which would wish to cast only looks of compassion upon sinners. Behold what obliges him to terminate a ministry of love and reconciliation, by a step of severity and of wrath similar to that with which he had opened it. For remark, that what Jesus Christ doth here, in terminating 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. It might be 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 scandals, besides those seen in the temple, doubtless took place in that city, and were perhaps no less worthy of the zeal and the chastisement of the Saviour; but, as if his Father's glory had been less wounded by them, he can conceal them for a
