ciples, the candour of the Evangelist who narrates it informs us of four gross misapprehensions of his meaning'. Their minds were far from being yet fixed on heavenly things, when they believed in Christ's temporal kingdomwhen they contended amongst themselves for precedency in it-when they remained ignorant of the necessity of his death and passion—or of the intended calling of the Gentiles to the privileges of salvation.

In fact, it was against the disciples, that some of our Lord's strongest rebukes were directed. Besides his reproof of Peter, hereafter to be noticed, he turned and rebuked James and John for want of meekness, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. And again he says, doubtless partly with reference to the unbelief of his disciples which disabled them from casting out an evil spirit from a lunatic, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, how long shall I suffer you?

1 John, xiv. &c.

Thus too he was much displeased with them when they would not suffer the little children to come unto him, and intimated, that of such, rather than of those who forbad them, was the kingdom of heaven peopled".

It seems, indeed, not unreasonable to suppose, that the contradiction of sinners formed a principal ingredient in our Saviour's cup of misery. In proportion as he was spiritual himself, he would feel more acutely the want of a corresponding sentiment in the hearts of his followers. His devotion to his Father's service would render him peculiarly alive to the guilt of those who obstructed by their obstinate unbelief the progress of his kingdom,—his intimate acquaintance with his Father's will must have filled him with sorrow for the ignorance in which the world was lying, and his knowledge that God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, would lead him to view with mingled pity and indignation the hypocritical and formal

2 Luke, ix. 55. Matt. xvii. 17. Mark, x. 13—15.

homage which had been substituted in the place of the inward circumcision of the heart.'

The manner in which he vindicated the sanctity of the temple from the mercenary business by which it had been profaned, especially when contrasted with the general meekness of our Lord's character, shewed how he was grieved when he beheld the transgressors, because they kept not God's word. No warmth which he displayed ever arose from merely personal feelings. Though his righteous soul was vexed day by day with their ungodly deeds, yet he possessed his spirit in patience, and the reproaches addressed to himself were left unregarded and unanswered, or if it were necessary to refute such slanders as would have prejudiced the success of his ministry, it was done in a spirit of gentleness forming the best comment on his own declaration, that he sought not his own glory.' But the case is different, when he is eaten up with the zeal of his Father's house.

3 Ps. cxix. 158.

4 John, viii. 50.

'He made a scourge of small cords, and drove out all them that bought and sold in the temple, and the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changer's money, and overthrew the tables 5.

And if our Lord's nature revolted thus instinctively from whatever had the least tendency to unholiness, how must he have felt the humiliation to which he was subjected, when abandoned in the wilderness to the temptation of the devil. If our Lord was moved with such holy indignation at the sight of the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, if he wept through the bitterness of his sympathy over misguided Jerusalem, how must his soul have been grieved when he heard the eternal enemy of the human race, the author of all their miseries, assaulting his ear with blasphemies, and summoning up with deadly though impotent rage all his artifices, to exert them in one last effort against the incarnate son of God himself. Perhaps too we may conclude from the expression of one of the

5 John, ii. 15-17.

Evangelists, then the devil departed from him for a season'—that these attacks were renewed at a moment when from the view of his approaching sufferings our Lord's human frame would be least enabled to contend with them, and that the assaults of Satan formed the principal part of his moral trial during the agony in the garden. The abhorrence with which our Saviour turned from the evil suggestions of his enemy is strongly marked in the indignant rebuke which he uttered on a subsequent occasion to Peter, when that apostle shewed that he had no proper value for spiritual things. Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men'

There is still another consideration which will contribute to place our Lord's spirituality in a strong light.

The multitudes who formed his occasional audiences were struck with nothing more than • Matt. xvi. 23.