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strain, "He must increase, but we must decrease." The Spirit of God can alone fit us for this blessedness—with Moses, then, let us pray on behalf of others and ourselves, "Would God that all the Lord's people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!"

LECTURE XI.

Building the Cambs of the Prophets.

LUKE xi. 47, 48.

"Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the Prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres."

AND wherefore this woe? Was it not rather commendable than blameworthy, that the Jews showed reverence for the prophets whom their fathers had slain? They seemed hereby but to testify that their fathers had done wrong, that the Prophets were God's messengers, who ought to have been differently received-what could there be to condemn in this? Our fathers killed Ridley, and Hooper, and Latimer, noble men, who were contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. We erect a martyrs' memorial: we build the sepulchres for these slain witnesses for truth and is it necessarily a woe which we hereby incur? God forbid: we reproach indeed our fathers, we publish their guilt, when we rear a stately pile in honour of these martyred men: but if we love and reverence the cause for which the blood was shed, we are doing, we may believe, what is acceptable to God.

But the Jews, whilst honouring the Prophets, and reproaching their fathers, were flattering themselves that they could never have done the like: they said, as we learn from St. Matthew, "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets!" Would they not indeed? were they not at the very moment thirsting for the blood of Christ, and contriving his destruction? Alas for the fatal facility with which those who are quick in discerning the faults of others, can blind themselves to their own! It is amongst the most memorable of the sayings of our Lord, "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" The improving our own character, and therefore the correcting our own faults, should evidently be our chief purpose or object; and the knowledge that we may be keen-sighted as to the errors of others, and, all the while, blind to our own, should produce circumspection and inquisitiveness in respect of ourselves, making us cautious as to the condemning a neighbour, or concluding that we should act differently under similar circumstances.

Here was the fault of the Jews. They were the descendants of men who had persecuted and slain the Prophets of God. But they themselves were ready to do the very same: they were plotting the death of the greatest Prophet, the greatest in all the signs or evidences of a Prophet, that had ever arisen in their land. And, nevertheless, they could see well enough how wrong their fathers had been, and could join in showing honour to the righteous persons whom they had treated so ill: but it does not seem to have struck them, that they were closely treading in

their steps, and were about to imitate, or rather, far surpass, what they so loudly condemned. They reared the gorgeous monument, and ostentatiously adorned the graves of those who had lost their lives in the cause of God and of truth-thus publicly evidencing their sense of the innocence of the martyrs, and of the guiltiness of those who had put them to death. Thus far there might have been sincerity; their fathers had done foully; and though it might not well become children to expose and upbraid the faults of their ancestors, the flagitiousness was so great that much might have been forgiven to a just and righteous indignation. But they went on to compare themselves with their fathers, and to argue from the comparison, that, had it been in their days that the Prophets had arisen, they would never have been treated in so injurious a manner. Alas for their ignorance of themselves! they were plotting to put a Prophet to death, whilst building the tombs of those Prophets whom their fathers had slain.

But is there no lesson here for ourselves? We, on our part, are ready enough to condemn the Jews, wondering at their blindness, and execrating their sin: but may we not, like the Jews, be doing the very thing which we denounce, so that, at one and the same moment, we both copy and condemn? Let us not too hastily conclude that there may be no parallel amongst ourselves to that which we are so ready to wonder at and reprove: human nature is always the same; and if the manifestations of its corruption be somewhat different at different times, you have only to look a little below the surface, and you may find the difference wholly superficial. Come then with us, that we may search and see whether there be nothing in our

own day of execrating in others the very sin which may be charged on ourselves; whether, in short, whilst we are the bitter enemies of Christ and his Apostles, we may not, like the Jews, be flattering ourselves that we could never have taken part in the cruel persecutions of earlier days, and thus giving cause for the reproachful saying, "Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres."

Now, let us first fix attention on the singular fact, that what is admired in the dead, may be execrated in the living. There was no essential difference between the preaching of Christ, which excited the fierce anger of the Jews, and that of the Prophets which had similarly displeased and irritated their fathers. In both cases the preaching was that of the necessity of repentance, and of the certainty of vengeance, if not averted through the forsaking of sin. And the Jews, in the time of our Lord, could profess a high admiration of the preachers who had pressed these truths on their fathers, though, all the while, they were full of indignation against those who laboured to press them on themselves. They reared the stately monument in honour of intrepid men, who had published, in a former age, the very message and doctrine which they were resolved at all hazards to silence in their own. And thus did they honour the memory of the dead for the very thing which made them hate and persecute the living—as though God compelled justice to be done to the righteous, and wrung from their adversaries a testimony in their

favour.

The same takes place in our own day and generation. Call to mind the names of martyrs, and confessors, and

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