the pharisees and their disciples, who on this ocsion endeavoured to set aside the claims of Jesus, were in the number of the gnostics or zealots described by Josephus. Hence we may see the force and pertinence of the prophecy, which the evangelist has cited above from Isaiah; as it holds forth the very striking contrast which subsisted between our Lord, and those wretches who abused his name and his religion. “He shall not strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the 'streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench,” &c. On the other hand, the zealots filled all Jerusalem with tumult and violence.. "The houses," says the Jewish historian, “were desclated by their rapacious hands; wives and children were seen in black mourning for their slaughtered relations; while groans and lamentations resounded through the whole city: nor was there an individual who did not suffer from the assaults of those impious men." The judgment to be brought on those enemies of the truth by the destruction of the Jewish state; the final triumph and establishment of the gospel by means of that judgment; and its reception by the Gentiles, when thus rejected by the Jews, are points to which the words of the prophet emphatically refer. "A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he shall send forth judgment unto victory; and in his name shall the Gentiles trust." The speech of Stephen, recorded Acts vii. furnishes the last instance which I shall notice of the apostacy of the Jews from the God of Israel. A modern reader will not immediately perceive the drift of this long discourse, as its application is of a symbolical nature. That holy man has selected the leading events in the history of Abraham, of Joseph, and of Moses; and shewn, that they bore such resemblance to those which distinguished our Lord and his followers, that the former were intended by the wisdom of providence, to have a typical reference to the latter. Thus-Did God command Abraham to leave his own country and kindred ? This presignified the fate of Jesus, who left Nazareth, and who, though a prophet, was not honoured in his own family, and in his own country. Acts vii. 25. Was the Jewish patriarch foretold, that his posterity would sojourn in a strange land under bondage and ill-treatment? The prediction, in its ulti. mate reference, was accomplished in the illusage and hardships which the followers of Christ, the true posterity of Abraham, received from their countrymen, 6—8. Was Joseph 3 sold by his brethren, carried into slavery, falsely imprisoned by Pharaoh, and afterwards raised to the government of Egypt? These were events symbolical of the conspiracies, which the Jewish people formed against the prophet, which God should raise among them like unto Moses, and of his subsequent exaltation to the right hand of God. Stephen then adds, "Him (namely Moses) our fathers refused to obey, and rejected, and turned in their hearts back to Egypt, saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. So they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice to the image, and feasted themselves before the work of their own hands. Upon this, God gave them up again to pay religious service to the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, Have ye offered to me, O house of Israel, slain beasts. and sacrifices, these forty years in the wilderness? But ye took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan; images which ye made to worship them. So I will carry you away beyond Babylon." Here it is very clearly implied, that the people, whom Stephen addressed, had at this time, K-K from whatever cause, apostatized from the true God, and become worshippers of other gods: and that the design of the passage might not pass unobserved, our apologist applies it in the following manner. "Ye stiff-necked men, of uncircumcised heart and ears, ye are always opposing the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of those prophets which foretold the coming of that righteous man, whom ye have betrayed and murdered, did not your fathers pursue and slay? Ye who received the law by the ministration of angels, but kept it not." 51-54. Thus it appears from the New Testament, and from Josephus, that the pharisees and sadducees, who rejected the claims of Jesus Christ, rejected also the Creator of the world, and relapsed into atheism or idolatry. Their conduct in this respect was indeed impious in itself, repugnant to their prejudices as Jews, and to the first principles of the law of Moses; nor would they have adopted it, if they had not been forced upon it by the irresistible evidence of the gospel. Being unable to deny the miracles of Jesus, they denied the Great Being, from whom he derived, and to whom he constantly and unequivocally referred his power; and rather than embrace a religion, 5 |