of those who rejected it was natural. Many had refused to hear both John and his great Successor. "Then began he to upbraid," to reprove and condemn, "the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done because they repented not." He had not denounced them before. He began his sermon on the Mount by using the language of blessing and encouragement. After faithfully exhibiting the truth and unfolding the way of salvation, when he found that many continued impenitent, shut their eyes upon the light and refused to receive his messages of grace, he exposed their guilt and pronounced upon them, though in tones of compassion, the wrath of God. "Wo unto thee, Chorazin! Wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." I know not how their obstinacy and aggravated sin could have been more forcibly expressed.

No reference is had in these tremendous woes to breaches of the moral law, to immoralities, to overt acts of transgression, to violations of the Sabbath, to fraud or violence. The sin laid to their charge was impenitence. They repented not at the preaching of Christ. To make the matter real, let us accompany the Son of God in his tour of benevolence through the cities of Galilee. Taking his sermon on the Mount as a specimen of his preaching, we may see him seated on some declivity, expounding the law of God; exposing the numerous errors incorporated in the traditions of the Elders; teaching its spirituality and extent; showing that it reaches to the motives and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. He gives the true meaning and scope. He uses right words, he aims at no rhetorical effect. His Heavenly countenance cannot fail to attract notice and win the heart. His calm dignity and deep seriousness give weight to his instructions, while his simplicity and affection would seem to disarm prejudice. He is intent upon his great errand; he goes from village to village, receiving all who come to him. He appeals to every motive. He shows himself a friend to their temporal interests. He sympathizes in all their afflictions, he heals the sick, relieves the distressed, restores the lunatic and raises the dead.. He visits the poor and offers them salvation. He preaches to all. He exhibits the character of God in all its loveliness and glory; he unfolds. his purposes of mercy, explains the way of life, and by teaching the relations we sustain, points out the duties binding upon us. His life is an exemplification of his doctrines. He is holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. He goes about doing good. A nobleman comes to him in behalf of his son who is dangerously ill-he heals him by a word without even going to his house. A poor widow has an only son, her stay and support, he dies and is carried out of the city for burial; he has compassion on her and raises him to life. These mighty acts give a tone of authority to his words, a degree of interest to his ministry, which no other messenger from God possessed. Never man spake like this man. Multitudes crowd to hear him preach. Adopting the most familiar manner, he invites all to approach him, and if they are in doubt on any point, if any obscurity rests on any subject, he encourages the

fullest inquiry; his dignity is not injured if they arrest his discourse by questions. How can they enjoy greater advantages or be more highly favored? They are exalted to heaven in point of privilege. What is the result of this system of means? What is the effect of these sermons and sabbaths and miracles and labors? With what success is such a ministry crowned? Will not all obey his precepts and become his disciples? Alas! in the language of the prophet which had reference to his preaching, he is left to exclaim with sorrow on their account, "who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” They repented not. The formalists among them still relied upon their duties, trusted in their own works, and rejected the righteousness of Christ. Merchants and men of business returned to their various pursuits, intent upon gain, deferring serious attention to spiritual matters to a more convenient season. Eternal things did not take deep hold of the heart. Present care and worldly occupations were the substance, the concerns of the soul the shadow. Nothing the great Preacher could say produced alarm, or aroused the conscience. They cared for none of these things. Here and there one of the lower classes turned to the Lord. Often was his benevolent heart affected as he looked around upon the multitudes who in their blindness and unbelief despised their own mercies. He was the only Saviour, he preached the only way of salvation, there was no other name given among men in which they could approach God and live. He knew they must perish if they continued to reject his grace. Again and again therefore did he press them to repent and believe the Gospel. He mingled his tears with his entreaties. The miracles he wrought to remove their doubts and establish his claims were acts of mercy performed towards their friends, but still they would none of his counsels and despised his reproofs. What a contrast would have been presented, if he had gone into the populous cities of Tyre and Sidon! Though the inhabitants were idolators, though ignorant of the true God and given up to luxury and licentiousness, sins which prevail in marts of trade and cities of commerce, still, awed by his miracles, won by his kindness, enlightened by his instructions, they would have humbled themselves in the dust for their sins and turned from their idols to the loving God. It would require but little stretch of the imagination to follow him into the crowded streets and market-places-while thousands gathered around him to witness his mighty works; the whole city would be moved by the appearance and power of the heavenly stranger; the infirm and the aged, the halt and the blind would apply to him for healing-filled with gratitude they would speak in his praise and spread his fame on the wings of the wind. Kings and nobles, rich and poor, young men and maidens would flock to hear his gracious words; public proclamation would be made that all should repent and become his followers. Said Jesus, "if the mighty works which were done in the cities of Galilee had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." The voice of lamentation would have been heard in their streets. Our Saviour, from the language he used, evidently had reference to the repentance of Nineveh

under the preaching of Jonah. On another occasion he referred to the preaching and success of the prophet, with a view to show his hearers the hardness of their hearts and the aggravated punishment they would receive for rejecting his truth. "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here." We might infer, from the astonishing movement of the city when the prophet entered in and delivered his awful message, what would have been the effect of the miracles and preaching of the Son of God. "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. "Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey." Great cities are filled with wickedness, and therefore there is less hope of them. "And Jonah," alone and unfriended, "began to enter into the city a day's journey; and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word can e unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robes from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh (by the decree of the king and his nobles), saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."

Who will say that a more powerful influence attended the preaching of Jonah in Nineveh than would have accompanied the mighty works of Christ in Tyre and Sidon? The novelty of the scene, the splendor of the miracles, the authority of the teaching, the character of the preacher, would have aroused and humbled the cities of Phoenicia.

Some have attempted to obscure the meaning and weaken the force of the text by starting difficulties, as, what sort of repentance did our Saviour mean when he said the cities of Tyre and Sidon would have repented? Did he mean external reformation, or inward, sincere and true repentance, and how did the power here ascribed to miracles, agree with what was said in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, that if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither would they believe though one rose from the dead? Are miracles sufficient to produce repentance without the special influences of God's spirit? It is a sufficient answer to these and similar speculative questions, that our Saviour used popular language; he intended, in upbraiding these cities for their unbelief, to set their sins in a strong light. They were a stiff-necked people, en→

trenched in self-righteousness. He therefore compared their conduct with that of the greatest sinners then living, the wicked inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom. He meant to say that they had steeled their hearts to a greater degree of hardness, and placed themselves farther from the kingdom of heaven, than the heathen who dwelt in those cities. I. Let us look at the case of those impenitent hearers denounced in the text. The charge is, they repented not. The means employed to bring them to repentance were the preaching and miracles of Christ.

It will not be denied that impenitence is a sin; they who have done wrong ought to be sorry for it; they who have broken the law of God ought to confess and forsake their sin. But in this case the sin was aggravated by the privileges enjoyed. The Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, but they remained unaffected at the mighty works of a greater than Jonah. They were Jews; to them pertained the giving of the law and the covenants; they had enjoyed a standing revelation; the will of God had been revealed to them; they had been blessed with the ministry of the prophets; they were born and nurtured in the bosom of the Church; they had line upon line, precept upon precept-so clear was the evidence of the divine origin of their religion, so full were their privileges, that it was inquired what more could have been done for them? The preaching of Christ was level to their understandings he sought out acceptable words-he was deeply in earnest, he persevered after they refused to hear. His instructions were not only the best adapted to enlighten, convince and save his hearers, but his mighty works were well suited to give interest and weight to his messages of truth. There could be no more proper way of confirming his testimony, whether we consider the persons he addressed or the doctrines he taught. The Jews were incapable of conviction by another way than by miracle; no other reason would have been apprehended by them, or would have any force upon them. "The Jews," says Paul, "require a sign ;" and said our Saviour to them, "except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." And what more proper to establish the great doctrines of the Gospel than the miracles of mercy wrought by the Son of God? To take away all excuse, to overcome their inveterate prejudices, he acted, in all his intercourse with them, with the highest wisdom, his works were done in open day, they were oft-repeated, they were numerous, and bore the stamp of benevolence. Jesus appealed to his good works; after the exercise of ingenuity in trying to evade the evidence, they were constrained to acknowledge the mighty power of God. I see not how more could have been said or done to produce conviction without destroying their free agency. They were left wholly without excuse. "If I had not done among them the works which none other man had done, they had not had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." A miracle is an interposition of divine power either in suspending or counteracting the laws of nature. It is the highest evidence in favor of a commission from God. It is wrought to establish some great truth. Though strongly tempted and fully disposed, they could not deny that notable miracles had been performed by

Jesus Christ. They showed their opposition by ascribing them to Beelzebub. The mission of Moses had been confirmed by miracles; the divine authority of that mission they acknowledged; on what reasonable ground could they reject the claims of Christ, who furnished evidence of the same kind, and much more full and conclusive? The ruler of the Jews evinced his candor and good sense when he said to Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." The same sentiment was expressed with great vigor by the man whose eyes Christ had opened. While the Pharisees were disposed to set aside the evidence of such a mighty act, he said, "since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing." The Apostle Peter, in attempting to fasten conviction upon the consciences of his hearers, who had rejected and crucified the Son of Man, appealed to his miracles as the strongest evidence of his Messiahship. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did, by him, in the midst of you as ye yourselves also know, Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." The same argument was used with effect in his sermon at Cesarea. "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ; (he is Lord of all ;) That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him." And yet this word, proclaiming peace and published by Him who was thus anointed with power, the hearers of Jesus rejected. Such was the aggravation of their sin! The wisdom of his words, the greatness, publicity and number of his miracles failed to lead them to repentance.

What were the elements of those feelings which led to such treatment of the Son of God? The history of his ministry will enable us to answer this question.

1. Self-righteousness was one cause of their impenitence. When Christ came in the flesh, he found the Jewish people astonishingly ignorant of the law. Its spirituality was covered up under a mass of traditions. Even the teachers seemed not to understand its scope. The circle of religion was so circumscribed that a few vain ceremonies and heartless duties constituted the whole. The confidence of the Scribes and Pharisees in their good estate was in proportion to their destitution of the spirit of grace. A tradition prevailed to this amount, "that if but two men ever enter heaven, one will be a Scribe and the other a Pharisee." Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He taught the spirituality, extent and sanctions of the law; he uncovered the obligations resting upon all men to love God with all their heart and their neighbors as themselves; he exposed the radical defects of mere mo