separated the holy place from the exterior of the temple, which Josephus calls" a Babylonian hanging," embroidered curiously with gold, purple, scarlet, and fine flax.* There was also a veil over the door which separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. The expression in the text the veil, described in Exod. xxvi. 31, and denoted the veil by way of excellence, makes it presumable that the second is here meant. 3. The evangelist relates that "the graves were opened; and many bodies of saints which slept, arose, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." This has induced interpreters to institute an inquiry, who those dead persons were? It is pretended by some that they were the ancient prophets; others, with a greater air of probability, maintain that they were persons lately deceased, and well known to those to whom they appeared. But how is it possible to form a fixed opinion, when we are left so entirely in the dark? 4. Our last remark relates to the interpretation affirmed to the Syriac words which Jesus Christ pronounced; “Éli, Eli, lama sabachthani," and which St. Mark gives in the Chaldaic form. The evangelist tells us, that some of those who heard Jesus Christ thus express himself, said that "he called for Elias." The persons who entertained this idea, could not be the Roman soldiers, who assisted at the execution. By what means should they have known any thing of Elias? They were not the Jews who inhabited Jerusalem and Judea; how could they have been acquainted with their native language? They must have been, on the one hand, Jews instructed in the traditions of their nation, and who, on the other, did not understand the language spoken at Jerusalem. Now this description applies exactly to those of the Jews who were denominated Hellenists, that is to say, Greeks: they were of Jewish extraction, and had scattered themselves over the different regions of Greece. But whence, it will be said, did they derive the strange idea, that Jesus Christ called for Elias? I answer, that it was not only from the resemblance in sound between the words Eli and Elias, but from another tradition of the Jews. It was founded on those words of the prophet Malachi: "behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers," chap. iv. 6; an oracle which presents no difficulty to the Christian, whom Jesus Christ has instructed to consider it as accomplished in the person of John Baptist. But the Jews understood it in the literal sense: they believed that Elias was still upon mount Carmel, and was one day to reappear. The coming of this prophet is still, next to the appearance of the Messiah, the object of their fondest hope. It is Elias, as they will have it, who "shall turn the heart of the fathers unto the children: and the heart of the children unto their fathers." It is Elias, who shall prepare the way of the Messiah, who shall be his forerunner, and who shall anoint him with the holy oil. It is Elias, who Exod. xxvi. 36. Joseph. Wars of the Jews, Book vi. chap. 14. See Kimchi and Aben Ezra on Mal. iv. 5. shall answer all their inquiries, and resolve all their difficulties. It is Elias, who by his prayers, shall obtain the resurrection of the just. It is Elias, who shall do for the Jews of the dispersion, what Moses did for the Israelites enslaved in Egypt: he shall march at their head, and conduct them into Canaan. These are all expressions of the Rabbins, whose names I suppress, as also the lists of the works from which we extract the passages just now quoted. Here we conclude our proposed commentary on the words, and now proceed: II. To direct your attention to the great object exhibited in the text, Jesus Christ expiring We shall derive from the words on the cross. read, six ideas of the death of Jesus Christ. 1. The death of Christ is an expiatory sacrifice, in which the victim was charged with the sins of a whole world. 2. It is the body of all the shadows, the truth of all the types, the accomplishment of all the predictions of the ancient dispensation, respecting the Messiah. 3. It is, on the part of the Jewish nation, a crime, which the blackest colours are incapable of depicting, which has kindled the wrath of Heaven, and armed universal nature against them. 4. It presents a system of morality in which every virtue is retraced; and every motive that can animate us to the practice of it, is displayed. 5. It presents a mystery which reason cannot unfold, but whose truth and importance all the difficulties which reason may urge are unable to impair. 6. Finally, it is the triumph of the Redeemer over the tomb. "Eli, 1. The death of Jesus Christ is an expiatory sacrifice, offered up to divine justice. Eli, lama sabachthani: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This is the only proof which we shall at present produce in support It is, unof the doctrine of the atonement. doubtedly, difficult, to determine with precision, what were, at that moment, the dispositions of the Saviour of the world. In general, we must carefully separate from them every idea of distrust, of murmuring, of despair. We must carefully separate every thing injurious to the immaculate purity from which Jesus Christ never deviated, and to that complete submission, which he constantly expressed, to We have the will of his heavenly Father. here a victim, not dragged reluctantly to the altar, but voluntarily advancing to it; and the same love which carried him thither, supported him during the whole sacrifice. These complainings, therefore, of Jesus Christ, afford us convincing reasons to conclude, that his death was of a nature altogether extraordinary. Of this you will become perfectly sensible, if you attend to the two following reflections; (1.) That no one ever appeared so deeply overwhelmed, at the thought of death, as Jesus Christ: (2.) That no person ought to have met death with so much constancy as he, if he underwent a mere ordinary death. (1.) No one ever appeared so deeply overwhelmed, at the thought of death, as Jesus Christ. Recollect in what strong terms the sacred authors represent the awful conflict which he endured in the garden of Gethsemane. They tell us of his mortal sorrow: "my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death,' Matt. xxvi. 38. They speak of his agony: "being in an agony," says St. Luke, xxii. 44. | the stores of knowledge from the bosom of the They speak of his fears: he was heard in that Father, and who had "brought life and imhe feared: they speak of his cries and tears: mortality to light," 2 Tim. i. 20. "he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears," Heb. v. 7. They speak of the prodigious effect which the fear of death produced upon his body: "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." They even spake of the desire which he felt to draw back: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," Matt. xxvi. 39. And in our text, they represent him as reduced to the lowest ebb of resolution: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Is it possible to be more depressed at the thoughts of death? (2.) But we said, secondly, That no person ought to have met death with so much constancy as Jesus Christ, if he underwent a mere ordinary death. For, 1. Jesus Christ died with perfect submission to the will of his heavenly Father, and with the most fervent love towards the human race. Now, when a man serves a master whom he honours, when he suffers for the sake of persons whom he loves, he suffers with patience and composure. 2. Jesus Christ died with the most complete assurance of the justice of his cause, and of the innocence of his life. When, at the hour of death, conscience is roused as an armed man; when the recollection of a thousand crimes awakes, when a life of unrepented guilt stares the dying sinner in the face, the most obdurate heart is then stretched on the rack. But when, at a dying hour, the eye can look back to a life of innocence, what consolation does not the retrospect inspire? This was the case with Jesus Christ. Who ever carried so far charity, holy fervour, the practice of every virtue? Who ever was more blameless in conduct, more ardent in devotion, more pure in secret retirement? 3. Jesus Christ died, thoroughly persuaded of the immortality of the soul. When a man has passed his life in atheism, and is dying in a state of uncertainty: haunted with the apprehension of falling into a state of annihilation; reduced to exclaim, with Adrian, "O my soul, whither art thou going?" Nature shudders; our attachment to existence inspires horror, at the thought of existing no longer. But when we have a distant knowledge of what man is; when we are under a complete conviction that he consists of two distinct substances, of spirit, and of matter; when we become thoroughly persuaded, that the destruction of the one does not imply the destruction of the other; that if "the dust return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," Eccles. xii. 7; when we know that the soul is the seat of all perception; that the body is merely a medium of intelligence; that the soul, when disengaged from matter, may retain the same ideas, the same sentiments, as when united to the body; that it may be capable of perceiving the sun, the stars, the firmament, death is no longer formidable. This, too, was the case with Jesus Christ. If ever any one enjoyed persuasion of the immortality of the soul, and of the resurrection, it undoubtedly was this divine Saviour. He it was who had derived all a IV. Finally, Jesus Christ died in the perfect assurance of that felicity which he was going to take possession of. When the dying person beholds hell opening under his feet, and begins to feel the gnawings of "the worm which dieth not, and the torment of the fire that is never to be quenched," Mark ix. 44, it is not astonishing that he should die in terror. But when he can say, as he looks death in the face, "there is the termination of all my woes, and the reward of all my labours; I am going to restore my soul into the hands of my Creator; I behold heaven open to receive it;" what transports of delight must not such a prospect impart! Such, too, was the case with Jesus Christ. If ever any one could have enjoyed a foretaste of the paradise of God; if ever any one could conceive sublime ideas of that glory and blessedness, still it was Jesus Christ. He knew all these things by experience: he knew all the apartments of the kingdom of his Father: from God he had come, and to God he was returning. Nay there must have been something peculiar in his triumph, transcendently superior to that of the faithful in general. Because "he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; God was about highly to exalt him, and to give him a name that is above every name," Phil. ii. 8, 9. A cloud was going to serve him as a triumphal car, and the church triumphant was preparing to receive their King in these rapturous strains: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in," Ps. xxiv. 7. What, then, shall Jesus Christ do? shall he meet death with joy? shall he say with St. Paul, "I have a desire to depart?" shall he exclaim with the female celebrated in ecclesiastical history: this is the day that crowns are distributed, and I go to receive my share? No, Jesus Christ trembles, he grows pale, his sweat becomes "as great drops of blood," Luke xxii. 44, he cries out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Add to these reflections, the promises of divine assistance, which all the faithful have a right to claim, in the midst of tribulation, and which Jesus Christ must have had a far superior right to plead, had he died a mere ordinary death; but of the consolation flowing from these he seems entirely deprived. Add, in a particular manner, the example of the martyrs. They met death with unshaken fortitude: they braved the most cruel torments: their firmness struck their very executioners with astonishment. In Jesus Christ we behold nothing similar to this. Nay, I will go farther, and say, that even the penitent thief discovers more firmness, in his dying moments, than the Saviour himself. He addresses himself to Jesus Christ, he implores his mercy, and, set at rest by the promises given to him, he expires in tranquillity: Jesus Christ, on the contrary, seems equally to despair of relief from heaven and from the earth. The opposers of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ will find it absolutely impossible to re-instructer, you will discover that this seed is solve these difficulties: the doctrine of the sa- Jesus Christ, Gal. iii. 16. tisfaction is the only key that can unlock this mystery. "Innumerable evils have compassed me about," is the prophetic language of the psalmist, "mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart faileth me," Ps. xl. 12. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him:" as Isaiah expresses himself, chap. liii. 5. "God spared not his own Son," Rom. viii. 32, " he hath made him to be sin for us," 2 Cor. v. 21, "being made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 13, to use the language of St. Paul: this is what we undertook to prove; and this is the first idea under which we proposed to represent the dying Saviour of the world. SERMON LXXIII. THE CRUCIFIXION. MATTHEW Xxvii. 45-53. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom: and the earth didquake; and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of saints which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. HAVING represented the death of Christ under the idea, 1. Of an expiatory sacrifice, in which the victim was charged with the sins of the whole world; we proceed, 2. To consider it, as the body of all the shadows, the truth of all the types, the accomplishment of all the predictions of the ancient dispensation, respecting the Messiah. In fact, on what state or period of the Old Testament church can we throw our eyes, without discovering images of a dying Jesus, and traces of the sacrifice which he offered up? If we resort to the origin of all our woes, there also we find the remedy. You will discover that Adam had no sooner by transgression fallen, than God promised him a "seed, whose heel the seed of the serpent should bruise," but who, in the very act of suffering, should "bruise the serpent's head," Gen. iii. 15. You will find this same promise repeated to Abraham; that seed announced anew to the patriarchs, and, taking St. Paul for your VOL. II.-22 If you contemplate the temporal wonders which God was pleased to work in favour of the Jewish nation, you will discover every where in them an adumbration of the spiritual blessings which the death of Jesus Christ was to procure for the church. You will there see the blood of a lamb on the doors of the Israelites. It was the shadow of that "Lamb without blemish and without spot, foreordained before the foundation of the world," 1 Pet. i. 19, 20. You will there behold a rock, which when smitten, emitted a stream sufficient to quench the thirst of a great people. This was a shadow of Jesus Christ. St. Paul tells us that it was Christ himself, who refreshes us with "living water, springing up into everlasting life," Cor. x. 4, and John iv. 14. You will there behold a serpent lifted up, the sight of which healed the deadly wounds of the Israelites. It was a shadow of him who was to be lifted up on the cross. If you look into the Levitical worship, you will perceive through the whole types of this death, a perpetual sacrifice, the type of him "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood," Rom. iii. 25. You will there behold victims, the types of him who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, to purge the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God," Heb. ix. 14; a scape-goat, bearing" on his head all the iniquities of the children of Israel," Lev. xvi. 21. The type of him who "suffered for us without the gate," Heb. xiii. 13. If you run over the predictions of the prophets, you will find them, as with one mouth, announcing the death of Jesus Christ. Now it is Isaiah who lifts up his voice, saying, "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows .... up who made his soul an offering for sin who is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth... who was oppressed, and was afflicted who was cut off out of the land of the living," chap. liii. 3, &c. Now it is Daniel who holds the same object: "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself," chap. ix. 26. Now Zacharias takes up the subject, and under the influence of prophetic inspiration, gives animation to the sword of "the Lord of Hosts: Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is my fellow: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered," chap. xiii. 7. Now the prophetic David, minutely describing his sufferings, in such affecting terms as these: " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent: I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people: all they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, and shake the head," Ps. xxii. 1, 2. 6, 7; and, in another place: "Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul: I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.... for thy sake I have borne reproach, shame hath covered my face..... Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none; they gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink," Ps. lxix. 1, 2, &c. Such good reason have we to consider the death of Jesus Christ under this second idea: it is in our text. The Saviour appropriates to himself the prediction in the twenty-second psalm: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" and, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he gives occasion to his executioners to present him with vinegar, which preceded his expiring exclamation, "It is finished," as it is related by another of the evangelists. 3. The death of Jesus Christ is, on the part of the Jews, an atrocious crime, which has roused the indignation of Heaven, and armed universal nature against them. But where shall we find colours black enough to depict it? Here the most ardent efforts of the imagination must fall far below the reality, and the most lively images come short of truth. Supposing we possessed the faculty of collecting, into one point of view, all that was gentle in the address of Jesus Christ, all that was fervent in his piety, humble in his deportment, pure in his conduct: supposing us capable of making an enumeration of all the benefits which he accumulated on the heads of those monsters of ingratitude; the gracious exhortations which he addressed to them; the miracles of goodness which he performed among them, in healing the sick, and raising the dead: supposing we could display to you those malignant calumnies with which they loaded him, those abominable and repeated falsehoods, those cruel and remorseless importunities for permission to put him to death, worthy of the severest execration had they been employed even against the most detestable of mankind: could we represent to you all that was barbarous and inhuman in the punishment of the cross; by telling you that it was a huge stake crossed by another piece of wood, to which they bound the body of the person condemned to terminate his life upon it; that the two arms were stretched out upon that cross beam, and nailed, as well as both the feet, to the tree, so that the body of the sufferer, sinking with its own weight, and suspended by its nerves, was speedily reduced to one vast wound, till the violence and slowness of the torment at length delivered him, and the blood drained off drop by drop, thus exhausted the stream of life: supposing us to have detailed all the ignominious circumstances which accompanied the death of Christ; that crown of thorns, that purple robe, that ridiculous sceptre, that wagging of the head, those insulting defiances to save himself, as he had saved others-supposing, I say, all this could be collected into one point of view, we should still believe that we had conveyed to you ideas much too feeble, of the criminality of the Jews. Nature convulsed, and the elements con founded, shall supply our defects, and serve, this day, as so many preachers. The prodigies which signalized the death of Jesus Christ shall persuade more powerfully than all the figures of rhetoric. That darkness which covers the earth, that veil of the temple rent in twain, that trembling which has seized the solid globe, those rocks cleft asunder, those yawning graves, those reviving dead, they, they are the pathetic orators who reproach the Jews with the atrocity of their guilt, and denounce their impending destruction. The sun shrouds himself in the shades of night, as unable to behold this accursed parricide, and what courtly poets said in adulation, namely, that the orb of day clothed himself in mourning, when Julius Cesar was assassinated in the senate house, was here realized under special direction of divine Providence. The veil of the temple is rent asunder, as on a day of lamentation and The earth trembles, as refusing to support the wretches, whose sacrilegious hands were attacking the life of him who "fastened the foundations thereof," Job xxxviii. 6, and "founded it upon its bases," Ps. civ. 5. The rocks cleave, as if to reprove the Jews for the hardness of their hearts. The dead start from their tombs, as coming to condemn the rage of the living. wo. 4. The death of Jesus Christ is a system of morality, in which every virtue is clearly traced. If the divine justice be an object of fear, where is it more powerfully inculcated than on the cross of Jesus Christ? How very terrible does that justice there appear! It goes in pursuit of its victim into the very heaven of heavens. It extends on the altar a Divine Man. It spares not the Son of God, his own Son. And thou, miserable sinner, who canst present nothing to the eyes of thy judge but what is odious and abominable, how shalt thou be able to escape his vengeance, if violating the laws of the gospel thou renderest thyself so much the more worthy of condemnation, that thou hadst, in that very gospel, the effectual means of deliverance? If vice is to be held in detestation, where is this lesson so forcibly taught as from the cross of Jesus Christ? Let the man who makes light of sin, who forms to himself agreeable images, and feeds on flattering ideas of it, learn, at the cross of Christ, to contemplate it in its true light: let him form a judgment of the cause from the effects; and let him never think of sin, without thinking at the same time, on the pangs which it cost the Saviour of the world. If we wish for models to copy, where shall we find models so venerable as on the cross of Christ? Let the proud man go to the cross of Christ; let him there behold the Word in a state of humiliation; let him there contemplate the person who made himself of no reputation, and took upon himn the form of a servant, and condescended to submit to the punishment of a slave: the person who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: let the proud man look to him, and learn to be humble. Let the voluptuous repair to the cross of Christ; let him there behold the flesh crucified, the senses subdued, pleasure mortified, and learn to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Let the implacable repair to the cross of Christ; let him there contemplate Jesus Christ dying for his enemies, praying even for his murderers, and learn to put on bowels of mercies. Let the murmurer go to the cross of Christ; let him go and study that complete submission which this divine Saviour yielded to the most rigid commands of his Father, and learn to resign himself in all things to the will of God. If we are bound to love our lawgiver, where can we learn this lesson better than at the cross of Christ? From that cross we hear him crying aloud to the guilty and the wretched: "Behold, O sinners, behold the tokens of my affection: behold my hands and my feet: behold this pierced side: behold all these wounds with which my body is torn: behold all those stripes of the justice of my Father, which I endure for your salvation." At a spectacle so moving, is there an obduracy so invincible as not to bend? Is there a heart so hard as to refuse to melt? Is there a love so ardent as not to kindle into a brighter flame? 5. The death of Jesus Christ is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but which all the difficulties that reason can muster, are unable to impair. It is a mystery inaccessible to reason: let it explain to me that wonderful union of greatness and depression, of ignominy, and glory, of an immortal God with a dying man. Let reason explain to me, how it comes to pass, that though God is unsusceptible of suffering and dying, the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ should, however, derive all their efficacy from his nature as God. Let reason explain to me, how Jesus Christ could satisfy divine justice, and be, at the same time, if the expression be lawful, the Judge and the party condemned, the Avenger and the party avenged, he who satisfied, and he to whom satisfaction was made. Let reason explain to me, how Jesus nailed to the cross, is nevertheless worthy of the adoration of men and of angels, so that the Jew who crucifies him, is at once his executioner and his creature. Let reason explain to me, above all, that mystery of love which we see displayed on the cross of Jesus Christ, and how God, who is so great, and so highly exalted, should have vouchsafed to perform, in behalf of man, a being so low and contemptible, wonders so astonishing. Bend, bend, proud reason, under the weight of these difficulties, and from the extent of these mysteries, learn the narrowness of thy own empire. "It is the wisdom of God in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew," 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8. It is "the great mystery of godliness," 1 Tim. iii. 16. These are "the things of the Spirit of God, which the natural man receiveth not," 1 Cor. ii. 14. This is the "stumbling block of the Jew:" this is "to the Greek foolishness," 1 Cor. i. 23. "These are the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," 1 Cor. ii. 9. This is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but it is a mystery, whose truth and importance all the difficulties which reason can muster, are unable to impair. The gospel tells us not that greatness and depression, that ignominy and glory, that the mortal, and the immortal nature, were confounded in the person of Jesus Christ. It simply informs us that God, in the depths of his infinite wisdom, knew how to unite depression to greatness, glory to ignominy, the mortal to the immortal nature. This is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but against which reason has no title to murmur. The gospel does not tell us that God, who is unsusceptible of either suffering or death, suffered and died, but that the subject susceptible of suffering united to the impassable, suffered; that the mortal, united to the immortal subject, died; and that, in virtue of this union, his sufferings and death possess an infinite value. This is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but against which reason has no title to repine. The gospel does not tell us that Jesus Christ considered as nailed to a cross, as suffering, as dying, is worthy of adoration, but, in virtue of his intimate union with Deity, that he is an object of adoration to men and to angels. This is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but against it reason has not a title to reclaim. The gospel does not tell us that man, a being so mean, vile, grovelling, could have merited this prodigy of love; but that God has derived it from himself, as an independent source, and that he considers it as essential to his glory, to acknowledge no other foundation of his benefits, but the misery of those to whom he is pleased to communicate them.This is a mystery inaccessible to reason, but against which reason has not a title to reclaim. 6. There remains only one idea more, under which we wish to represent the death of the Saviour of the world. It is the triumph of Jesus Christ over death, and the consolation of the dying believer. Death may be considered in three points of view. (1.) It throws us into the darkness of gloomy night. (2.) It summons us to appear before a tremendous tribunal. (3.) It strips us of our dearest possessions. Jesus Christ expires on the cross, triumphs over death, in these three several respects. But it would be necessary to possess the art of renewing your attention, in order successfully to undertake the task of pressing these ideas upon your minds, for they are more than sufficient to furnish matter for a complete new discourse. I must confine myself, at present, to one consideration, founded on the rending of the veil of the temple, mentioned in the text. We have already pointed it out as a token of the vengeance of heaven against the Jewish nation. It may likewise be considered in another point of view, conformably to the decision of St. Paul, and to the ideas of the Jews. That people looked on their temples as a figure of the universe. We have, on this subject, passages expressly to the purpose, in Philo and Josephus. All that was on the outside of the most holy place, represented, to them, nature and the elements. The scarlet colour of the sanctuary represented fire. The hyacinthine represented the air. The seven branches of the candlestick represented the seven planets. |