ready to do the fame things. Now, this was fo grofs and odious a piece of hypocrify in them, that our Saviour doth with great reason denounce fo fevere a wo against them: Wo unto you for ye build the fepulchres 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 fepulchres: and then it follows, Therefore also faid the wisdom of God, I will fend them prophets and apoftles, and fome of them they shall flay and perfecute: that the blood of all the prophets which was fhed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation from the blood of Abel, to the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple. There are confiderable difficulties in both these paffagcs. As to the former, Wo unto you for ye build the fepulchres 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; the force of this reafoning is at firft fight not eafy to be difcerned; and therefore expofitors have gone feveral ways to explain it.

:

Some comparing this with the parallel places in St. Matthew's gospel, chap. xxiii. 29. will not have our Saviour to mean, that by building the fepulchres of the prophets they expreffed their approbation of their fathers killing them. They did indeed testify, by their usage of the righteous men that lived amongst themselves, that they were of the very fame temper and fpirit which their fathers had been of; and that they would have done just as their fathers did, if they had been in the fame circumftances with their fathers: fo that they were witnesses to themselves, (as it is in St. Matthew), that they were children of them which killed the prophets; they owned themfelves their children by defcent, and their actions witneffed that they were their children also in resemblance; nay, as it is there further intimated, they feemed refolved to fill up the meafure of their fathers: though all this while they pretended not to approve their fathers behaviour; and therefore, whilft they were building the tombs of the prophets, and garnishing the fepulchres of the righteous, they faid, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the

blood

blood of the prophets. And the interpreters that go this way, do accordingly render thefe words of St. Luke, not as they are in our tranflation, Ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; but, Ye bear witness, and ye allow (or are well pleased with), the deeds of your fathers: that is, Ye own that they were your fathers, who did these things; and though ye do not in words allow what they did, yet your inward tempers and difpofitions, whether you know it or no, are the very fame with theirs, which you too plainly teftify by your actions fo that when you build the fepulchres of the prophets, you only expofe the deceitfulness and hypocrify of your hearts, your pretences and your actions directly contradicting each other. Thus fome expofitors give the fenfe of this paffage.

But others think, that our Saviour intended fomewhat more in St. Luke, namely, to retort upon them the honour which they seemed to do to the prophets, in building their fepulchres, as an argument that they rejoiced in their death; feeing they were fo well content to be at the charge of a monument for them; like Herod, who, when he had murdered Ariftobulus, made a magnificent funeral for him; or, as the Roman hiftorians fay of Caracalla, though he hated all good men whilft they were alive, yet he would pretend to honour them when they were dead. This fome think our Saviour intended in these words, Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their fepulchres; as if he had faid, Hereby ye teftify, that ye allow and like very well what your fathers did to the Prophets. According to which latter expofition, there seems to be more force and greater fharpness in our Saviour's reproof; as not only charging them with the ill ufage of the righteous men of their own times, but moreover making them, by their building the tombs and garnishing the fepulchres of the ancient prophets, to become as it were acceffaries to the murder of them.

But leaving this digreffion, I now proceed to that which I primarily intended, namely, firft, to explain the following words, which I have chofen as my pre

fent

fent fubject; and then to make fome obfervations upon them.

Therefore also faid the wisdom of God, I will fend them prophets and apoftles, and fome of them they shall flay and perfecute: that the blood of all the prophets which was fhed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel, to the blood of Zacharias, which perifhed between the altar and the temple: verily 1 fay unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

There are three confiderable difficulties in the words; which I fhall endeavour to explain to you.

1. What is here meant by the wisdom of God.

2. Who this Zacharias was, here mentioned by our Saviour: From the blood of Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, which perifhed between the altar and the temple.

3. In what fenfe, and with what reason and justice it is here threatened, that the blood of all the prophets and righteous men fhed from the foundation of the world, should be required of that generation.

I. What is here meant by the wisdom of God: Therefore alfo faid the wisdom of God, I will fend them prophets and apoftles, &c. In St. Matthew our Saviour speaks this in his own name, Wherefore behold, I fend unto you prophets for which reafon fome think, that, by the wif dom of God, our Saviour here defigned himself; as if he had faid, Therefore I, who am the wisdom of God, declare unto you. But this is not very probable, our Saviour no where else in the gospel speaking of himself in any fuch ftyle; though St. Paul calls him the power of God, and the wifdom of God. Others think, that our Saviour here refers to fome prophecy of the Old Teftament to this purpose: Therefore the wifdom of God hath faid; that is, the Holy Spirit of wifdom, which infpired the prophets in the Old Testament. But this conceit is utterly without ground; for we find no fuch paffage, nor any thing to that fenfe, in any of the prophets of the Old Tefta

ment.

But the most plain and fimple interpretation is this: Therefore hath the wisdom of God faid; that is, the most wife God hath determined to fend among you fuch meffengers and holy men; and I forefee that ye will thus abuse them, and thereby bring wrath and destruction up

L

on

on yourselves. And whereas our Saviour fays in St. Matthew, Behold, I fend unto you prophets; it is very probable he speaks in God's name; and that it is to be underftood, Behold, fays God, I fend unto you. And this phrafe of the wisdom of God, for the most wife God, is very agreeable to other forms of fpeech which we meet with in the Jewish writers; as, Dicit norma judicii, "The rule "of judgment fays;" that is, the most just and righteous God: which ferves very well to explain the phrase in the text, Therefore faith the wisdom of God, I will fend them prophets and apoftles.

By apoffles is here meant all forts of divine messengers for fo St. Matthew expreffeth it; I fend unto you prophets, and wife men, and fcribes; that is, feveral holy and excellent men, endued with all forts of divine gifts; prophets, and wife men, and fcribes, which were the most glorious and admired titles among the Jews.

And fome of them they shall flay and perfecute. St. Matthew expreffeth it more particularly, Some of them ye shall kill and crucify; as it was afterwards fulfilled in the two James's, and Stephen, who were flain by them; and in Simon the Son of Cleophas, and before him in Jefus the Son of God, who were crucified. And fome of them ye fball Scourge in your fynagogues; as we read they did to Peter and John and perfecute them from city to city; as they did Paul and Barnabas. The fending of these meffengers of God among the Jews, and this ill ufage of them, the all-wife and all-knowing God had determined and foreseen.

II. Who this Zacharias was, here mentioned by our Saviour. And there are so many of them, no less than four of this name, to whom it may with fome probability be applied, but efpecially to two of them, that it is very hard to determine which of them our Saviour means. Three Zacharias's are mentioned in scripture, and one more in the history of Jofephus.

There was Zacharias the father of John the Baptift; but whofe fon he was, we do not read. And though of his death the fcripture is filent, yet there are two traditions about it: one, that he was flain by Herod's officers, because he would not tell where his fon, John the Baptift, was, when Herod fent for him. But the credit

of

of this relies upon very doubtful authors. The other is mentioned by several of the fathers; and the substance of it is briefly this: That there being a place in the temple where the virgins by themselves used to pray, the virgin Mary coming to that place to pray among the virgins, was forbidden, becaufe fhe had had a child; and that Zacharias, for maintaining her virginity, was fet upon, and killed between the temple and the altar. But this tradition is rejected by St. Jerome; and I doubt there is little ground for it.

Zacharias, one of the leffer prophets, was the fon of Barachias; which agrees fo far with St. Matthew's defcription of him. But there is no mention in fcripture that he was flain. Nor could he well be in the temple, which was but building in his time; though the author of the Targum fays, that Zacharias the fon of Iddo was flain by the Jews in the houfe of the Lord's fanctuary on the day of the propitiation, because he admonished them not to do evil before the Lord. Now, Zacharias the fon of Barachias was the grandson of Iddo. yet I think this was only lapfe of memory, and that he means Zachary in the Chronicles, who was flain by Joash.

But

And he is the third Zacharias I mentioned, 2 Chron. xxiv. 20. 21. who, as he was reproving the people for tranfgreffing the commandment of the Lord, was ftoned with ftones at the commandment of the king, in the court of the houfe of the Lord. And this our Saviour feems more particularly to reflect upon immediately after the text: O Jerufalem, Jerufalem, thou that ftoneft the prophets, &c. Now this, one would think, was certainly the perfon intended by our Saviour, and fit to be mentioned with Abel, whose blood is faid to have cried to the Lord. For of Zacharias it is likewife faid, that when he died, he faid, The Lord look upon it, and require it. And Drufius cites a Jewish writer speaking thus, by way of complaint against the Jewish nation : "becaufe in the midst of thee

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fell the priests of the Lord, and his prophets; and "because before the holy temple in the midst of thee was flain the godly and righteous prophet Zacharias, "who lay unburied, nor did the earth cover his blood, but to this day it goes up, and speaks in the midst of

"thee."