The parallel passage of St. Matthew being compared with that of St. Lukee,

ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. Πῦρ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰς τὴν γῆν. it follows that what our Lord did not come to cast upon the land, in the one, must be the avriσToxov of what he did come to cast upon the land, in the other: and if up be the latter and eipývn the former, then Tập in the one must be the ἀντίστοιχον of εἰρήνη in the other ; and vice versa. Now nothing can be the proper avriσTOI

χον οἱ εἰρήνη, but πόλεμος; nor of πόλεμος but εἰρήνη : and consequently the signification of Tup, as so opposed, must be that of Tóλeμos. Nor in fact can any metaphor, or interchange of ideas, be more natural than this, which personifies the idea of war by that of a fire or conflagration.

But this is not all for if by eipńvn here must be meant the quiet and unmolested exercise of the Christian religion—a kind of peace in which none could have a proper interest except the professors of the religion themselves-then by the war, opposed to it, must be intended the turbulence and contrariety by which that quiet and unmolested exercise should be forcibly obstructed; a turbulence and contrariety beginning from the enemies of the religion, but spending their fury on its friends and advocates; a war which should originate in the bosom of private families, and ripen the seeds of discord in the lap of natural charities; a war which should spread from thence to the community at large, and operate to the dissolution of the social order; a war which the strong and violent should every where wage against the weak and unresisting; which, from the rapidity of its propagation, the universality of its operation, the searching nature of its effects, might well be compared to a fire, kindled perhaps by a spark, but finding materials at hand, soon blown up into a blaze, and wrapping eventually an entire country in the same conflagration.

Such a fire and such a war were the coming of Christ, and the propagation of the Gospel, to produce in the Jewish community. What shall we say then to the time of its beginning, and to the first subjects of its effects? Were this violence and this fire to be directed against the Master, or against the disciples first? Doubtless against the Master first, and against the dis

ciples next. For they were to drink of his cup; that is, not until he had drunk of it before them: they were to be bathed in his fire; that is, not until he had been baptized therein himself. In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, both as an example of patience and as a pattern of virtue. If so, and Christ must of necessity suffer before, it is true, but still in the same way in kind as his disciples; then the fiery ordeal, which hereafter awaited them, was first to be undergone by him. Yet the period of his sufferings, strictly so called, was a determinate period; as may be collected from that peculiar, but regular mode of designating it by which St. John especially speaks of it; his hour, his hour κar' Cox, and the power of darkness; which hour we consequently perceive to be the time of his apprehension, trial, and passion ; that is, the last act of his ministry upon earth. As this period drew nigh, the fire, though not yet kindled, was nearer and nearer the time of its birth; and when it was close at hand, it might be said to be already lighted up and this is the very manner in which it is referred to here. Ei on ȧvýpon, spoken of this fire, ἀνήφθη, cannot imply less than that it was either then kindled, or shortly to be so. The end of our Lord's ministry therefore at this time was not far distant.

Let the whole passage, then, be rendered as perhaps it ought to be rendered; with a short paraphrase of each verse subjoined. I came to cast a fire on the land; the very purpose of my mission was to excite such a fire, and to endure its first effects myself: and if even now it is kindled, what would I desire?

* The power of darkness, that is, the authority, ovoía, of darkness: a word always to be understood of that right to

do with, or dispose of things and persons, pro libitu, which absolute power and control over them necessarily imply.

if the purpose of my mission is so much nearer its attainment, why should I wish it otherwise? But I have a baptism to be baptized withal, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished! How anxious I am that it should soon be completed; how dearly do I wish it were over!

Compare with this the following from St. John', which refers to the same prospect of our Lord's sufferings, but only at a later period: Now is my soul. troubled and what would I say? (Ti eπw;) Father, save me from this hour! yet, dià TOûTO, for the sake of this hour, am I come unto it. Why, then, should I pray to be delivered from it? There is sufficient agreement not only in the general sentiment, but even in the particular phraseology of these two passages, to shew that each is the same kind of apostrophe, produced by the common sensibility, and by the emotion arising from the common sensibility, on two distinct but cognate occasions, of the near prospect of the same painful and disastrous event.

The part addressed to the multitude, which concludes the chapter, admits also of distribution into the substance of 54-56, and the substance of 57-59. The first of these contains a distinct allusion to the demand of a sign, that is, an extraordinary proof of the truth of our Saviour's character, preferred and declined in the eleventh chapter. If there were any doubt upon this point, it would be removed by a comparison with Matt. xvi. 1-4, where the demand of such a sign, characterised by its proper name as the sign from heaven, is found to be put and declined in terms almost the same; the account of which was probably omitted, at that time, in the corresponding part of St. Luke's Gospel, because he knew that something of the same kind

f Ch. xii. 27.

would occur again here. Οψίας γενομένης, λέγετε εὐδία (ἔσται·) πυῤῥάζει γὰρ ὁ οὐρανός· καὶ πρωΐ· σήμερον χειμών· πυῤῥάζει γὰρ στυγνάζων ὁ οὐρανός. ὑποκριταὶ, τὸ μὲν πρόσωπον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ γινώσκετε διακρίνειν, τὰ δὲ σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν οὐ δύνασθε;

In both these instances, the nature of the reasoning employed is to proceed upon the acknowledged observation of certain natural phenomena as indicating certain natural effects, the connection between which was obvious to every one; and as a case in point, they constitute the principles of a reductio ad absurdum, with a view to shew that it was mere hypocrisy on the part of the inquirers to be able thus to judge of the signs of the weather, or to draw the proper inference from the affections of the heavens, and yet mistake the signs of the times; not to draw the proper inference from the events which were daily passing before their eyes.

That the demand then of an extraordinary means of conviction, distinct from the ordinary or from the evidence daily produced, may be equally referred to in both these instances, must be apparent. There is some difference, however, in the later, compared with the earlier, which convinces me that more is intended by that, than was by this. It is not without reason that St. Matthew's general designation of onμeîa Tŵv Kαιρŵv Siakpive is changed in St. Luke, for the particular one οἱ τὸν δὲ καιρὸν τοῦτον πῶς οὐ δοκιμάζετε; The truth is that our Lord in St. Matthew was reproaching his hearers with not discerning, in the proofs of his Divine commission daily vouchsafed before, the time or season of the Messiah in general; in St. Luke, with not discovering, from the same proofs, as now vouchsafed, the last time or season of the Messiah in particular. The illustrations, which he employs, will lead to no other conclusion.