Matthew 23:29-39

CRITICAL NOTES

Matthew 23:29. Build the tombs, etc.—See R.V. A portion of the temple offerings were devoted to this purpose.

Matthew 23:31. The children.—You inherit their wickedness in compassing the death of the prophet of the Lord (Carr).

Matthew 23:32. Fill ye up, etc.—Or, more literally, “And ye! fill ye up the measure of your fathers!” The Saviour’s heart was heaving, and He felt the inadequacy of all common modes of expression to convey the commotion of His emotions. Hence the brokenness, abruptness, and boldness of His phraseology (Morison).

Matthew 23:33. Generation.—Offspring (R.V.). Damnation of hell, or, judgment of Gehenna. This expression, the “judgment of hell” was not invented by our Saviour. It was current among the Rabbis. See Wetstein in loc.

Matthew 23:34. Wherefore.—Therefore (R.V.). That solemn “therefore” looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed abhorrence of their father’s deeds, and yet inherited their spirit, they, too, would have their prophets, and would slay them. Christ’s desire is that all should find in His gospel the savour of life; but His purpose is that, if it be not that to any, it shall be to them the savour of death (Maclaren). Prophets.—Under direct inspiration, like those of old, which may especially refer to the Apostles.—Wise men.—Like a Stephen or an Apollos. Scribes.—Such as Mark and Luke, and many a faithful man since, whose pen has loved to write the Name above every name (ibid.).

Matthew 23:35. Zacharias.—If the reading “son of Barachias” be retained (it is omitted in the Sinaitic MS.) a difficulty arises; for the Zacharias, whose death “in the court of the house of the Lord” is recorded 2 Chronicles 24:20, was the son of Jehoiada. The words, however, do not occur in Luke 11:51, and are possibly interpolated. Zechariah the prophet was a son of Barachias: but of his death no record is preserved. Another explanation has been offered. At the commencement of the Jewish war with Vespasian a Zacharias, son of Baruch, was slain in the temple by two zealots (Jos., B. J., IV. Matthew 23:4). Accordingly, many commentators have thought that Jesus spoke prophetically of that event. The coincidence is remarkable, but the explanation is hardly probable (Carr). We need not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, “the son of Barachias,” is an error of some one’s, who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles 24. We do not know who made the mistake, or how it appears in our text, but it is not honest to try to slur it over (Maclaren). Dr. Plumptre says that the omission of the words “son of Barachiah” in the Sinaitic MS. betrays the hand of a corrector cutting the knot of the difficulty. Altar.—Viz., of burnt-offering before the temple.

Matthew 23:36. All these things shall come.—Viz., in their penalty.

Matthew 23:37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!—See R.V. In the original Jerusalem is not spoken to, but spoken of; and therefore if any interjection should be desired, ah! would be better than O! (Morison). I.—He is a young man of little more than thirty; but His personal consciousness runs back through all the ages of the past, through all the times of the killing of the prophets and stoning of the messengers of God, from Abel on to Zechariah: and not only so, but this Son of Israel speaks in the most natural way as the brooding mother of them all through all their generations (Gibson).

Matthew 23:38. Your house.—The temple, which Jesus was leaving (Matthew 24:1). It was no longer “My Father’s house.”

Matthew 23:39. Till ye shall say.—In the future general conversion of Israel (Romans 11; Zechariah 12:10; Isaiah 66:20) (Lange). Blessed, etc.— Psalms 118:26. They would say so when reciting the Hallel at the Passover, but without applying the words to Jesus (Bengel).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 23:29

Cumulative transgression.—This last accusation of the scribes and Pharisees is one which stands by itself. Probably, because in some respects it is also the worst. Just there when their true spirit was worst, they declare it to be best (Matthew 23:30). It is with this assertion the Saviour now deals. His way of doing so is marked, first, by great wisdom; secondly, by great faithfulness; thirdly, by tenderest love.

I. Great wisdom.—This is shown, on the one hand, in the way of insight. He sees at once the true value of this idle respect for the dead. On the one hand, there is nothing to be lost by it from the point of view of the scribes. A dead prophet, in some senses, is a prophet no more. He can no longer disturb such men as the Pharisees by the holiness of his life, or the faithfulness of his reproaches, or the success of his mission. There is no reason to them, therefore, against making much of his memory. There is much reason rather, for doing so, with their views and desires. The names in question, by this time, have become popular names. It would cause these men, therefore, to become popular also, if they took up the same line. And that, as we know, was, above all things, the thing they desired (Matthew 23:5, etc.). In reality, therefore, they were the same kind of men as their fathers had been; animated by the same spirit, though in different ways, because under a different set of conditions (Matthew 23:31). On the other hand, by great foresight. The Saviour beheld, only too clearly, all that was about to be done. Who were to come in His name, even men equal in every way (Matthew 23:34) to any before. How they would be dealt with, even with at least equal cruelty (ibid.) to any before; and so with even greater pertinacity (“city to city,” etc.) than ever before. And in this, therefore, would appear to be the full answer to the preceding assertion of change. If they were honouring those dead witnesses, as affirmed, they were not treating living witnesses in that way. If they had not used their fangs for a time, it would soon be seen that they were very far from being without them. Both true “serpents” themselves, in short, and the “offspring of vipers” as well, Jesus here both sees and foresees them to be (Matthew 23:33, R.V.).

II. Great faithfulness.—Things being so, these men must be taught clearly all that was implied on their part. All that was implied, on the one hand, in regard to their guilt. Continuance in evil implies not only progression—it implies rapid progression—in sin. To disobey, and be warned, and punished—and then to be delivered and spared for a time—and then to be guilty over again of that same disobedience—is to do more, very much more, than twice as bad as before. And this is true even where the repetition may be regarded as being of a representative kind, as where the children, e.g., have been warned in the person of their fathers; and where the sin of the fathers has been repeated, as it were, in the person of their offspring. Such children are more responsible, and therefore, when they do sin, are also more guilty, than they would have otherwise been. Hence, therefore, the fulness of the guilt resting on the “generation” before Him (Matthew 23:31). Hence, therefore, what He tells them, next, of the awful severity of its doom. The true inheritor (as He has shown) of the spirit of the past, it is also the heir of its judgments. Of all overt sin nothing is like the persecution of God’s representatives in proving enmity against Him. In regard to nothing, consequently, is He wont to exact a stricter account. Never yet had there been a generation which inherited so large an amount of responsibility on this score. Never yet a generation which added to it so much responsibility of its own. So the event would only too fully make plain. Upon it, therefore, is to descend, in all its fulness, what had been held back for so long. This is the rule with the long-suffering judgment of God. The “generation” which finally “fills” the cup (Matthew 23:32) has to exhaust it as well.

III. Tenderest love.—As this meekest of Kings foresees these terrible griefs and foretells them, a sorrow of almost equal intensity seizes on Himself. What a sight is here of the past! What a sight, on His side, to begin! Often and often in bygone ages, with yearning affections—see how much is revealed here of the mysterious depths both of His nature and heart!—would He have gathered together the “children” of “Jerusalem” under His wings. What a sight on their side as well! Just as often, with invincible aversion, had His love been rejected! What a sight, therefore, in both respects, of the future! Never, now, can He make such offers again. Never, either, as things are, will they see Him again. When He does come (for come He will), nothing shall be as it was. Their “house” will be gone! Their spirit changed! And this cry in His ears: “Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:38).

See, therefore, at the last, what it is that Jesus asks from the worst! That they should accept His love as it is! Here is the great lesson of all! Here, where the Saviour is the severest, He is also most loving of all. On the other hand, however, we must not cancel the obverse side of this coin. Here, where He is most loving, He is also severest of all (Psalms 101:1; Romans 11:22). Let no man dream, because of Christ’s love, that it is good to continue in sin. Not even that love can cause this to be true!

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Matthew 23:29. The penalty of prophesying.—It must have appeared to be in itself a very seemly thing, this honouring of the great and good men of former generations, to whom the religion of Israel owed so much. It must, therefore, have been startling to such men to hear Christ’s sarcastic comment upon this apparently praiseworthy movement, and to find Him denouncing it as an aggravation of the sin of those who were promoting it, and basing on it a charge against them of insincerity and hypocrisy. It was true, doubtless, as any cynic in Jerusalem might have pointed out to them, that those prophets, whom they were so eager to honour now that they were dead, had met with very different treatment while they were living. But their answer would have been, “We sorrowfully confess it. That is the very reason for this zeal in sepulchre building. We mean by this to dissociate ourselves from the conduct of our fathers. It is our way of putting on permanent record our protest against their sin, and our conviction that if we had been in the day of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. It expresses a genuine national repentance and desire to make reparation.” And there were obvious and indisputable facts which seemed to go a considerable way to justify such an attitude. They were fairly entitled to say, “Is there not an immense difference between our religious condition ‘to-day and that of our fathers who persecuted the prophets? What were the sins which the prophets rebuked? Were they not idolatry, the worship of Jehovah fearfully corrupted by the admixture of polluted rites adopted from the Canaanite and Phœnician religions, altars on high places and in sacred groves, associated with gross licentiousness? Have we not changed all that? If the prophets were to come back today, is there a single one of these points on which they could challenge our conduct? Are not their demands carried out by us most scrupulously? Where, then, is the insincerity in our honouring them, since we are obeying them?” And so far the defence would have been plausible. Yet our Lord sets it aside. He tells them, “You are labouring under a self-complacent delusion. You have no sympathy with the spirit of those you are professing to honour; you have no true sense of the moral grandeur of those men and of their protest; your reverence is taught by the precept of men, not by the prompting of your own hearts. Your homage is merely conventional. You are manifesting the very same spirit as your fathers, and in this very matter of monument-building, instead of severing yourselves from them you are in reality serving yourselves—heirs to their sin.” With biting irony He says, “There is a peculiar propriety in your building the tombs of those whom your fathers slew. You are completing their work. They killed, and you bury; the spirit is the same.” Christ does not here state explicitly the ground of this condemnatory judgment. But we know the principle on which it was based. Apart from that sure moral insight by which He discerned beneath the smooth and decorous surface of their life the working of the same spirit—the same tempers and vices, the same outwardness and formalism—which had characterised ancient Israel, His condemnation was justified by their attitude towards Himself. The way in which they treated Him, the living Prophet, was an infallible indication of the way in which they would have treated the prophets, whom they professed to honour, if they had been in their day. The spirit and conduct which Christ thus reprobated is not confined to the Pharisees of Jerusalem. It is an exemplification of a constant tendency of human nature.

I. Why were the prophets hated in their own day?—

1. They proclaimed new and unpopular truth.—Mr. John Morley remarks that the popular teacher in any department is he who is most in accord with the average sentiment of his day, who happens to chime in most harmoniously with its prepossessions, or most effectually to nurse and exaggerate them. That is precisely what the prophets were not.

2. They made powerful application of moral and religious truth to human life.—If it is a thankless and dangerous task to attack men’s traditional preconceptions, it is still more dangerous to touch their selfish interests. And that is what the prophets did, not in mere harmless generalities which hurt nobody, but with definite pointed application to particular prevalent sins and social wrongs.

3. The true prophet of God bore no outward sign by which he could be recognised as such.—It needed a heart in sympathy with God to discern a true prophet.

II. Why were they honoured by later generations?—That, too, is in accordance with human nature. It is not only that death softens all animosities. There was more than that in the reaction of feeling towards the prophets. A dead prophet is no longer to be dreaded. He is no longer dangerous in the way of drawing attention to the existing evils or stirring men’s minds to ask inconvenient questions. Truth and real greatness have in them vitality and permanence which compel men at last to recognise them. The true poet sometimes, despite the depreciation of contemporary critics, becomes a classic, and then he is awarded the conventional admiration of those who could never of themselves have discovered in him anything to admire. So it was with the prophets of Israel. Men inspired by the same Spirit which spoke in the prophets and in Christ may come to us, and we may prove as blind to every token of the Divine in them, and as deaf and unresponsive to their message, as did the Israelites in Old Testament history, or the Pharisees in the time of Christ. Our reverence for the past will be proved not by our being mere imitators of those who were great because they imitated none, not by standing immovably on their position and repeating their phrases, but by going forward in their spirit, welcoming all fresh light, proving all things, and holding fast that which is good.—A. O. Johnston, M.A.

Matthew 23:31. Judicial abandonment.—

1. Christ’s enemies shall not want a witness of their malicious opposing of Him; yea, from their own words and purposes He shall bring matter of conviction against them—their never-dying worm shall breed in their own bosom. “Ye are against yourselves witnesses.”
2. Christ will give over desperate enemies to their own malicious disposition, and will defy them, as here He saith, “Fill ye up the measure of your fathers.”
3. There is a measure set to be filled up with the transgressions of the Lord’s enemies, and till this cup be full to the lip, they shall be suffered to go on; but when this cup is full, then the cup of God’s wrath shall be full also, and run over upon them to their destruction. Therefore saith He, “Fill ye up the measure”; that is, Go on till you kill Me, as your fathers did the prophets.—David Dickson.

Matthew 23:32. A terrible command!—Then come the awful words; bidding that generation “fill up the measure of the fathers.” They are like the other command to Judas to do his work quickly. They are more than permission, they are command; but such a command as, by its laying bare of the true character of the deed in view, is love’s last effort at prevention.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Matthew 23:33. The sin that hath never forgiveness.—I think that the most awful word which has ever been written by a human pen is, “the wrath of the Lamb.” There is something which always seems very terrible when I open this chapter. These words are doubly awful on the lips of the patient and forgiving Christ. There is a sin which remains unconquerable, even by the love and pity of the Incarnate Word; which remains insoluble even in the menstruum of the grace of Christ; and which defies every effort of the Redeemer to transfigure its hideous form and make it, transformed, the attendant and minister of the eternal triumph of His cross. There is a sin which can draw down on a man, even from the Divine lips, the sentence, “It had been better for that man if he had never been born.”

I. We will endeavour to identify the spiritual condition on which this hateful epithet is branded by John the Baptist and by the Lord. In each case the term is aimed expressly, by name, at the same class, and presents a vivid image of the same sin. This is surely a very important indication to guide us in determining what this unpardonable sin may be. It is the sin of these vipers, be they who they may. It is the spirit which searches for love that it may wound it, for grace that it may poison it, for life that it may kill it, lest the world should live anew by grace, be comforted and cherished by love, and link itself on by hope to the bliss and glory of heaven. It is the spirit which, seeing this love incarnate on its Divine errand, seeing the world’s death-pallor tinged with the rosy glow, and the rigid limbs stirring under the currents of a new-born life, said straightway, “This is of the devil”; and stung the Divine One—though it could not touch the fountain of His power, the love which drew Him from heaven to Calvary—even unto death (see Matthew 3:7; Matthew 12:10; Matthew 12:22; Matthew 12:34; Matthew 23:13). “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, that they might destroy Him” (Matthew 12:14). Mark the occasion. A man made whole on the Sabbath day—a great healing accomplished, a great burden lifted, a great joy poured into a sad, weary heart, a great ray of the love of God sent streaming into the darkness of the world. But a Pharisaic regulation had been broken. Perish the healing, perish the Healer, but let the rule of the Pharisees live! Do you wonder at the sequel? “Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,” etc. In this chapter it is precisely the same. It is the wrongs and miseries of others, of hearts bruised under the heel of the Pharisees’ insolence, and bleeding from the strokes of their rods, which stir the Saviour’s indignation.

II. What lies at the root of this state of mind and spirit? Whence does it spring? Not from the perversities, infirmities, lusts, and vices which belong to the prodigal’s character, and are unveiled in the prodigal’s life (cf. 1 John 1:5 with the spirit of the Pharisee in Luke 18:10). The sin which saith, “I have no sin,” remaineth. Even against God’s love it is hard as adamant and cold as death. The Pharisee’s spirit, which would dash fiercely the cup of life from the lips of a dying world, lest its own privilege should perish; which would brand the spirit of the Divine Healer, Teacher, and Saviour of the world, as devilish, and hunt it from the earth, stung to death with its viperous fang; which holds every wide gospel proclamation an intolerable insult, and every healing touch of Divine love a bitter pain—it is this, and nothing which a poor lost soul can brood over in its anguish, which is the unpardonable sin. This was the python on which the sun-bright Saviour rained the arrows of His indignation and hate. “Ye serpents,” etc.—J. Baldwin Brown, B.A.

Holy indignation.—I heartily sympathise with Adam Smith, who said, as a man who had made excuses for a bad character left the company, “I can breathe more freely now. I cannot bear that man; he has no moral indignation in him.” The mind of Christ is far too seldom followed in the conduct of our social relations.—United Presbyterian Magazine.

Faithful preaching.—Said Robert Morris to Dr. Rush, “I like that preaching best which drives a man into the corner of his pew and makes him think the devil is after him.”—Thwing.

Matthew 23:34. The process of condemnation.—

1. Our Lord, in the face of His enemies, avowed Himself to be God, having authority to send out prophets, and to bestow gifts on men.
2. Our Lord knoweth how His servants will be served in every place they come unto, and what measure of sufferings each of them will meet with from the wicked.
3. The Lord’s servants (albeit they know that sufferings abide them) must, notwithstanding, go on in their message; for this is the forewarning given unto His servants also, “I send you prophets, and some of them ye shall kill,” etc.
4. They who go on in the course of any sin, do subscribe unto the sins of such as before them did follow that sort of sin, and justly may be condemned and punished as guilty of the sin of others, which they do approve; for so Christ reckoneth, saying, “That on you may come all the blood,” etc.
5. The sufferers for righteousness, from the beginning of the world, are all in the rank of martyrs, and their sufferings are kept in fresh remembrance. “From righteous Abel unto Zacharias,” etc.
6. Raging persecutors look neither to place nor person nor consequence of their cruelty, but as blind beasts do follow forth their own fury; for “betwixt the porch and the altar” was Zacharias slain.—David Dickson.

Matthew 23:35. Nemesis!—In whose mind was the intent or design that is referred to when it is said, “That upon you might come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth”? If we view the subject philosophically, and as regards the theological substrate that underlies the free-and-easy phraseology, we must at once answer, with Calvin, In the mind of God. It would be contrary to sound theology, and to sound philosophy, to ignore the agency of God in the matter—His intentional agency, and thus His intent. He “suffered” them to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16). He did not deem it right to break in upon the mental and moral constitution. He had given them, that He might arrest the murderous strokes that were about to fall. On the contrary, He had long continued to maintain, and He intended still to maintain, that constitution; and when He foresaw that they would madly persist in abusing it, and bid defiance to His righteousness and grace, He resolved that by “suffering” them meanwhile, as long as wisdom would permit, and then by-and-by bringing on them, after their cup of iniquity was full, the consummation of the doom which was their due, He would turn them to account, as beacons in His universe. There is, however, nothing in all this of the nature of unconditional intent, purpose, or decree. And it is noteworthy, besides, that in the connection of Matthew 23:34 the reference to the action of God is only theologically and philosophically implied, not formally expressed. There is, instead, express reference to the action of the scribes and Pharisees themselves. They acted in their own infatuated way, in order that all the righteous blood shed on the earth might come upon them; that is, they acted as if they were intending and desiring that the blood might come on them. They were like those who “love death” and “seek” it—“seek destruction” (Proverbs 8:36; Proverbs 17:19; Proverbs 21:6). They did not, indeed, “formally”—as logicians speak—love, seek, and intend their own death and destruction. But they “formally” loved, sought, and intended that which God had connected with death and destruction. And thus, while dashing along in their loved career, they “materially”—as logicians phrase it—and “virtually” rushed voluntarily upon their deserved retribution.—J. Morison, D.D.

Matthew 23:36. Forewarned!—It is a special motive unto repentance to tell men of the propinquity of judgment.—David Dickson.

National catastrophes.—It takes centuries for the mass of heaped-up sin to become top-heavy; but when it is, it buries one generation of those who have worked at piling it up, beneath its down-rushing avalanche.

“The mills of God grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small.”

The catastrophes of national histories are prepared for by continuous centuries. The generation that laid the first powder-horn-full of the train are dead and buried long before the explosion which sends constituted order and institutions sky-high. The misery is that often the generation which has to pay the penalty has begun to wake to the sin, and would be glad to mend it, if it could. England in the seventeenth century, France in the eighteenth, America in the nineteenth, had to reap harvests from sins sown long before. Such is the law of the judgment wrought out by God’s providence in history. But there is another judgment, begun here and perfected hereafter, in which fathers and sons shall each bear their own burden, and reap accurately the fruit of what they have sown. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Matthew 23:37. The Saviour’s sorrow over a sinful world.—These words form the concluding portion of our Saviour’s last public discourse. They were the last utterances from His lips in the temple—they mark the end of His ministry. His subject has been the wickedness of the Pharisees, and His words have risen into a vehement and terrible invective. But this stern work is hard for the gentle Christ. He cannot, without pain, go on with this denouncing of doom upon His chosen people. All at once He breaks down; the pentup pity, the infinite compassion, leapt from His aching heart, and the language of His spurned affection, the ineffable sadness of His sympathising spirit, came wailing forth in the melting tenderness of this most sorrowful apostrophe, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets,” etc. The text reveals the heart of Christ.

I. See how earnestly Jesus desires to save the guilty.—Jerusalem is under the shadow of death. But she does not realise it; she does not know her danger. It is not always easy to warn men of their peril. Jerusalem had been warned; the Son of God had pleaded with her, He had wept over her, He had invited her to repent; and the end of all is this confession of defeat: “I would … and ye would not.” You will see how, in His opening words, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” His love shines out.

1. It is not diminished by any wickedness.

2. It is not chilled by perversity.

3. It is not outwearied by delay.—At this very hour if Jerusalem had repented, all heaven would have been jubilant.

II. See how tenderly He gives shelter and rest to those who come.—“Even as a hen,” etc.

III. See how, in spite of all the love of God and Christ, some men will perish.—“I would … and ye would not,” and you have your way. I sometimes think this is the saddest and darkest word in all the Book. Oh! the awful dignity of the human will—this great and dreadful power in me that can flaunt itself in the face of a gracious God and defeat His purpose.—W. J. Woods, B.A.

Christ a Shelter.—I. The first thing suggested by this symbol is the idea of danger.—Great as was the political calamity that menaced them, their greatest danger was spiritual; the danger shared by all, in every age, who have broken the law, but have not accepted the Saviour. Infraction of law must be followed by infliction of penalty.

II. The symbol of a shelter is so presented as to set forth the glory of Him who is thus revealed.—The overshadowing wing of omnipotence is spread in your defence.

III. This symbol of a shelter illustrates in the highest degree the condescending tenderness of Christ.—It does so by its homely simplicity, as well as by its ineffable pathos.

IV. This symbol of Christ is so set forth as to suggest the idea of a shelter, afforded by one who interposes His own life between us and danger.—Christ is a shelter to trusting souls only by interposing His own life between them and the shock of doom.

V. Note the ends to be attained by the sinner’s flight to the Saviour.—It is obvious that the immediate result is safety. But it would be a radical mistake to suppose that the gospel urges men to seek safety only for safety’s sake. Safety in Christ is the first step to practical godliness.

VI. This symbol of Christ is drawn in such a way as to show that man is responsible in the matter of his own salvation.—C. Stanford, D.D.

Matthew 23:38. The departure of Christ from the temple.—

I. The close of a mournful past.

II. The sign of a miserable present.

III. The token of a sad futurity.—J. P. Lange, D.D.

The desolate temple.—Every Christian temple in which Christ is not preached, is empty; so is every heart in which He does not live.—Heubner.

Matthew 23:39. Christ hiding Himself.—

1. It is righteousness with Christ to smite them with judicial blindness who refuse obstinately to acknowledge Him when He offers Himself unto them; as here He saith, “Ye shall not see Me henceforth”; that is, you shall not perceive Me to be the Messiah; for otherwise bodily they did see Him, and did crucify Him, but they saw not who He was; for had they known, they would not have crucified the God of glory.
2. At last, Christ’s most cruel enemies shall see and know and acknowledge Him to be that blessed Messiah; for all knees shall bow to Him, and all tongues shall confess to Him, and these His adversaries among the rest shall say, Now we see that Jesus is the blessed Son of God, and the true Lamb of God, hills and mountains fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb; yonder is the blessed Saviour, who came in the name of the Lord.—David Dickson.