The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 644

LOVE

6o4 deliver

it

from

Roman

bondage, Jesus presented to them the claims

of faith, then they resisted

Him, and the

evil in their eyes

betrayed

The same Nazarene whom a with the waving of palms, they now

the opposite of peace in their hearts.

moment ago

they had hailed

are ready to bury under showers of stones.

parted and hid Himself from them.

And

Jesus, seeing this, de-

on that public They had rejected the King whom they should have adored. A voice had spoken from heaven, but they had stopped their ears. Deluded people! You know not whom ye have rejected, and that your rejection of to-day must lead to His crucifixion to-morrow. You rejected Him, and, with Him, yourselves forever. For this is what St. John, the witness of peace and love, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes concerning them " Tho He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him, that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake. Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Esaias said again. He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them." square of Jerusalem, the multitude was

thus,

left alone.

:

They ^^«/^;/<?/ believe." No judgment could be keener, more more fearful Who can hear these words without an aching heart? Who trembles not when the holy apostle declares that such are the ordinances of the Kingdom? Who does not bow the head in the presence of such blinding mysteries? Oh, that we might erase these words from the Gospel But we may not. Tho they most painfully affect us, tho we can not sufficiently admonish one "

direct,

!

!

another never to speak of these fearful mysteries but with a loving

and sorrowing heart, yet they may not be taken from the Gospel. Without them even St. John's Evangel would not be intact, rich, and complete. The Scripture may not be emasculated. It

was Jesus who discovered that these wretchedly sinful men were hardened and stiffnecked. This comes, not to

of Jerusalem

men in Rome or Athens, but to men in the Jewish capital. It is remarkable that when the Greeks came to Philip naively asking tor Jesus, these children of Abraham should be manifested as hardened in their hearts. There had been such men in Jericho, Bethany, and

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