the eyes of all Jerusalem were fixed upon Him, and when He died, He died before many witnesses.
Let us see here one more proof of the unspeakable importance of the death of Christ. Let us treasure up His gracious sayings. Let us strive to walk in the steps of His holy life. Let us prize His intercession. Let us long for his second coming. But never let us forget that the crowning fact in all we know of Jesus Christ, is His death upon the cross. From that death flow all our hopes. Without that death we should have nothing solid beneath our feet. May we prize that death more and more every year we live ; and in all our thoughts about Christ, rejoice in nothing so much as the great fact that He died for us !
Let us observe, in the second place, in this passage, the voluntary poverty which our Lord underwent, when He tvas upon earth. How did He enter Jerusalem when He came to it on this remarkable occasion ? Did He come in a royal chariot, with horses, soldiers, and a retinue around Him, like the kings of this world ? We are told nothing of the kind. We read that He borrowed the colt of an ass for the occasion, and sat upon the garments of His disciples for lack of a saddle. This was in perfect keeping with all the tenor of His ministry. He never had any of the riches of this world. When He crossed the sea of Galilee, it was in a borrowed boat. When He rode into the holy city, it was on a borrowed beast. When He was buried, it was in a borrowed tomb.
We have in this simple fact, an instance of that marvellous union of weakness* and power, riches and
* I use the word "weakness" in this passage advisedly. There is
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poverty, the godhead and the manhood, which maybe so often traced in the history of our blessed Lord. Who that reads the Gospels carefully can fail to observe, that He who could feed thousands with a few loaves, was Himself sometimes hungry — and He who could heal the sick and infirm, was Himself sometimes weary — that He who could cast out devils with a word, was Himself tempted — and He who could raise the dead, could Him- self submit to die ? We see the very same thing in the passage before us. We see the power of our Lord in His bending the wills of a vast multitude to conduct Him into Jerusalem in triumph. Wxe see the poverty of our Lord in His borrowing an ass to carry Him when He made His triumphal entry. It is all wonderful, but there is a fitness in it all. It is meet and right that we should never forget the union of the divine and human natures in our Lord's person. If we saw His divine acts only,
scriptural warrant for it in the text, "He was crucified through weakness." (2 Cor. xiii. 4.) Nevertheless I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I utterly disclaim the idea of there being any moral weakness in the human nature of Christ. The only weakness I mean is that sinless infirmity which is inseparably connected with flesh and blood, and from which Adam, before the fall, was not exempt. Of all such weakness, I believe, our Lord was partaker to the fullest extent. Whether or not our Lord's riding upon an ass instead of a horse, was a mark of humiliation, is a point on which opinions differ widely. Some dwell on the fact that the ass in oriental countries was an ani- mal that even kings rode, and refer to Judges v. 10. " Speak, ye that ride on white asses,"&c. Others think that the choice of an ass Avas purposely made as emblematic of our Lord's lowly nature. Gerhard in his commentary, refers to a saying of Tertullian, that the G-entiles called Christians " asinarii," in ridicule, because they believed in Christ who rode on an ass, and even calumniously charged them with wor- shipping an ass's head !