ot things yet to come. To attend a marriage feast, and cleanse the temple from profanation were among the first acts of our Lord's ministry at His first coming. To purify the whole visible Church, an4 hold a marriage supper, will be amongst His first acts, when He comes again.
We see, for one thing, in this passage, liow much Christ disapproves all irreverent behaviour in the house of God.
We are told that He drove out of the temple those whom He found selling oxen and sheep and doves within its walls, — that He poured out the changers' money and overthrew their tables, — and that He said to them that sold doves, " take these things hence, make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." On no occasion in our Lord's earthly ministry do we find Him acting so energetically, and exhibiting such righteous indignation, as on the occasion now before us. Nothing seems to have called from Him such a marked display of holy wrath as the gross irreverence which the priests permitted in the temple, notwithstanding all their boasted zeal for God's law. Twice, it will be remembered. He discovered the same profanation of His Father's house going on, within three years, once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end. Twice we see Him expressing his dis- pleasure in the strongest terms. " The thing is doubled '* in order to impress a lesson more strongly on our minds.
The passage is one that ought to raise deep searchings of heart in many quarters. Are there none who profess and call themselves Christians, behaving every Sunday just as badly as these Jews ? Are there none who secretly bring into the house of God their money, their lands, their houses,- their cattle, and a whole train of worldly affairs? Are there none who bring their bodies only into the place of worship, and allow their hearts to wander into the ends of the earth? Are there none who are "almost in all evil, in the midst of the congregation?" (Prov. v. 14.)