The Pulpit Commentary — Zechariah — Section 162

"Sereno will be our daye, and bright And happy will our nature bo, When love ie an unerring light, And joy ite own eeourity." (Wordsworth.) F. Vers. 16-21.-Tlte great ha,"Vest-home. The Feast of Tabernacles had a threefold reference. lt was a memorial of the pRSt, it was a service of thanksgiving, and it was also l~1reshadowing of the better things to come. Well, therefore, may the prophet make 1t a symbol of the glory of the latter days, when under Messiah's reign the fol- Hess of the Gentiles should be brought in, and all Israel should be saved. The glowina0 and beautiful picture may represeut the great harvest-home of the world. I. UNITY OF WORSHIP. No more many gods, but one. No more hostile sects and parties, but the holy Catholic Church of the living God. At last the old promise is fulfilled (Numb. xiv. 21). IL JoYFuLXESS OF SERVICE. The Spirit of Christ reigns. Love and joy and peace are in all hearts. From all lands and peoples come the songs of praise and the services of thanksgiving to the Father of lights, and the Giver of every good and perfect gift. fil SAN=l" OF LIFE. Society is purified. Every life is consecrated to God. There is no need any more for the law of. ordinances, for all things are cleansed. "Holiness" is the law everywhere. 1. Common life. 2. Domestic life. 3. Religious life. "Ah I when shall all men's good Be each man's rnle, o.nd universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a htne of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year ?" F. Vers. 1-3.-.A sketch on bad men. "And thy spoil shall be divided," etc. There are three facts here suggested concerning bad men. L THAT THEY ABE CAPADLE OF PERPETRATING THE GREATEST ENORMITIES ON THEIR FELLOW-HEN. "The city of Jeru..salem shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished.'' In the account given by Josephus of the destruction of Jerusalem hy the Romans, we have a record of enormities at which we might well stand aghast. Christ said, concerning this event, "There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be." "The particu- lars," says Dr. Wardlaw, "here noted, are such as usually, it might be,said invariably, attend the besieging, the capture, and the sacking of cities; especially when, as in this case, the assailing army has been exasperated by a long, harassing, and wasting defence. 'l'he entrance of the unpitying soldiery, the rifling of houses, the violation of women, the indiscriminate massacre, and the division of the spoil, are just what all expect, and what require no comment. And never wete such scenee more frightfully realized than at tbe d66truction of Jerusalem, when God in his providence, in judicial retribution, gathered all nations against the devoted city to battle." "All nations," a correct description of the army of Titus, the empire of Rome embracing a large proportion of the then known world, and this army consisting of soldiers of all the different nations which composed it. And, while such was to be the destruction brought upon the •• city," the desolation was to extend, and that in different ways, at short intervals, throughout " the land." The fact that men are capable of perpetrating on their fellow- men such enormities, shows: 1. Man's apostaBy from the laws of his spiritual nature. To love supremely the supremely good, to do unto others what we would have others do unto us, to love and to be loved, seem to us to be truths inscribed upon the very constitution of the soul. They are instinctive truths. But in all such abomination& as here recorded, all these are outraged. Men have fallen away from their own nature. Somehow or other they have become denaturalized. 2. The great work which the gospel l,m to do in our world. The great mission of the gospel (and admirably adapted it is tu it; rui;sion), i;; rnorally tu renew human nature, to Lring it back to itti true self o.nd OH, XIV, 1-21.J THE BOOK OF ZECHARJAH. 167