when he is made, they make him twofold more the child of hell than themselves. Like them they pay strict attention to the external ceremonial, but omit the weightier matters of the law. Like them they boast themselves in the magnificence of their temples, and forget that God is not worshipped in temples made with hands. Like them they clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Like them they build the tombs of the prophets and adore the memory of the saints, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, while they themselves are filling up the measure of the iniquities of their fathers.
But the parallel may be carried still further, against Jerusalem, the city of the God of Israel, the peculiar favourite of heaven, and even in the midst of all her corruptions, the only centre of true religion—against her, notwithstanding all her advantages, was the doom pronounced: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!” Let the page of history tell how awfully that doom has been fulfilled. Against Rome, the professed head of Christendom, who prides herself that her bishops are received in direct succession from the apostles; who adores the name of Christ, and glories in offering honour to his most devoted followers—against her is the sentence gone forth,
