of his own kingly judgment. His eyes pierce these
hypocrites, and they quail before him. As his witnessing approaches its
close, he draws the two-edged sword from its sheath and holds it before
the time over the naked heads of his enemies, if so be they may even yet
fear and sin not. For his own holy purposes he lays aside for a moment
his gentleness, and appears as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The last
days of the Mediator's ministry on earth are now running: it must now be
decided whether his own will receive or reject him. The leaders of
Israel stood before him, with all their crooked purposes revealed to his
eye; the plot was ripening to take his life away. Laying aside the style
of a meek Beseecher, he assumes the aspect of a just Avenger; already we
seem to see the wrath of the Lamb gathering on his brow. Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry; as yet, his wrath is kindled but a little; in that
day, it will burn like fire. Why has it been kindled a little before the
time? Mercy has lighted this premonitory fire. This terror of the Lord,
like all the others that he sends in the day of salvation, is employed
as the means of persuading men. He not only receives all who come at his
invitation, but sends out foreshadowings of judgment to drive from their
unbelief those who refuse to yield to gentler means. Many of the
forgiven, on earth and in heaven, are ready to tell that after they had
long resisted his tender invitations, they were overcome at last by
gracious terrors launched against them by a loving Saviour.

The Jews were familiar with these ideas connected with the corner stone.
The prophecy in the aspect of a promise they readily understood, but
here the other and opposite side of it also is displayed.

The picture--for it is by itself a short parable--represents a great
stone at rest. In Alpine valleys, close by the root of rent, rugged,
precipitous mountains, you may often see a rock of vast dimensions lying
on the plain. In magnitude, it is itself a little hill; and yet it is
only a stone that has fallen from the neighbouring mountain. Suppose a
band of living men should rush with all their might against that stone,
they would be broken and it would not be moved. If they retire and
repeat the onset, the rock lies still in majestic repose, while their
feeble limbs are mangled on its sides, and their life-blood sinks into
the soil at its base.

The next part of the conception, which the imagination can easily for