avarice is swallowed up in His benignity and love;
the very idea of ambition is lost in His divine wisdom and divine
self-abnegation.'

The apparent outbreak of passion in the expulsion of the profane
traffickers from the temple is the only instance on the record of his
history which might be quoted against his freedom from the faults of
humanity. But the very effect which it produced, shows that, far from
being the outburst of passion, the expulsion was a judicial act of a
religious reformer, vindicating in just and holy zeal the honor of the
Lord of the temple. It was an exhibition, not of weakness, but of
dignity and majesty, which at once silenced the offenders, though
superior in number and physical strength, and made them submit to their
well-deserved punishment without a murmur, and in awe of the presence of
a superhuman power. The cursing of the unfruitful fig tree can still
less be urged, as it evidently was a significant symbolical act,
foreshadowing the fearful doom of the impenitent Jews in the destruction
of Jerusalem.

The perfect innocence of Jesus, however, is based not only, negatively,
on the absence of any recorded word or act to the contrary and his
absolute exemption from every trace of selfishness and worldliness, but,
positively, also on the unanimous testimony of John the Baptist and the
apostles, who bowed before the majesty of his character in unbounded
veneration, and declare him 'just,' 'holy,' and 'without sin.' It is
admitted, moreover, by his enemies: the heathen judge Pilate, and his
wife, representing, as it were, the Roman law and justice, when they
shuddered with apprehension and washed their hands to be clear of
innocent blood; by the rude Roman centurion, confessing under the cross,
in the name of the disinterested spectators, 'Truly, this was the Son of
God;' and by Judas himself, the immediate witness of his whole public
and private life, exclaiming in despair: 'I sinned in betraying innocent
blood.' Even dumb nature responded in mysterious sympathy, and the
beclouded heavens above and the shaking earth beneath united in paying
their unconscious tribute to the divine purity of their dying Lord.

The objection that the evangelists were either not fully informed
concerning the facts, or mistaken in their estimate of the character of
Christ, is of no avail. For, in addition to their testimony, we have his
own personal conviction of entire freedom from sin and unworthiness,
which l