How damnable must sin appear, If we reflect how dear It cost the Saviour to atone For all our weight of guilt, For sin his precious blood was spilt.
This scripture was also divinely fulfilled, when our Lord rode in triumph to Jerusalem, as related by the evangelist. Having sent two of his disciples to fetch him an ass and a colt, he sat thereon. While vast multitudes were collected, and attended him in the way to the city, some laid their cloaths on the beast, others cast them on the ground for him to ride over, and many cut down branches of palm trees to adorn his entrance into the city, the children in the temple sung their hosannas to the Redeemer, in harmony with the loud shouts and acclamations of the populace. The Pharisees, those most inveterate enemies of Christ, who had been a little mortified just before, by the display of the power and Godhead of Christ, in raising Lazarus from the dead, were still more so, on beholding the triumphant entrance of Jesus, the approbation of the people, and the anthem of the children. They had the daring effrontery to ask him, hearest thou what those children say? The Saviour said, And did you never read, that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? Here was the real literal fulfilment of this text, for the Redeemer on this occasion, stilled and silenced those enemies and avengers. This triumphant entrance was indeed an emblem of his future exaltation. The animal which bore Him perhaps intended to shew the characters he would make use of to bear his name in the Jewish and Gentile worlds, and amongst all persons, high and low, rich and poor, learned and illiterate. The conduct of the people in casting their cloaths from them, to shew the effect that grace has upon the heart, in causing the soul to renounce its own righteousness, as more fit for the feet of an ass, than to recommend it to God; while the branches of palms which they bore were ensigns of the future victories which the all-conquering captain of our salvation would gain over all his enemies. And the very songs of the children, the prayers, and the praises which would ascend from his redeemed in the temple of his church, in all future generations. Their hosannas were a prayer for salvation in all its branches—save Lord, I beseech thee! and it was a wishing success, and prosperity to his kingdom. These two are found together in the souls of the called children of God. Where there is prayer for our own souls, there is an earnest desire for the increase of the Redeemer’s kingdom, and a hearty welcoming his visits: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. This is the soul’s echo to the pleasing tidings: Behold the king cometh unto thee. May not this group of children, singing the praises of the adorable Messiah, though perhaps unconscious of the meaning, be a beautiful figure of that vast body of children who are saved by his grace, and shout his fame, his love, and his victories, in the temple of heaven for ever.