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But the lesson had been from Isaiah, where the unreasonable old prophet is indignant with the ladies of Zion because they don't want to look like dowdies, you remember: 'Tremble, ye women that are at ease, strip you and make you bare and gird sackcloth upon your loins. And off he went like a comet, with the fashionable woman for his tail.
A prophet had long ago called on 'Zion' to 'rejoice greatly' because 'thy King cometh'; but now anxiety and terror cloud all faces. It was partly because self-interest bound many to Herod, and partly because they all feared that any outburst of Messianic hopes would lead to fresh cruelties inflicted by the relentless, trembling tyrant.
I fear all this was true, for the Court also complained of my ignorant and worthless sex for "cutting and curling and laying out of the hair, especially among the younger sort." Increase Mather gave them this thrust in his sermon on the comet, in 1683: "Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell?
Thirdly, But there is a third thing aimed at in this prophecy, and that more principally than any of the other two, which is the repairing of the breaches and ruins of the Christian church, and the building up of Zion in her glory, about the time of the destruction of Antichrist and the conversion of the Jews; and this happiness hath the Lord reserved to the last times, to build a more excellent and glorious temple than former generations have seen.
Behold the Lord hath proclaimed to the end of the world; say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold thy salvation cometh. Hence again he is called the captain, the chieftain, of our salvation, and him without whom there neither is nor can be any.
"Going and weeping they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward." And if you inquire when this should be? The fourth verse tells you, in those days. And if you ask again, what days those are?
These good men counselled them to be faithful, prayerful, and obedient to their leader in all things, prophesying that they should reach Zion in safety, that though it might storm on their right and on their left, the Lord would open their way before them.
Then he read, "'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.... Behold, thy King cometh unto thee with justice and salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Ben-Hur looked away. "What see you, O my master?" "Rome!" he answered, gloomily "Rome, and her legions. I have dwelt with them in their camps. I know them." "Ah!" said Simonides.
The ark, which slew Philistines, and flung Dagon prone on his own threshold, brought blessing to the house of Obededom. The Child who was to be 'set for the fall, was also for 'the rising of many. The stone laid in Zion is 'a sure foundation, and 'a stone of stumbling. The Gospel is the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. The same fire melts wax and hardens clay.
I lay in Zion for a foundation, a tried Stone. Build upon it and you are safe. If you do not build upon it, that Stone becomes 'a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. You must either build upon Christ or fall over Him; you must either build upon Christ, or be crushed to powder under Him. Make your choice!
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