Again, Jesus said that “_he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance._” But Jesus gave them no quarter, but sent them head and heels to the Devil. The Jewish rulers must have been more than human to have quietly taken such vulgar abuse. Sometimes, Jesus seemed to soften down in his conduct, as when he says, “_O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not._” So erratic is Jesus depicted, in the account we have transmitted down to us, that we are at a loss as to forming an opinion concerning his manner of treating his own people. But as it was “_by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God_” that he was to be a “_sacrifice for the sins of mankind,_” his mode of addressing the rulers of Israel was calculated to bring about the “_will of his Father._” Admitting, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Jews were in a worse state than if he had not appeared among them. The statement made by Jesus of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of his second coming, confounded all their ideas of the Messiah’s kingdom. In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, after having pronounced a number of dreadful predictions against them, he winds up in chapter twenty-third as follows, “*YE SERPENTS! YE GENERATION OF VIPERS! HOW CAN YE ESCAPE THE DAMNATION OF HELL?*” In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives a long account of his second coming. How was it possible for the Jews to understand what he there describes? Their desire was, to know if he was the Messiah promised by the prophets; and, if so, what steps he would take for the exaltation of their nation, so that they might enjoy all they had been induced to expect when the “_sun of righteousness should arise with healing in his hands_.”