Sinner, why shouldst thou pull vengeance down upon thee? why shouldst thou pull vengeance down from heaven upon thee? Look up; perhaps thou hast already been pulling this great while, to pull it down upon thee. Oh, pull no longer; why shouldst thou be thine own executioner? Fall down upon thy knees, man, and up with thy heart and thy hands to the God that dwells in the heavens; cry, yea, cry aloud, "Lord, unite my heart to fear thy name, and do not harden mine heart from thy fear." Thus holy men have cried before thee, and by crying have prevented judgment. HUMILITY. I take the pinnacles on the top of the temple to be types of those lofty, airy notions, with which some delight themselves, while they hover like birds above the solid and godly truths of Christ. Satan attempted to entertain Christ Jesus with this type and antitype at once, when he set him on one of the pinnacles of the temple, and offered to thrust him upon a false confidence in God, by a false and unsound interpretation of a text. Matt. 4:5,6; Luke 4:9-11. You have some men who cannot be content to worship in the temple, but must be aloft; no place will serve them but pinnacles--pinnacles, that they may be speaking in and to the air, that they may be promoting their heady notions, instead of solid truth--not considering that now they are where the devil would have them be. They strut upon their points, their pinnacles; but let them look to it: there is difficult standing upon pinnacles; their neck, their soul, is in danger. We read, God is in his temple, not upon these pinnacles. Psalm 4; Hab. 2:20. It is true, Christ was once upon one of these; but the devil set him there, with intent to dash him in pieces by a fall; and yet even then told him, if he would venture to tumble down, he should be kept from dashing his foot against a stone. To be there, therefore, was one of Christ's temptations; consequently one of Satan's stratagems: nor went he thither of his own accord, for he knew that there was danger; he loved not to clamber pinnacles. This should teach Christians to be low and little in their own eyes, and to forbear to intrude into airy and vain speculations, and to take heed of being puffed up with a foul and empty mind. ZEAL. The loaves or showbread in the temple were to have frankincense strewed upon them as they stood upon the golden table, which was a type of the sweet perfumes of the sanctification of the Holy Ghost. They were to be set upon the pure table, new and hot, to show that God delights in the company of new and warm believers. "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth; when Israel was a child, I loved him." Men at first conversion are like to a cake well baked, and new taken from the oven; they are warm, and cast forth a very fragrant scent, especially when, as warm, sweet increase is strewed upon them.