stand so prominently in St. Matthew, occur in St. Mark. His omission of all the personal matter, in reply to the charge of dispossession by the agency of Beelzebub, and his similar omission of the whole of Matthew xxiii. are cases in point.

This evidence, then, of the greater circumstantiality of St. Mark in the present instance must go some way in reconciling his account to St. Matthew's; but it will not, as in other instances, be all which is necessary for that effect. The existing differences are such as do not admit of being adjusted, simply upon this principle; for they involve a question not so much of omission and supplement, as of order and statement. The first part of our Lord's reply, in St. Mark, is the last, in St. Matthew; and the last, in St. Matthew, is the first, in St. Mark; that is, Mark vii. 6-8. answers to Matt. xv. 7-9-and Matt. xv. 3—6. answers to Mark vii. 9-13—with respect to which, I shall, notwithstanding, endeavour to shew, first, that St. Matthew's order may have been, and I believe was, the true; yet, secondly, that St. Mark's may not be at variance

with it.

St. Matthew's order, we may presume, is the true, first, because the reply of our Lord, as recorded by him, is recorded continuously, and as one reply, without interruption from first to last.

Secondly, because the terms of the first sentence of this reply are so clearly accommodated to the terms of the demand just before, that no one can doubt whether the former was immediately retorted upon the latter, or not. Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God? There cannot be a more perfect specimen of antithesis: one expostulation is opposed to another-one set of persons are contrasted with another-an instance of the breach of one law is met by an instance of the breach of another.

From the conduct of Jesus at last, it is evident that he never intended to answer the question of the Pharisees to

g xv. 3. 2.

them: he meant to reserve his decision for the people. He knew that they had some sinister purpose in preferring the demand; or, at least, that to enter upon the question, on its own grounds, before them-to explain to them how utterly insignificant in the sight of God were all forms of merely external purity, unaccompanied by the purity of the heart, would necessarily fail of its effect. His answer, therefore, is entirely an argumentum ad homines. He does as good as promise to explain unto them, why his own disciples transgressed the tradition of the elders, if they would first explain to him, why their disciples, in obedience to that tradition, transgressed the commandment of God.

Thirdly, because, though the hypocrisy of the interrogators could not but be known to our Lord, and could not but be justly the subject of his reproaches, from the first, yet, for the sake of those about him, it might still be necessary openly to expose that hypocrisy, before he reproached them with it: in which case, it was more likely he would begin as St. Matthew represents him to have begun, than as St. Mark.

The instance of hypocrisy, with which he accordingly reproaches them, consisted in this case, as in other cases of the like kind, in straining off a gnat, and swallowing a camel-in resenting a small offence, and deliberately sanctioning a greater. There is no comparison, in point of force and obligation, between the laws of God, and the laws of men; yet even on their own admission the laws of tradition, being every where spoken of as the traditions of the elders, or of those of old time, were not the laws of God, but the laws of men. To the existence of this law of tradition Josephus bears distinct testimony h—and he attributes it also to the Pharisees, whose origin he first mentions as contemporary with Jonathan, the successor of Judas Maccabæus. It is true that the pretended zeal for the law of tradition was grounded, or affected to be grounded, on a zeal for the authority of God-the laws of tradition, as it was main

tained by the Rabbins, being originally derived from the will or commands of God. But the traditionary word of God-to admit for argument's sake the existence of any such word could possess at the utmost only an equal, and, certainly, not a superior, authority in comparison of the written and, if in a given instance the doctrines or precepts of the one were diametrically repugnant to the doctrines or precepts of the other, they could not both have been derived from the same authority, or both still retain the same authority-one of them must needs be false, or must needs succumb to the other. The same legislator can never deliberately contradict himself—nor, while a certain injunction still remains in force, exact at one time what he had directly proscribed at another. Much less is it possible for two contrary requisitions both to have proceeded from God; or, if in a given instance there should be any conflict between two rules of duty, each of them professing to emanate from him, that both could have been derived from the same divine source, or both be entitled, as such, to the same consideration, and obedience.

Now whatever authority was ascribed to the oral or traditionary word of God, it was not denied that his written word continued the same; the law of tradition might pretend to explain the law of Moses, but it did not pretend to abrogate it, or to say it was no longer of effect. The written word of God, then, being always professedly acknowledged as the genuine, authentic, record of the will and commands of God, yet the traditionary word being also considered the same, it follows that, on this principle, there were two genuine, authentic, records of the will of God, and two authoritative rules of duty, the law of Moses, and the tradition of the elders. If these, therefore, were each of them what they professed to be, they must agree together; but, if there was any thing in the one flatly contradictory to something in the other, one of them must be a false pretender to its title-which one might be the law of tradition, but, even on the admission of the Pharisees, could not be the law of Moses.

The ordinances of bodily ablutions, and the other precepts of external purity, in an alleged breach whereof the offence of the disciples consisted, being no where prescribed in the written word of God, rested exclusively on the authority of tradition-and the laws of tradition being all similarly founded, any instance of a direct contradiction between them, and the written word of God, would be sufficient to discredit the whole system, and to justify the inference that what would lead to such consequences as these could never be the dictate of eternal truth and justice, instinctively recognized by the consciences of mankind, but a gross and palpable delusion, either founded in fraud and cunning, or the fruit of error and infatuation. Many such examples of traditionary rules of duty, at variance with the plainest maxims of moral and religious truth, there might have been produced—but that, which our Lord insists upon, in the present instance, as among the most criminal of all, and among the most flatly repugnant to both the written word of God, and the natural sense of right and wrong, is the perversion of the vow of Corban, as sanctioned by the law of tradition.

dè..

The existence of the vow of Corban in his own time is recognized by Josephus: Καὶ οἱ Κορβᾶν αὑτοὺς ὀνομάσαντες τῷ Θεῷ· δῶρον δὲ τοῦτο σημαίνει κατὰ Ἑλλήνων γλώτταν κ. Δηλοῖ δὲ . . δῶρον Θεοῦ 1. By this vow both property and persons might become devoted to God; and what had been once thus appropriated never after could be put to any other use m. One of the earliest instances of such a Corban was, in my opinion, the devotion of the daughter of Jephthah to perpetual virginity"—which I am persuaded was of no other description: the next was the consecration of Samuel, whom Hannah, his mother, solemnly dedicated to the Lord even before his conception; and whom Eli, in allusion to this dedication, calls by a beautiful metaphor the loan which was lent to the Lord P-interceding with God

that for the sake of this loan, and as it were in acknowledgment for the use of this loan, he would bless his parents with a numerous family besides.

But, in order to the natural effect of the vow of Corban, it must have been bona fide made; and when made, it was to be bona fide fulfilled. It could never stand good as the result of ignorance, or inadvertency; much less as a subterfuge from other duties. The law of tradition, however, had perverted it to all these abuses; affixing so superstitious a value to the mere pronunciation of the terms δῶρον ἔστω that, of whatsoever they might have been said, it became thenceforward restricted from its proper use and purpose, yet not necessarily appropriated to the service of God. Hence, if a son, whether in the heat of passion, or coolly and deliberately, had only said to his parents—dapov σTW, ô éàv è§ éμoũ ¿peλnlñs—may every thing of mine, which might be useful to thee, be depov-though, from such a mode of vowing, nothing became consecrated to God, yet every thing was tied up from his parents-he had debarred himself from doing good to them again-he would be as much guilty of impiety, if he turned his means or opportunities, ever after, to their benefit, as if his goods and possessions, his soul and his body, having all been inalienably appropriated to God, had subsequently been put to any other use yet, strange to say, for any purpose but that one, he was just as much his own master, he was as free to do what he pleased with his own, as before. Thus was a rash and inadvertent, or even designing and malicious, expression rendered perpetually binding on the conscience—the name of religion, and the honour of God, were prostituted as a cloke for unnatural wickedness-and even the road to repentance was effectually blocked up; for, as our Lord continues 9, a son after that, though he might wish it, would not be permitted to honour his parents-he would be kept to his word, against his own inclinations-he would be held as amenable to spiritual or temporal censures, for services rendered to them, as if he had applied a bona fide Corban

9 Matt. xv. 5.