3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; [to prayer. seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? 12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to EXPOSITION-Chap. VI. Continued. disciples the great importance of their seeking treasures that could not perish, and of their serving a master who would not, and could not disappoint them. Under these considerations, he guards them against unavailing and unnecessary cares about worldly objects, assuring them, that if they faithfully served God-if they sought the prosperity, and practised the righteousness of his kingdom, he would by no means suffer them to perish for lack of necessary supplies. When, however, we read, "Take no thought for the morrow," we ought to understand that the original term here used does not exclude a prudent forecast; but only that anxious, heart-dividing care, which would divert us from the service of God, and make us slaves to the world and sin. Our Lord reasons upon this subject, first, on the ground that all the care in the world is insufficient without the divine providence, either to increase our growth, or lengthen out our life; and secondly, because such anxiety is unnecessary; for he who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies, will much more provide for the necessities of those who, with the use of lawful means, confide in his power and goodness. "Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say? Is he unwise? or are ye less than they?" Thompson. The eastern lily is thought to have been a Persian flower, and is of two sorts; the white lily (which has sometimes streaks of purple) and the red, or scarlet lily, called by us, the crown imperial. Josephus tells us, Solomon's usual dress was white, yet his royal robes were probably purple, or scarlet; in either case, nothing of human manufacture can equal in beauty and splendour these works of the Almighty: yet these fairest of flowers wither and die, and when dead, the stalks are often thrown, with herbs and grass, decayed and dried, to heat their ovens. Such is the end of all human glory! The conclusion of this chapter is peculiarly interesting. It urges to a most important duty, to which is attached a most encouraging promise. We are to seek the kingdom of God, which includes all the blessings of the Gospel dispensation; and his righteousness may include, both what he requires and what he provides. The righteousness which he requires is holiness, which we are to hunger and thirst after (ch. v. 6); that which he provides, is the righteousness which is by faith, even the righteousness of Christ. (Rom. iii. 5, 21 22, &c.) This is to be sought first, in respect of time, and in preference to all other objects; and to those who thus seek the righteousness of God, all other things -that is, "all things pertaining to life and godliness," shall be added. (2 Pet. i. 3.) NOTES-Chap. VII. Con. Ver. 4. Let me pull, &c.—Doddr. “Hold still; I will take," &c. Ver. 13. The strait gate. - Dr. Whitby explains this as referring to a wicker gate, admitting but one person at a time, and that not without some difficulty. These (he says) were used on occasion of marriage feasts, &c., a porter was placed to keep improper persons from pressing in, and when all the company invited were assembled, the door was shut. Matt. xxv. 10. Ver. 14. Because strait.-Many MSS. (some very ancient), also some of the ancient versions and Greek Fathers read, "How strait!" So Wetstein and Griesbach; but we confess the former appears to us the preferable sense. So Mill, Doddridge, &c. you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (M) 15¶ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth CHAP. VII. [false prophets. EXPOSITION. (M) Ver. 1-14. Against censoriousness and hypocrisy. Encouragement to prayer, and earnestness in religion. Censoriousness was a reigning sin among the Pharisees; it was therefore needful for our Lord to guard his own apostles against it, especially as it is an error to which young converts are particularly prone. But most assuredly, every censure we pass upon others without looking within, upon our own conduct, exposes us to our Lord's rebuke, and lays us under a just suspicion of hypocrisy. "Thou hypocrite!" first correct thine own faults, and then thy brother's. There requires also, in all our reproofs, a harmony between the style which we adopt, and the persons we address. Let us not wantonly expose truths the most sacred, to persons who are likely to snarl at them, or treat them with contempt. It is universally admitted, that the best things may be abused, and are most subject to abuse-as, for instance, the doctrines of divine grace. Our Lord now returns to the subject of prayer, and having guarded his disciples, in the preceding chapter, against a vain parade, he now urges them to earnestness and importunity. It is not enough to say our prayers; we must ask with a view of receiving; we must seek as those anxious to find; and we must knock with importunity, as persons determined to take no denial. This we are encouraged to do in addressing "Our Father who is in heaven," because we know that no teuder father will refuse those things to his children, which he knows to be suitable and good for them. The relation between this and the following verse is to us not very apparent; hut Doddridge thus connects them: "Being animated by his (God's) goodness, let us express (our) gratitude by kindness to our fellow-creatures." We should, however, rather connect them thus: "The Almighty acting toward us as his children, let us act as brethren toward each other:" and then our Saviour lays down his golden rule "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you even so to them;" a rule equally to be admired for its wisdom, equity, and benevolence; and which comprehends in it, so far as concerns our conduct toward our fellow-creatures, the substance both of "the law and the prophets." The allusion here made to a strait gate" and to "a narrow way," has been variously illustrated. To us the simple meaning appears to be, that there are such difficulties in entering upon the Christian course, as require all our exertions, together with the most earnest prayers for divine assistance. NOTES. Ver. 17, 18. A corrupt tree-" An evil tree." The Greek word does not always signify corrupt, or rotten; but of a bad kind, like the rejected fishes, ch. xviii. 48. Campbell. "Lord! can a feeble, helpless worm, Fulfil a task so hard? Thy grace must all the work perform, And give the free reward." Walls. Ver. 21. The kingdom of heaven has two departments, grace and glory; but the expression must evidently refer to the latter. 24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell: and great was the fall of it. [foolish builder. 28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: 29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. (N) CHAP. VIII. WHEN he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be EXPOSITION-Chapter VII. Continued. (N) Ver. 15-29. A caution against false prophets, and an exhortation to be doers of the word." By their fruits ye shall know them," is certainly the best rule to judge, both of preachers and their doctrines. The fruits here referred to, are those virtues and graces of the Holy Spirit on which our Lord has pronounced his blessing in the opening of this discourse,-meekness, humility, purity, and a peaceable disposition; none of which belong to the character of wolves. The "sheep's clothing" respects not the outward garb, but the persons who put on the external semblance of Christ's disciples, whom he calls his sheep, while their inward disposition, which will eventually show itself in their conduct, proves them to be in heart-" ravening wolves." Or, to advert to another metaphor here used, however fair may be the appearance of a bad tree, its fruit will be of little or no value, till grafted into a good stock. Bad men cannot be good Christians, nor good Christians bad men. (See John xv. 1, &c.) For it is not calling Christ "Lord," nor even working miracles in his name, which will prove any man a Christian; but obedience to his commands. When our Lord says to false prophets and hypocritical professors, "I never knew you," we must take the word, as in many other passages, in the sense of acknowledgment "I never owned you as my disciples." (See Ps. i. 6; Matt. xxv. 12; John x. 14; 1 Cor. viii. 3, &c.) More fully to illustrate his meaning, our Lord concludes this discourse with a parable, in which he compares these two classes of his hearers to men building themselves a house; the one upon a sandy desert, which is liable to be undermined by the rain, and blown down by the wind; the other, deep in the fissures of a rock, which bids defiance both to rains and winds. (Compare Luke vi. 48, 49.) Before we finally close our remarks on this chapter, we would just add, that Bp. Jebb has reduced the whole of our Lord's discourses on the mount, and several others, to the same forms of parallelism as the poetical parts of the Old Testament, particularly Isaiah; in illustration of which remark, we subjoin his version of the concluding parable (ver. 26, 27) :— "Whosoever, therefore, heareth my words and doeth them, I will liken him to a prudent man And the floods came, And the winds blew And fell upon that house; And it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And every one hearing these my words and doing them not, Shall be likened to a foolish man, And the floods came, And the winds blew, And struck upon that house; And it fell: and the fall thereof was great.” (Sac. Lit. 449.) NOTES. Ver. 26. Upon the sand." The fishermen in Bengal build their huts, in the dry season, on the beds of sand from which the river has retired. When the rains set in, which they often do very suddenly, accompanied with north-west winds, the water pours down in torrents from the mountains. In one night, multitudes of these huts are frequently swept away, and the place where they stood is, the next morning, undiscoverable." Ward's Hindoos, vol. ij. p. 335. 29. Not as the Scribes.-The Scribes, it is well known, founded their doctrines in great measure on the traditions of the elders, and the writings of their Rabbins. They used to say, Rabbi such-an-one says so and so: Jesus spake as one sent from God, "Verily I say unto you." "Gill in loc. The centurion's] CHAP. VIII. thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. 7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him, 8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. CHAP. VIII. [servant cured. 10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. Il And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. 14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. EXPOSITION. (0) Ver. 1-15. Christ heuleth a leper, the centurion's servant, and Peter's motherin-law. As Jesus came down from the mountain, probably about dusk, a leper contrived, unobserved, to mingle with the multitude, and applied to Jesus to be healed, under the full persuasion that he was able to effect the cure. Jesus, disregarding all public prejudices, and even ceremonial pollutions, touched him and cured him, as privately as he could; desiring him not to stay to publish the matter among the people, but to go to the temple, make the usual offerings for his cleausing, and shew himself to the priest, that he might be fully satisfied of his cure. If, however, this be the same miracle recorded by Mark (ch.i.) and Luke (ch. v.), as seems hardly questionable, it should seem that he by no means attended to the injunction; for, instead of keeping the matter in any degree secret, he blazoned it abroad im mediately; whether, indeed, he went to the priest afterward, is not said. The next miracle recorded by Matthew, was wrought upon the favourite servant of a Roman centurion, who had become a convert to the law of Moses, and had engratiated himself with the Jews, by building them a synagogue. Hearing that Jesus was at Capernaum, he sent to him some of the elders of the Jews, who had probably attended on his ministry, beseeching him to come and heal his servant, who was dangerously diseased with the palsy. Hearing Jesus was on his way, however, he goes forth to meet him, and in a style very different from that of a Roman soldier, humbles himself before him, professes his conviction that it was not necessary for the Lord to trouble himself to come any farther; it would be enough for him to speak the word, and demons and diseases would obey with promptitude, even as his soldiery yielded him NOTES. CHAP. VIII. Ver. 4. For a testimony unto them— first, to the priests," for though one only was sutficient to pronounce him cared, others would probably inquire into it; and, secondly, to the people, who would eventually learn the truth of the miracle through their means. Ver. 5. A centurion- that is, Captain of 100 men. Ver. 6. Tormented- Campbell, "Afflicted," or distressed. Ver. 14. Laid-that is, on a bed, or conch. Ver. 15. Unto them-that is, Jesus and those with him. But Campbell says many MSS. read "him," which he prefers. Ver. 16. He cast out the spirits. This seems to contradict the idea, that the demons were merely diseases; they were "spirits." brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. 18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. 19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 20 And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. 21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead. [stilled. 23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. 24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. 25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us : we perish. 26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him! 28 And when he was come to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. EXPOSITION-Chap. VIII. Continued. obedience, and as he also obeyed the commands of his superior officer. Jesus on hearing this, being struck with the centurion's humility and faith, immediately exclaims to those around him, “I have not found so great faith (even) in Israel," as in this Gentile proselyte; and assures them, that many shall be called from among the Gentiles, and sit down with the chosen fathers of the Hebrews to enjoy the blessed feast of the celestial world, whilst their immediate descendants should themselves be shut out in the regions of darkness and despair for ever. Jesus instantly subjoins, to the Centurion, "Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee!" and so it was. On the allusion here made to the heavenly felicity, Dr. Macknight remarks"Our Saviour, in the above passage, in saying that the (converted) heathen should sit in heaven on the same couches with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wounds the pride of the Jews, who disdained to eat with the heathen, though many of them, with respect to their morality, were better than they. He finely compares the fruitless repentance, the pain and endless torment of the wicked, who are excluded from the joys of heaven, under the emblem of such as are rejected (from) a marriage feast, to which they had come in the hope of being admitted. In paiu and despair they weep and gnash their teeth. As the Jews, for the most part, had their great feasts in the evening, by the light of tapers, the darkness in which those who are rejected are cast out of the house, is a very appropriate image of the dreadful state of the condemned, who are for ever excluded from the contemplation of God," and the enjoyment of his favour. NOTES. See Ver. 17. That it might-or "thus it was." Note on chap. i. 22. Also a long Note on this passage in Preb. Towns. N. Test. Arr. vol. i. p. 165-7. Ver. 20. Foxes have holes.-They make holes to to hide themselves by burrowing. Ver. 22. Let the dead bury their dead. — that is, let the spiritually dead employ themselves in burying those who are literally so. Doddridge and Campbell. Ver. 28. Gergesenes-the same as Gadarenes, according to Doddr. Wetstein and Campbell think this word was introduced by Origen on conjecture, and that the original word was Gadarenes. So ia Mark v. 1, and Luke viii. 26, it is called "the country of the Gadarenes," If Gadara and Gergese were not the same place, they were certainly very near each other, and the district intended lay, as Luke says, over against Galilec. Coming out of the tombs. Mr. Forbes, speaking of burying places in the East, says, they "frequently afford shelter to the weary traveller when overtaken by the night; and their recesses are also a hiding-place for thieves and murderers." Mr. Buckingham visited a tomb about eight feet high, and twelve paces square, which was turned into a family residence, and the sarcophagus, or stone coffin, used as a provision chest. Orient. Lit No. |