L. 1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn-fields: and his disciples were an hungered, and began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath-day. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful? And Jesus answering them, said, Have ye never read so much as this, what David did, when he had need and was an hungered, he and they that were with him; how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high-priest, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law how that on the sabbath-days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. L. 6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, when he was departed thence, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and behold, there was a man there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath-day: and they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-days? that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath-days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? But they held their peace. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath-days. Mk. 5 And when he had looked round about upon them all with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and his hand was restored whole, like as the other. 6 Then the Pharisees were filled with madness, and went out, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. And straightway they took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. But Jesus, when he knew it, withdrew himself from thence with his disciples to the sea.

VIRTUE goes out of Christ. The shrunken hand instantly acquires a healthful color, and swells into its right proportions. In his joy the man shuts and opens it; moves the pliant fingers; and holds the miracle aloft to the gaze of a crowd, dumb with astonishment. Give him a harp, and with that hand he would sweep its sounding strings to the praise of Jesus. Pattern to men who have souls to be saved, and hearts to cure, he did what he could—using all means within his power to obtain the blessing. And, did people, with equal eagerness, repair to the church on Sabbath, as he to the synagogue, to meet Jesus Christ, and with the same earnestness and the same faith, lay out their sins and soul’s sorrows before him, our Sabbaths would witness greater works than this—he who healed that withered hand healing withered hearts, and, whether they required to be saved or sanctified, giving power to them that have no might. Guthrie.

1. More properly translated “the second-first Sabbath,” and was probably a sort of proper name for the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover or of unleavened bread; that is, the first of the seven Sabbaths reckoned between that day and Pentecost. R.—Went through the corn-fields. The Scriptures are almost entire strangers to the word fence, as they are to the word road. We read of ways and highways, instead of roads; and fences were for towns rather than for fields. In the absence of fences, there was of course the greater need of such laws concerning trespass as Moses instituted. This account seems a picture from life in modern Palestine. N. C. B.—Pluck the corn and eat. The law and practice of Palestine continue to be this day what they were so many thousand years ago (Deut. 23 : 25). We travelled in that country once in spring, before the ears of corn were full. Nothing surprised us more than the liberties which our guides took in riding through the fields and letting their horses eat as much of the standing corn as they pleased. We felt at first as if we were trespassers and thieves, but were relieved by finding that it was done under the eye and with the full consent of the owners of the crops. H.—So I have often seen my muleteers, as we passed along the wheat-fields, pluck off ears, rub them in their hands, and eat the grains, unroasted, just as the apostles are said to have done. This also is allowable. The Pharisees did not object to the thing itself, only to the time when it was done. W. M. T.—The rabbis had decided that to pluck corn was to be construed as reaping, and to rub it as threshing. F.

ONE principal end of the sabbatic institute was to preserve a knowledge of, and a faith in, the one living and true God as the creator of all things. There was no rite, nor institution, not even circumcision, by which the Jews were more conspicuously distinguished from surrounding nations, and marked off as the worshippers of Jehovah. Their Sabbath-keeping was a perpetual and visible token of the connection in which they stood to God, and of the great mission which they were set apart to discharge. But, as the faith of the people grew weak, and their allegiance faltered, they began to profane the day by breaking in upon that rest from all ordinary occupations, which should have been observed. Thus, among other distinctive marks of their peculiarity as the only worshippers of the great Creator, this one became obscured and wellnigh obliterated. A singular change came over the Jewish people after the restoration from the Babylonian captivity. Previously they were ever and anon showing a tendency to idolatry; subsequently no such tendency appears. Previously they had been neglectful of many of the distinctive rites and ceremonies of their faith; subsequently they became strict and punctilious in their observance of them. Great national calamities—the persecution under the successors of Alexander the Great, the wars of the Maccabees, the aggression of the Romans, the ascent into power of the Idumean family of the Herods, the establishment of the schools of the rabbis—all conspired to intensify the national pride and religious bigotry of the Jews; who, as they had nothing but the old laws and traditions to cling to, clung to them with all the more tenacious grasp. The sect of the Pharisees arose, and carried the popular sympathy along with it. Everything regarded as purely and peculiarly Judaic was exaggerated. Punctilious observance of the old ritual was the one great merit compensating for all defects; while around the simpler statute-law of Moses there arose an oral or traditional law, growing continually in bulk and overshadowing the primitive Mosaic institute. Upon each statute additions and explanations were heaped of such a character as to turn more and more the keeping into a mere external routine and outward performance. So fared it with the old, broad, and benignant law as to the Sabbath. Its primary injunction, “Thou shalt do no manner of work,” was falsely held as aimed at all kinds of work whatever; no less than thirty-nine kinds or classes of work being specified as involved in the prohibition. It was ruled thus that grass should not be trodden on the Sabbath, for the bruising of it was a species of harvest work; that shoes with nails should not be worn, as that was the carrying a burden. In all this there was not only a wrong rendering of the Mosaic precept, but much worse than that, there was the erection of a false standard of duty, a false test of piety—the elevation of the outward, the positive, the ceremonial, over the inward, the moral, the spiritual; the putting of the letter that killeth above the spirit which maketh alive. H.

M. 5, 6. He begins with his opponents upon their own ground. “You yourselves admit that the priests who serve the temple on the Sabbath must break the literal sabbatical law in view of the higher duties of the temple-service.” Then he continues, “But I say unto you, there is something here greater than the temple.” In these, as in many of Christ’s words, there is more than meets the ear. When we remember the sanctity of the temple in Jewish eyes, as the seat of the Shechinah, as the only place where God could ever be worshipped, we can conceive the weight of Christ’s declaration that his manifestation was something greater than the temple, and was to introduce a revelation of the glory of God, and a mode of divine worship to which the temple-service was entirely subordinate. We may infer Christ’s conclusion to have been, “If the priests have been freed from the literal observance of the Sabbath law because of their relation to the temple, heretofore the highest seat of worship, how much more must my disciples be freed from the letter of that law by their relation to that which is greater than the temple! (Their intercourse with him was something greater than temple-worship.) They have plucked the corn on the Sabbath, it is true, but they have done it that they might not be disturbed in their communion with the Son of man, and in reliance upon his authority. They are free from guilt, then, for the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” He thus laid the foundation for that true, spiritual worship to which the temple-service was to give way. N.—The temple—the seat of the Shechinah, the visible majesty of the divine presence—released the priesthood from the strict observance of the sabbatical law. They might offer their sacrifices. How much higher the claim to liberty on the part of the disciples through their connection with him! How natural to conclude that he who was greater than the temple is to take its place! G. P. F.

Or have ye not read? His deep knowledge of the Scriptures shows itself throughout the gospels. He has a quotation ready to meet every hostile question. It was so profound that it forced even his enemies to recognize him as a rabbi. His frequent retort on the rabbis themselves—“Have ye not read?” and the deep insight into the spirit of Scripture, which opposes to rubrics and forms the quickening power of a higher life, prove how intensely he must have studied the sacred books. G.

7. The quotation (Hos. 6 : 7) bears this translation, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” the words themselves containing one of those prophetic glimpses of the gospel, one of those slights cast upon the law intimating that God had something better and higher in store for his people. The prophet of the old covenant is here anticipating the great apostle of the new, in his saying, 1 Cor. 13 : 1–3. He is declaring, That which God longs for on the part of men is not the outward observance, the sacrifice in the letter, but the inward outpouring of love—that which the “sacrifice” symbolized, the giving up of self in the self-devotion of love. This must underlie every outward sacrifice and service to give it value; and when the question arises between the form and the spirit, then the form must yield to the life, as the meaner to the more precious. T.

Mk. 27. That is: Man was not created for the purpose of honoring the Sabbath; but as soon as created, the Sabbath was made to promote the best welfare of man, and, therefore, to his best welfare it must ever be held subordinate. It was made for man; not for any particular nation, but for the race; for the spiritual benefit of mankind. The very act of authoritatively regulating the duties of the Sabbath, while it doubtless implies an authority to abolish the institution, was really an authoritative recognition of it. As the authority was not used in abolishing, its effect was to confirm the ordinance. Stone. (Read Section 184.)—The end for which the Sabbath was ordained was to bless man; the end for which man was created was not to observe the Sabbath. A principle is here laid down, which must extend to the whole circle of outward ordinances. It does in fact say this, The law was made for man; not man for the law. Man is the end, and the ordinances of the law the means; not these the end, and man the means. Man was not made to the end that he might observe these; but these were given, that they might bless man, that they might train and discipline him till he should be ready to serve God from the free impulses of his spirit. T.

28. Lord even of the Sabbath.** As naked a claim to all the authority of Him who gave the law at Sinai as could possibly be made. B.—These words are inseparable from the meaning of our Lord’s answer. In pleading the example of David, the king and prophet, and of the priests in the temple, the Lord tacitly implies the greatness of his own position. He is indeed Prophet, Priest, and King; and had he been none of these, the argument would have been not merely incomplete, but misleading. It is undeniable that the law of the Sabbath was very strict. Our Lord quotes cases where the law is superseded or set aside, because he is One who has power to do the same. S.

L. 9. They had put the alternatives of doing or not doing; here there might be a question. But he shows that the alternatives are, doing good or failing to do good—which last he puts as identical with doing evil, the neglecting to save as equivalent with destroying. Here there could be no question. T.—By this novel way of putting his case, our Lord teaches the great ethical principle, that to neglect any opportunity of doing good is to incur the guilt of doing evil; and by this law he bound his own spirit. B.

Mk. 5. It was the sight of men, who, laying hold of one of his Father’s most merciful institutes, had exalted it into a place of false importance, attaching a specific virtue to the bare outward keeping of the letter, magnifying the minutest acts of bodily service, finding therein the materials which self-righteousness employed for defrauding the poor, the needy, and the diseased of that help which charity was ready to render—such was the source of that anger with which Jesus looked round about on the scribes and Pharisees. H.—Being grieved. One of the most striking and graphic descriptions in the gospels. It was thus that he bare even while on earth our infirmities and our sins. Their hearts were hardened—but he grieved for it. A.

He stretched it forth. He believes that Christ can give the strength to execute the command. It is in that faith he acts, and, paradoxical as it may seem, let us say that, if in that faith he had not made the effort, he never would have got the strength; and yet if he had not got the strength, he never could have made the effort. Stretch forth thy withered heart to love—thy withered hand to serve—such is still his command. Fixing an eye of faith on him, who has already fixed his eye of love on us, let us make the effort, and in the very making of the effort we shall get the strength. H.

6. Filled with madness.** Thus in every way were his enemies foiled—foiled in argument, shamed into silence, thwarted even in their attempt to find some ground for a criminal accusation. For even in healing the man, Christ had done absolutely nothing which their worst hostility could misconstrue into a breach of the Sabbath law. He had not touched the man; he had not questioned him; he had not bid him exercise his recovered power; he had but spoken a word, and not even a Pharisee could say that to speak a word was an infraction of the Sabbath, even if the word were followed by miraculous blessing!

Took counsel with the Herodians. Hitherto they had been enemies of the Herodians. They regarded them as half-apostate Jews, who accepted the Roman domination, imitated heathen practices, adopted Sadducean opinions, and had gone so far in their flattery to the reigning house that they had blasphemously tried to represent Herod the Great as the promised Messiah. But now their old enmities were reconciled in their mad rage against a common foe. F.—The Herodians were such Jews as favored Herod Antipas, and thus, outwardly at least, were friends of Rome, whose vassal Antipas was. Antipas had seen Judea and Samaria made a Roman procuratorship, and longed to get them back for himself, as a son of Herod, of whose kingdom they had been part. Intrigues to gain this end led to standing enmity between him and the rest of the family on the one side, and the procurators on the other. Disappointment at the results of annexation to Rome had made some look with kindlier feeling on the Idumean dynasty, which in its turn felt itself endangered by the claims of Jesus to set up a new kingdom. The Herodians in the end got their wish, when Agrippa I. (A. D. 37) was appointed king, and a Herod kingdom was thus again set up for a time. Even the Pharisaic or national party, indeed, came in the end to favor this scheme, in their deadly hatred of Rome. The alliance with the Herodians against Jesus was the first step in this new political path. G.

Section 34.—Healing at the Seaside. The Apostles chosen.

Mk.19 And they went into an house. And the multitude cometh together again, so that 20, 21 they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.

M. 22 Then was brought unto him one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that it came to pass when the devil was gone out the blind and dumb 23 both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?

24. But the Pharisees, when they heard it, and the scribes which came down from Jerusalem, said, This fellow hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out 25 devils. But Jesus knew their thoughts, and called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 26 And if Satan rise up against and cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how 27 shall then his kingdom stand? He cannot stand, but hath an end. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be 28 your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God 29 is come unto you. No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

31. Wherefore, verily, I say unto you, All manner of sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

32. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come: he hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

33. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good: or else make the tree corrupt, and his

34 fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak-

35 eth. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things:

36 and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the

37 day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

GOODNESS, in the spiritual representation of Christ, is a certain interior disposition, a frame of the soul, where the first fixed choice is for righteousness, and the first fixed love is for God. Goodness, then, lies not so much in specific deeds as in the faithful heart; not so much even in special attainments as in that principle of a consecrated will which presides over all our doings and gettings; not so much in this or that act, or even series of acts, as in that pervading and supreme purpose or motive which, having been appropriated from Christ himself, rules the general tenor and course of life into harmony with his spirit; not so much in outward manifestations as in an internal aspiration, strong and constant, for newness of life, and fellowship with God by his Son. In other words, a Christian righteousness consists in being first and doing afterward; in a right spirit before there can be a right life; in a changed and reconciled heart, in order to a noble and beautiful conduct. We must do Christian works from a love of them, or else we never do them—Christian works—at all. Make the tree a good tree, or the fruit will not be good fruit. F. D. H.

21. A mode of life like this—out all night upon the mountain-top, teaching, walking all day long without food or rest—so affected the minds of his immediate relatives when they heard of it, that they went out to lay hold of him, for they said, He is beside himself.

22. Blindness and dumbness, whether springing from original defect or induced by disease, he had often before cured. But here, underlying both, was the deeper spiritual malady of possession. Jesus cast the devil out, and the immediate effect of the dispossession was the recovery of speech and vision. H.—23. The dissolution of so hideous a spell as that which had bound this man—the power to pour light on the filmed eyeball, and to restore speech to the cramped tongue, and intelligence to the bewildered soul—was something that the people had never witnessed. The miracle produced a thrill of astonishment, a burst of unconcealed admiration.

For the first time they openly debated whether He who had such power could be any other than their expected Deliverer. “Can this man,” they asked, “can he be the Son of David?” F.—Here were three cures simultaneously effected; and when the people beheld the lunatic sensible and collected, when they heard the dumb speak, and perceived that the blind saw, they exclaimed in amazed reverence, “Is not this the Son of David?”—that is, the Messiah? K.—The descent of the Messiah from David was universally acknowledged. “The Son of David” was, therefore, a very common title for the Messiah. To this day, all Jews speak of the Messiah they expect as “The Son” or “The Branch” of David. G.—It was in connection with this class of cases only that the double result appeared, of an extraordinary commotion among the people and an extraordinary allegation put forward by the Pharisees.

24. Christ had not yet broken with the Pharisees as a party, nor denounced them either privately to his disciples or publicly to the multitude. But now, at the close of his second circuit through Galilee, the collision came, and the whole manner of his speech and action toward them was changed. A winebibber, a gluttonous man, a friend of publicans and sinners, a Sabbath-breaker, a blasphemer, they had called him, but here is the vilest thing that calumny can say of him—that he is in league with Satan, and that it is to his connection with the devil that he owes all his wisdom and power. H.—Beelzebub. How the name of this Philistine idol came to be given to Satan, is not known; but as idolatry is in reality devil-worship, it was not unnatural. Christ’s bitterest enemies did not deny the reality of his miracles; and being stung by the unsophisticated testimony of “all the people,” they had no way of holding out against his claims but by the desperate shift of ascribing his miracles to Satan. B.

25-29. That he spoke thus against them was but a further carrying out of his mission, a further inroad upon the kingdom of that Beelzebub. And yet they were the accredited authorities in the church of that day. It was for the sake of the people that he called the Pharisees hypocrites, and not for their own sakes, for how should he argue with men who taught religion for their own aggrandizement? They who were cured, and they in whom self-worship was not blinding the judgment, had no doubt that he was fighting Satan on his usurped ground. Torture was what might be expected of Satan; healing what might be expected of God. The reality of the healing, the loss of the man, morally as well as physically, to the kingdom of evil, was witnessed in all the signs that followed. Our Lord rests his argument on the fact that Satan had lost these men. McD.—Christ silences the Pharisees by referring to their own practice and belief. The Jews believed in exorcisms. Their exorcists, called here the children (i. e., disciples) of the Pharisees, pretended to eject demons, and persuaded the common people that they really did so. Our Saviour does not acknowledge the reality of these exorcisms, but shows that on their own principles they ought not to charge him with casting out devils by Beelzebub. That their cures were pretended and incomplete is evident from Matt. 9: 33, where in view of the perfect cure of one possessed with a devil, the people said, “It was never so seen in Israel.” J. J. O.—Christ points out the contradiction involved in their assertion, and showed that such works could be wrought only by the power of God, which alone could free the human soul from the dominion of the evil spirit. He designates this individual case as a sign that the kingdom of God, before which the powers of darkness must flee away, had manifested itself. N.—A rigid monotheistic religion like the Jewish left but one way of escape from the authority of miracles, which were acknowledged to be indeed such, and not mere collusions and sleights of hand. There remained nothing to say but that these were works of hell. We have our Lord’s answer to the deep malignity of this assertion; his appeal, namely, to the whole tenor of his doctrine and his miracles—whether they were not altogether for the overturning of the kingdom of evil—whether such a lending of power to him on the part of Satan would not be wholly inconceivable, since it were altogether suicidal. T.

29. The soul is here represented as the usurped possession and dwelling-place of Satan, “a strong man.” The only “stronger than he” is Christ, who comes upon and overcomes him in the soul by using the sword of the Spirit, even the word of God—the same weapon which won him the personal victory in the wilderness. Falsehood is the weapon by which Satan takes and holds the soul captive. By its reception of the pure truth as taught by the Holy Spirit, Satan’s power is broken. The palace, or the soul, passes into possession of Christ. J. G. B.—

30. He that is not with me is against me. Not with me (works not with me in the power of the Holy Ghost) is against me (opposes in his works the kingdom of God); and he that gathereth not with me (does not, in communion with me, gather souls for the kingdom) scattereth abroad (leads them astray, and thus really works for the kingdom of Satan, against which he apparently contends). N.—The first clause of the verse asserts that he who is not Christ’s follower is his foe, and it classes the multitude, who were listening but not obeying, with the Pharisees, and both with Satan and the devils; the second asserts that every act and influence in life, of the disciple as well as of him who is not, if it gather nothing for Christ and with him, scatters and wastes that which has been or is being gathered. Every act as well as every individual is with and for Christ or against him. L. A.—The mightiest spiritual forces are struggling for the possession of the soul of man: on the one hand, Satan, the tempter of our first parents, the “father of lies,” with his subtle devices of temptation; and, on the other, the Holy Spirit of light and truth and love, with his influences of grace. No one can be passive in this conflict of spiritual powers; and as one chooses his alliance here will be his state and portion in the hereafter. J. P. T.

31,32. The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost consists evidently in words malignantly spoken against the power of the Holy Ghost working in Jesus Christ. The Pharisees are virtually charged with having committed this crime. They had deliberately attributed to the devil one of the highest acts of omnipotence. No conceivable sin could be greater than this. J. J. O.—Nothing could be here intended, short of the entire and final alienation of the heart and will and life from everything divine, the contradiction of the whole man to all of God’s which testifies of grace and mercy and truth and holiness; a sin which therefore, in its very nature, excludes its own forgiveness, inasmuch as it excludes the conditions under which alone forgiveness could be obtained. T.—He speaks of a certain malicious disposition of mind, which by venting itself under such circumstances in blasphemy against the greatest of our Lord’s miracles, plainly discovered itself to be incapable of amendment by any means which God would vouchsafe to make use of. That particular blasphemy, in those particular circumstances, was a sign only or an evidence, which our Saviour knew and declared to proceed from an incurable and therefore unpardonable malicious disposition of mind. Nothing therefore can be gathered from this passage, concerning any particular sin against the Holy Ghost (as many have without reason imagined), in its own nature unpardonable. The blasphemy our Saviour here speaks of is not singly sinning against the person of the Holy Ghost, or against his good motions, but presumptuously reviling the greatest works of the Holy Ghost, and so obstinately rejecting the last call to repentance. He that blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, against the highest evidence of our Lord’s greatest miracles, was never to be forgiven; not because even this was in itself and in the nature of the thing absolutely unpardonable (for no reason can be given why speaking against the person of the Holy Ghost should be in itself of greater malignity than speaking against Christ, or against God the Father himself), but because it was an obstinate rejecting the last means of conviction, and an evident token of incorrigible malice. S. C.

Hath never forgiveness, but, etc. Hath not remission (or forgiveness) to eternity, but is subject (or obnoxious) to eternal judgment. The common version of the second clause (hath never forgiveness), though impressive and substantially correct, obscures the antithesis between the cognate noun and adjective, aiona and aioniou. The former properly denotes duration—sometimes definite, as an age, a lifetime, or a dispensation; but, when limited by nothing in the context, indefinite and even infinite duration. This strongest sense would be implied here, even if these words were not expressed, by the structure of the sentence. If some sins will be forgiven, and some not, the latter must be coextensive with the former; and as those forgiven are forgiven to eternity, those unforgiven must eternally remain so. The same thing is more positively stated in the last clause. As his sin is not to be remitted, he is of course subject to eternal condemnation, i. e., actually subject, or judicially subjected to it, and not merely in danger of it, as the word is inexactly rendered. J. A. A.

33. The greatest of God’s inward works is the work of regeneration. It is this which is the root of all subsequent growth. To this our Lord remands the Pharisees instead of all cleansing of the “outside of the cup and the platter,” saying, “Make the tree good.” No change from better to better can be compared with the change from darkness to light. J. W. A.—The tree is known by its fruit. Ye accuse me of working by Beelzebub. But if the devil be evil, he cannot do good works; so that if my works are good, the devil is not the doer of them. Jerome.—A tree is known by its fruits, not the fruits by the tree. Having no fault to find with the fruit, ye pass sentence against the tree, saying that I have a devil. Chrys.

34-37. And then, speaking to them in language of yet plainer significance, he turned the light of truth into their hypocritical hearts, and showed them how this fruit of falsehood and calumny could only spring from roots of hidden bitterness; how only from evil treasures hid deep in darkness, where the very source of light was quenched, could be produced these dark imaginings of their malignity. Lastly, and with a note of warning which has never since ceased to vibrate, he warned them that the words of man reveal the true nature of the heart within, and that for those, as for all other false and lightly uttered words of idle wickedness, they should give account at the last day. F.—Because words, so lightly thought of by the careless, spring from the inner fountains of good and ill, therefore they will form subjects of the judgment of the great day, when the whole life shall be unfolded and pronounced upon. Words are the outward utterance of the man—a specimen of what is within. A.

Section 48—Rebukes the Scribes and Pharisees. Disciples his Kindred.

Galilee.

M. 38 THEN certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees tempting him answered, saying, 39 Master, we would see a sign from heaven, from thee. But when the people were gathered thick together, he answered and said to them, This is an evil and adulterous generation; they seek after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of 40 man be to this generation. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is 42 here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.L. 33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a 34 bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of 35 light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore 36 that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.M. 43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seek- 44 ing rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I 45 came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.L. 27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps 28 which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.M. 46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, there came then his mother and his brethren, and standing without, sent unto him, calling him, desiring to speak with him. And 47 the multitude sat about him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy 48 brethren stand without, desiring to see thee, to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he 49 looked round about on them which sat about him, and stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! my mother and my breth- 50 ren are these which hear the word of God and do it. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

CHRIST and his gospel stand out totally distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony and licentious unbelief. Paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and rabbinical fantasies—when rising up in the midst of all this debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his gospel, gentle in the midst of violence, holy amongst flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world, not from Oriental barbarism, not from Western paganism, not from Jewish corruption. It could then have come from no other place than heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon what was compressed in that three years’ labor, and compare it with systems which have occupied men’s lives to sketch out merely, and taken ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system, which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality, its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the mind. Therefore the best thing for Christians still to do is to lift up Christ before the eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be lifted up boldly and faithfully, be it by the voice, or the pen, or better still, by the more impressive exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. An.

M. 38. The crowds that gathered round him wherever he went; the wonder and gratitude with which his miracles were hailed; the impression his discourses had created, and the steps that he had now obviously taken toward organizing a distinct body of disciples, fanned into an open flame the long-smouldering fire of Pharisaic opposition. H.—Though baffled, the Pharisees did not intend to leave Jesus long in peace. He had spoken to them in language of lofty warning, nay, even of stern rebuke—to them, the leaders and religious teachers of his time and country. How did he dare thus to address them? Let him at least show them some sign from heaven, no mere exorcism or act of healing, but some great, indisputable, decisive sign of his authority. It was the old question which had assailed him at his very earliest ministry, “What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?” To such appeals, made only to insult and tempt—made by men who, unconvinced and unsoftened, had just seen a mighty sign, and had attributed it at once without a blush to demoniac agency—made, not from hearts of faith, but out of curiosity, and hatred, and unbelief—Jesus always turned a deaf ear. F.

39. As Jonah, by his deliverance, was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be, by his resurrection from the dead, to this generation. L. A.—40. The usual formula which our Lord employed in speaking of his resurrection was, that “he should rise on the third day.” The expression “three days and three nights,” our Lord uses here, and here alone, because he is quoting from Jonah 1:17. The Hebrew form of expression for three days and three nights was likewise used generally and indefinitely for three days simply. This is manifestly the case here. R.—Jesus was dead part of the first and part of the third day. The Jews were accustomed to call parts of a day as a whole day. Jesus, of course, speaks with a recognition of the custom of the people. The phrase “the heart of the earth” does not mean “the grave,” but Hades—the “death kingdoms.” G.—Our Lord treats the history of Jonah as a true history, to be understood in its plain sense; and expounds the meaning of it, hitherto unrevealed, viz., that it was not only a history, but also a prophecy, a typical representation of himself—of his own wonderful death, burial, and resurrection. W.

41. This generation, our Saviour says, compared with the people of Nineveh, shall be more justly condemned. For, when the men of Nineveh were preached to by Jonah, a stranger, who continued among them but three days, and wrought no miracles to confirm his mission, they yet hearkened to him, and repented. But this generation, though they have Christ himself sent to preach to them, though they hear his doctrine, and see his miracles, though they are astonished at the authority with which he teaches, and the power by which he acts, yet they are not by all these things brought to repentance. S. C.

L. 34. Christ tells them that they will not see the significance of his teaching and miracles because they shut the eyes of their understanding which should be the light of the soul; this is set before them in a parable concerning the light of the body which is the outward eye. A.—35. Take heed that the light which is in thee. That is, Let every man take care that the moral judgment of his understanding be not corrupted with blind unreasonable prejudices, or with vicious wilfully indulged affections; for, in that case, his very guide becomes his seducer, and his light itself is darkness. S. C.—36. Our Lord is speaking of his teaching as apprehended by the simple, single-seeing soul. If the soul, having no part darkened by prejudice or selfish lusts, approach thus to his teaching, it shall be wholly illuminated by it. The second clause expresses the waxing onward of the shining light, arising from the singleness of the eye, and becomes, in its spiritual significance, a weighty declaration of truth. A.

M. 43-45. The direct application of this parable is to the Jewish people, and the parallel runs thus: The old demon of idolatry brought down on the Jews the Babylonish captivity, and was cast out by it. They did not, after their return, fall into it again, but rather endured persecution, as under Antiochus Epiphanes. The emptying, sweeping, and garnishing may be traced in the growth of Pharisaic hypocrisy and the rabbinical schools between the return and the coming of our Lord. The repossession by the one, and accession of seven other spirits more malicious than the first, hardly needs explanation. The desperate infatuation of the Jews after our Lord’s ascension, their bitter hostility to his Church, their miserable end, are known to all. A.—The personal application of the parable may be thus stated: A purposed and begun reformation makes the soul an uncongenial resting-place for the “unclean” or evil spirit, and he goes out for a time. After a while he concludes to return and ascertain how the attempt at reformation has ended. He finds the soul empty! No “stronger man than he,” no Christ in possession; none to resist his renewed control. Nay, the self-reformer has only prepared the way by successive declensions for Satan’s return; sweeping the soul of all good purposes, and so suitably garnishing it for his reentrance and permanent abode. Now, Christ intimates, the state of that soul is hopeless! J. G. B.—Relapse into evil, when thoroughly yielded to, makes the case ever worse than before. The power of a resisting will is destroyed; in just judgment God lets this awful law of the human soul take effect; and the enemy is permitted to take his own advantage of it. B.

L. 28. He does not deny the honor pronounced upon his mother. “Yes indeed, but.” This answer cuts at the root of all Mariolatry, and shows us in what the true honor of that holy woman consisted—in faith and obedience. A.

M. 49. Christ, surrounded by a host of anxious seekers for salvation, heard the announcement undisturbed. To show, by this striking case, that blood relationship did not imply affinity for his spirit, pointing to the seeking souls around him, and to his nearer spiritual kindred—the disciples—he said, “Behold my mother and my brothers!” N.—How great is the honor of faith and obedience! How blessed the consanguinity! To be born of God, and to bear the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts; to express his image in every thought and word and action; and to be ourselves confirmed to him, partakers of his holiness, and of his crown. Thus to become his brethren, and the children of God, is no empty honor, no sounding name, but gives a sure title to a share in his glory. Stanhope.

46-50. Mary is included in what is a virtual censure on the part of her Lord. He neither goes out to meet her and her companions, nor admits them into his presence. He exclaims that his nearest of kin are the children of God. It is thus remarkable that in the only two instances, until the crucifixion, where Mary figures in the gospel, she appears in order to be reproved by the Saviour, and to be placed, as far as the mere maternal relation is concerned, below obedient servants of God. These passages must be regarded as protests laid up in store against the heathenish eminence which the Roman Church assigns to Mary, and especially against that newly-established dogma, of her being without sin from her birth, which they so signally contradict. T. D. W.

Christ came for all men, the second Adam, taking our entire humanity on him. Though he was born of a woman, he is not on that account more nearly united to her than to all those who are united to him by the spirit; nor bound to regard the call of earthly relations so much as the welfare of those he came to save. . . . Our Lord, though he introduces the additional term sister into his answer, does not introduce father, inasmuch as he never speaks of an earthly father. A.—His vocation lies altogether in the reconciliation of men with God, and thereby with each other. Not that he felt any indifference, much less contempt, toward the earthly relations or vocations of men. He was a loving son, a faithful friend. But the holiest of earth’s relations, and the purest of its vocations, are nothing to him, except in so far as each is not only controlled but penetrated by a higher relation and vocation. His true friends are those who do what he commands. His true, his sole vocation is that of Saviour. R. C.—The earthly and the heavenly bonds, the common and the Christian ties, do not always coincide, neither are they always in harmony. If ever they interfere—if mother, or brother, or sister, or dearest friend, should tempt us away from him in nearness to whom standeth our eternal life—then let us remember this scene and ask our Lord to give us of his own spirit, to follow him. H.

Section 49.—Dining with Pharisees, denounces their Hypocrisy.

Galilee.