Matthew 10

M. 1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits, and authority over all devils, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. These twelve, Jesus began to send forth by two and two, to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And he commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, and take nothing for your journey, save a staff only: no scrip, no bread, neither shoes, but be shod with sandals, neither have two coats apiece. For the workman is worthy of his meat. 11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy: and whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide till you depart from that place. And when ye come into an house, salute it; and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the very dust from under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily, I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. 16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

CHRIST sought to train his ministers to perform the duties of their calling without anxious care for the future. He bade them make no provision for their journey, but to trust in God, who would not see them want while faithfully doing their duty; to be content with what was offered them; to abide in the first house that was hospitably opened to them; and thus, having made one family their home, to extend their labors around it as a centre. The issue satisfied them that their Master had predicted rightly; they found, as he had promised, all their wants supplied. N.

Open as day lay all that future to him who here, as elsewhere in so many of his most important discourses, sets forth in a series of perspectives—mixing with and melting into each other—the whole history of his Church in all its trials and conflicts from the beginning even to the end. A greater than prophet is here—one who speaks of men being hated, persecuted, scourged, and put to death for his name’s sake, as if there were nothing in any wise unreasonable or unnatural in it; one who would have all men come to him, and who asks of all who come, love, obedience, and sacrifice, such as but one being has a right to ask, even he who has redeemed us to God by his blood; whose right over all we are and have, and can do, is supreme, unchallengeable, unchangeable; whose by every tie we are, and whom, by the mightiest of all obligations, we are bound to love and serve. H.

WHAT he had first told his disciples at Sychar had now come true on a far larger scale; the spiritual harvest was too great for the laborers; and so, after bidding them to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers, he gives them their first commission to begin their work. He sent them out by two and two, giving them power to cast out devils and heal diseases, and to preach the kingdom of God. They were, in fact, to be his representatives, carrying the gospel to those who could not, or only with great difficulty, attend on his own ministry. S.—Well timed was the mission. For not at the beginning did he send them; but when they had enjoyed the advantage of following him, and had received sufficient proof of his power, both by deeds and words, then he sends them forth; and not to dangerous acts, for as yet they had only to stand against evil speakings. Chrys.

5,6. Go not in the way of the Gentiles.** It was not until after his crucifixion by the Jews and his resurrection, that our Lord said, Go teach all nations. He sends his apostles first to the Jews that they might not plead that they rejected him because he sent his disciples to the Gentiles and Samaritans. Jerome.—Until Christ’s death, which broke down the middle wall of partition (Eph. 2: 14), the gospel commission was to Jews only, who, though the visible people of God, were yet “lost sheep,” needing a Saviour even as others. B.—Before the apostles could teach the heathen, they had to learn the peculiarities of the gospel itself, as well as its relations to the Old Testament. Even had they succeeded in reaching the mind of the heathen with their defective apprehension of Christ’s doctrine, and thus making Jews of them, it would only have been the more difficult afterward to eradicate errors, and impart a pure form of Christianity. But this knowledge was among the things of which Christ himself said to his disciples, “Ye cannot bear them now;” it was bound up with many truths that were as yet veiled from them. Nor could he, consistently with his plan, impart these truths as separate and ready-made; the fruit of knowledge had to grow up in their religious consciousness from the seeds of knowledge sown there by the Spirit of God.

7. He by no means sent them to proclaim the whole truth of salvation; they were as yet incapable of this; and it was at a later period only that he promised the gift of the Spirit to qualify them for it. So long as he remained upon the earth, he was the sole teacher. They were only to proclaim everywhere that the kingdom of God, the object of all men’s desire, had come; to point out to the people of Galilee the great grace of God in calling the founder of that kingdom from their midst. Their present work was to be a type of their future one, when the great work within them should be accomplished. N.

9. Purse and scrip.** One day on the Mount of Olives a peasant offered his services, whose costume arrested my attention. He wore a girdle around his waist, which had an opening at one end, fitting it to hold money and other valuables, and at the same time carried a pouch or bag, in which he could store away provisions and other things needed on a journey. Here, beyond doubt, I saw the articles to which the Saviour refers. H. B. H.—Provide neither gold nor silver. He would relieve them from worldly anxiety, and teach them to devote themselves wholly to the preaching of the word; next he would prove to them his own power, and therefore he afterward asked them, When I sent without purse and scrip, lacked ye anything? W.

16-23. The task now committed to them carried in it the germ of that larger apostolic work, for which by the gift of the Spirit they were to be qualified, and in which for so many years after their Master’s death they were to be engaged. And so, after speaking of the one, Jesus passes on to the other, the narrower mission sinking out of sight as his eye rests on the farther and broader mission that lay before them. In the one, the nearer, there was to be no opposition or persecution; in the other, a fiery trial was in store for the faithful. The one was to be confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; in the other, they were to come into collision with kings and governors of the Gentiles. It is of this second period—of the persecution on the one hand, and the gifts of the Spirit on the other, by which it should be distinguished— that Jesus speaks in the passage embraced in the verses from the sixteenth to the twenty-third. The second division of the address closes, as the first does, by a “Verily, I say unto you.” The fact thus solemnly affirmed points, in the destruction of Jerusalem, to the close of that period over which Christ’s prophetic eye was now ranging: “Verily, I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.” II.

The world’s history may be perused and reperused; the causes of all revolutions, religious or political, may be investigated; but we shall nowhere be able to trace in the dealings of chiefs and accomplices, of originators and fellow-workmen, the divine characteristics of absolute and uncompromising sincerity that reign throughout the actions and language of Jesus Christ in his conduct toward his apostles. Them he has chosen and loved, and to them intrusted his work; but he practises with them no arts of worldly wisdom; he withholds nothing from them. Here is no faltering encouragement, no exaggeration in the promises that he makes, or in the hopes that he holds forth. He speaks to them the language of pure truth, and it is in the name of that truth that he gives them his commands and transfers to them his mission. F. G.

17, 18. Scourge you . . . for my sake. That twelve men, without any reason, and without being misled by any artifice or delusion, voluntarily exposed themselves, at the desire of another person, to persecution, torment, and destruction, demands some most forcible reason, and that reason could be nothing less than a full and perfect conviction, arising from the miracles which they saw, that Christ was the Son of God; that all power was given to him in heaven and in earth; and that he was able to fulfil the promises he had made them of a recompense in the future life, infinitely surpassing in magnitude and duration all the sufferings they could experience in the present world. P.

19. It shall be given you what ye shall speak. The Holy Spirit is in the heart, in the mind, and on the tongue of those who are to speak for Christ, and who belong to him. Neither surprise, nor defect of talent, nor even ignorance, can hurt the cause of God, when the heart is ready to defend it. This promise banishes distrust without encouraging negligence, and without dispensing with the obligation to prepare ourselves, by the meditation of Christian truths, by the study of the Holy Scriptures, and by prayer. A promise so positive would more frequently have its effect, if the incredulity of man did not oppose it. Q.—20. In the great work of God in the world human individuality sinks down and vanishes, and God alone, his Christ, his Spirit, is the great worker, as here “it is not ye that speak.” Your Father. To his disciples our Lord never says our Father, but either my Father or your Father, or both conjoined; never leaving it to be inferred that God is in the same sense his father and our Father.

22, 23. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. Our Lord’s prophecies concerning his coming have an immediate literal, and a distant foreshadowed fulfilment. In these words there is certainly reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, the end directly spoken of is that event, and the shall be saved the preservation provided by the warning afterward given. But these words as certainly look onward to the great final coming of the Lord, the end of all prophecy; as certainly the shall be saved here bears the full Scripture meaning of everlasting salvation; and the endurance to the end is the finished course of the Christian. It is most important to keep in mind the great prophetic parallels which run through our Lord’s discourses, and are, sometimes separately, sometimes simultaneously, presented to us by him. A.

Section 64.—The Twelve, instructed, go forth.

Galilee.

Mk. 7 And great multitudes from Galilee followed him, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem 8 and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan; and he healed them all. And they about 9 Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, 9 came unto him. And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him 10 because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. For he had healed many; in- 11 somuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues. And un- 11 clean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried saying, Thou art the 12 Son of God. And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known. M. 17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my 18 servant whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will 19 put my Spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not 20 strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed 21 shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment 21 unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. L. 12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and 13 continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, whom he would, and they came unto him. And of them he chose and or- dained twelve, whom also he named Apostles: that they should be with him, and that Mk. 15 he might send them forth to preach; and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to 16 cast out devils. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon 17 (whom he also named Peter), and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of 18 thunder); Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew the publican, and Thomas; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus whose surname was Thaddeus, [whom Luke names] Judas

19 the brother of James; Simon the Canaanite, called Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him.

L. 17 And he came down with them, and stood in the plain; and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;

18, 19 and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.

It behooved him to select a number of men in whom the riches of his life might be unfolded in every direction. For this end he needed, above all, men in whom the glory of his spirit and the peculiarity of his work might be distinctly identified; laymen, who would not chain his work to existing priestly habits; unlearned men, who would not mix up his wisdom with traditional schemes of philosophy; even comparatively uneducated men, in order that the dulled taste of a diseased worldly civilization might not disturb the culture which the spirit of the incarnate Word was to impart to them. It was through fishermen, country people, and publicans, that the Word of God in the life and doings of Christ was to be declared in its purity. Lange.

A small body of trustworthy followers were to form the closest, inmost circle of his disciples, and to be his friends and companions. He would give them his fullest confidence: open his mind to them more fully than to others: and, by living among them, inspire them with his own fervor, and mould them to his own likeness. They would see how his soul never unbent from its grand enthusiasm: how he never wearied in his transcendent devotion of body and spirit to his work. In seeing and hearing him, they would gain experience: in the opposition and trials they met in his company, their fidelity would be put to the test, and, in the end, they would be qualified for the special work for which they had been chosen. G.

They were to share and multiply his labors, to protect and relieve him from the pressure to which he was exposed. For a short season he was to send them from his side, to teach and to work miracles as he did himself, that a short fore-trial might be made of the work in which they were afterward to be engaged. After his death they were to be the witnesses of the resurrection, the expounders of that gospel which needed the great decease to be accomplished ere in its full measure it could be proclaimed. By their hands the foundations of the Church were to be laid. H.

Mk. 7-12. This summary statement indicates not only the vast number of those whom Christ healed during his Galilean ministry, but it shows the universality of attention and interest concentrated upon himself. From Judea, Galilee, and Perea, and the outlying countries of Phenicia on the north and Idumea on the south, came these immense multitudes. And it is to be noted, that this great reach and measure of influence was attained by our Lord before his appointment of the apostles, and before any formal and public statement of his essential doctrines. M. 18-20. How gently and unobtrusively, with what a consummate union of wisdom and tenderness, he had attained this wide sway over these ever following multitudes, is intimated by this touching reference to Jehovah’s word concerning his chosen servant. J. G. B.

L. 12. Our Saviour’s whole position at this period of his ministry not only suggested, but may even be said to have claimed, some such public exposition of his doctrine as we find in the Sermon on the Mount. His mission had been unfolded step by step, till it lay fully open to the inquiries of his disdisciples and the objections of his foes; and the time had come to rebuke malignant cavils, to correct erroneous expectations, and to satisfy humble and earnest inquiries. The multitudes who had followed him to the shores of the lake were in a condition not unlike those whom Moses had led out into the wilderness. They had seen and heard enough to prepare them to hear the law of God from his own lips; and they are assembled before a mount, whose very name marks it as far more glorious than Sinai, the Mount of Beatitudes. But in this case, as in that, a solemn pause precedes the utterance of the divine word. The Mediator himself is called to close and secret communion with God, while the people have an interval of awful expectation. Alone, like Moses, Jesus “went up into the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” S.—The scene of this lonely vigil, and of the Sermon on the Mount, was in all probability the singular elevation known at this day as the Kurn Hattin, or “Horns of Hattin.” It is a hill with a summit which closely resembles an Oriental saddle with its two high peaks.

These two maps, copied from a single one prepared by the English Survey, overlap each other. Hattin, the “mountain” where the following sermon was probably delivered, is included in both. The position of Nazareth and Cana is to be noted on the left-hand map. The map on the right hand should be carefully studied, as exhibiting the localities of so large a part of our Lord’s ministry.

The double-peaked summit of Hattin, on the west rises very little above the level of a broad and undulating plain; on the east it sinks precipitately toward a plateau, on which lies, immediately beneath the cliffs, the village of Hattin; and from this plateau the traveller descends through a wild and tropic gorge to the shining levels of the lake of Galilee. It is the only conspicuous hill on the western side of the lake, and it is singularly adapted by its conformation, both to form a place for short retirement, and a rendezvous for gathering multitudes.

13. He chose and ordained twelve.** The present choice was regarded as formal and as final. Henceforth there was to be no return to the fisher’s boat or the publican’s booth as a source of sustenance; but the disciples were to share the wandering missions, the evangelic labors, the scant meal and uncertain home, which marked even the happiest period of the ministry of their Lord. F.—The twelve were not all in indigence. The mother of John ministered to Jesus of her substance; Peter and Andrew had a house at Capernaum; Matthew gave a feast to the Master. But it is clear, nevertheless, that the apostles belonged to the lower class, and were accounted unlearned and ignorant men. At the time they were chosen they were still very ignorant, infected with Jewish prejudices, incapable of rising to the sublime thoughts of their Master. They often saddened the heart of Jesus, though they could not exhaust his patience in the work of their religious education. This work was not to be fully accomplished till he should have gone away from them, and the Holy Spirit should have come upon them, accompanied with the chastening influence of trial. De P.

The twelve were to lead the kingdom as his organs. Their superiority to all others, who should also act as organs of the Holy Spirit testifying within them of the Redeemer (the common calling of all believers), consisted in this, that they received a direct and personal impression of the words and works of Christ, and could thus testify of what they had seen and heard. N.—The marks of the apostolic office were these: Personal intercourse with Christ; appointment by himself; the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed upon them by Christ, and more openly conferred, according to his promise, on the day of Pentecost, giving them power to work miracles and to speak in foreign tongues; to which was added the power to confer that gift on others. The union of these signs distinguished the apostles from every other class of ministers. The number of the apostles, corresponding to that of the twelve tribes of Israel, is clearly symbolical of their primary mission to the Jews. S.—Only at a later period was a Paul added to the apostles—a man capable, from his systematic mental cultivation, of elaborating and unfolding, by his own power of thought, yet under the guidance of the same Spirit of Christ, the material of divine revelation that was bestowed upon him. N.

Mk. 15. The twelve are arranged by Luke in pairs; generally, however, they were divided into three classes, with two pairs in each, in the following manner:

1. 1. Simon, James, Andrew, John; 2. 2. Philip, Matthew (Levi), Bartholomew (Nathanael), Thomas; 3. 3. James, son of Alpheus, Judas, brother of James (Lebbeus, Thaddeus). Simon Zelotes, Judas Iscariot. C. B.

L. 17. Came down . . . in the plain. On a level place, not “in the plain.” This expression suggests that the spot was situated in the midst of a hilly country. Thus the description of the localities offers no impediment to our identifying the discourses of Matthew and Luke. L.—The words which our translators render in the plain, suggest rather some platform. S.—According to tradition, the “Mount of Beatitudes” lies a little west of the Sea of Galilee, and is a square-shaped hill, about sixty feet in height, with two tops, called the Horns of Hattin, from the village of Hattin at its base. The plain on which it stands is easily accessible from the lake, and from that plain to the summit is but a few minutes’ walk. The platform at the top is evidently suitable for the collection of a multitude, and corresponds precisely to the “level place” to which he would “come down” as from one of its higher horns to address the people. A. P. S.—It is quite certain, from the evangelical narrative, that this sermon of the Great Teacher was spoken on a mountain not far to the west of the Sea of Galilee. Somewhere on the summit of this mountain, which slopes down so gently to the spacious Gennesaret plain, Jesus spake that exposition of moral duty which, in purity, spirituality, and humanity, had never been approached by any of the ethical teachings that had preceded it—which no moral teaching since has been able to supplement or improve—which, though it did not amend the Decalogue, yet “filled it up,” ensouled it, and transfigured it; “that heavenly summary of the life and practice of Christianity which age after age has regarded as the most sacred heritage which God has vouchsafed unto his Church.” A. Thomson.

As those twelve chosen ministers stood with him on the Mount of Beatitudes in the morning glow that shone upon the lake, they resembled the heads of the twelve tribes, who were called up with Moses to hear the law given upon Sinai. The discourse which follows was spoken first to them, as the manual of their instructions, the code of the new kingdom of which they were the new ministers, the outline of the truths they were to teach. It was uttered to the disciples in the hearing of all the people, to whom, as representing the whole world, it points out the only path of duty and happiness, that which gives entrance to the kingdom of heaven; invites them into that kingdom by the most alluring promises of blessedness; claims their submission to its just and holy laws; and warns them of the danger and ruin of remaining without it. To all these classes it exhibits the characters that all men must bear, the truths that all must learn, the spirit that all must cultivate, the life that all must live, if they would enter into the kingdom of heaven, and insure the salvation of their souls. S.

The discourses by Matthew and Luke. The positive arguments for the identity of the two discourses are overwhelming, and the very variations tend to establish an essential sameness. Both begin with the same blessings, and end with the same striking parable concerning the difference between hearing and doing. Both mark the same period of our Lord’s ministry, name the same locality, represent our Lord, directly after the discourse, as entering Capernaum, and performing the same miracle. S.—The choice of the twelve by our Lord, as his ministers and witnesses, furnished an appropriate occasion for this public declaration respecting the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and the life and character required of those who would become his true followers. Luke expressly assigns this as the occasion; and although Matthew is silent here and elsewhere as to the selection of the apostles, yet some passages of the discourse as reported by him seem to presuppose their previous appointment as teachers. The order of circumstances would seem to have been the following: Our Lord retires to the mountain and chooses the twelve, and with them descends to the multitudes on the level place or plain, where he heals many. As they press upon him, he again ascends to a more elevated spot, where he can overlook the crowds and be heard by them; and here, seating himself with the twelve around him, he addresses himself to his disciples in particular and to the multitudes in general. R.

Section 35.—Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes.

M. 24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough 25 for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord: if they have 26 called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his 27 household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be 28 revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye 29 in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops. And fear not them which will kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him 29 which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a 30 farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the 31 very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows.

32. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my 33 Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also 34 deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace 35 on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in- 36 law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: and he that loveth 38 son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, 39 and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and 40 he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: 41 and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a right- 42 eous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward.

1. And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve dis- Mk.12 ciples, he departed thence to teach and preach in their cities. And they departed and 13 went through the towns, preaching the gospel, that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed every- where.

THE world that pursued Christ unrelentingly, until it had driven him forth, has ever since been doing its best to make his followers silent concerning him. “Thou shalt not confess the Lord Jesus Christ,” is the first and great commandment of the world, and if it can only get this obeyed it will give a dispensa- tion from all other duties. It has tried fire and the sword abundantly; but in these latter days its tactics are more subtle. In all courtesy, addressing the Christian, it says: “I will sit at your feet, and learn of you. In return I will teach you what I know. We must go hand in hand along the journey of life.” The Christian is charmed by this proposal, and falls into the snare. The world learns something, just to lull the Church asleep; and the Church learns, alas! much of the world. G. B.

Do any good, be it great or small, to a brother of Christ, and you do it to Christ. What new rays of encouragement are here shed over the walks of our common life, which is made up of seeming trifles! Noth- ing is small, which the Master accepts as tribute. Little things become great, when done in a great cause, and out of loyalty to a great King. It is not the price, but the homage. The cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple, refreshes the soul of the Master and has his sure reward. The two mites of the widow (less than the cost of three sparrows) go for more than the thousands of the opulent. The heart is all. The giver stamps the gift, and the intention defines the giver. So likewise in regard to the person bene- fited; little things, we may say again, become great, when done in behalf of Christ’s “little ones.” And these are continually about us. The poor we have always with us; and God hath chosen the poor rich in faith. J. W. A.

24-42. Now the whole earthly mission of the twelve presents itself to the Saviour’s eye but as the preface to that continuous, abiding work of witnessing for him upon this earth to which each separate disciple of the cross is called. Dropping, therefore, all directions and allusions referring ex- clusively to the apostles, Jesus, in the closing and larger portion of the address, from the twentyfourth to the forty-second verse, speaks generally of all true discipleship to himself upon this earth: foretelling its fortunes, describing its character, its duties, its encouragements, and its rewards. H.

28. Fear not. For the day is coming which shall clear you and condemn them, if ye are fear- lessly doing the work of him that sent you. Rather fear him. Fear him, above men; trust him, in spite of men. Their heavenly Father is set forth as the sole object of childlike trust and childlike fear—the former from his love, the latter from his power, his power to destroy, not them, but absolute, soul and body, in hell. A.

30. The hairs of your head are all numbered.** Our Lord teaches us, as to those very little things, in order that we may know and feel that nothing is too little to be ordered by our Father, nothing too little in which to see his hand, nothing, which touches our souls, too little to accept from him, nothing too little to be done to him. Since the hairs of our heads are all numbered, so is every throb or shoot of pain, every beating of the heart. Every tear which starts is seen, and if wept to him is gathered up by him. Every heart’s sigh he hears at once from every bosom in his whole creation. He, who is in the highest heaven and filleth all things, but is contained in none, is present to each single heart, and if the heart form its wish to him he hearkens. Keble.

Nothing is more wonderful, or more incomprehensible, than the care and concern of God for his own. The least circumstances of their life are regulated, not by the general providence, which extends to all things, but by a particular providence, which fits and directs all things to the design of their salvation. Q.—How magnificent is this idea of God’s government! That he inspects the whole and every part of his universe every moment; and orders it according to the counsels of his infinite wisdom and goodness, by his omnipotent will! Whose thought is power, and his acts ten thousand times quicker than the light, unconfused in a multiplicity exceeding number, and unwearied through eternity! How much comfort and encouragement to all good and devout persons are contained in this thought! That Almighty God, as he has his eye continually upon them, so he is employed constantly in directing, in doing, what is best for them. Thus they may be sure indeed that all things work together for their good. The Lord is truly their Shepherd; not leaving them to chance or fate, but watching over them himself; and therefore can they lack nothing. Ogden.

31. Of more value than many sparrows.** We never knew an earthly father take care of his fowls and neglect his children; and shall we fear this from our heavenly Father? That man is unworthy to have God for his father in heaven, who depends less upon his goodness, wisdom, and power, than upon a crop of corn, which may be spoiled, either in the field or in the barn. The passage from distrust to apostasy is very short and easy; and a man is not far from murmuring against providence, when he is dissatisfied with its conduct. He ought to depend entirely upon it, as well for the keeping of its gifts as for the gifts themselves. Q.

32. Confess me.** The context shows plainly that it is a practical, consistent confession which is meant, and also a practical and enduring denial. The Lord will not confess the confessing Judas, nor deny the denying Peter. The traitor who denied him in act is denied; the apostle who confessed him even to death will be confessed. L. A.—33. Deny me. As the great comprehensive gospel duty is the denial of self, so the grand gospel sin that confronts it is the denial of Christ. These two are both the commanding and the dividing principles of all our actions; for whosoever acts in opposition to one, does it always in behalf of the other. None ever opposed Christ, but it was to gratify self; none ever renounced the interest of self, but from a prevailing love to the interest of Christ. The things which generally cause men to deny Christ are either the enjoyments or the miseries of this life; but, alas! at the day of judgment all these will expire; and what are we the better for pleasure, or the worse for sorrow, when it is past? But then sin and guilt will be still fresh; and heaven and hell will be then yet to begin. Him will I deny. How many woes are crowded into this one sentence! It is an eternity of torments compressed in a word. It is condemnation itself, and what is most of all, it is condemnation from the mouth of the Saviour. Could I give you a lively representation of guilt and horror, and paint out eternal wrath and decipher eternal vengeance, then might I show the condition of a sinner hearing himself denied by Christ. And for those whom Christ has denied, it will be in vain to appeal to the Father, unless he imagine that those whom mercy has condemned justice will absolve. R. S.

39. Findeth his life shall lose it.** Life and it refer to the same thing, but in somewhat different senses. The first life is the life of this world, which we here all count so dear to us; the second, implied in it, the real life of man in a blessed eternity. This life unto God is the true life which the self-denier shall find and preserve unto life eternal. A.—All self-seeking is self-losing. Even in spiritual things, he who is perpetually studying how to secure joy and peace for himself loses it. A certain measure of self-forgetfulness is the condition of the highest success even in Christian grace. L. A.

42. Shall in no wise lose his reward.** For so it is, and ever shall be, not simply by great men going out and speaking words of power to gathered multitudes, or by great assemblies propounding solemn truths, that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is advanced; but by all, the high and low, rich and poor, weak and strong, who bear his name, looking upon themselves as his missionaries here, sent by him even as he was sent by his Father; seeking each other’s good, giving and in giving receiving, receiving and in receiving imparting, each doing a little to commend to others that Saviour in whom is all his trust; these littles making up that vast agency by which the empire of the Redeemer over human spirits is being continually enlarged.

Mk. 12. The sight must have been a very extraordinary one, of the apostles setting off two by two from their Master’s side, passing with such eagerness and haste through the towns and villages, preaching and working miracles. To hear one man preach as Jesus did, to see one man confirm his word by doing such wonderful works, filled the whole community with wonder. To what a higher pitch must that wonder have been raised when they saw others commissioned by him, endowed by him, not only preaching as he did, but healing, too, all manner of disease! H.—How long this mission lasted is uncertain. As the first journey of the twelve, alone, it is not likely to have been very protracted. As they appeared, two by two, in the villages of Galilee, the name of Jesus was on every tongue, and penetrated even the gilded saloons of the hated Roman palace of Antipas, at Tiberias. Jesus, himself, had not been idle while his followers were away, for their departure was the signal for a new, solitary journey, to preach and teach in the various cities. His name was thus spread abroad everywhere, and his claims and character discussed by all. G.

Section 65.—Herod holds Jesus to be the Baptist recently beheaded.