ask him? 12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for t Levit. xix. 18. this is the law and the prophets. ch. xxii. 40. Rom. xiii. 8, &c. Gal. v. 14. ▾ Deut. xiii. 1, &c. Jer. 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the u Luke xiii. 24. 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. 15 vt Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 x 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 But beware. t Some MSS. read, 'Pythagoras said this, Plato said it. Well, if any of them is found to have said a thing which Christ also said, we congratulate him, we do not follow him. But, it is said, he came before Christ. So then, if a man speaks truth, he is to be esteemed prior to truth itself." Therefore is the inference indeed from the preceding eleven verses, but immediately from the give good things to them that ask him, just said, and thus closing this section of the Sermon with a lesson similar to the last verse of ch. v., which is, indeed, the ground-tone of the whole Sermon-Be ye like unto God." even so, viz. after the pattern of all things whatsoever: not those things themselves, because what might suit us, might not suit others. We are to think what we should like done to us, and then apply that rule to our dealings with others: viz. by doing to them what we have reason to suppose they would like done to them. This is a most important distinction, and one often overlooked in the interpretation of this golden maxim. 13-27.] THE CONCLUSION OF THE DISCOURSE-setting forth more strongly and personally the dangers of hypocrisy, both in being led aside by hypocritical teachers, and in our own inner life.-The gate stands at the end of the way, as in the remarkable parallel in the Table of Cebes; "Do you see a certain small door, and a certain path in front of the door, which is not much frequented, but only a few walk in it? this is the way which leads to true discipline." 14.] because gives a second reason, on which that in ver. 13 depends: strive, &c., for broad is, &c., because narrow is, &c. The reason Micah. 5. 2 Pet. ii. 1, 2 Cor. xi. 14. &c. w Acts xx. 29, 30. x ch. xii. 33. why the way to destruction is so broad, is because so few find their way into the narrow path of life. This is not merely an arbitrary assignment of the because, but there is a deep meaning in it. The reason why so many perish is not that it is so ordained by God, who will have all to come to the knowledge of the truth,--but because so few will come to Christ, that they may have life; and the rest perish in their sins. See notes on ch. xxv. 41. strait] literally, restricted,-crushed in, in breadth. 15.] The connexion is,strive to enter &c.: but be not misled by persons who pretend to guide you into it, but will not do so in reality. These false prophets, directly, refer to those who were soon to arise, to deceive, if possible, even the very elect, ch. xxiv. 24; and indirectly, to all such false teachers in all ages. in sheep's clothing] There may be allusion to the prophetic dress, ch. iii. 4; but most probably it only means that, in order to deceive, they put on the garb and manners of the sheep themselves. 16.] The fruits are both their corrupt doctrines and their vicious practices, as contrasted with the outward shews of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, their sheep's clothing to deceive. See James iii. 12; ch. xii. 33, 34. 17. a corrupt tree] See also ch. xiii. 48. From these two verses, 17, 18, the Manichæans defended their heresy of the two natures, good and bad: but Augustine answers them, that such cannot possibly be their meaning, as it is entirely contrary to the whole scope of the passage (see for example ver. 13), and adds, "A bad tree then cannot bear good fruit: but it may, from bad, become good, in order to the bearing good y ch. iii. 10 and parallel. John xv. 2, 6. z ch. xxv. 11, 12. Luke xiii. 25. Ꮓ forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 y Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but Rom. ii. 13. he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we a Num. xxiv. not a prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. James i. 22. &c. John xi. 51. 1 Cor. xiii. 2. b ch. xxv. 12. Luke xiii. 25, 27 2 Tim. ii. 19. c Ps. v. 5: vi. 8. с b 24 Therefore ch. xxv. 41. whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, u I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 and the rain descended, and the floods u Our earliest MSS. read, shall be likened. fruit." On the other hand, these verses were his weapon against the shallow Pelagian scheme, which would look at men's deeds apart from the living root in man out of which they grew, and suppose that man's unaided will is capable of good. Trench, Serm. on the Mount, p. 150. 20. ye shall know them] The original has more force; ye shall thoroughly know them' see 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 21.] The doom of the hypocritical false prophets introduces the doom of all hypocrites, and brings on the solemn close of the whole, in which the hypocrite and the true disciple are parabolically compared.-Observe that here the Lord sets Himself forth as the Judge in the great day, and at the same time speaks not of "my will," but "the will of my Father:" an important and invaluable doctrinal landmark in this very opening of His ministry in the first Gospel. The context must rule the meaning of such wide words as saith. Here it is evidently used of mere lip homage; but in "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord," 1 Cor. xii. 3, the "saying" has the deeper meaning of a genuine heartfelt confession. To seek for discrepancies in passages of this kind implies a predisposition to find them: and is to treat Holy Scripture with less than that measure of candour which we give to the writings of one another. 22. in that day] perhaps refers to ver. 19: or it may be the expression so common in the prophets of the great day of the Lord: e. g. Isa. ii. 20; xxv. 9 al. fr. So the Jews called the great day of judgment "that day." in thy name] perhaps better by thy name, that name having filled out our belief, and been the object of our confession of faith. prophesied] i. e., as so often in N. T., preached, not necessarily foretold future events. See 1 Cor. xii. 10, and note. On cast out devils, see note on ch. viii. 32. 23.] See Luke xiii. 25-27. will I profess (more properly, confess) is here remarkable, as a statement of the simple truth of facts, as opposed to the false colouring and selfdeceit of the hypocrites- I will tell them the plain truth.' I never knew you, i. e. in the sense in which it is said, John x. 14, "I know my sheep (lit. the things that are mine), and am known by them." Neither the preaching Christ, nor doing miracles in His Name, is an infallible sign of being His genuine servants, but only the devotion of life to God's will which this knowledge brings about. 24. these sayings of mine] more probably, these sayings from me: see Acts i. 4, ye have heard of (from) me. The expression, these sayings, seems to bind together the Sermon, and preclude, as indeed does the whole structure of the Sermon, the supposition that these last chapters are merely a collection of sayings uttered at different times. I will liken] Meyer and Tholuck take this word to signify, not I will compare,' but 'I will make at that day like.' But it is, perhaps, more in analogy with the usage of the Lord's discourses to understand it, I will compare: soch. xi. 16: Luke xiii. 18. 25.] This similitude must not be pressed to an allegorical or symbolical meaning in its details, e. g. so that the rain, floods, and came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and : Mark i. 22: vi. 2. Luke iv. 32. John vii. 46. to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people & ch. xiii. 54. were astonished at his doctrine: 29 for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. VIII. 1 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, ▾ render, the. winds should mean three distinct kinds of temptation; but the Rock, as signifying Him who spoke this, is of too frequent use in Scripture for us to overlook it here: cf. 2 Sam. xxii. 2 [Ps. xviii. 2], 32, 47; xxiii. 3: Ps. xxviii. 1; xxxi. 2, al. fr.; lxi. 2: Isa. xxvi. 4 (Heb.); xxxii. 2; xliv. 8 (Heb.): 1 Cor. x. 4, &c. He founds his house on a rock, who, hearing the words of Christ, brings his heart and life into accordance with His expressed will, and is thus by faith in union with Him, founded on Him. Whereas he who merely hears His words, but does them not, has never dug down to the rock, nor become united with it, nor has any stability in the hour of trial. In the rock, the sand, the articles are categorical, importing that these two were usually found in the country where the discourse was delivered;-in the rain, the floods, the winds, the same, implying that such trials of the stability of a house were common. In the whole of the similitude, reference is probably made to the prophetic passage Isa. xxviii. 15-18. 27. great] All the greater, because such an one as here supposed is a professed disciple-hearing these sayings-and therefore would have the further to fall in case of apostasy. 29.] Chrysostom's comment is, "For He did not say what He said on the authority of others, quoting Moses or the prophets, but every where alleging Himself to be the One who had the power. For when giving the law, he ever added, 'But I say to you,' shewing that He himself was the Judge." CHAP. VIII. 1-4.] HEALING OF A LEPER. Mark i. 40-45. Luke v. 12-14. We have now (in this and the following VOL. I. W read, their. chapter), as it were, a solemn procession of miracles, confirming the authority with which our Lord had spoken. 2.] This same miracle is related by St. Luke without any mark of definiteness, either as to time or place,-"And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city. . ." In this instance there is, and can be, no doubt that the transactions are identical: and this may serve us as a key-note, by which the less obvious and more intricate harmonies of these two narrations may be arranged. The plain assertion of the account in the text requires that the leper should have met our Lord on His descent from the mountain, while great multitudes were following Him. The accounts in St. Luke and St. Mark require no such fixed date. This narrative therefore fixes the occurrence. I conceive it highly probable that St. Matthew was himself a hearer of the Sermon, and one of those who followed our Lord at this time. From St. Luke's account, the miracle was performed in, or rather, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of, some city what city, does not appear. As the leper is in all three accounts related to have come to Jesus ("And behold" implying it in Luke), he may have been outside the city, and have run into it to our Lord. a leper] The limits of a note allow of only an abridgment of the most important particulars relating to this disease. Read Leviticus xiii. xiv. for the Mosaic enactments respecting it, and its nature and symptoms. See also Exod. iv. 6: Num. xii. 10: 2 Kings v. 27; xv. 5: 2 Chron. xxvi. 19, 21. The whole ordinances relating to leprosy were symbolical and typical. The disease was not contagious: so that the view which makes them E thou canst make me clean. 3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, mere sanitary regulations is out of the question. The fact of its non-contagious nature has been abundantly proved by learned men, and is evident from the Scripture itself: for the priests had continually to be in close contact with lepers, even to handling and examining them. We find Naaman, a leper, commanding the armies of Syria (2 Kings v. 1); Gehazi, though a leper, is conversed with by the king of Israel (2 Kings viii. 4, 5); and in the examination of a leper by the priest, if a man was entirely covered with leprosy, he was to be pronounced clean (Levit. xiii. 12, 13). The leper was not shut out from the synagogue, nor from the Christian churches. Besides, the analogy of the other uncleannesses under the Mosaic law, e. g. having touched the dead, having an issue, which are joined with leprosy (Num. v. 2), shews that sanitary caution was not the motive of these ceremonial enactments, but a far deeper reason. This disease was specially selected, as being the most loathsome and incurable of all, to represent the effect of the defilement of sin upon the once pure and holy body of man. Leprosy was, indeed, nothing short of a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all the humours, of life; a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away." (Trench on the Miracles, p. 213.) See Num. xii. 12. The leper was the type of one dead in sin: the same emblems are used in his misery as those of mourning for the dead: the same means of cleansing as for uncleanness through connexion with death, and which were never used except on these two occasions. Compare Num. xix. 6, 13, 18, with Levit. xiv. 4-7. All this exclusion and mournful separation imported the perpetual exclusion of the abominable and polluted from the true city of God, as declared Rev. xxi. 27. And David, when after his deadly sin he utters his prayer of penitence, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,' Ps. li. 7, doubtless saw in his own utter spiritual uncleanness, that of which the ceremonial uncleanness that was purged with hyssop was the type. Thus in the above-cited instances we find leprosy inflicted as the punishment of rebellion, lying, and presumption. I put the plague of leprosy in an house' (Levit. xiv. 34), Remember what the Lord thy God did to Miriam' (Deut. xxiv. 9), and other passages, point out this plague as a peculiar infliction from God. "The Jews termed it the finger of God,' and emphatically The stroke.' They said that it attacked first a man's house; and if he did not turn, his clothing; and then, if he persisted in sin, himself. So too, they said, that a man's true repentance was the one condition of his leprosy leaving him." Trench, p. 216. The Jews, from the prophecy Isa. liii. 4, had a tradition that the Messiah should be a leper. worshipped him] "falling on his face," Luke v. 12; “kneeling to him," Mark i. 40. These differences of expression are important. See beginning of note on this verse. Lord] Not here merely a title of respect, but an expression of faith in Jesus as the Messiah. "This is the right utterance of Lord,' which will never be made in vain." Stier. When Miriam was a leper, "Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee," Num. xii. 13. 3. touched him] He who just now expansively fulfilled the law by word and commands, now does the same by act and deed the law had forbidden the touching of the leper, Levit. v. 3. It was an act which stood on the same ground as the healing on the Sabbath, of which we have so many instances. So likewise the prophets Elijah and Elisha touched the dead in the working of a miracle on them (1 Kings xvii. 21: 2 Kings iv. 34). The same almighty power which suspends natural laws, supersedes ceremonial laws. Here is a noble example illustrating His own precept so lately delivered, ‘Give to him that asketh thee.' Again, we can hardly forbear to recognize, in His touching the leper, a deed symbolic of His taking on him, touching, laying hold of, our nature. The same remarkable word is used in the Greek in Luke xiv. 4, "and taking hold of him, he healed him," and in Heb. ii. 16, "He taketh not hold of angels, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abraham.” 4. See thou tell no man] Either (1) these words were a moral admonition, having respect to the state of the man ("teaching him not to boast and seek admiration," as Chrysostom), for the injunction to silence was not our Lord's uniform practice (See Mark v. 19, || L.), and in this case they were of lasting obligation, that the cleansed leper was not 4, 10. shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses a LEVIT. xiv. 3, 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 to make his healing a matter of boast a testimony unto them] A testimony both to, and against them. The man disobeyed the injunction, so that our Lord could no more enter the city openly: sce Mark i. 45. 5-13.] HEALING OF THE CENTURION'S SERVANT. Luke vii. 1-10, where we have a more detailed account of the former part of this miracle. On the chronological arrangement, see Introduction. The centurion did not himself come to our Lord, but sent elders of the Jews to Him, who recommended him to His notice as loving their nation, and having built them a synagogue. Such variations, the concise account making a man do by himself what the fuller one relates that he did by another, are common in all written and oral narrations. In such cases the fuller account is, of course, the stricter one. Augustine, answering Faustus the Manichæan, who wished, on account of the words of our Lord in ver. 11, to set aside the whole, and used this variation for that purpose, makes the remark, so important in these days, "Does not our human custom furnish abundance of such instances? Shall we read, and forget how we speak? Could we expect that Scripture would speak with us otherwise than in our own manner? On the non-identity of this miracle with that in John iv. 46 ff., see note there. 66 5. centurion] he was a Gentile, see ver. 10, but one who was deeply attached to the Jews and their religion; possibly, though this is uncertain, a proselyte of the gate (no such term as "devout," "fearing God," is used of him, as commonly of these proselytes, Acts, x. 2 al.). 6.] From Luke we learn that it was a slave, who was precious to him." The centurion, perhaps, had but one slave, see ver. 9. 8.] The centurion heard that the Lord was coming, Luke vii. 6, and sent friends to Him with this second and still humbler message. He knew and felt himself, as a heathen, to be out of the fold of God, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel; and therefore unworthy to receive under his roof the Redeemer of Israel. 9.] The meaning is, I know how to obey, being |