ality. They appeared beautiful outwardly, no garnished sepulchre more so, but it was with numbers only a fair seeming; descending within, as Jesus did, a mass of moral corruption, as of the charnelhouse, disclosed itself. What! the people were ready to exclaim to Jesus; is not the goodness of such persons as our religious teachers sufficient to save us? So far from that, is his reply, your virtue must far exceed theirs, or you can lay no claim to be my disciples. My standard is a far higher and purer one than theirs.-Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven, i. e. you cannot become my disciples, or Christians. The righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees is outward, technical, meagre, hypocritical; the righteousness of my followers must be of the heart, living, sincere, universal, the unqualified obedience of the whole man. Having thus stated the general principle, that he should require a loftier virtue than the current examples of the day, he proceeds to specify cases; first in regard to Murder; secondly, verse 27, Adultery; thirdly, verse 33, Oaths; fourthly, verse 38, Retaliation.

21. Jesus proceeds to quote and comment upon the commandments of Moses, the traditions, and the glosses which had been put upon them, and shows what he meant by a better righteousness than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. First, in relation to Murder.-Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, i. e. it is matter of tradition. Instead of by them of old time, some read, to them of old time:

to the ancients, meaning to the contemporaries of Moses. Jesus did not decry the piety and morality of the Mosaic standards, but censured the interpretations, often lax, which were put upon the original commands.-Thou shalt not kill, i. e. thou shalt not commit murder. Ex. xx. 13. This precept was Mosaic, divine.-Whosoever shall kill, &c. This was an explanation, or tradition, afterwards appended to the law, referring merely to the temporal punishment consequent upon the overt act of murder. Jesus went down to the source from which the act originated; the thoughts and feelings of the heart; and showed their criminality and danger, even when they did not actually result in the deed of violence.

In danger of, i. e. responsible to, obnoxious to.-The judg ment. This signifies not a judicial sentence, but a municipal court by which sentence was passed, judgment pronounced. The Talmudists, or writers among the Jews of the third and fourth centuries after Christ, describe this court as consisting of twenty-three persons; but Josephus, whose authority is to be preferred, represents it as a tribunal of seven, which sat in each city or town, with the Levites as attending officers. As is evident from the reference of the text, causes of importance came before them, and severe punishments, as strangling, and beheading, were inflicted at

their command.

22. But I say unto you. Jesus speaks with authority, with a natural tone of superiority and command, which was felt to be genuine

by his hearers, and different from the hollow assumption of the Scribes. Chap. vii. 29. His special commission from God gave a godlike weight to his words; as an ambassador from an earthly king speaks and negotiates with the energy and decision of the sovereign in whose stead he acts. Worldly teachers had glossed over the strict truth with their own interpretations; Jesus rends them away, and, backed by the power and wisdom of God, uses the simple but lofty form of address: "But I say unto you." Such an expression, in any but a special, divinely authorized, supernaturally gifted messenger of God, would excite anything but respect. In Jesus it is natural and graceful. He utters his great truths with an easy air of authority, notwithstanding his humble origin, which convinces us that he had a right from above to decide, and that his word was final.-Angry with his brother without a cause. 1 John iii. 15.Brother means any man. All mankind in the view of Christianity are brothers.-Angry without a cause, i. e. either without an adequate reason, or to an excessive degree. This is to be understood in the two last clauses, as well as the first. Jesus calls not only the overt act of violence criminal and punishable, but also the state of feeling from which the act originated, the bad passions causelessly and excessively inflamed. He deals with the heart. In danger of the judgment, i. e. liable to the condemnation of the inferior court of judicature; or rather, to express the exact sense, is liable to such a punishment from God as may be parallel with that

which this tribunal commands to be inflicted.-Raca. A Syriac or Chaldaic word expressing great contempt, equivalent to fool, dolt, simpleton. A commandment of God may be violated in spirit, when it is kept in the letter. The feeling of bitterness and contempt which prompts men to call each other by opprobrious names often results in the actual deed of violence and murder. So far as these are its natural consequences, the feeling itself is of the same dark guilt as its results.-The council, i. e. the Sanhedrim, the chief tribunal among the Jews. It was established in the time of the Maccabees, about two hundred years before our Saviour. Civil and ecclesiastical cases fell beneath their jurisdiction. They could pass sentence of death, but they depended upon the Roman governor to carry it into effect. Their number was about seventy, consisting of the highest officers of the Jewish commonwealth. They commonly held their sessions at Jerusalem in a room near the temple. Mention is often made of this court in the New Testament. Our Saviour was condemned by it, and his apostles were arraigned before it. The sense is, that he who used a word of contempt and scorn towards his fellow-man would expose himself to a condemnation and punishment, under the government of God, equivalent and parallel to that which it came within the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim to pronounce.-Thou fool. translation is nearer the sense of Raca, used before, than of the word in the original. The term is Moreh. It means not fool, but impious,

This

apostate, wretch; implying a low moral condition, as Raca does a contemptible intellect.-Hell fire. In the Greek, the Gehenna of fire. Gehenna is a word of Hebrew origin, signifying the valley of Hinnom. It was situated near the city of Jerusalem on the east. The brook Kedron ran through it. Horrid sacrifices of the heathen god Moloch were performed in this valley. On this account the place was afterwards held in such abhorrence that it was made the common receptacle of the filth of the city. The carcasses of animals, the bodies of executed criminals, were thrown into this place. Fires were kept constantly burning to consume these things and prevent the atmosphere becoming pestilential. Worms were frequently to be seen preying upon the remains of the filth and rubbish of the populous city. Hence very severe and disgraceful punishments, and the retributions of the future world, in some places, are depicted by the figure of the Gehenna of fire, or the constantly burning fires of the valley of Hinnom, and the worms that are always to be found there. In using this term, our Lord employed the current language of his day and nation. His idea seems to have been, that for the most opprobrious words, and the corresponding temper which prompted their use, a man would be subject, whether in this life or the future one, to the punishment of God, a punishment as much severer in degree than those aforementioned, as the burning fires and undying worm of the valley of Hinnom would exceed in severity the punishment inflicted by the tribunal of Seven and the Sanhedrim. Three degrees of anger are specified, and

three corresponding gradations of punishment proportioned to the different degrees of guilt. Where these punishments will be inflicted, he does not say, he need not say. The man, who indulges any wicked feelings against his brother man, is in this world punished, his anger is the torture of his soul, and unless he repents of it, and forsakes it, it must prove his woe in all future states of his being. Jesus thus illustrates the principle of his religion in contradistinction to the erroneous instructions of the Scribes and Pharisees, that not only the outward act, but the inward feeling and the words of the lips, are subject to the laws of God. Unjust or immoderate anger, contemptuous epithets, and passionate reproaches, were in fact breaches of that law of social duty, every violation of which was an offence of greater or less magnitude against the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge.

23. It is said that the Scribes required restitution in money matters, but that in other things they held that gifts and sacrifices would expiate all offences not cognizable by the judge. But our Saviour takes a different ground. He teaches that reconciliation is better than sacrifices, and that a gift to God is vain and unacceptable, so long as the giver is in the practice of violating his social obligations. Having in the preceding verses warned his hearers against anger and scorn towards their human brethren, he now points out the true course of conduct when the offence has actually been committed; it is, first of all, to be reconciled; even to postpone the services and sacrifices of divine worship till the broken chain of brotherly love is again united. The duty of benevolence is para

But

mount to ritual observances. the Jewish teachers inculcated the reverse.—If thou bring thy gift to the altar. The freewill offering and sacrifices of the Jewish worshippers were called gifts. The altar was situated in front of the temple. If a person had gone so far as to bring his gift to the very altar, to the place where it was to be offered, and there, just before he made his offering, recollected that there was matter of difference and ill will between him and his brother, he was to turn back from the temple of God, and seek reconciliation with his fellow-man, and then he might reasonably trust that his gifts would be accepted by the Almighty. Rememberest should be remember, grammatically.-That thy brother hath ought against thee, i. e. has, or thinks he has, any just cause of complaint. Jesus mentions the case of one who has offended, not one who has been wronged. The person who has done wrong to another, or who, that other believes, has done wrong, is to seek reconciliation with his injured brother rather than perform ceremonial observances. But if it be the other way, and his brother has wronged him, there is nothing in the lessons of Jesus to show that his offerings will be unworthy until the affair is settled. It then devolves upon the man who has done the wrong to seek the reconciliation. Still it is the fruit of a Christian spirit to forgive, to forget, to be always ready to receive the advances of reconciliation from those who have i used us; to desire most earnestly to have others in charity with us, as well as to be ourselves in charity with them.

24. Leave there thy gift before the altar. Gifts were delayed or rejected sometimes on account of their impropriety, or because they had some blemish, or the person offering them was disqualified by uncleanness, or for some other cause, from performing such an act. But Jesus speaks of delaying the gift for a new reason, the moral unfitness and unpreparedness of the giver. Such an idea had not probably entered the minds of the Jewish teachers, wedded as they were to technicality and ceremonies.-Go thy way. Seek reconciliation. Do not wait till the injured person, or he who supposes himself injured, comes to you. But go to him. And this would be practicable in the case of those who came from the farthest parts of the land, for these gifts were offered on general festival days, when the nation were together at Jerusalem, and every man could find his neighbors and acquaintances without going to a great distance. Be reconciled. Not only cherish right feelings yourself, but make reparation, explanation, or whatever will satisfy, within the bounds of reason, your offended, injured fellow-man, and thus obtain his pardon and love. Let there be reconciliation on both sides.-Then come and offer thy gift. Having discharged your duty to man, you will be prepared to worship God. The spirit of these instructions, though wrapped in Jewish phraseology and imagery, is for us as well as for them of old. If we would worship our Maker acceptably, our prayers must rise from hearts baptized into the love of man, as well as into the belief of God. The tongue we use

in devotion must not utter cursings towards mankind, as well as blessings towards the Father; else the cursings will devour the blessings, and our supplications will fall back to the earth dead. If faith be one of the wings of prayer, love is the other. 25. See Luke xii. 58, 59. Jesus has already shown that to indulge in malevolent feelings, and use opprobrious epithets, is highly criminal, and that the exercise of a conciliating temper should take precedence of ritual observances and acts of worship; and he now goes on to show, that, merely as a matter of self-interest, we should seek to live in brotherly love, and settle all difficulties immediately with our fellow-creatures.—Agree with thine adversary quickly, &c. Be, or make friends with him. This probably had reference to the Roman law concerning injuries, by which the plaintiff, the adversary as it is here translated, could, without the formality of a summons or writ, drag the offender with his own hand before the court. On the way he had however an opportunity of settling the affair, if he pleased, and of being set at liberty. But if the case were brought before the judge, a fine would be imposed, and, if unable to pay it, the prisoner would be held in confinement until the debt was discharged. It is a maxim of prudence therefore, as well as a dictate of love, to seek reconciliation with those whom we have offended and injured, and to do it at the earliest opportunity. The ill consequences of not being reconciled to our fellow-men are pictured forth in judicial phraseolo

gy. The longer the difficulty was delayed, the harder it would be to be settled, the more aggravated its evil consequences. The passage is designed rather to point out the importance of early reparation and reconciliation in regard to our fellow-men, than to be violently construed as an admonition against delay in religion, in general, or in our duties more especially to our Maker. In the interpretation of Scripture, there is as much danger of attributing a sense to a passage which was never in the writer or speaker's mind, as of mistaking the sense; as niuch danger of erring as to the degree, so to speak, as to the kind of meaning.-At any time. These words are superfluous; not in the original. The officer. The one who executed the sentence; the sheriff, or prison keeper. Reference is supposed to be made in this verse to the oppression of the Romans, which rendered it expedient to settle difficulties in private, rather than to resort to "hoodwinked justice."

26. He describes the evil of delaying to be reconciled, but the advantages of regaining peace and good will are obvious, and therefore not mentioned. In this verse the language of the courts is still kept up. There would be no deliverance from jail till the last farthing was paid. If reconciliation is not early sought and secured, irreparable troubles will come to the injurer. The punishment will be inflicted without abatement. He will not escape until he has expiated fully the offence. He will be visited with unmitigated