There is no serving God and mammon. 227 xli. thee be darkness, how that is in thee be darkness, how great is that SECT. great is that darkness! darkness! and if the maxims you lay down to yourselves are wrong, how very erroneous must your conduct be! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mam non. 25 Therefore I say Mat. VI. 23. And do not impose upon yourselves so far as 24 to imagine that your hearts can be equally divided between heaven and earth: for as no man can serve two masters whose interests and commands are directly contrary to each other; but will quickly appear, either comparatively to hate the one, and love the other; or, by degrees, at least, will grow weary of so disagreeable a situation, so as to adhere entirely to the one, and quite neglect and abandon the other: so you will find you cannot at the same time serve God and mammon, that unworthy idol to which so many are devoting their hearts and their pursuits. your subsistence And I would charge you therefore to take heed 25 unto you, Take no that your affections be not engaged in a service thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or so inconsistent with religion and true happiness; what ye shall drink; and in particular, I say unto you, Be not disnor yet for your body, tressed with anxious cares about what ye shall put on. Is not the life more in life what you shall eat, and what you shall than meat, and the drink, when your present stock of provisions is body than raiment ? gone; nor with respect to your body, what you shall put on, when the garments you have are worn out. Is not life a better and more valuable gift than food, and the body than raiment? And if it be, why should you not trust that almighty and gracious Being who formed your bodies and inspired them with life, to maintain the work of his own hands? ₫ Therefore I say unto you, &c.] A late writer, who takes upon him, by the strength of his own reason, to reject at pleasure what the apostles believed and taught, strangely complains of a want of connection between this and the preceding verse. But can there be any better reason assigned against immoderate anxiety than this, that such a subjection to mammon as this expresses is utterly inconsistent with the love and service of God? e Be not anxious about your subsistence in life.] It is certain that the word guva generally signifies an excessive anxiety (see Luke x. 41. xii. 11. xxi, 34. and Phil. iv. 6. You and indeed almost every other place where The 208 SECT. Xxxviii. The punishment of causeless anger and reproach. of hell-fire. to stoning, does that which follows on the judg- ever shall say, Thou ment of the inferior courts, which only have fool, shall be in danger the power of the sword, but whosoever, in his V. 22. unreasonable passion, shall presume to say unto Mat. 23 his brother, Thou fool, that is, Thou graceless 23 Therefore, if Remember therefore to lay aside all your thou bring thy gift to animosities, and to live in peace and love, as the altar, and there ever you would escape God's wrath and secure rememberest that thy his favour. Without this your most expensive brother bath ought sacrifices would be so vain, that I must inculcate against thee; it on every one of you as a most necessary caution, If thou art bringing thy gift, however costly and free o, even to the very altar, and there recollectest that thy brother has any just cause of [complaint] against thee, do not content thyself with a secret, and it may be a treacherous purpose, that thou wilt hereafter accommodate the affair, but bring it to an immediate issue; 24 And, leaving thy gift there, in the hand of those 24 Leave there thy that are ministering before the altar, go away, and go thy way, first gift before the altar, m Thou fool, that is, thou graceless wicked villain.] Mr. Blair thinks that pag, thou fool, answers to RAKEHELL; but that being only applied to a debauchee, seems too contracted. Wicked men are so often called fools in the Old Testament, especially in the writings of David and Solomon, that the appellation in the Jewish language, signifies not so much a weak thoughtless creature, as a man deliberately guilty of some heinous crime, or, in one word, a VILLAIN. On this account I cannot but think it wrong that avono Luke xxiv. 25, or ag, 1 Cor. xv. 36, should, by so harsh a translation as ours, have been confounded with such an infamous word as this. and be fires were kept continually burning to consume it: and it is probable that if any criminals were executed on the statute, Lev. xx. 14. or xxi. 9. this accursed and horrible place might be the spot of ground on which they were consumed. However that were, it seemed, both with regard to its former and latter state, a fit emblem of hell itself (see Isa xxx. 33. and Jer. xix. 11-13.) which, in the Syriac language, takes its name from thence, and was commonly called Gehenna by the Jews; (see Lightf. Hor. Heb. in loc. and Preface to his Harm. of the New Test.)-It must here signify a degree of future punishment, as much more dreadful than that incurred in the former case, as burning alive was n Burnt alive in the valley of Hinnom.] more terrible than stoning: for I apprehend Though it is so well known to the learned. the punishment of each degree of anger I must beg leave to remind my English and fury here mentioned is to be referred reader that the valley of Hinnom or Tophet to the invisible world or else our Lord's had been the scene of those detestable sacrifices in which children were burnt alive to Molech (compare 2 Kings xxii. 10. 2 Chron. xxviii. 3. and Jer. xix. 2-5; xxxii. 35.) and was afterwards defiled by Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 10. and made a receptacle for the filth of the city, where words would not be generally true. o If thou art bringing thy gift, however costly and free.] Awpor, a gift, implies that it was a free-will offering; which adds great strength to the sentence, beyond what it would have had if the word had been Sustav, sacrifice. Reflections on the strict regard due to the law. come and offer thy gift. 209 SECT. be reconciled to thy and first make it thy care to be reconciled to thy brother, and then brother, by an acknowledgment of thy fault, and xxxviii. by a readiness to make him any reasonable sa- Mat. tisfaction; and then come and offer thy gift?, v.21. which thou mayest then cheerfully hope God will accept at thine hands. 25 Agree with thine adversary quick ly whilst thou art in the And it will be prudence as well as humanity 25 to apply this advice to suits at law, if you are so way with him; lest at unhappy as to be engaged in them: my counsel any time the adversary then to each of you is, That thou shouldest make deliver thee to the it thine endeavour to come to a friendly agreement Judge, and the judge deliver thee to the with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in officer, and thou be the way going with him to a magistrate; lest the cast into prison. adversary should deliver thee to be tried before the judge; and the judge deciding the cause against thee, deliver thee to the officer of the court, to keep thee in custody till payment be made; and thou not having enough by thee to discharge an account inflamed with so many additional articles of expence, shouldest be cast into prison: 26 Verily I say unto Verily I say unto thee, Thy antagonist, when he 26 thee, Thou shalt by no has got thee at such an advantage, will be more thence, till thou hast rigorous in his demands than before; and thou paid the uttermost shalt not by any means come out from thence, till farthing. means come out thou hast discharged the very last farthing of thy IMPROVEMENT. LET us seriously consider and often recollect the purposes of Ver, Christ's appearance: he came not to destroy the law and the prophets, 17 or p First be reconciled to thy brother, and a Come to a friendly agreement with thine then come and offer thy gift.] It is observ- adversary.] The word avlidix properly able that Philo (de Sacrif. p. 844.) explain- signifies a person who is going to law with ing the law of the trespass-offering, tells us, another. I have rendered 19 OWY, "That when a man had injured his brother, come to a friendly agreement, because the and repenting of his fault, voluntarily ac- original seems to imply not only peace but knowledged it (in which case both restitution benevolence. and sacrifice were required), he was first r If thou makest thyself the prisoner of to make restitution, and then to come into the Divine justice.] This thought is a the temple presenting his sacrifice, and natural reflection on what was said before; asking pardon." This is a very just and a but it is rather intimated than expressed in natural account of the matter, and adds a our Lord's words, which so naturally lead great illustration to this text, especially to the sense given in the paraphrase, that when it is considered that our Lord sup- to those who are unacquainted with the poses in this case not a trespass-offering but a voluntary gift presented before the altar; and yet declares that this will not be accepted while there is a consciousness of having wronged a brother and not made him reparation. Popish manner of managing controversies, 210 Xxxviii. Reflections on the strict regard due to the law. SECT. or to dissolve men's obligation to observe them but rather to enforce as well as to fulfil them. How fatally shall we pervert Mat. the purposes of his coming, if we regard him as the minister of V. 17. sin? How ungratefully shall we abuse the merciful constitution of his gospel should we take encouragement from thence to violate his law? Dangerous as well as ungrateful abuse indeed! For God's eye will be watchful over its honours, and his hand exerted 18 to maintain them; so that heaven and earth shall pass away before it shall fail of its accomplishment in being either obeyed or avenged on the impenitent sinner. May it be our constant care to keep it ourselves, and to teach others to observe it! May 19 we teach it by our lives as well as our lips; and let our daily conversation demonstrate how practicable and how amiable its precepts are! So shall we be great in the kingdom of heaven, in the pursuit of which we may give full scope to the noblest ambition of which human nature is capable. 20 Let our hearts own and feel the spiritual sense of God's law, that we may rise to a more sincere and more extensive righteousness than that of the scribes and Pharisees. May we delight in it after the inward man, and learn to regulate our thoughts and our passions, as well as our external behaviour, by it! 21, 22 Especially let us avoid all the malignant and ill-natured passions, all thoughts of rash and immoderate anger, all words of contumely and reproach. If we would maintain communion with the God of 23 love, let love govern in our hearts; and when we come to present our devotions to him, let us lift up holy hands without wrath, as well as without doubting (1 Tim. ii. 8.) so may we promise ourselves a gracious welcome; so shall we carry away the most valuable blessings! But are none of us strangers to this blessed state? Are none of us obnoxious to the Divine displeasure? If we are so, with what a holy solicitude of soul should we labour, to make up the controversy and come to an agreement, while we are yet in the way with this awful adversary! lest we be immediately hurried before the 25 tribunal of the righteous Judge of all the world, and be delivered into the hands of justice, to be reserved in everlasting chains beyond the possibility of redemption. 26 Lord, we were all the debtors, and, in one sense, the prisoners of thy justice; and of ourselves we are most incapable, not only of paying the uttermost farthing, but even of discharging the least part of the debt! We bless thee for that generous Surety who has undertaken and discharged it for us; and by the price of whose atoning blood we are delivered from the chains of darkness, and are translated into the glorious liberty of thy children. SECT. Christ cautions them against rash judgment. 231 xli. of mammon, that base rival of our living Jehovah: but we, far SECT. from desiring to share our hearts and our services between two, such contrary masters, will cheerfully devote them to him, whose Ver. right to them is so infinitely beyond all room for any contest. Let 24 us take heed and beware of covetousness, and make it our business 19, 20 not to hoard up earthly and corruptible treasures, but first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness: so shall other things be 33 added for present subsistence; and so shall we lay up in store an incorruptible treasure in heaven, in which we shall be rich and happy, when the riches of this world are consumed with their owners, and the whole fashion of it is passed away. While these divine maxims are spreading their light about us, 22, 23 let our eye be clear to behold them, and our heart open to receive them; and let us cautiously guard against those deceitful principles of action which would give a wrong bias to all our pursuits, and turn the light which is in us into a fatal and incurable darkness. SECT. XLII. Our Lord proceeds in his discourse to caution his disciples against rash judgment, and to exhort them to impartiality, prudence, prayer and resolution; and warns them against seducers. Mat. VII. 1-20. MAT. VII. 1. JUDGE not, that ye be not judged. MAT. VII. 1. Mat. YOU, my disciples, live in a very censorious SECT. age, and the scribes and Pharisees, who are xlii. in the highest esteem for the strictness of their lives, place a great part of their own religion in VII. I. condemning others; but see to it that you do not judge those about you in this rigorous and severe manner, nor pass such unnecessary or uncharitable censures upon them, that you may not For with what yourselves be judged with the like severity. For 2 judgment ye judge, ye in this respect you will find, that according to the With what measure ye judgment with which you judge others, you shall mete, it shall be mea- be judged; and by that sured to you again. very measure that ye mete to them, it shall be measured back to you: God and man will make great allowances to the character of the candid and benevolent; but they must expect "judgment without mercy who have shewed no mercy;" nor can they deny the equity of such treatment. (Jam. ii. 13.) shall be judged: and The Place a great part of their own religion it. That they were very culpable on this in condemning others.] Though Christ does head appears from such passages as Luke not so directly level his discourse against xviii. 9-14. xvi. 14, 15. and John vii. the Pharisees in this chapter as in the two 47-49. (Compare Isa. lxv. 5.) Their this and other expressions which he uses in instances of it that can be conceived. Dd 2 Look |