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it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, at the day of judgment, 23 than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained 24 until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for 25 the land of Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for thee.At that time Jesus answered and said: I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven

the fiery indignation of Heaven." 22. See Mat. x. 15, and the note thereon.

23. Thou, Capernaum. A more direct address because he was in it at the time.-Exalted unto heaven. Is. xiv. 13, 14. Art favored with the most exalted privileges. Jesus himself lived there. It was even more privileged than other towns in the neighborhood.-Brought down to hell. Or, the abyss. This, as well as the foregoing expression, is plainly hyperbolical. The meaning is, that, from the enjoyment of the noblest privileges, it would, on account of its impenitence and unfaithfulness, be brought down to the lowest condition. The word translated hell is Hades, which means strictly the place of the departed, whether good or bad; it was represented by the Jews as situated beneath the earth. It has sometimes been translated grave. It here refers to the abject degradation to which Capernaum would be reduced, compared with its former distinguished opportunities, and not to any place of punishment in the future world. The prediction has been fulfilled; and even its situation is now lost, so completely has the town been effaced from the earth. The same laws of God's moral government are in action now; and the city or nation, which is exalted to heaven in point of privileges, will yet, if unfaithful and wicked, finally sink into oblivion, and its place be unknown,

and its history sound like a fable.— It would have remained until this day. Its wickedness was the sole cause of its ruin.

24. See note on Mat. x. 15.More tolerable. Scripture here confirms what is consonant to experience and reason, that punishment has its degrees. The greater the sin, the greater the misery.--What must be our condition, national or individual, temporal or eternal, if we shut our eyes against clearer Gospel light than shone even upon Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, or if we darken it with the vapors of sin? "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?"

25-27. Compare Luke x. 21, 22, where the same expressions of Jesus' devout joy are uttered on the return of the Seventy.

25. At that time. As if to mark how soon Jesus reassured his fainting spirit, and turned from the saddening view of the inefficacy of his labors, to the most devout and grateful feelings. "To think of God was again to be revived, again to be his Christ, strong in hope.”— Answered and said. Went on to say. He replied to no question, but proceeded to say, in addition to his foregoing remarks, what follows.-I thank thee, O Father. I make grateful acknowledgments to thee, or give glory. This is an ejaculatory prayer.-Father is the uniform title with which Jesus addresses the Deity. It argues no

and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it 26

small advance in the Christian life, when his followers can with truth and sincerity, and not as a mere form, or from cold imitation, call God their Father. The conviction of God's paternal character is the stronghold of goodness in the human heart.-Lord of heaven and earth. Universal sovereign, whose will there is none to dispute, above or below. The inquiry may be appropriately made here, How could the Saviour address this prayer to God, if he was himself God? If he was the Highest, why did he address a higher than himself? Did he thank himself? Or, if we adopt the doctrine of two natures, which by the way is not once mentioned in the Bible in any place, did one of his natures thank the other? Would that constitute worship? Because thou hast hid these things, &c. That is, the truths of the Gospel.-The wise and prudent. The worldly wise, those wise in their own conceits.-Hast revealed them unto babes, i. e. to men of little learning, fame, or influence, but who were of innocent and docile dispositions. He elsewhere calls his disciples little ones. Mat. x. 42. In this verse is contained a peculiar idiom of the Hebrew language, an instance of which occurs in Rom. vi. 17. The cause of gratitude was not, as the sentence literally expresses it, that God had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes; but because, having in his providence permitted them to be hidden from the learned and the famous, poets, orators, statesmen, and philosophers, he had communicated them to the meek and the childlike, to the unlearned carpenter and simple

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fisherman. The Scribes and Pharisees, puffed up with their learning, rejected the counsel of God, but the common people heard Jesus gladly. Preached by persons of such humble origin as himself and his Apostles, the Gospel would appear to be less indebted for its truth and success to any power, or learning, or wisdom of man, and more plainly and unequivocally to be the special revelation of Heaven. The Jews were accustomed to attribute every thing directly to the agency of God, even what was done by the will or instrumentality of man, Thus Jesus, in conformity to the usual mode of speech, represents God as hiding these things from the wise and prudent, by which we are not to understand that their unbelief was caused, but only permitted, by him, and that it was attributable to their own folly.-The latter clause of the verse may be illustrated by two quotations from the Talmuds. "From the time in which the temple was destroyed, wisdom was taken away from the prophets, and given to fools and children." "In the days of the Messiah, every species of wisdom, even the most profound, shall be revealed; and this even to children.”

26. So it seemed good in thy sight. For many things this is the only satisfactory explanation, that they are as they are. When the speculations of philosophy can go no farther, it soothes the troubled mind to say, It is the will of our God. That will is so benignant, where we can understand it, that we can trust it, where it is inscrutable; being perfectly convinced, that, could we see the whole, we should see it advancing our welfare through dark

27 seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 28 will reveal him. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy

ness as well as light, through clouds and mysteries as well as in the plainest revelations and blessings.

27. All things, i. e. all things necessary to my mission and the salvation of mankind, and not strictly all things in the universe. All knowledge of God needful for my official work, as the rest of the verse shows; not all power and government. General terms are to be limited in interpretation by the connection in which they stand.— Are delivered unto me of my Father. By my Father. Mat. xxviii. 18. John xvii. 2. A plaiu declaration of the subordination of the Son to the Father. Though my religion is rejected by the wise and prudent, would seem to be his meaning, yet I can fall back and repose with joy on the assurance that God has given me this mission to perform, and all things adequate to its triumphant fulfilment.-No man. No one.Knoweth the Son but the Father. Know here, as in many other cases, has the sense of being intimately acquainted with. No one knows the Son as the Son, i. e. in his peculiar and glorious relation to the Father, but the Father. The Gospel was so far in advance of mankind, and even of the Jews, as a religious people, that no one, not even his disciples, fully understood and sympathized with him in his sublime purposes. He could look to Heaven alone for support. But he was not solitary, for the Father was with him, and understood him and his errand into the world.-Neither knoweth any man-any one-the Father, save the Son, &c. So, on the other hand, the Father is not known

in his full glory, except to his Son, and those of a like spirit with him, who have been enlightened by him in relation to the character of the Father.-Will reveal him. Instead of him read them, that is, both the Father and the Son. The Son reveals himself and his Father, reveals his Father in himself. The sense of the whole is, that the Father has given him a full commission and knowledge in relation to the salvation of mankind, and that none but the Father and Son, and those who are instructed by the Gospel, can enter completely into their plans with regard to the reformation of the world. Spiritual things must be spiritually known. Only the god-like can comprehend the god-like.

28-30. This paragraph grows naturally out of the preceding verses. He had been speaking with a thankful exultation of the commission given him by the Father for the salvation of mankind. He now invites all, but especially the wearied and overburdened, to come and experience the life, liberty, and bliss of this salvation. His mind had been raised so high in the contemplation of his mission, that he breaks out into a beautiful apostro phe to the children of toil and sorrow, to come to him and experience the blessings of the Gospel. The imperative mode is here used less in the sense of command than of earnest supplication. O come unto me.

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28. Come unto me. Not physically, but spiritually. Those come unto Christ, who obey and love him, John vi. 35, vii. 37.—All ye

laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn 29 of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and iny burden is light.

that labor and are heavy-laden.
All without distinction are invited.
Those who labored under the en-
cumbrances of the Mosaic ritual,
those who were heavy-laden with
human traditions, those who groan-
ed under the slavery of sin, and
those who were oppressed with the
nameless cares and trials of human
existence, were addressed in this
moving entreaty. Whatever be the
toil or the suffering, rest is promised,
on condition of going unto Jesus.
I will give you rest. Jesus would
supersede burdensome ceremo-
nies, with a simple, spiritual faith
and practice. Acts xv. 10. Gal. v.
i. He would overthrow the oppres-
sive commandments of men, and
vindicate in their power the laws
of God. He would extract the
sting from sorrow, sickness, and
death, and give rest and gladness
to the sons and daughters of grief.
When the soul is directed to Jesus
it finds peace, as the disturbed mag-
netic needle, pointing to its pole of
attraction, straightway subsides, and
becomes still. The knowledge of
God which he communicates calms
the agitated soul. The burdens he
imposes, so far from wearying, re-
new the strength. The duties he
enjoins promote present and future
happiness. Here is found

"A sovereign balm for every wound,
A cordial for our fears."

29. Take my yoke, &c. A common figure. To follow or obey one is to wear his yoke; a metaphor from husbandry, to illustrate religion. The sense is without dispute,-Submit to my instruction, learn of me the truth of God, and obey it. For I am meek and lowly in heart. Jesus would be a mild,

30

condescending teacher and guide, in contrast with the haughty Scribes and Pharisees, who treated the people at large with contempt; who put upon them burdens heavier than they could bear, and would not so much as touch them with one of their fingers. Mat. xxiii. 4. Luke xi. 46.-Ye shall find rest. Fulfil the condition, and you shall receive the reward.-Unto your souls. Jesus does not promise his followers exemption from the common, outward, physical ills of life. But he does promise that they shall have rest, where rest is of most value, in the soul. There shall be peace in the heart. In the virtues of the Christian character, in purity, self-denial, piety, and mercy, there is a quiet and tranquil happiness truly divine. The soul feels a conscious dignity and serene elevation, as if raised above the storms that sweep this lower world. "There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness." Let not the good grieve, if they have little of the gold, or honors, or pleasures of this world. Our Father does not pay his faithful ones in things of so perishable a nature, but in the higher rewards of the spirit itself.

30. For my yoke is easy, &c. The Christian religion makes none but reasonable requirements, and imposes none but necessary restraints. It is free from the burdensome ceremonial of the Jews. It requires no arduous pilgrimages like Mahometanism, nor the bloody sacrifices and human offerings of pagan idolatry. It gives free course and

CHAPTER XII.

The Reasonings of Jesus with the Scribes and Pharisees, and his Rebukes of their Wickedness. T that time Jesus went on the sabbath-day through the corn; and

AT

his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of 2 corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him: Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sab

noble gratifications to all the high, enduring faculties of the soul, and enjoins self-denial only in things hurtful, and where it brings joys far deeper and richer than those of any sensual or worldly nature. The Christian has found it to be so by experience. The yoke of Christ is easy, and his burden light to him. Take the whole chequered course of life through, and he has discovered only one thing suited alike to all states and all changes, and that is Religion; tempering and enhancing pleasures, soothing troubles, cheering difficulties, enriching poverty, smoothing the pillow of sickness, and glorifying the bed of death; and in all giving a peace that passeth understanding.

We have probably read these last paragraphs of the chapter so many times in a monotonous mood and the sluggish acquiescence of habit, that we have not considered the commanding and awful strain, as of the summons to judgment, fitted to make every heart quake, with which the responsibility of the hearers of Christ is sounded forth, or the inexpressible sweetness and winning grace with which he calls on the wearied, suffering, and sinful to come to him and to forget their woes in the bosom of his love. It is a passage to startle all the fears, and thrill with ecstacy all the hopes that inhabit the human heart; a passage to be read with deep awe, with tears of penitence, and tears of joy. Muse upon it in thy heart till the fire burns.

CHAP. XII.

1-8. Mark ii. 23-28. Luke vi. 1-5.

1. At that time. About that time. Luke specifies the time, though obscurely, as "the second Sabbath after the first," which is conjectured by Carpenter to mean the first Sabbath after Pentecost, in our month of May.--Sabbath-day. Corresponding to our Saturday.-The corn. The fields of grain, probably barley or wheat. Indian corn was unknown till modern times. All kinds of grain were formerly called corn.-An hungered. An old English expression for hungry.-The ears of corn. The heads of grain. Luke adds, they rubbed them in their hands, for the purpose no doubt of shelling out the kernels from the heads.-Eat. This they were allowed to do by the law of Moses, Deut. xxiii. 25, but they were not to reap, or carry any away.

2. Thy disciples do that which is not lawful, i. e. do that which is forbidden by law. What they held to be forbidden was not the plucking and eating of the grain, but doing it on the Sabbath. Moses had enjoined abstinence from labor on that day. Ex. xx. 10, xxxv. 2, 3. Numb. xv. 32-36. And these rigid formalists carried his laws, relative to the day of rest, to such extremes, as to forbid even works of necessity and mercy. One teacher held that attendance on the sick was unlawful on that day. The following passage occurs in one of the Rabbinical books, which may

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