28. Great is thy faith. Or, confidence in my power and disposition to aid thee. This eulogy would appear the more remarkable to the bystanders, because he had just applied to her the common term of Jewish contempt. If such faith was found among the dogs, what ought to be expected of the children? Does not Jesus, in this sentence, already intimate that Gentile as well as Jew would be admitted to the highest favors of his kingdom? -Whole from that very hour. According to Mark, the mother found her daughter already restored, when she returned home. The cure was instantaneous, and therefore miraculous. It was at a distance, and must therefore have taken place without artifice or concert. The disease, in all probability, was a mental one, and, from its mysteriousness and difficulty of treatment, attributed to demons. "The case of the Canaanitish woman is in itself a thousand sermons. Her faith, her prayers, her perseverance, her success, the honor she received from her Lord, &c., &c., how instructively, how powerfully, do these speak and plead! They that seek shall find, is the great lesson inculcated in this short history." 29. Came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee. On the eastern coast, in the region of Decapolis, as we learn

from Mark.-Into a mountain. According to the original, the mountain, i. e. the ridge of mountains surrounding the lake, or some well known eminence in particular.

30. See note on Mat. iv. 24.Maimed, i. e. those, according to Wetstein and Wakefield, who had lost a limb. Mat. xviii. 8, where the halt or maimed is be whose hand or foot has been cut off. What a striking manifestation of divine power to reproduce a lost limb!

31. In this place, Mark, instead of giving a general summary of Christ's miracles, like Matthew, inserts a particular instance of the cure of the deaf person who had an impediment in his speech. Although the Scribes and Pharisees played a captious and cavilling part towards Jesus, yet the great mass accorded him their faith and admiration, and praised God, who had raised up for them so mighty a prophet. Though his miracles were so astonishing, the thought never appears to have crossed their minds that he was any other than a being endowed by God with wonderful gifts. That belief, so awful and abhorrent to a Jewish mind, but so prevalent in Christendom, that Jesus was God himself, was totally unknown at that time; for they glorified, not Jesus, but the God of Israel.

32-39. See Mark viii. 1-10. 32. And have nothing to eat. Not that they had been three days without food, or, as is probably meant, one day with a part of the day preceding and that succeeding, but that they had exhausted their provisions. Jesus, like a true shepherd, manifests an active sympathy with their suffering condition, and is prompted by benevolence, even more than by a desire to substantiate his authority, to perform the stupendous act of multiplying food to a vast amount. "O, the faith and zeal of these clients of Christ! They not only follow him from the city into the desert, from delicacy to want, from frequence to solitude, but forget their bodies in pursuit of the food for their souls. Such sweetness did these hearers find in the spiritual repast, that they thought not on the bodily."

33. His disciples say unto him, &c.. It is remarkable that they should have so soon forgotten the miraculous multiplication of bread related in chap. xiv. 17-21, but their hardness of heart may have caused the obliteration of that impression. Or, they may not have doubted Christ's power, but only whether he would then choose to exert it. Or again, we may suppose we emphatic. We can

not supply their wants, but you have the power; a hint to remind him of what they wished him to do. It is a decisive inark of the truthfulness of the history, that no attempt is made to explain this and other difficulties. Confidence is reposed in the candor of the reader. The remarks made upon the preceding miracle of the same kind are applicable here, and require not to be repeated. 35. To sit down, i. e. to recline, as was the custom at meals.

36. Gave thanks. Jesus was filled with a living spirit of devotion and love to God, which was manifested upon every occasion, whether joyful or sorrowful. The fountain of piety welled up in his heart with streams ever fresh and pure. He has set us an example of thanking God for our temporal as well as our spiritual blessings.

37. Broken meat that was left. Economy should be practised in the midst of the greatest abundance. The smallest of the Divine gifts are not to be wasted. What is squandered in the extravagance of the luxurious, and the excesses of the sensual, would suffice to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and relieve the sick. Christ would teach his followers to be frugal, that they might be benevolent.

38. It is observed by Priestley, that the history of this miracle must be a true account of the Evangelists, for it is less in magnitude than the preceding; the number of persons fed being less, the quantity of provisions greater, and what remained not so much. Whereas, if it had been a fiction, they would have made some advances on the preceding one, so that the latter should have appeared the more wonderful of the two.

39. Coasts. Borders of Magdala. In Mark viii. 10, it is Dalmanutha. These places were probably situated near each other, in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee, on the western shore. To be in the neighborhood of one was also to be in the neighborhood of the other, which is all that coasts or parts imply. Our information respecting these places is rather uncertain and contradictory. Mary Magdalene derived her cognomen from Magdala, of which she was probably a native or an inhabi

tant.

CHAP. XVI.

1-12. Parallel to Mark viii. 1121. Matthew's account is more full than that of Mark. A similar narration is given in Mat. xii. 38-42. 1. Pharisees-Sadducees. For an account of these sects, see note on Mat. iii. 7. Though hostile to each other, they agreed in their opposition to Jesus.-Tempting. Trying or testing. The Evangelists pass no judgments on the mo

tives of these persons, as the English word tempting would imply, but simply state the fact that they questioned him. Mark viii. 11.— A sign from heaven. See note on Mat. xii. 38. Notwithstanding our Saviour performed so many astonishing miracles, they demand something more; some wonder in the heavens, similar to those exhibited by the old prophets. Ex. xvi. 4. 1 Sam. xii. 18. Isa. xxxviii. 8. It is supposed that Josephus refers to this desire for wonders, where he says, that "there were impostors in the time of Agrippa, who went before the people into the wilderness, pretending that God would there show the signals of liberty." Signs from heaven were indeed afterwards exhibited, of the most appalling nature, to attest Christ's authority, the sun being darkened three hours on the day of his crucifixion. Are there not many now who overlook the evidences of religion that lie under their notice, and demand such as from the nature of the case are impossible?

2,3. The ancients, as we learn both from Jewish and classic authority, were skilful in prognosticating the weather. This was done, as at the present day, by observing the signs of the sky, the appearances of the clouds aud the heavenly bodies. The import of our Saviour's reproof is, that they were ingenious in predicting the weather from the signs in the heavens, but that they could not understand the

5

signs of the times, the miracles which came from the sky or descended from the God of heaven, and which authenticated his divine commission. Foul weather. A familiar expression for a storm.-Hypocrites. A term descriptive of the general character of the Pharisees, rather than as having any particular application in this place.-Discern. Discriminate, judge of.

4. See note on Mat. xii. 39. This was his uniform reply, that no inightier evidence would be afforded of his authority from God than his death and resurrection, shortly to take place at Jerusalem; a sign not from the sky but from the earth. Mark states, that he said this with the profoundest emotion; that "he sighed deeply in his spirit." How could it have been otherwise, when he saw their obduracy and incurable wickedness?

5. Were come to the other side. Were coming, or were on their way to, the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

Mark has here a delicate lineament of nature and truth, as he qualifies the expression, "they had forgotten to take bread," by saying, that they had but one loaf with them.

6. Leaven. Both good and bad

doctrines were compared to leaven, which silently diffuses itself throughout the mass in which it is mixed. 1 Cor. v. 6, 7. In Mark viii. 15, "the leaven of Herod " is spoken of, by which is probably meant, the doctrine of the Herodians or partisans of Herod, which was as pernicious, in a political point of view, as that of the Pharisees and Sadducees was in a religious aspect. There is ever some leaven of error working around us in society, happily if not in the Christian church, against which we ought to be upon our guard.

7. We have here an evidence of the exceeding backwardness of the disciples to understand the figurative language of their Master. Has not a similar dulness of apprehending the metaphors of Scripture prevailed in all ages? They supposed, that, in their destitution of bread, Jesus was unwilling that they should buy loaves of the Pharisees and Sadducees, for fear that they should be contaminated.

8-11. Of little faith. Distrustful of my power, or of Divine Providence. He reminds them of the late repeated miracles, by which many thousands were miraculously sup