man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matt. vii. 15-23; Luke vi. 43-45. The wise and foolish man." Therefore whosoever heareth these 88 sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." Matt. vii. 24-27; Luke vi. 46-49. Lake Jesus preaches to the multitude from a ship. When Jesus had finished his sermon the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.* Having descended the mountain he stood Scribes. These were a learned body of men, otherwise denominated lawyers, who possessed great influence with the Jews at the time of our Lord's advent, and who, with the chief priests and elders, constituted the Sanhedrim; but who must have existed as a class from the very commencement of the Mosaic polity. In a system so complex as was that polity, repeated transcripts of the law, registers of genealogies, and contemporaneous chronicles were always necessary; and the office of Scribe gradually increased in importance, until it finally grew into all the dignity, order, and coherence of a learned caste. This growth, however, was accelerated or retarded in the same manner and degree as the idea of law was honoured, from which only such a class could spring. In seasons of national depression, when might prevailed against right, law was silenced and Scribes were oppressed. But when the Mosaic law was honoured, when, as in the reign of David, law had triumphed over force, and laid the foundations of a flourishing empire, then the Scribe stood at the king's right hand, and the pen became at once the symbol and the instrument of power. So, too, when the Babylonian exile had taught the people to value, respect, and obey the law of Jehovah, then the Scribe was raised to the highest 89 90 by the Lake of Gennesaret, but the multitude pressed upon him, to hear the word of God. Two ships were then standing by the shore, and Jesus entered one of them which belonged to Simon, and, ordering it to be moved a little from the land, he taught the people from the vessel. Matt. vii. 28, 29; viii. 1; Luke v. 1-3. Miraculous draught of fishes.-When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught!" Simon answered, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." This was accordingly done, and so great a multitude of fishes were enclosed that their net brake, and Simon was obliged to call in the assistance of his partners in the other vessel. The two ships were now filled with fish, and began to sink. Simon Peter fell at Jesus's knees, and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" The ships were, however, brought safely to shore, and all that were there were astonished at the draught; and so were also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and partners of Simon; but Jesus said, “Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men." On land offices of civil society, and even an Ezra was designated by the name. Moreover, as law with the Hebrews had a religious as well as a civil sanction, writing was a sacred art, and the Scribes were holy men; and they also expounded the difficulties of the law, and taught its doctrines; but in our Saviour's time they were mostly Pharisees, and therefore generally shared in all the hypocrisy and depraved attachment to mere tradition which characterized that sect. It is worthy of remark here, that the genius of a social or religious system may be ascertained even from the signification of the names borne by its high functionaries. The title Consul, which directs the thoughts to consultation as the chief duty of the officer who bore it, could have had no existence in any of the oriental despotisms. Haruspices and soothsayers determine the degree of religious enlightenment to which Rome, the mistress of the world, had been able to attain. The feudal designation Marshall, (master of the horse,) points to a state of society in which brute force had the mastery. Our Saxon title of King (König-" the knower") shows a greater reliance on knowledge than on mere physical power. In the same way the word "Scribe," of itself, pronounces a eulogy on the Mosaic institutions. ing, both Peter, James, and John forsook their all and followed Jesus.* Luke v. 4-11. Jesus heals a Leper.-About this time a leper came 91 to Jesus, and said, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Jesus then put forth his hand and touched him, saying, "Be thou clean;" and immediately the leprosy was healed.† Our Lord then charged the man to keep the matter secret, but to go to the priest and offer the necessary sacrifices for his cleansing. The cured leper, however, blazed the matter abroad, until multitudes followed Jesus to hear and to be healed, and he *Note on the Draught of Fishes.-This was only a miracle from the exact coincidence divinely brought between the words of Christ and facts in the world of nature. It is followed by the inau-· guration of Peter and his fellows in the apostleship: "Henceforth ye shall catch men;" or, in the true meaning of the original, take men alive. This meaning must not be lost. The fisher must draw all who are wandering through the treacherous waters of the world, into the bright clear light of day; ignorant how many he shall draw in, but bringing all together, and gathering the scattered tribes of men into the fellowship of the church. † Note on the healing of the Leper.-Leprosy, though hereditary, and to some extent infectious, was not communicable by ordinary contact, otherwise the priests, who had to handle and closely examine every leper, would not have escaped the infection. We may, therefore, recognise in the Levitical ordinances concerning leprosy, the training of man into a sense of the taint of sin, which is his from his birth, into a sense of impurity and separation from God, and thus into a longing after purity and re-union with him. Leprosy was a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all the humours of life. The leper seemed to carry in the body the outward and visible tokens of sin in the soul, as one dead in trespasses and sins, and was obliged to go about with his garments rent, his head bare, and his lips covered. He was to be cleansed with hyssop, cedar-wood, and scarlet, which are never used otherwise except in cleansing from the defilement of a dead body. David no doubt contemplated himself as a spiritual leper, when he said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." Leprosy being thus the sign and token of sin, and of sin reaching unto and culminating in death, it naturally brought with it an exclusion from the camp and city of God, who is not the God of the dead, for death is the correlation of sin, but only of the living. Thus there could be no fitter form of evil over which the Lord of life should display his power, the conqueror of death in life, as he is of death completed; and this his victory over the most terrible form of physical evil is fitly urged as a testimony of his Messiahship. See Analysis and Summary of Old Testament History, sect. 211. 92 93 94 withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Matt. viii. 2-4; Mark i. 40-45; Luke v. 12-16. Residence at Returns to Capernaum: heals a palsy.— Capernaum. Jesus now returned to Capernaum, and when it was known, an immense multitude gathered together, and he preached the word unto them. And a man sick of the palsy was brought on a bed, and his bearers having uncovered the roof of the house, let him down in the midst of the multitude before Jesus. When our Lord saw their faith, he said to the sick man, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee!" Some scribes and Pharisees who were present, thought within themselves, "This man blasphemeth! who can forgive sins, but God alone?" But Jesus knew their thoughts and said, “Why reason ye these things in your hearts? which is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee? or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, (turning to the sick man,) Arise, and take up thy bed, and go to thy house!" Then the palsied man took up his bed and departed, glorifying God; and the amazed multitude joined in his glorifying. Matt. ix. 2—8; Mark ii. 1—12; Luke v. 17-26. Lake Teaches by the lake: calls Matthew.— Jesus then went again to the sea-side and taught the multitude; and seeing a publican, named Levi, (Matthew,) the son of Alpheus, sitting at the receipt of custom, [i. e. toll-booth,] he said to him, "Follow me!" and Matthew arose and followed him. Matt. ix. 9; Mark ii. 13, 14; Luke v. 27, 28. Entertained by Matthew: eats with pubCapernaum. licans and sinners, and excuses his disciples from not fasting.-Jesus then supped in Matthew's house with his disciples, and the scribes and Pharisees seeing him eating with many publicans and sinners, said to his disciples, "Why do ye eat with publicans and sinners?" But Jesus heard them, and replied, "They that are whole have no need of the physician. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Then they asked, "Why do the disciples of John, and those of the Pharisees, fast often and make prayers, but thy disciples eat and drink?" Jesus replied, "Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days shall come when the bridegroom shall be taken away, and then shall they fast.". Mark ii. 15-20; Luke v. 29-36. The garments and bottles.-Then our Lord said, "No 95 man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment; else the new piece that filleth it up, taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilt and the bottles marred."* Mark ii. 21, 22; Luke v. 37-39. IV. Second year of our Lord's public Ministry, 2nd Passover. A. D. 28. TIME-MARCH 29, A. D. 28, TO APRIL 16, A. d. 29. Jesus heals a sick man at Bethesda on the sabbath.-The feast of the Jews now drew nigh, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now by the sheep-market at Jerusalem there is a pool called, in the Hebrew, "Bethesda," [i. e. house of mercy,] having five porches, in which lay a multitude of sick folk waiting for the moving of the water. [For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water; and whoever then first stepped in was cured.]† Now a man was there who had had an *Exposition of the parable of the bottles.-Our Lord here appears to intimate, that to unite the austerities of the Old Testament ordinances with the new gospel element would be as heterogeneous as to sew a piece of new cloth in an old garment, or to pour new wine into old bottles. † Doubtful passage on the angel's troubling the water at Bethesda. This passage, according to the evidence derived from criticism, is to be regarded as spurious. It is wanting in the Alexandrian MSS., and is characterized by a great number of different readings—a circumstance usually regarded as betraying subsequent interpolation. Moreover, several expressions occur in the paragraph in the Greek which are found nowhere else in John. The passage must, however, be very old, since Tertullian, Chrysostom, and other Fathers acknowledge it. It is in the highest degree probable that it was introduced in the text from those MSS., in the margin of which the transcribers had supplied the remark from personal observation. 96 |