Jesus asks how the Messiah is the Son and the Lord of David. 213 the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. 34 And when Jesus saw that he an swered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. MA T. XXII. 41. [And] while the Pha [MARK XII. 35. is he? They say unto vid. clvi. Mat. the intellectual and active powers of our whole SECT. And Jesus, seeing that he answered thus wisely, 34 And while the Pharisees were gathered together Mat. risees were gathered during this conference, expecting to have found XXII.41 together [while he an opportunity to ensnare him, as he was still taught in the temple,] teaching the people in the temple, Jesus turned Jesus asked them, saying, How say the to the scribes and doctors of the law who were scribes, that Christ is present, and asked them, saying, How say the the Son of David;] scribes so commonly as they do, that the Messiah LUKE XX. 41.] is the Son of David? Let me ask you of 42 What think ye that profession who are now here, What think 42 of Christ? whose Son ye concerning the Messiah in this respect? Whose him, The Son of Da- Son is he? They say unto him, Nothing can be plainer than what thou representest as the general opinion; he is undoubtedly to be [the Son] of 43 He saith unto David. He saith unto them, How then does 43 David [himseif] in David himself, speaking by the inspiration of the spirit for by the Holy Holy Spirit, in the book of Psalms, acknowledge Ghost] [LUKE, in the him to be superior to himself, and call him book of Psalms] call Lord? for you cannot but know that there is [MARK XII. 36.- a passage expressly to this purpose, (Psal. cx. 1.) LUKK XX. 42.— which you readily allow to refer to the Messiah, 44 The Lord said in which you find David saying, "The Lord 44 thou on my right-hand said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine ene- in exalted power and glory, with all the ma[M a R K XII.—36.] jesty and honour of a King, till I make all thine LUKE XX. 42, 43, enemies thy footstool, and cause thee to trample them, How then doth him Lord, saying, unto my Lord, Sit mies thy footstool? d How then does David himself by the Holy Spirit, &c.) Our Lord, we sec, always takes it for granted, in his arguments with the Jews, that the writers of the Old Testament were under such an extraordinary guidance of the Holy Spirit as to express themselves with the strictest propriety on all occasions. (Compare John x. 55. upon sect. cxxxiv.) And I look on this as no Dd2 e If 214 SECT. clvi. Reflections on the command to love God and our neighbour. upon them at pleasure." If David himself 45 If David [himtherefore call him Lord, and speak of him as his self] then call him superior, as you see he doth, how is he then his Lux then] his Son? XXI. 45 Son? Mat. Lord, how is he [And the common people heard him gladly.] MARK XX. 37. LUKE XX. 44. Now as the scribes and Pharisees were ignorant of the great doctrine of the Divine nature of the Messiah, with respect to which, even before his incarnation, he was the Lord of David, and of the whole church, they were quite confounded with the question. And the vast crowd of common people that was about him heard him 46 with great pleasure. And all his adversaries were at such a loss, that no man could answer him so much as a word; neither did any one any man (from that presume, from that day forward, to ask him any day forth) ask him any more such ensnaring questions as those by which more questions [MARK they had now contrived to assault, and, if possible, to confound him. Mark 29 IMPROVEMENT. 46 And no man was able to answer him a word neither durst XII.-34. WHATEVER might be the design of the scribe in putting this xii. 25. question to Christ again (which was in effect the same with what another had proposed before, (Luke x. 25. sect. cvii.) we have reason to rejoice in the repetition of so important an answer. Oh that it might be inscribed on our hearts as with the point of a diamond! The first and great commandment requires us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and the second, which is like unto it, to love our neighbour as ourselves. But alas, what reason have we to complain of our own deficiency on both these heads! and how much need of being taught again even these first principles of the oracles of God! (Heb. v. 12.) Can we say, with regard to the first, that the blessed God has the whole of our hearts? Is the utmost vigour of our faculties exerted in his service? Do we make him the end of all our actions, of all our wishes, of all our pursuits?-Or are we indeed such 31 equitable judges between ourselves and others as the second of these e If David himself therefore call hin Lord, how is he then his Son? This implies both the existence of David in a future state, and the authority of the Messiah over that invisible world into which that prince was removed by death. Else, how great a Monarch soever the Messiah might have been, he could not have becu properly called David's Lord, any more than Ju ius Cæsar could have been called the Lord of Romuius, because he reigned in Rome 700 years atter his death, and vastly extended the bounds of that empire which Romulus founded.-Menster's Note on this text shews, in a very for cible manner, the wretched expedients of some modern Jews to evade the force of that interpretation of the cxth Psalm which refers it to the Messiah. f Presume from that day forward to ask hir any more questions.] The plain meaning is, they asked him no more such captious questions; for the memory of this confusion impressed their minds during the short remainder of Christ's continuance among them; and he was soon removed from them, so that they had no farther opportunities of doing it when that impression wore off. Christ discourses with the Pharisees in the temple. 215 SECT. clvi. these great commandments would require; so as to seek our own particular interests no farther than they may be subservient to, or at least consistent with, the good of the whole? Do we make all Ver. those allowances for others which we expect or desire they should 31 make for us?-Surely we must own we are far from having yet attained, or from being already perfect. (Phil. iii. 12.)—But if 33 this be not in the main the prevailing and governing temper of our minds, in vain are our burnt-offerings and our sacrifices; in vain are all the solemnities of public worship, or the forms of domestic and secret devotion; and by all our most pathetic expressions of duty to God, and friendship to men, we do but add one degree of guilt to another. Let us then most earnestly entreat that God would have mercy upon us, and by his Holy Spirit write these laws in our hearts. On these subjects let scribes instructed to the kingdom of heaven 32 insist, lest they be condemned by this expositor of the Jewish law And let those whose notions are thus wisely regulated, take heed, lest, while they seem near to the kingdom of God, by resting in 34 mere notions, they come short of it, and sink into a ruin aggravated by their near approach to the confines of salvation and glory. Mat. As for that question of Christ with which the Pharisees were xxii. perplexed, the gospel has given us a key to it. Well might David, 41--43 in spirit, call him Lord, who according to the flesh was to descend from his loins: for before David or Abraham was, he is. (John viii. 58.) Let us adore this mysterious union of the Divine and human natures in the person of our glorious Emmanuel; and be very careful that we do not oppose him, if we would not be found fighters against God. Already is he exalted at the right hand of 44 the Father: let his friends rejoice in his dignity and glory, and with pleasure wait the day of his complete triumph, when all his enemies shall be put under his feet, and even the last of them be swallowed up in victory. (1 Cor. xv. 25, 54.) SECT. CLVII. Christ discourses with the Pharisees in the temple, repeating the charges and cautions which he had formerly advanced at the house of one of that sect. Mat. XXIII. 1-22. Mark XII. 38-40. Luke XX. 45, to the end. MAT. XXIII. 1. THEN spake Jesus [in his doctrine], [LUKE, in the audience of all the people, MAT. XXIII. 1. clvii. THEN Jesus, in the progress of his doctrine SECT. and discourse, spake to his disciples in the audience of all the people who were present, and Mat. unto took occasion (as he had done formerly, Luke XXIII. 1 xi. 39, & seq. sect. cx.) to expose and caution them 216 Christ warns them against the scribes and Pharisees; Mat. 2 Saying, The scribes S All therefore, SECT. them against the pride and hypocrisy of the unto his disciples,] clvii. scribes and Pharisees, Saying openly and [MARK XII. 38.LUKE XX. 45.] freely to them, The scribes and the Pharisees sit XXII.2 in the chair of Moses, and are the public and the Pharisees sit 3 teachers and expounders of his law: All there- in Moses' seat: fore whatsoever they shall charge you to observe whatsoever they bid in virtue of that law, pay a becoming deference you observe, that oband regard to, and be ready to observe and do serve and do; but do not ye after their accordingly; but practise not by any means ac- works: for they say, cording to their works: for they say well in many and do not. instances, but do not themselves practise according to what they teach. Mark XII. 38 Mat. MARK XII.-38.Beware of the scribes: [LUKE XX. 46-] MAT. XXIII. 4. burdens, and grievous I therefore repeat it again, Beware of imitating the hypocrisy, and following the example, XXIII.4 of the scribes; For by virtue of the traditions which in conjunction with the Pharisees they For they bind heavy have added to the law, they bind together griev- to be borne, and lay ous and insupportable burdens, and without the least remorse lay them on men's shoulders, urging them by the heaviest penalties to conform to all their injunctions; but they dispense with [them selves] in the neglect of many of them, and will not so much as move them with a finger of theirs. (Compare Luke xi. 46, sect. cx.) them on men's shoulders; but they themthem with one of their fingers. selves will not move 5 But all their works they do for to be seen 5 And even when they do conform in other in- a Sit in the chair of Moses.] Some think here is an allusion to those pulpits which Ezra made for the expounders of the law (Neh. viii. 4.) and which were afterwards continued in the synagogue, from whence the rabbies delivered their discourses sitting. It is probably called Moses' chair, because it was that from whence the books of Moses were read and explained; so that he seemed to dictate from thence. It is strange that Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. in loc.) and Gussatus, should explain this of a legislative authority; since the scribes and Pharisees, as such, had no peculiar authority of that kind. b In virtue of that law.] If this limitation be not supposed, this passage will he inconsistent with all those in which he condemns the doctrines of the scribes and Pharisees. Had he meant (as Orobio, and some Popish writers have unaccountably pretended) to assert their infallibility, and to require an absolute submission to their dictates, he must have condemned himself, as it was known he was rejected by them. See Limborch. Collat. Amic. p. 58, 114. c Beware of the scribes.] The word works of men: they make ries, scribe in general signifies any one conversant about books and writings; and is sometimes put for a civil officer, whose business probably resembled that of a Secretary of state (2 Sam. viii. 17. 1 Kings iv. 3. 2 Kings xix. 2.) at other times it is used at large for a man of learning and ability (1 Chron. xxvii. 32. Jer. xxxvi. 26 Ezra vii. 6. Mat. xxiii. 34. 1 Cor. i. 20.) But as biblical learning was most esteemed among the Jews, the word in the New Testament seems to be chiefly appropriated to those that applied themselves to the study of the law (perhaps including those whose business it was to transcribe it.) Of these the public professors, who read lectures upon it, were called doctors, or lawyers; and, probably, they who were invested with some public offices in the sanhedrim, or other courts, scribes of the people (Mat ii. 4.)-But that the scribes, as Trigland labours to prove (de Secta Kareor. p. 68) were karaites, or textuaries, who rejected those traditions which the Pharisees inculcated, seems, from this text especially, utterly improbable. Our Lord commonly joins them with the Pharisees, and probably most of them were of that sect. d They ments. Who minded the shew more than the substance of religion. 217 clvii. ries, and enlarge the works but what they chiefly do with a design to SECT. borders of their gar- be viewed and taken notice of by men, as examples of extraordinary piety. For this purpose, in par- Mat. ticular, they make their phylacteries remarkably XXIII.5 broad, that it may be thought they write more of the law on those scrolls of parchment than others do, or desire to be more frequently reminded of Divine things by the size of them; and, for the same reason likewise, they make the fringes and tassels, which the law requires them to wear on the borders of their garments, as large as may be, that they may seem peculiarly desirous to remember the Divine commandments whenever they look upon them. (Compare Numb. xv. 38-40.) LUKE XX.-46.Which desire to walk These are the self-conceited and vain glorious Luke in long robes;-[MARK men, who affect to walk in long garments, that XX. 46 they may appear with an air of distinguished XII.-39,-] most rooms at feasts, est] seats in the syna gogues, [MARK XII. 39. LUKE XX.-46.] MAT. XXIII. 6. gravity and stateliness; And love the uppermost Mat. And love the upper- places at feasts, where guests of the first quality XXIII.6 and the [LUKE, high- are used to sit; and are ambitious to secure the highest seats even in the very synagogues, where they should meet to prostrate themselves in the Divine presence with the lowest abasement of soul: And, on the same principle of vain-glory and ostentation, they desire to receive salutabe called of men, Rabbi, tions in the markets, and other places of common concourse (compare Luke xi. 43. sect. cx.) and to be called by men, Rabbi, rabbi'; a title of honour 7 And [salutations] in the markets, and to d They make their phylacteries remarkably with this title, which was derived from broad.] I doubt not but most of my readers 17, a word which signifies both magnivery well know that the Jews (understand-tude and multitude, and seems intended very ing Exod. xiii. 9, 16. and Deut. vi. 8. xi. 18. which commanded them to bind the law on their heads, and to let it be as frontlets between their eyes, in a literal sense) used to wear little scrolls of parchment, on which those passages were written, bound to their foreheads and wrists. It is generally supposed they were called phylacteries in Greek, as being looked upon as a kind of amulet to keep them from danger. See Serrar. Triber. p. 38; and Drus, de tribus sectis, p. 263, 266. e The highest seats in the synagogues.] The doctors had seats by themselves, with their backs towards the pulpit in which the law was read, and their faces towards the people. These were accounted the most honourable; and therefore these ambitious scribes and Pharisees contended for them. See Reland. Antiq. Heb. p. 61; Vitring, de Synag. Vet. p. 191, & seq; and Wolf, in loc. f To be called by men, Rabbi, rabbi.] Many learned men have observed that an extravagant notion of respect went along emphatically to express both the greatness the prophets, and equal to those of the law: |