fyv^ -^ OP THK university! PREFACE The object of this work Is to assist in the interpretation of the Gospels. It does not seek to go beyond the authority of Jesus. It does not undertake to show what the Evangelists ought to have said, and to force their language into accordance with it. If in any case it may seem to go beyond them, it has been only to meet the honest sceptic of our day on his own ground, and show either that he has misinterpreted the words and acts of Christ, or that those words and acts are in accordance with the great prin- ciples of reason, which reach alike through the realms of physical and moral being. The one all-sufficient answer to the unbelief of our age is still the same that Jesus addressed to the Sadducees, who represented the refined and philosophical scepticism of his day : " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." A true understanding of the Scriptures, with the insight which is gained from them in the light of the highest philosophy into the ways and works and character of God, is the most effec- tual remedy for scepticism, whether it be a disease going on through moral infidelity to intellectual unbelief, or an honest antagonism to doctrines which falsely call themselves Christian or Evangelical. The best antidote to scepticism and to a narrow religious dog- matism, is the same. Both believers and unbelievers read too much abotit the Gospels in the works of their favorite guides, and study the Gospels themselves too little. We have never known a diligent and thorough study of the New Testament to end either in bigotry or unbelief. There is a truthfulness breathing through Its writings which cannot but affect the ingenuous mind that puts itself freely and constantly into communication with iv PREFACE. them, and there is a freedom, a breadth of moral purpose, a largeness of thought, a catholicity of sentiment, about them, which must give something of its own generous and liberal spirit to those who place themselves habitually and unreservedly within their influence. In preparing this work I have sought to avail myself of such helps as have been furnished by the scholarship of past ages ; to take advantage of the improved methods of investigation which have been recently adopted, and to borrow liberally from the varied stores of information which have been gained through the enterprise, the laborious researches, the intellectual culture, and the conscientious love of truth for which many of the Biblical scholars of our day have been so honorably distinguished. For example, the text which is here followed in all the variations which are of consequence enough to warrant a departure from the reading in our Common English Version, is Tischendorfs Stereotype Edition of the New Testament, published in 1850. This work, which, we believe, stands higher than any other edition of the New Testament in the estimation of those most competent to judge, was prepared by a careful comparison of all the most ancient manuscripts of the New Testament to which the editor could gain access. Many years were spent upon it, and no labor or expense was spared which promised any useful results. In regard to the Geography of the Holy Land, and the topography of Jerusalem and its environs, so important in order to a correct understanding and a vivid perception of many incidents in our Saviour's life, almost everything that we know with clearness and certainty has been gained since Dr. Robinson began his Biblical Researches in Palestine, less than thirty years ago. Within less than forty years, since Winer first published his " Grammar of the New Testament Diction" in 1822, a revo- lution hardly less remarkable has taken place in this department of Biblical knowledge, and commentators have been called back from their freaks of utter lawlessness to the orderly rules and principles of grammatical construction. It is a matter of regret, that, in the only English version that we have of Winer's Gram- mar, the text, without any notice of the alterations being given, has been tampered with and changed by the translator for doc- trinal reasons. But the promptness with which this act has been exposed and rebuked in this country, not only by the Christian PREFACE. V Examiner, but by the Bibliotheca Sacra, is a cheering evidence of the candor as well as vigilance which guards the integrity of sacred learning. Indeed, within the lifetime of the present gen- eration, a more generous spirit has been infused into these studies. They have been taken out from the darkened cell of monkish or sectarian exclusiveness, into the light of the world's advancing intelligence. Critical works, like those of Stanley, Jowett, Trench, and Alford, Schleiermacher, Olshausen, De Wette, Winer, and Meyer, Stuart, Norton, Noyes, Palfrey, Fur- ness, Hackett, and Nichols, show that the finest artistic taste and moral sensibilities, the severest inductions of logic, the nicest dis- criminations of philological science, the most scholarly attainments and accomplishments, together with habits of profound and origi- nal thought, may be worthily employed in throwing light on the sacred writings, and in bringing out the great and momentous truths which they contain. This branch of learning is, therefore, indicating its liberal tendencies, and beginning once more to gain a hearing from classes of men who formerly looked upon it with indifference or contempt. A thorough knowledge of the Gospels is found to enrich the mind and enlarge the heart. While the most effective means of controlling a congregation, in or out of the church, — the arts of rhetoric, and the attractive but superficial attainments which go to furnish the intellectual wardrobe of a popular preacher, — tend towards bigotry and conceit, the study of the Bible, the habit of throwing one's self into the heart of one after another of its great subjects, with the intellectual helps which are essential to it, can hardly fail to quicken the intellect, refine the moral sentiments, and make one's sympathies wider and more generous. The study of the Gospels, pursued in such a spirit, must at least conduce to humility, and that is closely allied to charity. I think that we may see some evidence of this liber- alizing tendency in theological seminaries, where the greatest attention is paid to Biblical studies, as well as in the tone of works, like the Bibliotheca Sacra, which treat such subjects most thoroughly. Ecclesiastical history, dogmatic theology, the spec- ulative doctrines of metaphysics and of morals, may be enlisted in the service of a party ; but the Gospels more than anything else refuse to be confined within a sect, to serve its exclusive pur- poses, or to do its work. This volume was begun more than five years ago, at the sugges- 1* VI PREFACE. tion of the Rev. Henry A. Miles, D. D., to meet what was sup- posed to be a want in this department of religious instruction. In its plan it differs materially from Livermore's Commentary, leaving more room for the extended discussion of subjects, and following each verse of the text less closely in its remarks. If I could be sure that in my Notes I have made as faithful and intelligent a use of the materials accessible to scholars now, as Mr. Livermore did of those which were within his reach in the preparation of his work twenty years ago, I should give it to the public with comparatively few misgivings. If this volume should be favorably received, it will probably be followed by another on the three remaining Gospels, though this forms a complete work in itself. Nearly all the difficult questions which are likely to come up in Mark and Luke have been already considered. But the Gos- pel of John will require an extended preparation, and, in many respects, a distinct and original mode of treatment. In the mean time, and as a most important part of the same series with this, our readers will be glad to learn that a volume on the other books of the New Testament may be expected from the Rev. A. P. Pea- body, D. D. J. H. M. Milton, February 14, 1860. CONTENTS FAOB Introduction 11 The Gospel according to Matthew 31 CHAPTER I. The Lineage or Grenealogy of Jesus 33 Miraculous Conception 35 Prediction of Christ's Birth 39 CHAPTER II. Visit of the Wise Men, or Magi 45 Murder of the Children in Bethlehem 50 Quotations from the Prophets 52 CHAPTER III. John the Baptist 60 CHAPTER IV. The Temptation in the Wilderness 70 Makes his Home in Capernaum 78 The Call of Simon Peter and Andrew his Brother, and of John and his Brother James 79 CHAPTER V. Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount ..... 85 The Beatitudes 87 Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets 88 CHAPTER VI. General Design 101 Lord's Prayer 102 Perfect Trust in God 107 Viil CONTENTS. -^ CHAPTER VII. Analysis 117 CHAPTER VIII. Gospel View of Miracles 126 Healing the Leper 135 Healing the Centurion's Servant 141 Bearing our Infirmities 143 Let the Dead bury their Dead 147 Stilling the Tempest 148 Angelic Existences and Agencies 152 Evil and Disorderly Spirits 157 CHAPTER IX. Christ's Way of viewing Death 174 CHAPTER X. Directions to the Apostles 183 The Coming of the Son of Man 186 Further Directions to the Apostles 188 Life or Soul 191 Different Degrees of Reward 193 CHAPTER XI. John the Baptist and his Message 201 Great Privileges unimproved visited by a heavier Condemnation 207 Christ's Thankfulness, and his Call to the Heavy Laden . 208 CHAPTER XII. Christ's View of the Sabbath 216 Hatred of the Pharisees against Jesus 219 Casting out Satan by Satan 219 The Unpardonable Sin 222 Further Remarks of Jesus . 223 Jesus and his Mother 224 CHAPTER XIII. Parables 232 The Parable of the Sower 237 Teaching in Parables . . . . . . . . 238 The Tares and the Wheat 240 The Wicked One 245 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XIV. Herod Antipas 260 Feeding the Five Thousand 264 Jesus walking on the Water 266 CHAPTER XV. Jesus and the Jewish Traditions 273 Fulfilment of Prophecy 274 Tl^ Syro-Phoenician Woman . . . . . , . 278 Feeding the Four Thousand 279 CHAPTER XVI. A Sign from Heaven 288 On this Rock I build my Church 289 The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven 290 The Humiliation and Sufferings of the Messiah . . . 292 CHAPTER XVII. The Transfiguration . . • 305 The Coming of Elijah 312 The Tribute-Money and the Fish 313 CHAPTER XVIII. The Primitive Church of Christ 320 CHAPTER XIX. The Christian Law of Divorce 332 Christ Blessing the Children 335 The Young Man who came to Jesus 336 Hard for the Rich to enter Christ's liingdom . . . 338 Gaining by Renouncing 340 CHAPTER XX. The Laborers in the Vineyard 348 CHAPTER XXI. Reckoning of Time 361 Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem 364 CHAPTER XXII. The Wedding Feast 376 Paying Tribute to Cagsar 377 The Resurrection from the Dead 379 The Two Great Commandments . . . . . . • 381 Christ the Son of David 382 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. Christ's Denunciation of the Pharisees 391 The Cumulative Guilt of a Nation 394 CHAPTER XXIV. Our Saviour's Gift of Prophecy 401 The Coining of the. Son of Man in Judgment to the Jews . 407 The Coming of the Son of Man in Judgment to All . . .418 Conclusion 422 CHAPTER XXV. Purpose of these Parables 432 Parable of the Virgins 432 Parable of the Talents 434 Parable of the Sheep and the Goats 434 The Greneral Kesurrection and Day of Judgment . . . 437 CHAPTER XXVI. The Supper at Bethany. — Judas 444 The Last Supper 445 Warning Peter . 449 The Agony of Gethsemane 450 The Apprehension of Jesus 458 Jesus taken before the High-Priest 460 Peter's Denial 461 CHAPTER XXVII. Preliminary Trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim . . . 479 Repentance and Death of Judas 480 Jesus before Pilate ......... 481 The Crucifixion 7 483 Precautions against his Resurrection 488 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Gospel Narratives of the Resurrection .... 503 The Different Accounts not Contradictory .... 505 The Different Times of his Appearance .... 508 Each Account Independent of the Rest 511 The Resurrection of Jesus 512 The Formula of Baptism 515 Concluding Remarks : . 519 Index 537 INTEODUCTION. HOW TO STUDY THE GOSPELS. We are more and more convinced that the Gospel of Christ is to be the great source of moral and rehgious in- struction and improvement to the world. The writings of the New Testament stand apart from all others. No works of man's genius pretend to an equal fellowship with them. They rea(;h now, as they always have done, above the high- est thought and experience of our race. As the sky rises as far above us when we are on the loftiest mountain as in the lowest valley, so they rise as far above the ideas and civilization of the world now, as they did in the days of Tiberius and Nero. There can hardly be a more convinc- ing proof of their Divine authority than this ; we mean, in the words of a profound and original thinker, Dr. Nichols, " the Gospel's sun-like solitude in the moral firmament. The vast space around it is clear of all light but its own.'* And this suggests a most important principle of interpre- tation. As these writings rise above all others, and shine in a vast space " clear of all light but their own," so it must be in that light, more than by any helps drawn from inferior sources, that we are to learn and to apply their truths. It is wonderful how our Saviour imbued with the universality of his own mind every transient incident and word into which his thought or life passed, so that it has become, like himself, to us " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.'* 12 INTRODUCTION. " The grass which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven," " the sower " who " went forth to sow," " the fields " *' white already to harvest," " the light and gladness of the marriage feast " contrasted with " the outer darkness " where " shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth," the " grain of mustard-seed," the children at their sports in the market- place, " I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink," his taking little children into his arms, his inspection of the tribute- money, are, by means of the virtue which went into them from him, taken up from the sphere of limited and tran- sient expressions or incidents, and stand out forever as em- blems of universal and undying truths. He who could thus imbue the most ephemeral forms of speech with an imperishable life, and who could place a slight act of grateful reverence, or a casual conversation with a sinful woman by the side of a well, among the memorable events in the world's history, must have been charged with life and power beyond all others. And his language, passing from its earthly uses into a medium for the communication of divine and heavenly truths, and of an influence more sub- tile and life-giving than any truths in their naked presenta- tion to the intellect, can borrow little from subsidiary illustra- tions and analogies. We have only to open our souls to it, as we do our eyes to the light, and it will come in. If we give ourselves up to it, we shall not be left in darkness or in doubt. It speaks with its own authority, and explains and enforces its own decisions. Often when we try to explain it, we shall only turn the attention away from it, or darken and obscure it by our words of inferior wisdom. A great part of our Saviour's language, and most of the lessons taught by his life, are of this character. He is the one Mediator between God and man, and it is worse than vain for us to interpose ourselves as his interpreters. This is one of the reasons why all commentaries are read with a sense of disappointment. They are expected to throw new light on the great essential teachings of Christ ; INTRODUCTION. 13 aiid that is what no commentators can ever do. They might as well hope to throw new light upon the sun. Happy are they if they can to some extent remove from his teach- ings the obscurations which men have thrown over them. They are expected to give new efficacy to the " virtue " that goes out from them ; and that they can never do. We may hope to clear up some of the obscurities which obsolete cus- toms, or modes of speech foreign to our habits of thought, have caused. We may analyze our Saviour's discourses, and show the underlying principles by which the different parts are united. We may bring together expressions, such as " the kingdom of Heaven," " the coming of the Son of man," " the end of the world," which with slight modifica- tions are scattered through the accounts of his ministry, and, by a careful comparison of the different conditions and cir- cumstances under which they were used, may detect the dif- ferences of meaning which were put upon them, and the central idea which gives a unity to these different meanings. We may free some of the fresh and beautiful expressions of Scripture from their subjection to the canting phraseology of a formal piety, and some of its sublime enunciations of truth from their cruel bondage to the " decrees " of meta- physical speculations or ecclesiastical councils. We may compare the different narratives of the same events, and by combining them into one may harmonize what to the super- ficial reader seem to be contradictions. We may bring out the relations of time and space to the Gospel narratives, and thus make the acts and words of Jesus more consistent with one another, and more real to the reader. Above all, we may come back to the simple and natural methods of in- quiry which are employed in the interpretation of all other writings. What Bacon and Newton, and other great philoso- phers, have done for the study of the mind of God in the book of nature, by breaking loose from arbitrary and un- natural methods of investigation, and applying the most direct and simple processes, is what the ablest religious 2 14 INTRODUCTION. thinkers and scholars must do, and to some extent are doing, for the study of the mind of God in the volume of that other book, in which he would reveal himself to us with greater fulness and a more affecting power. As what Bacon and Newton did most of all was to call men back to nature it- self, as it exists in the world around us, so what we have to do most of all is to call men back to the Gospel itself, as it lies before us, dimly prefigured in the Old Testament, and embodied in the New. There are two things essential in order to a right under- standing of the Gospels; — 1. A fitting preparation of heart; and, 2. A mind free from all preconceived opinions which may bias or mislead us in our investigations. The first is a moral and spiritual preparation ; the second is that, but it is also and mainly an intellectual preparation. 1. There is the fitting preparation of heart This is what our Saviour meant by the faith, which he always regarded as essential to salvation. It was not an intellectual belief such as men have made it since, but a disposition of heart, a readiness to receive and to obey him in whatever he might teach or command. With this faith in the heart showing itself by obedience and fidelity in the life, our Christian con- sciousness will be enlarged, and we shall take in more and more of the truth. All that is most essential in the Gospels may be received. Its holiest precepts will direct us in our lives ; its richest promises will be fulfilling themselves in our experience. Its great words of comfort and of power, which lie beyond the reach of criticism or commentary, will take up their abode in us, and become to us spirit and life. It is through this preparation of heart that the family Bible gains such a hold on the affections, instils into the soul its divinest influences, guides us in our duties, and teaches us how to turn sorrow and weariness and pain, and even sin itself, into the means of deliverance and triumph. Thus it is that Jesus introduces himself to us as our Teacher and Saviour. The Holy Spirit enters our souls, and renews INTRODUCTION. 15 them with a perpetual influx of life. And God reveals him- self to us in whatever is great or beautiful in nature, in the dear and sacred relations which bind us to one another, and in all the gracious and merciful, though to us often mys- terious and painful orderings of his providence. This use of the Bible — its daily and familiar companionship, its confidential communications to us in our retired moments — is worth jnore than all its more elaborate and learned lessons. 2. But there is also to be a preparation of the intellect, and in order to this, first of all, we must allow no precon- ceived opinions to stand in the way of a perfectly free and fair investigation. We must remember that, as students of the New Testament, one is our Master, even Christ, and that as no want of faith can be an excuse for setting aside any- thing that he has taught, so neither should any precon- ceived opinions of ours, or creeds drawn up and estab- lished by human authority, stand as a barrier between his words and us. If our views are not broad enough to take in any doctrine that he has taught, then we must make them broad- enough. There is a freedom, a greatness, not merely an elevation but a breadth of thought, in his instruc- tions, strangely in contrast with the narrow and enslaving opinions which metaphysical divines have elaborated " in order to satisfy the demand of unity in the Christian con- sciousness and in the activity of the dialectic reason," or which ambitious rulers in the Church have established as an engine of administrative authority. Christ has set our feet in a large place, and our allegiance to him requires that, in the study of his words and life, we should jealously assert and exercise the liberty wherewith he has made us free. A mournful spectacle, in this respect, has been presented by the Christian world. Advantage is taken of the new convert, in the most impressible moment of life, when he has no time or heart to examine for himself, when he is rejoicing in the advent of new hopes and a new experience, and his 16 INTRODUCTION. whole nature is fluent with emotion, — advantage is taken of him, in the unsuspecting confidence of his first enthusiasm, to impose upon him the sectarian stamp which is to fix his theological opinions, and be henceforth a bar, on the right hand and the left, in all his Biblical and theological investi- gations. Assuming those opinions to be true, he must study the Scriptures, not as a disciple of Jesus, but as the partisan of a sect. The word of God is in bondage. 'It can teach only what a human creed allows it to teach. In this re- spect, the Church of Rome, if it has a wider despotism than all the rest, is more consistent with itself. It does not pro- fess to leave the people free to read for themselves. It claims for itself the right and the authority to be the sole interpreter of the Scriptures. But in most of the Protes- tant denominations, while there is professedly the greatest reverence for the Scriptures and the rights of the individual reason and conscience, no man is allowed to study the Scrip- tures freely under the guidance of his own reason and con- science. If he finds in them doctrines not in accordance with " the standards " or " articles " of his church, he is called to account If he continues so to read the Scriptures, and see those doctrines there, he is excommunicated, and shut out from the ordinances of his religion. — A generous and catholic faith, which would leave the Bible open to all, that they may read it as they do the book of nature, in perfect freedom, accountable only to God, — this faith in Christ and his instructions rather than in man and his traditions ; — if the Son of man should come now, would he find it on the earth? Yet none the less is it our duty so to learn and so to speak. In all branches of the Church we hear generous voices from men seeking a larger liberty for others, and using it themselves. Some, like Henry Ward Beecher, without any great amount of learning or any remarkable fitness for critical studies, take up the great truths of the Gospel into their capacious souls, and speak them out with INTRODUCTION. 17 a power that breaks through sectarian restraints and finds an earnest response from thronging multitudes. Others, like Dr. Bushnell, with a riper scholarship, finer powers of anal- ysis, and the same hearty devotion to Christ, not as he lies bound up corpse-like in church creeds, but as he reveals himself through the writings of Evangelists and Apostles, and to the Christian consciousness of each individual soul, are preaching a more generous and living Gospel. Others again, like Jowett and Stanley and Williams and Archbishop Whately, from the great centres of religious intelligence to our Anglo-Saxon race, from Oxford and Cambridge and the metropolis of Ireland, are using a larger liberty, and in works of Biblical criticism or religious inquiry are giving to the world examples of a freer thought, and a more faithful exposition of writings, which rise above and pass beyond the limitations of scholastic theologians and sectarian creeds, as the heavens, which shine on all, rise above and stretch beyond every earthly distinction of individual proprietorship or national domain. It is a comfort to be able to quote lan- guage like this from a sermon preached before the Univer- sity of Oxford by the author of the Life of Dr. Arnold: " The true creed of the Church, the true Gospel of Christ, is to be found, not in proportion as it coincides with the watchwords or the dilemmas of modern controversy, but rather in proportion as it rises above them, and cuts across them The very peculiarity, the very proof of the divinity of his doctrine, was that they could not square it with any of their existing systems And it is both a confirmation and illustration of this character of Evangelical doctrine, that, if we look into some of the earthly repre- sentations of it which have met with most universal ac- ceptance, they also share in this freedom from the bonds in which the world is anxious to confine us." (Stanley's Can- terbury Sermons, pp. 113-115.) There is a healthful ring in these words, which is full of encouragement and hope. Not only are we, in the study of the Gospels, to beware 2* B 18 INTRODUCTION, of every human authority that would interpose itself be- tween them and us, but we must also take heed to our- selves. We may be as much enslaved to our own way of viewing things, or to the personal feelings by which we ai*e led in one direction or another, as to the estab- lished creed of a church. Whatever the motive, we must be careful not to twist and torture our Saviour's words to bring them into harmony with our ideas. A single example will illustrate what we mean. A writer, speaking of Christ in his mediatorial humiliation, says (Huntington's "Christian Believing and Living," p. 364): "Voluntarily, to this end,, and for the time, things which only the Father knoweth are veiled from the Son, and he says (in language which we have only to suppose put into the mouth of any other being to find it in fact a proof of his divinity), ' My Father is greater than I.' " By the divinity of Christ the writer has just explained that he means his equality with the Father. To say then, that his declaration, " My Father is greater than I," is in fact a proof of his divinity, that is, a proof that his Father is not greater than he, is flatly to con- tradict the Saviour. To assert that we have only to sup- pose this language " put into the mouth of any other being to find it in fact a proof of his divinity," is to assert that in our opinion the language of Jesus, in its simple and ob- vious meaning, is so extravagant that we can accept it only in a sense directly opposite to what it says. Is this honor- ing Christ ? St. John (1 John iii. 20) uses a form of ex- pression precisely like this of Jesus, " God is greater than our heart." Is his language therefore a proof of his or of our divinity? In Job xxxiii. 12 we find it asserted, with no appearance of impiety or extravagance, " that God is great- er than man." We are not arguing, or speaking even by implication, against the doctrine in support of which this delaration of our Saviour is so distorted from its plain and natural meaning. We quote the passage simply as an illus- tration of what seems to us a vicious, arbitrary, and most INTRODUCTION. 19 dangerous method of interpretation. Our reverence for Christ is shocked by such a way of dealing with his words. We solemnly believe that, except from a perversion of the moral sentiments, there is no greater bar in the way of a true understanding and application of the Gospels, than this habit of forcing them into conlbrmity with our preconceived ideas. We must remember that they are to guide us, and not we them. If our capacity for Divine truth is to be the measure of what we receive, it must not be, even in our own minds, the measure of what Christ has taught, so that all his teachings must be forced into conformity with it. We must not let the limitations of our human thought turn aside from its only direct and natural meaning any clear and explicit statement of his. If we find ourselves tempted to do this, we may be sure that there is something wrong, not in his instructions, but in our opinions. We are, then, with all humility before him, to re-examine our opinions, and see if we cannot readjust them in such a way as to make them harmonize with the text. A less violent wrench than that which is here applied to the words of Christ would probably bring our views into accordance with his words. But if our opinions are fixed as one of the immutable terms in this controversy, then let us remember that so plain a declara- tion of his cannot be altered for our accommodation ; and, without attempting to make it mean precisely the opposite of what it says, as plainly as language can say anything, let us leave the two — his assertion and our opinion — con- fronting one another, and acknowledge that it requires a higher wisdom than ours to bring them into harmony. But, after all, as a matter of interpretation not less than of Christian faith, our human inference is more likely to be wrong than the words of Christ. The opinion of over- whelming majorities in his Church can have no weight against his decisive and unqualified declaration. We, — all men, — the doctrine " which always, everywhere, and by all men" has been maintained, if any such contro- 20 INTRODUCTION. verted doctrine can be found, — may be wrong, but he CANNOT. We must then be on our guard against this forced method of interpretation, which has prevailed in past centuries almost as extensively as forced methods of interpreting the phenomena of nature before the time of Bacon and Galileo, and which has its influence still, though the ablest Christian scholars and thinkers are protesting against it more and more. It has its influence just where it will be most widely disseminated and most fatal. It enters into the apparently superficial, but nevertheless powerful and lasting, means of religious education for the young. The creed is taught first, and then the Bible in conformity with the creed. In some churches, at the end of every chapter that is read, and of every Psalm that is rehearsed, a doxology, w^hich is ia fact a creed in miniature, is repeated, as if the words of Scripture could not be trusted without it. How much more in harmony with nature and with truth, as well as with Christ's method of teaching, is that suggested by the generous and manly Robertson in a Confirmation Lec- ture. " Let the child's religion," he says, (Sermons, 1st Series, pp. 73, 74,) " be expansive, — capable of expan- sion, — as little systematic as possible ; let it lie upon the heart like the light, loose soil, which can be broken through as the heart bursts into fuller life. If it be trodden down hard and stiff in formularies, it is more than probable that the whole must be burst through, and broken violently and thrown off altogether, when the soul requires room to germi- nate. And in this way, my young brethren, I have tried to deal with you. Not in creeds, nor even in the stiffness of the catechism, has truth been put before you. Rather has it been trusted to the impulses of the heart ; on which, we believe, God works more efficaciously than we can do. A few simple truths : and then these have been left to work, and germinate, and swell. Baptism reveals to you this truth for the heart, that God is your Father, and that Christ ha3 INTRODUCTION. 21 encouraged you to live as your Father's children. It has revealed that name which Jacob knew not, — Love. Con- firmation has told you another truth, that of self-dedication to Him. Heaven is the service of God. The highest blessed- ness of life is powers and self consecrated to His will. These are the germs of truth : but it would have been miserable self-delusion, and most pernicious teaching, to have aimed at exhausting truth, or systematizing it. We are jealous of over-systematic teaching. God's love to you, — the sacrifice of your lives to God, — but the meaning of that ? Oh ! a long, long life will not exhaust the meaning, — the name of God. Feel him more and more, — all else is but empty words." In all our studies, and especially in all our religious teach- ings, we must leave room for growth, and be more earnest to implant the principles of righteous living, and a reverence for the truth as it is in Jesus, than to prove any doctrines on which the Christian world is divided to be true. And if at any time, we are to hold our dogmatic theology in abeyance, it is when we are engaged in interpreting for ourselves, or teaching to others, the words and the acts of Christ. Perhaps the forced methods of interpretation have for no single purpose been carried to a more unwarrantable extent than in the attempts which have been made to produce a literal conformity between different accounts of the same event by the different New Testament writers, so as not to violate the doctrine of a plenary verbal inspiration. But now that doctrine is no longer held to be respectable among enlightened Biblical critics and scholars. Dr. Cureton, the learned Canon of Westminster, in the preface to his " Syriac Gospels," p. Ixxxix., speaks of " the verbal inspiration of the Gospels " as " a theory long since abandoned by all scholars and critics, which, indeed, could only be maintained by those who are entirely ignorant of the way in which the New Testament has been transmitted to our own times, and which, 22 INTRODUCTION. if persisted in, must involve very serious objections against these inspired writings, and tend to infidelity." Alford, in the Prolegomena to his learned and valuable Commentary on the New Testament, thus speaks of the theory of verbal inspiration : " Much might be said of the a priori unworthi- ness of such a theory as applied to a Gospel whose character is the freedom of the spirit, not the bondage of the letter ; but it belongs more to my present work to try it by applying it to the Gospels as we have them. And I do not hesitate to say, that being thus applied, its effect will be to destroy altogether the credibility of our Evangelists The fact is, that this theory uniformly gives way before intel- ligent study of the Scriptures themselves ; and is only held, consistently and thoroughly, by those who have never un- dertaken that study." But the same violence which has been employed in for- cmg the language of the Gospels into harmony with a creed or an unnatural theory of inspiration, has also been used to force their statements into accordance with some favorite theory of the writer. Thus Paulus has endeavored to ex- plain the miracles of Christ in accordance with a theory which excludes all miraculous influences, and according to which neither the ruler s daughter nor Lazarus was actu- ally dead. The great value of Dr. Furness's charming writings on the Gospels is, we think, in some cases, seri- ously impaired by the restraint that is put upon him, and which he imposes upon the accounts of the Evangelists, in consequence of his favorite theory in regard to the man- ner in which miracles must be wrought. The same unnatural perversion of the language of the Gospels has been effected by sceptics and unbelievers, who exercise as much ingenuity in forcing the accounts of the different Evangelists into a contradiction, as the old commentators did in forcing them away from it. They find it easier thus to discredit the authority of the sacred writ- ings altogether, than to explain them away in such a manner INTRODUCTION. 23 as to confirm their naturalistic theories. The critical writings of Strauss and Baur are of this sort. They begin with theories about the Gospels, to which the Gospels themselves are forced to submit. There is no question in regard to the learning, the ability, or the^ consummate generalship of the men who lead the movement from within against the authority of the Gospels. And they have been of immense service in calling the attention of sensible and educated men to the Gospels, and inducing them to examine them for themselves, not through the perverse optics of these framers of theories, but with their own calm and unbiassed judgment. This of itself is a great gain. All that is needed in order to estab- lish the truthfulness of the Gospels is that they should be thus examined. And here we cannot too earnestly urge the great body of intelligent men and women to refuse to take any one's theory about the Gospels without first studying, not specious writings in support of it, but the Gospels themselves. Let them test every assumption of the theorist by a careful reference to the record, and not admit this or that assertion in regard to what is found in them, until they see it there with their own eyes. The study of the Gospels is a simple thing. The knowledge which has a direct and important bearing on the most important subjects in them is contained within a small compass. The comparison of one narrative with another, in order to satisfy ourselves in regard to their true relations, is easily effected by a little care, and the ap- plication of a reasonable amount of intelligence. Tliere is a vast deal of humbug in the pretensions of our modern neologists. The cloud of words thrown round their theories, like the cloud of mysticism which enveloped the old doctrines of the Church in its pretensions to an infallible inspiration and authority, has only to be tried in the light of reason and common sense by the truthful words of the Evangelists, and it will vanish away. Extraordinary pretensions, however, have always, for a 24 INTRODUCTION. geason, an influence altogether disproportionate to the real power that is in them. A sceptical thought is easily lodged in the mind. Delicate and sensitive natures, who wish to Relieve, are afraid to examine, lest the foundations of their faith should sink under them. 8trohg-minded, efficient men, who ought to study into these things, and thus satisfy them- selves, as they easily might, are deterred from so doing by a secret misgiving lest the grounds of their faith should not bear investigation. Some retreat into the straiter sects, from a less to a more rigid form of Congregationalism, from Congregationalism to Episcopacy, from Episcopacy to the Church of Rome, or directly, for extremes meet on the other side, from the Absolutism of Rationalism to the Absolutism of Romanism. There is everywhere, even in the Roman Catholic communion itself, a sentiment of unrest, coming from an inward unbelief, which men try to cover up and hide from themselves by stricter articles of faith, by more imposing forms of worship, by Church authorities, instead of healing it by letting in upon it the simple truths of the Gospel, as examined in the light of reason, and tested by conscientious and faithful lives. But change of position is not change of heart. The inward unrest, the hidden un- belief, which durst not trust God's truth unless guarded by human defences, clings to them still. These make-believe methods of finding a religious faith, and with it health and peace of mind, answer no good end. The sudden and un- natural marriages which are sometimes sought in the des- peration of disappointed aiFections are seldom blessed. There is a hidden element of falsehood, or self-deception, at the centre of them all. If we have doubts, we must meet them fairly and honestly for ourselves. If they are practical doubts, relating to the essentials of Christianity, the efficacy of prayer, the presence and the power of God in the soul, the mediatorial office of Christ between God and, men, we must read the Gospels for practical guidance, and, seeking to give ourselves up INTRODUCTION. 25 entirely to their instructions by prayer, by humility of heart, by a warmer charity towards others, by more faithful and obedient lives, with the help which God will certainly give to us if we seek it thus, in our renovated affections, and the deeper, purer life of the soul, we shall find the faith, and with it the inward tranquillity and repose, which we crave. That is, we shall find enough of them to serve as a foretaste and pledge of the perfect love and peace which shall be fulfilled to us only in the kingdom of Heaven. And this is all that has been gained by the greatest saints, — by Madame Guyon and Fenelon, Archbishop Leighton and Bax- ter, Charles Wesley and Channing and William Croswell, as we see when we are admitted to a knowledge of their interior lives. " The perfect," we once heard Dr. Channing say, " is what we must always seek, but never hope to gain." If, on the other hand, our doubts are of an intel- lectual character, we must meet them fairly on intellectual grounds, and not push them aside for others, whether sceptics or bigots, philosophers or Christian believers, to do our work for us. It is better to read the Gospels ourselves, not through the creed of a church or a philosophical dogma, but with our own eyes and minds, such as God has made them, and judge of 'them by the principles of reason and common sense. If they give way under the examination, let us meet the facts of the case like brave and honest men, and not like children, who blind their eyes from fear of seeing a gliost. But they will not give way. They only ask to be tried on their own merits. The reason why they seem to us so un- substantial is, that we do not rest our weight upon them. They are like the bridge across the St. Lawrence at Mon- treal, which sensitively vibrates to the slightest breeze, and therefore the timid traveller may fear to trust himself upon it ; but ten thousand tons of human beings and costly mer- chandise resting upon it, only show how firm and strong it is. The more severely we test the Gospels, the more securely shall we find ourselves sustained by them. " Come, and see, 3 26 INTRODUCTIOK. and know for yourselves," is their appeal to us. Only let us examine them as they are in themselves, giving ourselves up to their great thoughts, opening our souls to the holy spirit which is proceeding from them, and the divine life which is embodied in them, and which by an eternal genera- tion is born from them into the heart and life of our race. If we have doubts or fears, let us search the Scriptures till we are satisfied in regard to them. We have never known a man to have his faith shakeivby a thorough and impartial investigation of the New Testament ; but thousands have in this way had it confirmed and established. It does not require any great amount of learning to study the Gospels intelligently. The deepest thought and the widest amplitude of knowledge may find room for exercise, if we undertake to explore them in all their fulness, and in all the curious details connected with them. We may lose ourselves amid the wonders and mysteries of the Divine nature, if we undertake to fathom them in our speculations. But a clear mind, faithfully applying itself to the study of the Gospels in a truthful spirit, is all that is required in order to gain from them the knowledge that is most valuable to us. An acquaintance with ancient customs, with oriental productions, modes of living, and forms of speech, may give us a more precise idea of what is meant in some cases. But even then, except in a very few instances, the essential truth is not affected. It may be pleasant to us, and may gratify a reasonable curiosity, to know precisely what were the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air to which our Saviour called attention, as emblems and proofs of the paternal providence of God, — to know that it was the fruit of the carob-tree, "with a hard, dark outside, and a dull sweet taste,'* and not husks, which the Prodigal longed to eat as he fed it enviously to the swine, while he was perishing with hunger, — to know how the houses were constructed so that the paralytic might be taken up by an outside staircase to the flat roof, and let down through it on his bed into INTRODUCTION. 27 the inner room or open court, where Jesus sat surrounded by a throng of people. But the lesson taught, in each one of these cases, to our minds and hearts, is wholly independent of such knowledge. And there is danger lest, in seeking for the adventitious information, we should have our interest absorbed in that which was intended only as an illustration, and drawn away from the vital truth which it was employed to convey. The geography of Palestine is intimately connected with our Saviour's ministry. As we follow him back and forth, from place to place, on the map, events start up before us, distinct and alive, each one with its own individuality upon it. Almost any person may learn enough of the geography of Palestine for this purpose. In getting a clear view of his life, and in comparing the different Evangelists with one another, it will be a great help to connect each event with the spot where it occurred, and thus make it real to us. It will give the Gospels a firmer hold on our minds, and free us from the indistinct and dreamy notions with which we regard them, and through which they are so easily turned into myths. We are thus enabled to feel and handle them, and see that they are not bodiless apparitions, but substantial facts. But we may study the geography of Palestine so as to know all about the various localities in their relation to the Gospels, and yet be all the while so absorbed in the geography itself as to have no perception of the moral influ- ences which have made those places holy and immortal in the affections of mankind. Much of our Sunday-school teaching, we fear, is of this sort. One difficulty in the way of our studying the Gospels arises from the fact that we are so familiar with them that their words pass through our minds without making any im- pression. This diflRculty may be obviated by reading them in some foreign language, or, if we cannot do that, in some translation diflferent from our common version. Norton's or Campbell's translation, or even Sawyer's, notwithstanding 28 INTRODUCTION. the severe criticisms which it has called out, will sometimes reveal to us a sentiment or a thought which had escaped us in our daily reading. We have endeavored in this work to assist the student by analyzing in some cases, e. g., in the Sermon on the Mount, our Saviour's discourses, and thus bringing out the depth, the affluence, the comprehensiveness find completeness of the thought. After such an analysis we may come back to the familiar language with new interest ; And while we see in it a deeper and richer meaning than before, we may find in the old words an aroma of Christian sentiment which had escaped in the process of analyzing the thought, and which can be embodied in no other words but those around which the religious associations of our own lifetime, and of centuries before, have been gathering. We would ask the attention of those who have a taste for such investigations, and particularly, if it may be done with- out presumption, the attention of men of a legal training, to the narratives which we have constructed from the different Evangelists, of the events connected with the last days of our Saviour's life, and the morning of the Resurrection. No external evidence has ever produced such undoubting con- fidence in our mind as the way in which these four distinct narratives, now approaching and now diverging from one another, — now almost united in one, and now apparently inconsistent with each other, — keep on, each one in its inde- pendent course, while all combine to set forth the same great facts with no real inconsistency even in their minutest details. We would particularly ask that the accounts of the denials by Peter, the trial of Jesus, and the events on the morning of the Resurrection, may be subjected to the severest test of a judicial investigation, by the aid of a topographical plan of Jerusalem and its vicinity, and of a Jewish palace, with a careful attention to the precise words of the original Greek (disregarded in our English version), by which the writers denote the different parts of a palace, — the house itself, the inner court or hall, the gateway or entrance to the court, and INTRODUCTION. 29 the tessellated pavement in front of the palace, on which Pilate erected the judgment-seat, from which he unwillingly pronounced the sentence of death on the Saviour of the world. Those who may be inclined to follow out this inter- esting and conclusive method of inquiry under the guidance of a powerful, discriminating, and appreciative mind, are referred to the very able work entitled " Hours with the Evangelists," by I. Nichols, D. D. " The more," says Da Costa, " we examine the Gospels in detail, as with a mi- croscope, the more diversities will multiply under our eyes ; but the more also shall we find these diversities consistent, and so consistent that they constitute in each of the four Gospels a particular and distinctive character. And when once we have found this special character of each Gospel, we have also found the way to bring all these real diversities and apparent contradictions into one final and harmonious unity." But after all, even in an intellectual point of view, the most effective method of studying the Gospels is with a direct application of their precepts to the duties and cir- cumstances of life. The philosophy of our day is experi- mental. Its truths and their value in each case are tested by experiment under the guidance of known facts. So the precepts of Christ, both in regard to their truthfulness and their value, are to be tested by being applied and carried out in practice. The great interior principles of faith and love must be tried in our hearts ; and they must be carried out in our fidelity to the precepts and commands by which our external lives are to be regulated. In this way, the intellectual study of the Gospels, which often turns aside into eccentric vagaries or degenerates into lifeless and heart- less speculations, is tested by our own experiences, and the truths which it places before us as abstractions are filled out with the warmth and enthusiasm which are essential to them, and without which we can no more see them as they are, than we can understand the beauty of the flowering fields 3* 30 INTRODUCTION. as they are in June, from the dried specimens in the hands of a botanist, or the diagrams in his book. There is a spir- itual life flowing through every part of the Gospels, which have been created as living organisms, and not put together as pieces of mechanism ; and when in our own souls we have experienced that inward life, we see it in them and them in it. Every word that our Saviour spoke, every act that he did, has an organic completeness in itself, and is endowed with the power of perpetuating its own life in the lives of others. Every portion of the Gospels has this essential vitality, a living and perpetual witness, to the soul which receives it, of the source from which it came. Cut oft any one precept, and it grows out again from the parent stock. You cannot make it dead, so long as you test its vitality in your own soul. The separation of the intellectual study of the Gospels from the life in which their truths live and bloom, is a sad necessity, if it be a necessity, in the scientific education of theological students. It leads them, like the wandering spirit of old, into dry and desolate places, and opens before them the dreariest visions of holiness and faith. He who studies our Saviour's precepts about prayer, and never prays, can have, even intellectually, but a meagre idea of the subject. He who studies the great law of pre-eminence among liis disciples (Matt. xx. 26) will make poor work with the doc- trine until he has sought to realize it in himself, not only by an outw^ard show of obedience, but an inward subjection of his whole nature to its spirit. It is only by the union of study and practice that the highest ends of religious teaching can be gained. Then the marriage between the intellect and the heart will be completed, and from it will be born a life of faith and holiness and charity, which will grow up as the true and worthy offspring of such a union. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. It does not enter Into the design of this work to determine the authenticity or genuineness of the Gospels. We take that for granted, referring those who may wish to examine the matter thoroughly to Mr. Norton's " Genuineness of the Gospels " for the external evidence, and to Dr. Nichols's " Hours with the Evangelists" for the internal evidence. We suppose the Gospel of St. Matthew to have been written by him in the language which was then spoken in Palestine and which is usually called the Aramasan or Aramaic, and to have been afterwards translated into Greek, either by the Apostle himself or by some other com- petent person. In the year 1842 a copy of the greater part of the Gospel of St. MatthcAv in the Syriac language was obtained by Archdeacon Tattam from a Syrian monastery in the valley of the Natron Lakes, which was published in 1858 by William Cure- ton, D. D., Canon of Westminster, &c., which is regarded by the very learned editor as among the oldest manuscript copies of the Gospel now known, and respecting which he does not hesitate to express his belief, that " it has, to a great extent, retained the identical terms and expressions which the Apostle himself em- ployed ; and that we have here, in our Lord's discourses, to a great extent, the very same words as the Divine Author of our holy religion himself uttered in proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation in the Hebrew dialect to those who were listening to him, and through them to all the world." (Cureton's Syriac Gospels, Pref , p. xciii.) The precise time when the Gospel was written is uncertain. "Were we," says Davidson (Introduc- tion to the New Testament, p. 136), "to express an opinion, we should be incHned to adopt A. D. 41, 42, or 43 as the most 32 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. probable." " The place where the Gospel was written is uni- formly said to have been Judaea." Davidson supposes it to have been written in Hebrew, and that the Greek version " must have been made before the close of the first century ; probably before the appearance of the Gospel of John." It is one of the tradi- tions respecting it, and it bears internal evidence to the same effect, that it was written particularly for the Jews. We see marks of this intention, especially in tlie first chapters; but throughout the Gospel there is evidently a peculiar adaptation to the JcAvish mind, particularly when speaking of events as neces- sary in order to the fulfilment of the prophecies, and in the pains which are taken to set forth the new religion as a fulfilment, while the traditions of the Pharisees were only a perversion and abuse, of the Law and the Prophets. MATTHEW. CHAPTER I. 1-17. — The Lineage or Genealogy of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew bears internal evidence of having been written by a Jew, and with particular reference to his own countrymen. We see marks of this design especially in the first chapters, which open the whole subject from a Jewish point of view, and in a manner particularly adapted to the feelings and habits of thought then existing among the Jews. The writer is not, as has been charged against him, imbued with their prejudices and their erroneous ideas re- specting the Messiah. But he has been educated as a Jew, and in sympathy with the Jewish mind. If he has also been introduced into a higher realm of spiritual life and thought, he is able to enter, as no one but a person born and brought up in a Jewish atmosphere could, into the views and feelings of his countrymen. By his appreciation of their state of mind, and his sympathy with them in their religious expec- tations, he is able to gain a hearing from them, while he turns in the direction of their strongest expectations, and shows how the prophetic writings find their fulfilment in Jesus. His quotations and allusions, his local and historical references, his mode of presenting what they would regard as objectionable subjects, his forms of expression and meth- ods of appeal through their early religious associations, are 34: MATTHEW I. 1-17. all adapted to the Jewish mind, and fitted to lead them, without any needless shock to their prejudices, into a recog- nition of Jesus as the Messiah. We have an instance of this in the opening words of the Gospel, " The lineage of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham." The terni " son of David " seems to have been one held in the highest reverence among the Jews, even if it were not used, as it probably was, like the word Messiah, to designate "him who was to come," their great "deliverer" and "redeemer." By the use of this term, therefore, Mat- thew at the beginning appeals to a national expectation, which he still encourages when, in a genealogy, probably copied from public registers whose authority was recognized by tlie Jews of his day, he traces step by step the descent of Jesus from their most powerful monarch, and through him from their most illustrious ancestor. The prejudice which otherwise might have led them to put aside with contempt the claims of a poor young man from Galilee, is thus removed at the very outset. Though Jesus of Naza- reth was despised and rejected of men, yet he was descended from a race of kings and patriarchs. We can scarcely con- ceive how this dry catalogue of hard words should rouse the national enthusiasm of a Jew by its roll of mighty names, and awaken his respect for one whose advent into the world had been prepared through such a line of an- cestors. In order that it should have any weight with the Jews, this table of names must have been copied from family registers which they recognized as authentic. Whatever view, therefore, we may take of the inspiration of the writer, our confidence in his accuracy cannot be affected by any omissions or mistakes that may be pointed out in the list of names. It is not on his authority as that of an inspired writer, but on their authority as records preserved and accepted by the Jews, that Matthew presents them to his countrymen. If he had been inspired to correct every MATTHEW I. 18-25. 35 mistake and supply every omission, every alteration that he made would serve only to destroy their authority with those for whom he was writing, and to excite their preju- dices against him. This view of the matter takes away altogether the force of objections to the accuracy of the Gospels, which are drawn from apparent discrepancies be- tween the genealogy here and that in Luke iii. 23-38. ^e have only to suppose them to be, as they unquestion- ably are, copies of different records, which had been kept in different places, and which varied from one another, either through want of exactness in the records, or in con- sequence of the different methods by which the line of an- cestors was brought down from a common originak Tlie labored attempts, therefore, to reconcile these two lists of names with each other, or with records found in the Old Testament, however interesting they may be to ingenious scholars, can have no important bearing on the trustworthi- ness of the Gospels. 18-25. — Miraculous Conceptiox. The account of the birth of Jesus which is given here and in the second chapter of Luke, has been a stumbling- block to many sincere minds, and is rejected as in itself incredible by some who accept as authentic the other evan- gelical accounts of miracles. But is there anything in the nature of things incredible in what is here recorded ? The great naturalists of our day recognize a succession of creative epochs, when higher types of physical life were introduced. The different orders of animals which have appeared from time to time were not slowly evolved by a process of de- velopment from lower orders previously existing, but one after another they have been introduced by separate and original acts of creation. Now, as the physical advance-? ment of the world has thus been marked by distinct crea- tive epochs, might we not expect something of the same 1 36 MATTHEW I. 18-25. kind in its spiritual advancement ? " But how is it possible/' we are asked, "that such an event as that recorded here and in the second chapter of Luke could take place?" How is it possible, we ask in reply, that a new order of animals should be introduced, or the first man created? We cannot understand these things, and our ignorance should make us slow in setting limits, not only to what is possible, but to what is probable, in the exercise of God's almighty and creative power. Within certain spheres of creative action, where facts enough are ascertained to de- termine what is the established order of development and progress, as, for example, in the sciences of natural history, chemistry, and astronomy, we may draw our inferences with a good degree of certainty, and foretell what is to be from our knowledge of what has been. But even here we are not competent to decide beforehand when a new crea- tive epoch shall supervene upon the existing order of things in time to come, as it has in time past, or whether it shall come at all. Our knowledge does not reach far enough, — we have not ascertained facts enough, or with a sufficient degree of exactness, — to comprehend these widely separat- ed and therefore apparently extraordinary interpositions, or to reconcile them with what we know of the laws of nature. There was a time when the motion of comets was supposed to be wholly eccentric, and inconsistent with the laws of planetary motion. It only required a wider and more pre- cise knowledge of facts to reduce them all to the same law. So, unquestionably, it is in regard to the widely separated creative epochs in the physical universe. And have we not a right to infer, at least as not im- possible or in itself extremely improbable, something of the same kind in regard to those apparently anomalous inter- ventions by which a higher spiritual life has from time to time been brought into the world ? Is it the part of a true philosophy to deny the alleged fact, because we can- not see far enough to reconcile it with our preconceived and MATTHEW I. 18-25. 37 limited ideas of nature and the natural order of events ? In regard to the miraculous conception of Jesus by an immediate creative act of the divine spirit, may we not regard it as analogous to those creative epochs when new orders of plants or animals are first introduced ? As to the vulgar objection, that it involves an act which is in itself impossible, or at least utterly incredible, we may allow it to have some weight with us, when those who urge it show wherein the birth of a soul into the world by the immediate act of God, as here related, is in itself more impossible, or more utterly inexplicable to us, than the ordinary process by which a plant, an animal, or a human being is produced. The precise means by which life is perpetuated is just as much a mystery to us as the means by which it was origi- nally introduced with the first plant, or man, or with Jesus, who stands at the head of a new and spiritual creation. This much may be urged from their own stand-point against the conclusions of those who, on scientific grounds, reject this whole class of facts as lying outside of the order of nature. There are others, who believe in the Christian miracles, but reject the* account of the miraculous conception as something plainly unnatural and improbable. Among these, perhaps at the head of this class of writers, is Dr. Furness, in the views which he has taken of this matter in the fresh, original, and beautiful works which he has pub- lished on Jesus of Nazareth. He lays great emphasis on the naturalness of the Christian miracles, — the ease with which they were evidently performed by Jesus in the natural exercise of his own faculties. But why were they so easy to him, unless because of the extraordinary powers with which he was endowed ? He came to introduce a new epoch of spiritual life ; and, that it might be in conformity with the order of nature, must it not have been by a new act of creation ? He who stood at the head of this new era, by the natural exercise of his own powers uttering thoughts and doing deeds man never had done before, must 4 38 MATTHEW I. 18-25. have been endowed as man never had been before. And could these extraordinary endowments liave been bestowed upon him in any way more in accordance with the order of nature than by the method here indicated, i. e. by a new act of creative power ? When speaking of nature as containing within itself all the powers and agencies of the universe, we must not con- fine ourselves to the limited operations which take j^lace within our ordinary experience, but must leave room for those great secular interpositions which are equally a part of the divine system of nature, and which, at widely dis- tant intervals in the fulness of time, bring in new orders of beings and new eras of life. Immeasurably the greatest religious epoch since the creation of man was that which was introduced by Jesus. When we speak of it merely as of a new revelation, we fail utterly to express either its character or its greatness. Matthew and Luke, in their ac- count of the conception of Jesus by an immediate act of God's creative spirit ; the introduction to the Gospel of John respecting the word made Jlesh ; the language of Paul, as, e. g. in Col. i. 15-20, where he speaks of Christ as the first-born of every creature, and, not the revealer alone jof divine truth, but the creator of new worlds of spiritual life and power, — are in this way brought into harmony with one another, with the account of his miracles, and with the otherwise extraordinary language which he applied to himself. The Gospel account of the conception of Jesus comes as the fitting and natural introduction into the world of a divine life, which, growing up under the laws of our mortal and human condition, should, as a new creation, stand at the head of a new era in man's history. Here, at its beginning on the earth, is a fountain high and large enough to fill all the streams of action, thought, and life which flow through the Gospel narratives. The knowl- edge, holiness, and power of Jesus, so far transcending^ all that man had known or been or done, are only on the same MATTHEW I. 22, 23. 39 high level as his birth. The beginning is needed, in order to account for that which follows. Without it, the miracles, and still more the terms in which Jesus constantly spoke of himself, would seem to us unnatural and monstrous. We accept, then, the account of the miraculous conception, not only because it is an undisputed part of the Gospel narratives, but because something of the kind is required by the higher and broader analogies of nature, and in order to the completeness of the Gospels themselves. 22, 23. — Prediction of Christ's Birth. The account of the miraculous conception of Jesus by a virgin would undoubtedly appear harsh and offensive to the Jewish mind. To soften this impression, the writer introduces from one of the most honored among the Jew- ish prophets language which so exactly describes the case before them that the whole matter presents itself as a fulfil- ment of the ancient prediction. The passage quoted from Isaiah vii. 14 is taken from the Septuagint version, where the word irapdeuos, virgin^ is used instead of a literal transla- tion of the less decisive Hebrew word, which means damsel, or a young and unmarried woman. This particular word, in the connection in which it is here given, is just the one to meet the Jewish feeling caused by the account of the birth of Jesus, and meet it all the more effectively because the purpose for which the passage is introduced is not stated. It is as if the writer, seeing how his Jewish read- ers were likely to be affected by an account so extraor- dinary, had said, " Here we may apply the words of the prophet, ' A virgin shall conceive and bear a son,' " — thus, in the very language of their sacred writings, describing that feature in the birth of Jesus which must have been most offensive to them. We are to regard the quotation as primarily brought forward less for the purpose of arguing from a prophecy fulfilled, than to soften their prejudices by 40 MATTHEW I. 22, 23. the literal application to the objectionable features of the case before them of language which they held sacred. Is the passage here quoted from Isaiah a prediction of the Messiah? To answer this question we must examine it in its original connection. There we find that Syria and Samaria have combined against Ahaz, king of Judah, who is greatly terrified and discouraged. The prophet an- nounces, as a sign to Ahaz, that a woman then unmarried shall bear a son, and call his name Immanuel (God-with- us, in token of God's presence), and before the child shall be old enough to know good from evil, the land whose two kings so terrified Ahaz should be desolate. This, as any one who reads the whole chapter (Noyes's Translation) must see, is the only application required or suggested by the lanpruage. May it not, however, in accordance with the divine in- tention, be taken up out of its original surroundings, and as a prophetic declaration find its highest and truest fulfil- ment in some remote and entirely different class of events ? " Often," says Bengel, " predictions are quoted in the New Testament which the original hearers were undoubtedly re- quired by the divine purpose to apply to events then taking place. But the same divine purpose, looking farther on, so framed the language that it might fit more exactly the times of the Messiah, and this divine purpose, the Apostles teach, we are readily to accept." "The difficulty," says Olshausen, (Commentary on Gospels, Matthew i. 22, 23,) " can be removed by our acknowledging in the Old Testa- ment prophecies a twofold reference to a present lower subject and to a future higher one. With this suppo- sition, we can everywhere adhere to the immediate, simple, grammatical sense of the words, and still recognize the quotations of the New Testament as prophecies in the full sense. And it belongs to the peculiar adjustment and arrangement of the Scripture, that the life and substance of the Old Testament were intended as a mirror of the MATTHEW I. 41 New Testament life, and that in the person of Christ par- ticularly, as the representative of the New Testament, all the rays of the Old Testament ideas are concentrated as in their focus." We may admit the general principle here stated. The only objection to applying it in the case before us is the want of sufficient evidence that this particular passage was intended, either by the prophet or the evangelist, to be so understood. On reading carefully the whole passage in Isaiah, from the beginning of the seventh chapter to the eighth verse of the ninth chapter in Dr. Noyes's Transla- tion, we cannot free ourselves from the impression, that though the seventh chapter standing by itself might indi- cate no allusion to the Messiah, yet the extraordinary pas- sage beginning with the last verse of the eighth and reach- ing through the first seven verses of the ninth chapter can hardly be understood in any other way than as pointing on to the times of the Messiah ; and if so, as giving some countenance to those who interpret vii. 14 as in a secondary sense applying to the same distant event. For the opposite view, see Dr. Palfrey's able, ingenious, and elaborate work on " The Relation between Judaism and Christianity." NOTES. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of Da- 2 vid, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac ; and Isaac begat Jacob ; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren. 1. Jesus Christ] In the body truthfulness in the writers of the of the Gospel, where Jesus is spoken New Testament. the sou of as present and actins:, he is never of David] i. e. the true Messiah, called by his official title, Chn'sf, the " For by no more common or more Messiah, or the anointed, though he is proper name did the Jewish nation constantly so called in the Acts and point out the Messiah, than by the the Epistles. This is one of the son of David. See Matt. xii. 23, slight but unmistakable marks of xxi. 9, xxii. 42 ; Luke xviii. 38 ; 4* 42 MATTHEW I. And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar. And Phares 3 begat Esroni ; and Esrom begat Aram ; and Aram begat 4 Aminadab ; and Aminadab begat Naasson ; and Naasson begat Sahnon ; and Sahnon begat Booz of Raehab. And Booz be- 5 gat Obed of Ruth. And Obed begat Jesse ; and Jesse begat 6 David the king. And David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias. And Solomon begat Roboam ; 7 and Roboam begat Abia ; and Abia begat Asa ; and Asa be- s gat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias ; and Ozias begat Joatham ; and Joatham begat Achaz ; 9 and Aehaz begat Ezekias ; and Ezekias begat Manasses ; and 10 Manasses begat Amon ; and Anion begat Josias; and Josias 11 begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon. — And after they were brought to 12 Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel ; and Salathiel begat Zoro- babel ; and Zorobabel begat Abiud ; and Abiud begat Elia- 13 kirn ; and Eliakim begat Azor ; and Azor begat Sadoc ; and u Sadoc begat Achim ; and Achim begat Eliud ; and Eliud be- 15 gat Eleazar ; and Eleazar begat INIatthan ; and Matthan begat Jacob ; and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of 16 whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the 17 generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations ; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are four- , teen generations ; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ Avas on this wise ; when as his I8 mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came to- gether, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then 19 Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make and everywhere in the Tahiindic Manasseh, Sec. 17. from writers." Lightfoot. 8. and Abraham to David are four- Joram begat Ozias] Ozias was teen generations] Only thirteen not the son of Joram, but there are here given. One name may have were three kings between them, — slipped out of the account; but, as Ahaziah,.Joash, and Amaziah. In Lightfoot states, literal exactness in the Syriac version edited by Dr. numbers was not regarded by the Cureton, these names are supplied. Jews. 19. Then Joseph In these genealogical tables it was her husband] It Avas the cus- not unusual to omit several genera- torn among the Jews for a man tions, and to reckon the legal grand- to be betrothed to a woman some son or great-grandson as if he were time before he actually took her a son. Ozias is the Greek name from her father's house to live Avith for Uzziah, as Achaz is for Ahaz, her as his wife. During this inter- Ezekias for Hezekiah, Manasses for val she was cousidered his wife, MATTHEW I. 43 her a public example, was minded to put lier away privily. 20 But while he thouglit on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying : Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife ; for that 21 which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS ; for he 22 shall save his people from their sins. (Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the and was legally liable for any mis- conduct, the same as if they hud actually come together in marriage. If Joseph, therefore, had instituted proceedings against ^lary for con- jngal infidelity, the legal penalty, a disgraceful divorce or perhaps death, would have been exacted. The woi-d ti-anslated just, Stfcatoy, does not bear the meaning vierciful, which is sometimes put upon it. A paraphrase closer to the original would be : " But Joseph, her hus- band, though a just man, [and there- fore unable to countenance Avhat seemed to him a violation of the law,] yet not wishing to expose her [to unnecessary shame or sufler- iiig], had made up his mind to put her away privately ; " not, however, withont a writing of divorce, as that would have been unlawful. For the law of divorce, see Dent, xxii. 23, xxiv. 1. 20. in a dream] This mode of divine com- munication, i. e. through a dream, is mentioned nowhere in the New Testament but here and in the next chapter, unless we regard tlie dream of Pilate's wife, xxvii. 19, as of the same character. 21. and thou shalt call his name Jesus] i. e. Saviouu, — in Hebrew, the same name as Joshna. for he shall save his people from their sins] The trne character o( his salvation, namely, salvation from sin rather than from its penal- ties, is here distinctly set forth. his people] not the Jews alone, but all who accept him as their Sav- ionr. 22. that it might be fumiled, &c.] lua, that. " It is impossible," says Al ford, "to in- terpret Iva in any other sense than ' in order that.' The words ' all this was done,' and the uniform usage of the New Testament, in which iva is never used except in this sense, forbid any other." We are surprised at so unqualified a state- ment. Winer, the ablest writer on the Grammar of the New Testa- ment, though he insists on design as the primary and almost uniform meaning of the word, is yet obliged to allow that there are cases (e. g. John i. 27, iv. 34, vi. 7, xv. 8, xvi. 7 ; Matt, xviii. 6; Luke xi. 50, xvii. 2, &c.) where ''the original import of the particle of design entirely dis- appears." Winer, xliv. 8, c. (Mas- son's Tr., Am. ed. p. 354). Sophocles, in his learned work, " A Glossary ot Later and Byzantine Greek," Intro- duct., § 95, says : " In later and By- zantine Greek, iva often denotes a result; that is, it has the force of cotrre, that, so that, so as." And this he proves by many examples. Purpose or design is not then neces- sarily implied by the word i.va. On tlie contrary, it is also used to de- note result as well as purpose ; e. g. Luke ix. 45 : " But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them, that (iva, so that] they per- ceived it not." This passage, we think, furni.shes the key to the pas- sage here, and to the same form of expression, Matt. ii. 15, iv. 14, xxi. 4, xxvii. 35. In every one of these instances, so that is a better trans- lation of tva than iti order that. It is equally in conformity with the grammatical usage of the Greek. word, and evidently better describes the use that is made of the prophe- cies. The Evangelist does not mean to say, these events occurred in order thai the words of the prophet 44 MATTEIEW I. prophet, saying: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and 2a shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanu- el;" which, being interpreted, is, God with us.) Then Joseph, 24 being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bid- den him ; and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till 25 she had brought forth her first-born son; and he called his name Jesus. might be fulfilled," but " they occurred in such a manner thjit as a resiiir the words of the proph- et were fulfilled in them." 22. might be fulfilled] nXrjpcoBf). What is meant hy fiufilledf The literal meaning of this word isJiUed, or filed out. Thus Matt. v. 17: " Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets : I come not to destroy, but to fulfil;" i. e. I come to carry out to its complete and spiritual fulfilment the law whose burdensome forms, once a help, are now a hindrance to the work for which it was given. To fulfil, in this case, is not, therefore, a literal fulfilment, — for in the lit- eral sense of the words, Jesus did come to destroy the law ; but it was to fulfil the law in a different and higher sense than had previously been thought of. The same, we suppose, is also true in regard to the prophets. Not always in a literal sense, but in their deepest and highest meaning, in the divine truth and life, the spiritual re- demption and deliverance towards which they were pointing, their words are fulfilled in Jesus. So, in other Avays, in an inferior sense, even one which though literal may never have occurred to them, spe- cific words which they used may have been fulfilled in particular in- cidents connected with his life, i. e. may be used to describe them, as in the passage before us. See also Notes on ii. 5, 15, 17, 23 ; xxi. 4. For a fuller exposition of the subject of Prophecv, see xxiv. 28. Behold, a Tirgiu] The first clause of this sentence is the emphatic one. The name £m- vianuel^ which is found nowhere else in the New Testament, was not giv- en to Jesus. He was not so named by his parents. He never assumed the name himself, and was never so called by his disciples. It was di- rected to be given to a child men- tioned in Is. vii. 14, who was to be born in the reign of Ahaz, and who was to be to him a sign that God was with him. " The mere use of such a name." says Dr. Barnes, " would not prove that he had a di- vine nature," especially, we might add, Avheu there is no evidence that he ever bore the name. It does, however, unquestionably describe the mission of our Saviour, in whom God was with us, manifesting him- self in the flesh, and reconciling the world to himself. The Jews were in the habit of giving significant ti- tles to their great men. Thus the original name of Joshua was OiOiea or Saviour, and Moses, Num. xiii. 16, called him Jehosliun, wliich means the salvation of God. FJi mean< Afij God; Klijah. My God Jthovah ; Eli- sha, God the Saviour. 25. her first-borii son] Tischendorf, in confonnity with the reading in some of the best manuscripts, leaves out the word frst-born ; but Alford re- tains it, with the )-emark that the omission " was evidently made from superstitious veneration for Ma- ry." The perpetual virginity of the mother of Jesus, as held by the Roman Catholic Church, is not implied or intimated here by either reading. MATTHEW II. 1-12. 45 CHAPTER II. 1-12. — Visit of the Wisp: Men, or Magi. The remarkable event in this chapter, at least that which gives the greatest trouble to those who would understand in all its bearings every particular connected with the Gos- pel narratives, is the visit of the Magi, or wise men, under the guidance of a star, or some extraordinary luminous appearance in the heavens. A vast deal of learning has been expended upon the subject without coming to any satisfactory results. It has never been definitely ascer- tained who these wise men M^ere, or what was the precise appearance in the heavens that brought them to Bethlehem. All that can be learned is, that there was at that time a widely extended expectation in the East of the birth, in that part of the world, of some one who was to have an extraordinary influence on human affairs. Jews, in their various national misfortunes, and the migrations consequent upon them, had mingled as permanent residents with the people beyond their eastern borders. They had undoubt- edly carried with them their religious notions, and par- ticularly the prophetic expectations of the Messiah, which had entered so deeply into the heart of the nation. Their ablest and wisest men would naturally be brought into connection with the corresponding classes whom they might meet in foreign lands, and in the interchange of ideas with one another whatever was most remarkable in the science or religious systems of either would become the common property of all. Thus there may have been in those Eastern regions men of devout and earnest hearts, waiting anxiously 46 MATTHEW II. 1-15?. for some new manifestation from Heaven, and for pomp new and higher agency to go forth amid the confused and otherwise hopeless affairs of the world. When the fulness of time had come, a sign was given to them. As, to the shepherds at Bethlehem, who as Jews were accustomed to the idea of angelic ministrations, a vision of angels an- nounced the birth of the Messiah, so to the Magi, who were accustomed to look to the heavenly bodies for por- tents of earthly changes, a star or other brilliant light in heaven was given as an indication of the great event for which they had been waiting. Probably they had already fixed on Juda3a, and of course on Jerusalem, the capital of Judaea, as the scene of the long-expected events. The often quoted passages from the Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus, both refer to Judaia as tlie place from which, according to expectations generally prevalent in the East, a man was destined, about that time, to come and obtain the empire of the world. Pliny not improbably had refer- ence to something of the same kind in calling Jerusalem (H. N., 1. 5, c. 15) "by far the most illustrious city, not only of Judaea, but of the East," since in outward splendor it was greatly inferior to other Eastern cities. The place, therefore, was fixed and known. When the unusual ap- pearance in the sky was seen, which the wise men ac- cepted as a signal to announce the birth of the expected deliverer, they knew at once to what place it would lead them. Carrying the gifts which, with their Eastern ideas and habits, they regarded as most worthy to be offered on such a visit, they hastened to Jerusalem, and made known the object of their journey. The inhabitants of Jerusalem were deeply moved by the report of their coming. The hoary-headed monarch, whose long reign of cruelty and blood was soon to find a fitting termination in the horrible and loathsome disease which closed his miserable life, had, of course, his cruel suspicions excited by any reference at that time to the birth of a MATTHEW II. 1-12. 47 king. Only a short time before, more than six thousand of the Pharisees (Josephus, Ant. 17. 2. 4) had refused tlie oath of allegiance to him, and foretold " how God had de- creed that his government should ceaSe, and his posterity be deprived of it." He put to death their leading men ; but, sitting on a throne to which as a foreigner he could have no rightful claim, the Idumtean Herod was not the man to forget their predictions, or anything else that might stand in the way of his regal power and its continuance in his family. But it would not do to let his fears be known. Cloaking, therefore, his murderous intention under an affectation of reverence for the predicted Messiah, he called together the chief priests and the scribes, who as teachers of the law were most thoroughly versed in the sacred writings, and asked them where the Christ, or the Messiah, was to be bom. The inquest which he made, and the manner in which it was received and answered, prove how general and how strong among the Jews the expectations of the Messiah were. The leading minds of the nation evidently felt themselves to be on the eve of the extraordinary series of events which had been foretold by their prophets centu- ries before, and which had always been kept up in the expectations of the people. Having learned the particular place of the Messiah's birth, the wise men set out for Bethlehem. While on their r way, they were gladdened exceedingly by seeing again the star which they had seen while in the East, and which now showed itself in such a direction that it seemed to be leading them forward, till on their reaching the place it appeared to stand over the spot where the young child was. The expression, "to stand over a place," in its ap- plication to a heavenly body, was not foreign to ancient modes of speech. Josephus, in enumerating the portents which went before the destruction of Jerusalem, speaks of a comet which "stood over the city," in precisely the same form of words that is here applied to the star. 48 MATTHEW II. 1-12. Bethlehem was a small town six or seven miles south of Jerusalem, but endeared to the Jewish heart by many precious historical associations. Within its limits, on the way to Jerusalem, Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob, had died and was buried. There was the scene of most of the affecting events recorded in the beautiful pastoral of Ruth. There was the residence of Jesse, and there the genius and the devotions of David had been called out while tending his father's flocks amid its hills. There, by the consecrating oil of the aged Samuel he had been set apart for the kingly office. And there, five hundred years later, according to Jewish traditions, but we know not on what authority, was the birthplace of Zerubbabel, who led back the captive Jews from Babylon, and rebuilt their temple. Bethlehem abounds in high hills, from which the Dead Sea, and the mountains beyond its eastern shore, are visi- ble. Some have supposed that the star which attracted the wise men in the East was the luminous appearance (the glory of the Lord shining round about them) which the shepherds, Luke ii. 9, saw on the night of the nativity, and which from those lofty hills might have been seen far to the eastward. But this will not account for the star which the Magi saw on reaching Bethlehem. Some have supposed that it was a comet; others, and Trench among them, have thought that it was a peculiar star, like that which shone out suddenly in Cassiopeia, Novem- ber 11, 1572, and which, after surpassing in apparent size all the fixed stars, and even the planet Jupiter, being sometimes distinctly seen at midday, gradually decreased, till, sixteen months after it was first seen, it seemed to go out entirely, and no traces of it have been discov- ered since. This star was observed and reported by Tycho Brahe, the most illustrious astronomical observer of his day. Another star, yet more remarkable, appeared in 1604, at the same time with, and in the immediate neigh- MATTHEW II. 1-12. 49 borhood of, a remarkable conjunction of the planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, — " such a conjunction," says Trench, (in his " Star of the Wise Men," p. 32,) "as, occurring at rarest intervals, must yet have occurred as regarded the first two planets in 747, and all three in 748 A. U. C. ; in years, that is, either of them very likely to have been, and one of which most probably w^as, the true Annus Domini." But these speculations, though they may possibly point to a true solution of the phenomena in question, do not seem to us of much consequence. With the birth of Christ we are introduced into a sphere of higher than material agencies. From the first inception of his earthly being, in the overshadowing power and spirit of the Most High, to the time when he " was taken up " from his disciples, " and a cloud received him out of their sight," Jesus was at- tended by powers which come not usually within the cog- nizance of the senses, and of which our natural philoso- phy, limited as it is by the observation of physical facts through the senses, can render no adequate account. They belong to a province of divine agencies into which we have not been permitted to enter far enough to be able to speak with any certainty of the conditions or the ex- tent of their influence on human affairs or the material universe. When once we are brought, as we are by the life of Jesus, into the realm of miraculous manifestations, it is idle to attempt to explain them by principles drawn from the narrow and unwieldy phenomena of physical sci- ence. The anniversary of the wise men offering their gifts to the infant Jesus has been celebrated in most Christian churches as the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The wise men are regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as kings who came from different parts of India, and to them has been applied the language of the seventy-second Psalm, " The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts," " and to him shall be given of the gold 5 D 50 MATTHEW II. 16 -IS. of Sheba." Each of the gifts also has its mystical signifi- cation, — the gold, a royal offering, indicating his kingly office, the frankincense denoting his heavenly origin, and the myrrh (in about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes his body afterwards was laid, John xix. 39) prefiguring his death. These are fanciful interpretations, but probably they come nearer to the reverential feeling which they were employed to express, than any meaning that we can arrive at through the researches of natural history. In all ages of the world, especially in those Eastern regions, the devout and lowly in heart have delighted in offering up whatever was most beautiful and jirecious, as a token of inward reverence and affection. In this way gold and gems and precious gums and ointments became invested with hallowed associations, and spoke to the soul w^ith a grace and charm that we in our cold climate can poorly comprehend. A Judas might count the pecuniary cost of such gifts, and wdse men in our day, whose wisdom is wholly absorbed in estimating their outward value, may exclaim about the w^aste in matters of sentiment. But the Saviour has recognized in such gifts a deeper and holier worth than any merely pecuniary value, even though it were to be expended upon the poor. 16-18. — Murder of the Children in Bethlehem. The account of the murder of the innocents has been set aside as unhistorical, because it is mentioned by no other historian, and because it has been thought to be a crime too foolish and too atrocious even for the crafty and cruel Herod. But the craftiest men are often taken in their own craftiness. Their roundabout, underhanded, complicated plans for the accomplishment of what might l)e done so much more easily by some direct means, often fail of their purpose, and in the result appear like folly. " Any one," says Trench, " who is acquainted with, and MATTHEW n. 16 - 18. 51 calls to mind, the cruel precautions of Eastern monarchs, in times past and present, in regard of possible competi- tors for their throne, often makirig an entire desolation, even of their own kindred round them, will see in this what many an Eastern monarch would have done, — what certainly a Ilerod would not have shrunk from doing." His jealousy, which had been excited by the errand of the wise men, was changed to rage when he found that they had eluded, and, as he proudly considered it, "mocked" him. He determined therefore, in his wrath, to secure the destruction which he had designed for one of the chil- dren of Bethlehem by a summary act of vengeance on all. This was entirely in keeping with all that Ave know of Herod. " The man," says Trench, " who could put his wife and three of his own sons to death, who made a soli- tude round him by the slaughter of so many of his friends, who could kill, under semblance of sport, as he did, the youthful high-priest, Aristobulus ; who, when he was him- self dying by horrible and loathsome diseases, so far from being softened, or owning the hand of God, which every one else saw therein, could devise such a devilish wicked- ness as that narrated by Josephus, to secure weeping and lamentation at his death,* would have had little scruple in conceiving or carrying out an iniquity such as the sacred historian lays here to his charge." Nor would the crime be one of so remarkable a character that historians like Tacitus or Josephus would be unlikely to omit it in their * According to Josephus, Antiq., Lib. XVTI. c. 6, s. 6-8, " It troubled him greatly to anticipate the joy which there would be among the Jews at his death; and with the purpose of turning this joy into weeping, he got together from every city the chief personages of the land, whom he shut up in the Hippodrome of Jericho, where he lay dying. He then obtained a promise from his sister Salome and her husband, that, the instant he expired, these all should be slain, so that, although none wept and la- mented him, thei'e should yet be abundant weeping and lamentation at his death. His intentions were not better fulfilled than thos* of tyrants after their deaths commonly are." 52 MATTHEW II. 6, 15. imperfect catalogue of his crimes. The act was one of no pohtical importance. The number of children mur- dered has been greatly exaggerated in the popular mind. " From two years old, and under," in the Jewish mode of reckoning, probably means, downward from those who have entered on their second year, or, as w^e should say, under one year old. In a small place like Bethlehem they could hardly have numbered more than ten or fifteen, and these might have been put out of the way without any public commotion by the practised and accomplished ajrents of a tvrant like Ilerod. QUOTATIOXS FROM THE PrOPHKTS. G. The references to the Old Testament in this chapter are worthy of notice. The quotation here from Micah a-. 2 is given, not merely as an important historical fact in its relation to the inquiries of Ilerod, but as showing that the great Jewish council, or Sanhedrim 'at Jerusalem, com- posed of the chief priests and the men most learned in the law, had fixed on Bethlehem, where Jesus had just been born, as the birthplace of the Messiah. The ancient prophet, therefore, as interpreted by the highest relig- ious authority recognized among the Jews, accorded w^ith the writer as to the place of the Messiah's birth. This must at the outset have had great weight with those whose favorable attention Matthew wished jiarticularly to gain. It is not his opinion of the application of the prophecy that is given, but the deliberately expressed opinion of those whom they looked up to as their authorized teachers in such matters. See John vii. 42. 15. The second quotation, " OiU of Egypt have I called my Son" Hos. xi. 1, is given as one of the coincidences in language and in fact wdiich could not but strike those who regarded both as sacred, and who thus through their reliscious associations would be led on in the narrative MATTHEW II. 17, 18. 53 with less violent antipathies. Whether Israel, (whom God here calls his son,) coming up out of Egypt to receive and to perpetuate the knowledge of the true God through the laws and institutions appointed by him, was or was not held forth by the prophet as a type of that greater Son of God now coming from Egypt, who was to exercise a yet migh.tier influence in the advancement of God's kingdom through the earth, is of little consequence, so far as the writer's purpose or the pertinency of the quotation is concerned. . 17, 18. The third quotation is from Jeremiah xxxi. 15. Jerusalem had been taken and destroyed by Nebuzaradan. The Jewish nobles had been slain, and after the sons of the king, Zedekiah, had been murdered in his sight, his own eyes were put out. The people were gathered together in chains at Ramah, a city of Ephraim, probably about six miles northward from Jerusalem, whence they were to be- gin their wearisome and sorrowful journey towards Babylon, the land of their long captivity. The prophet Jeremiah, who had been one of the captives, and who is now pre- dicting the joyful return of his people from their bondage, contrasts their future gladness with the feelings of that dismal day when they were taking their departure from Ramah with such lamentation and bitter weeping, that it seemed as if Rachel, the wife of their common ancestor, were there, as a mother, weeping for her cliildren, and re- fusing to be comforted because they were not. This strik- ing and beautiful figure the Evangelist has transferred to Bethlehem, to represent the lamentation, weeping, and great mourning caused by the murder of the children. The image of Rachel rising from her tomb and weeping there is rendered more appropriate by the fact that her grave was near Bethlehem, in the midst of those who had been sacrificed by that barbarous act of cruelty. Whether Jere- miah used language which, besides describing the sorrows at Ramah and the joyful return of the Jews from Babylon, pointed on in prophetic vision to the sorrows of Bethlehem, ' 5* 54 MATTHEW II. 23. and the more joyful deliverance which should thence ensue, is not clearly announced, though the chapter, taken as a whole, seems to abound in words expressive of a grandeur and magnificence too rich and vast to find their entire ful- filment in the restoration of the Jews from Babylon. There is nothing distinctly said in the Gospel beyond the appli- cation of the passage to the mourning at Bethlehem ; but if the Jews regarded it as being in some sense one of their Messianic prophecies, the few words quoted might carry their minds unconsciously on, from the parallel be- tween the sorrows at Ramah and at Bethlehem, to the higher coincidence between the joys of the deliverance from the captivity at Babylon and the grander deliverance for which they were looking forward to the Messiah. The force of such allusions comes through the fine but power- ful associations which cannot be expressed in words, far more than through any direct or logical appeal to the un- derstanding. Dr. W. M. Tliomson, in his work on Palestine, says (Vol. II. p. 503) in regard to this quotation : " The poetic accom- modation of Jeremiah was natural and beautiful. Of course it is accommodation. The prophet himself had no thought of Herod and the slaughter of the infants." That is, in his opinion (and the facts of the case, as far as known, certainly go to sustain him in it), the language of Jere- miah is here quoted, not as a prediction of this event, but merely as furnishing words which describe the sharp- ness of the sorrow caused by Herod's cruelty. 23. The fourth apparent quotation from the Old Testa- ment is of a different kind. "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ' He shall be called a Nazarene.' " No such passage is to be found in the Old Testament. Dr. Palfrey supposes that the reference is to Judges xiii. 5, " He shall be a Nazarite." Tischendorf makes the reference to Isaiah xi. 1, where the word translated Branch is in Hebrew Netser or Nazer. But MATTHEW II. 55 the term Nazarene was one of contempt and disgrace, as the place, and everything belonging to it, John i. 46, were despised among the Jews. When, therefore, St. Matthew speaks of Jesus as dwelling in Nazareth, and of course bearing the despised name of Nazarene, he would soften the prejudice thus awakened, by intimating, though in ob- scure terms, that even thus he was fulfilling in himself M^hat had been spoken by the prophets of the Messiah, as one despised and rejected of men. The form of speech, " by the prophets," is unlike that which occurs anywhere else in the Gospels when a quotation is made from a par- ticular writer, and of itself Avould seem to imply that an idea expressed by different prophets, rather than the spe- cific language of any one writer, was M'hat was referred to as fulfilled in Jesus, when he was called by that mean and offensive name. This is the interpretation given by Kuinoel, Olshausen, Trench, and others, and seems to us more natural than any other. But we are too far re- moved from the times and habits of the writer, and those for whom he wrote, to speak with certainty of allusions which appealed so dehcately to their finer sensibilities through the associations growing out of their religious culture NOTES. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east 2 to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the 1. Herod the king] " Herod the days after he had put to death his Great, son of Antipater, an Idumajan son Antipater, in the seventieth year by an Arabian mother, made king 'of his age and the thirty-eighth of of Judgea on occasion of his having his reign, and the 750th' year of fled to Rome, being driven from his Rome. The events here related tetrarchy by the pretender Antigo- took place a short time before his nus, and confirmed in his office by death." Alford. 2. Where Augustus Caesar after the battle of is he that is born King of the Actium. He died miserably, five Jews?] " There had prevailed in 56 MATTHEW II. Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. ^\Tien Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him ; and when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaia ; for thus it is written by the prophet : " And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda ; for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem, and said : Gro and search dili- gently for the young child ; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. AVhen they had heard the king, they departed. And, lo, the all the East an ancient and con- stant expectation that, according to the fates, men coming from ' Judjva should rule the world,' rerum pofi- rentur.^'' Suetonius, Vesp. c. 4. " Many had been persuaded that it was contained in the ancient writ- ings of the priests, that the East should prevail, and that men com- ing from Judoea should rule the world." Tacitus, Hist. V. 13. to worship him] " To do homage to him in the Eastern fash- ion of prostration." Alford. 2. Some readers may be interested in the following statement, which is borrowed from astronomical calcu- lations, by Alford : — "In the vear of Rome 747, on the 20th of jVIay, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the twentieth degree of the constellation Pisces, close to the first point of Aries, which was tire part of the heavens noted in as- trological science as that in which the signs denoted the greatest and most noble events. On the 27th of October, in the same year, another conjunction of the same planets took place, in- the sixteenth degree of risces; and on the 12th of Novem- ber a third, in the fifteenth degree of the same sign. On these last two occasions the planets were so near, that an ordinary eye would regard them as one star of surpassing brightness. Supposing the magi to have seen the^?-s< of these conjunc- tions, they saw it actually ' in the east ; ' for on the 20th of May it would rise shortly before the sun. If they then took their journey, and arrived at Jenisalem in a little more than five months, (the journey from Babylon took Ezra four months, see Ezra vii. 9,) if they performed the route from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the evening, as is implied, the No- vember conjunction in the fifteenth degree of Pisces would be before them in the direction of Bethlehem, coming to the meridian about eight o'clock, P. M. These circumstan- ces would seem to fonu a remarka- ble coincidence with the historj'- in our text." 4. And when he [Herod] had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together] This was prob- ablv a- meeting of the Jewish San- hedrim, which consisted of seventy- one members, and was at that time the highest religious tribunal known among the Jews, being composed of priests, Levites, and Israelites. The scribes were the teachers and inter- preters of the law. 6. And thou, Bethlehem] This free ver- sion of Micah v. 2 is given as the report or answer of the Sanhedrim MATTHEW II. Ok star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came 10 and stood over where the young child was. When they saw u the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy ; and when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him ; and Avhen they had opened their treasures, they presented unto 1:2 him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being- warned of God in a dream that the}^ should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. 1.3 And when they Avere departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying : Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word ; for Herod will seek the }'oung 14 child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child 15 and his mother b}' night, and departed into Egypt ; and was there until the death of Herod ; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying : " Out of 16 Egypt have I called my Son." Then Herod, when he saAV that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth ; and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethle- hem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired 17 of the wise men. Tlien was fidfilled that which was spoken by 18 Jeremy the prophet, saying: "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning ; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because 19 they are not." But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel 20 of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying : Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel ; for they are dead which sought the young 21 child's life. And he arose, and took the young child and his 2-2 mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard to Herod. 9. the star] " If ular language is so universally in- it is to be understood as standing accurate, and the Scriptures so over the house, and thus indicating generally use popular language, it to the magi the position of the ob- is surely not the letter, but the* ject of their search, the whole inci- spirit ot the narrative with which dent must be regarded as miracu- we are concerned." Alford. lous. But this is not necessarily 14. and departed into implied, even if the words of the Egypt] where, at no very great text be literally understood; and in distance from Jerusalem, and with- a matter like astronomy, where pop- in a Roman province, he would be 58 MATTHEW IT. that Archelaus did reign in Judaea, in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither ; notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Kazareth ; 23 safely beyond Herod's jurisdiction. '22. Archelaus] succeed- ed his father, and at first claimed to be a king; but he never hud the title of king conferred upon him by the Roman Emperor, hi the ninth year of his government he was re- moved from otTice. 23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth] Had Ave only this Gospel, we should certainly infer that Joseph and Marj'- had previously lived in Bethlehem, and now Avent into Galilee to reside as in a strange place, Avhile Luke (ii. 4, 39) speaks of them as coming up from Nazareth to Bethlehem imme- diately before the birth of Jesus, and returning again to Nazareth, ap- parently Avithout any delay after the rites of purification had been performed, Avhicli, according to the hiAV, Avould be forty days after his birth. How is this account of Luke's to be reconciled Avith ;Mat- theAv's account of the flight into I'gypt, Avhich covered the Avhole time betAveen the birth of Jesus and the death of Herod ? It is impossi- ble to determine hoAv long a time that was, because it cannot be de- termined Avith certaintv in Avhat year Jesus Avas bom. But on any hypothesis it is difficult to recon- cile the accounts of the tAvo EA'an- gelists. The magi could hardly have reached Bethlehem before the purification in the temple; for the remarkable circumstances connect- ed Avith that event (Luke ii. 22-39) must in that case haA-e attracted the noAv aAvakened and jealous atten- tion of Herod. Both the visit of the magi and the residence in Egypt then probably occun-ed after the 'purification and before the return to Nazareth. But if Luke had been aAvare of these events, Avould he have omitted all notice of them? Does his account, " And Avlien they had perfonned all things according to the laAv of the Lord, they re- turned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth," leave room for the in- tervening residence in Egypt? The subject will be more fully discussed Avhen Ave come to treat of the Gos- pel of Luke. In the mean time, it is Avell to remember, that, in these A-ery brief and rapid sketches of CA-ents in our Saviour's life, there must, from the very character of the nar- rative, be abrupt transitions from one event to others which occurred at a wholly diflTerent time, and un- der entirely diflTerent circumstances. The Gospel of I\IattheAv or Luke is not much longer than a eulogA' on some eminent man. One EA'ange- list, in his brief sketch, haAing his mind particularly interested in one class offactscoimectedAvith the birth of Jesus, might speak of the visit of the magi, the cruelty of Herod, and the consequent flight to Egypt, while another might select a Av'holly dif- ferent class of facts, and speak of the annunciation, the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the vision seen by the shepherds, the circum- cision,'the purification, and the sub- sequent removal back to Nazareth, without giving any gi-ound to infer that either Avas ignorant of what the other has recorded, or that be- cause one has related one class of CA'cnts, therefore the other class of events, which pin-ports to have oc- curred at nearly the same time, coidd not liaA-e taken place. Both the P>angelists together fail to relate a hundredth part of the inciden's Avhich interested those then living in Palestine Avithin tAvo years of the birth of Jesus. Nothing is more un- safe than to infer a contradiction from a AA'ant of coincidence in two such narratiA'es ; for in each of them, from a gi-eat abundance of facts and sayings, — so many, says John, that the world could not contain them if they should all be AA'ritten, — the writer makes such selections as may best suit his purpose, and uses them, MATTHEW II. 59 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. generally without indicating the precise time to which they relate. We shall find, as we go on, that it will not do to take any one of the Gospels as a precise chronological statement of events ; still less as an account intended to embrace aU the facts belonging to any one period of our Saviour's hfe. As respects tha birth of Jesus, Mark and John say nothing; Matthew relates one series of events intimately connected, and Luke another, while both, except- ing a single incident, Luke ii. 41 - 52, pass over the whole period of his childhood and youth till he was about thirty years of age. 60 MATTHEW III. CHAPTER III. JoHX THE Baptist. There was, as we have already seen, among the Jews, a general but mdefinite expectation of the Messiah, which had only been strengthened by their national vicissitudes and misfortunes. While they were scattered through distant lands, mingling with other nations, and in some measure adopting their philosophical ideas, the particular form which Ihis expectation assumed varied with the place of their sojourn and their individual habits of thought. " Each region," says Milman, "each rank, each sect: the Baby- lonian, the Egj'ptian, the Palestinian, the Samaritan ; the Pharisee, the lawyer, the zealot, arrayed the Messiah in those attributes which suited his own temperament." Some one was needed in Judaea to give consistency to these vary- ing expectations, and especially to give them new intensity and power by announcing as already at hand that kingdom of God to which they had been pointing forward through so many centuries. This was the office assigned to the Bap- tist. He was not a follower of Christ, but only the herald to announce his coming. It was not given to him as it was to the disciples of Jesus, (Matt. xiii. 11,) "to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven," but " the least in the kingdom of God," (Luke vii. 28,) i. e. the humblest Chris- tian, was declared by Jesus to be " greater than he." We must, therefore, be careful not to ascribe to him ideas which could be entertained only by those who had learned them from the Messiah himself. He had been brought up among the mountains of Judaea, MATTHEW III. 61 about as far to the south as Jesus was to the north from Jerusalem. His habits of life were probably those of a religious recluse, with a conviction borne in upon him that he had been born and set apart for some great and holy purpose. Like the mighty prophet Elijah of old, he was rude in dress, simple in diet, and severe in speech, dwelling in religious thought and prayer amid the solitudes of nature. When the time had at length arrived, he came down from the mountains to the valley of the Jordan. He announced the approaching kingdom of Heaven in terms of startling decision and severity. He warned men to flee from the wrath that was impending over the ungodly, and to prepare themselves, by change of heart and newness of life, to meet the Messiah at his coming. Crowds from all quarters gath- ered round him. Even Pharisees and Sadducees came to witness his baptism. He sees their national delusion in supposing that, because they are descended from Abraham, they must therefore be admitted into the Messiah's kingdom. This new kingdom, he tells them, is not thus easily to be entered. " Ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the coming wrath ? Bring forth then fruit worthy of repentance, and do not think to say, ' We have Abraham for our father.' From these stones [that are lying round us] God can raise up children, or successors, to Abraham." And then, to impress them with a sense of the urgency of the occasion, as if not a moment were to be lost, he exclaims, with vehement and terrible earnestness, that the axe even now is lying at the root of the tree, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is cut [chopped] down and cast into the fire. "I, indeed," he continues, "baptize you with water unto repentance," receiving none to my baptism but those who repent, and confess their sins ; " but here is coming one mightier than I, who will subject you to a more searching ordeal, baptizing you, not in water alone, but in the holy spirit [wind] and fire," " for," he says, continuing the same thought still under the imagery 6 62 MATTHEW III. of wind and fire, " with his winnowing instrument in his hand, he will clear up his threshing-floor, gathering the wheat into his storehouse and burning the chafF with un- quenchable fire." Some have supposed that John here, by these different kinds of baptism, describes the different degrees of spiritual attainment in his disciples and those of the Messiah. " Bap- tism with M^ater," says Olshausen, " implies repentance, and purification from sin ; baptism with the spirit refers to the inward cleansing in faith, (the Holy Spirit being conceived of as the regenerating principle,) and, lastly, baptism with fire expresses the glorification of the regenerated higher life into its own peculiar nature." But these ideas, however familiar they may be to us, belong, in the higher develop- ment of our Christian experience, to a plane of spiritual life and thought which we have reason to suppose that John, who was only the herald or forerunner of Christ, had never reached. As the humblest disciple of Jesus, he " who is least in the kingdom of God," knows more of its interior life and economy than he who was not only " a propliQt, but more than a prophet,*' under the old dispensation, it would be a serious anachronism to assign to John, at that time, so profound a knowledge of the religion of Jesus. The same remark applies also, though with less force, to the interpre- tations by which the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire are referred to the tongues of flame on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 3, compared M'ith Acts i. 5, xix. 2, 3). For this would be to ascribe to the Baptist, before the ministry of Je- sus had begun, a degree of knowledge which the disciples of Jesus did not have till some time after its close. So also the explanation of the baptism of fire by a reference to the " much tribulation " of Acts xiv. 22, and " the fire " (1 Cor. iii. 13) which " shall try every man's work, of what sort it is,'* implies in John a sort of knowledge which we have no reason to suppose that he possessed. Besides, any one of these interpretations interferes ' with the straightforward, direct, and vehement earnestness of his speech. MATTHEW III. G3 Why did Jesus come, to be baptized by John? The question is one which we cannot fully and confidently answer. But as John had been raised up to announce the immediate coming of the Messiah, and by his preach- ing had excited such an expectation in the minds of thou- sands, the object of all this movement on the part of the Baptist M'ould be lost to the cause, unless his predictions should in some way be connected with Jesus. Jesus, there- fore, in the fulness of time, came to John at the Jordan. Whether they had previously had any personal acquaint- ance with each other is not quite certain. Though their mothers were related, the two families lived in the opposite extremities of Palestine, and probably their only oppor- tunities of meeting would be in Jerusalem, at the great religious festivals. The extraordinary circumstances at- tending their birth would naturally draw their parents to- gether. The probability, therefore, is that they had had some personal knowledge of each other, and that the expression of the Baptist (John i. 33), "I knew him not," means that he did not till then know him as the Messiah. But in order that the testimony of John should have its due weight with the people, it was important that it should come from him, not as a personal friend and companion of Jesus, but as an independent witness and prophet of God. John, therefore, was brought up under the old dispensa- tion, having only a slight personal acquaintance with Jesus, and came forth, as he was moved by the spirit of God, to herald the coming of that kingdom in which the law and the prophets alike were to find their fulfilment. Like Moses, he was to lead the people out of their ancient bondage through the wilderness to the very borders of the promised kingdom, seeing it near, pointing it out to his followers, indicating and setting apart their future and greater leader, but himself, for wise and weighty reasons, not permitted to enter within its borders. As he was the 64 MATTHEW III. last, and in some respects the greatest of the prophets belonging to the ancient dispensation, Jesus, an ho submitted to all the requirements of that dispensation, came to re- ceive from him its solemn sanctions, and it has been thouofht in the very place where Joshua, or Jesus (for the names are the same) led the tribes of Israel on dry ground through the Jordan, there he went down to its baptismal waters, and in his own person consecrated forever the rite which through all coming ages should stand as the sign, if not the seal of admission into his kingdom. As he went up from the water, and stood (Luke iii. 21) pray- ing, his countenance we may suppose radiant with the emotions of the hour, behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he perceived the spirit of God, pure and peaceful as a dove (the sacred bird of Syria) descend- ing, and (John i. 32) resting upon him ; and behold, a voice from the heavens saying, 'This is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased." When John saw Jesus, he was awed by liim as in the presence of a superior being, and shrunk from ad- ministering to him tlie rite of baptism. He felt his own inferiority. The "former things" to which he belonged were now to be fulfilled by passing away, through a species of dissolution, into the higher kingdom which is to be in- augurated. With the modest humility which becomes a true servant of God, he submits to the request of Christ, and in so doing receives from heaven the proof that the Messiah has come. He sees, that, like the star which hiis been the harbinger of a fairer day, he must decrease, (John iii. 30,) while the Sun of Righteousness which he has announced as rising upon the world must increase in brightness and power. In that new kingdom no office was assigned to him. It was appointed in the counsels of Infinite Wisdom that he should stand apart as the ap- pointed herald, but not be a follower of the Messiah. From that day the ministry of John was in fact ended. MATTHEW III. 65 " For this purpose," he said, (John i. 31,) " am I come baptizing with water, that he should be made manifest in Israel," and in proportion as he is made known must the Baptist retire before him. "I am," he said, (John i. 23,) " the voice of one crying in tlie wilderness," and now that voice having waked the solitudes of Jud«a, and turned the expectations of the nation towards the Messiah, re- cedes again into silence. There is something very touch- ing and very beautiful in the readiness with wliich this great man, so honored and reverenced among all the people as a prophet of God, humbled himself before Jesus from the first moment of his appearance. And, in all the cir- cumstances of our Saviour's coming, in the blended dignity and humility which marked his personal deportment, and the tokens of divine love and approbation which came down to him from heaven, we see how befitting the work which had been given him to do was this his first entrance on the field of his labors. NOTES. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilder- 2 ness of Judasa, and saying : Repent ye, for the kingdom of 1. Ill those days] An indefinite eral proclamation, somewhat in the expression nearly corresponding to style of Isaiah's exhortation, to all our at length, or in the course of the inhabitants to assemble along time. lu this case it refers to what the proposed route, and prepare the took place nearly thirty years after way before him. The same was the events spoken of in the para- done in 1845 on a grand scale, w.hen graph next preceding it. In Ex- the present Sultan visited Brusa. odus ii. 11 it is used as a form of The stones were gathered out, crook- introduction to events which oc- ed places straightened, and rough curred forty years after those de- ones made level and smooth." The scribed in the previous sentence. Land and the Book, Thomson, IT. preaching] proclaim- 106. Sometimes they sent forward ing as a herald who goes before to heralds to announce their approach, aiuiounce the coming of a king, and to require the people to make " When Ibrahim Pasha proposed to this preparation for their coming, visit certain places in Lebanon, the in the Aviiderness] emeers and sheiks sent forth a gen- not strictly a desert, but compara- 6* B 66 MATTHEW III. heaTen is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, "The voice of one crying in the wil- derness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins ; and his meat was lively an uninhabited region round the Jordan. 2. Repent ye] The Greek word literally re- fers to a change of mind or thought, und implies a change so deep that it reaches the very fountain of thought, and therefore touches the inmost motives which give their shape and coloring to the life. Dr. Campbell and ^Ir. Norton translate it, Reform ; but this to most minds conveys the impression of an external change rather than of one which, beginning in the soul, works outward through the conduct, till mind and heart and life alike are transformed. The word Repent, is confined too exclusively to the inward feeling of soitow, which is only the beginning of the change that is required. 2. the kingdom of heaven] literally, the kingdom of the heavens, — a fonn of expression used only by Matthew, the other Evangelists using the term kingdom of God. Some stress has been laid, and perhaps not without reason, on this expression as indi- cating a plurality of heavens, corre- sponding to the "many mansions in his Father's house "which Jesus speaks of (John xiv. 2), and adapted to the sons of God in the different stages of their spiritual progress. The idea of the kingdom of Heaven or kingdom of God as synonymous with the Messiah's kingdom was probably familiar to the Jews, bor- rowed, perhaps, from passao;es like Daniel ii. 44. It is used in the New Testament with different shades of meaning to indicate the Messiah's kingdom: 1. as an inward principle of life in the soul (the kingdom of God is within you, Luke xvii. 21); 2. as a divine power extending through the world and changing its whole character (a little leaven which leaveneth the whole mass, Matt. xii. 33); 3. as an organized polity, like a net cast into the sea, Matt. xiii. 47, 48, and taking into itself the good and the bad till they shall at length be separated in the end of the world ; 4. as the ^Messiah's kingdom when it shall take the place of the Jewish dispensation after the destruction of Jerusalem, Luke ix. 27; or, 5. as it shall appear in its consummation amid the brighter glories of a higher Avorld, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory. Matt. xxv. 31, when it shall be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, Luke xxii. 16, or wheii through much tribulation wo shall enter tTie kingdom of God, Acts xiv. 22. These different meanings melt in- sensibly into one another. We have no reason to suppose that John the Baptist understood the expression at all in its higher signification, but only as indicating an outward, visi- ble kingdom, founded on the prin- ciples of righteousness, but exercis- ing an earthly authority and power. 3. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias] The quotation is from the Septuagint. The whole passage should be read (Isaiah xl.) in order to understand the eflTect intended by the introduction of a few of the words here. The Bap- tist, in John i. 23, describes himself by these same words. 4. his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins] The Jews expected Elijah as the forerunner of the ^lessiah, and this description corresponds to that of Elijah in 2 Kings i. 8, " He [Elijah] was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." Elijah was intimately associated in the Jewish mind with the Messiah as his forerunner, aud Jesus himself xvii. 10 - 13, distinctly declares that this expected Elijah' is none other than John the Baptist. The proph- ecy which probably gave rise to the MATTHEW ni. 67 6 locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem, 6 and all Judasa, and all the region round about Jordan ; and 7 were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them: O generation of vipers, who hath 8 warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? Bring forth expectation is a remarkable one, and, from its place at the very end of the Jewish Scriptures, Malachi iv. 5, 6, must have attracted par- ticular attention: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the chil- dren, and tlie heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." This de- scribes the influence of John in preaching his doctrine of repent- ance, and thus preparing the hearts of the people, pai-ents and children, for the coming of Christ. and his meat Avas locusts and Avild honey] Locusts, fn-st boiled and then dried in the sun, and carried like parched corn in bags, are still sometimes used as an article of food by the Bedouin on the frontiers of Syria. The insects were grasshop- pers, and not locusts, and should be so read wherever the word occurs in the Bible. Jaeger. The wild honey was not, as some have thought, a vegetable pi-oduct exuding from trees, but honey made by wild bees. " Wild honey,'' says Thomson, " is still gathered'^in large quantities from trees in the Avildeniess, and from rocks in the Avadies, just where the Baptist sojourned, and where he came preaching the baptism of re- pentance." 6. And Avere baptized of him in Jor- dan] " When man Avere admitted as proselytes, three rites were per- formed, — circumcision, baptism, and oblation ; when women, two, — baptism and oblation. The whole families of proselytes, including in- fants, were baptized." Alford. *' Baptism, symbolical or ceremonial washing, such as the Mosaic law prescribed as a sign of moral reno- vation, and connected Avith the sac- rificial types of expiation. It was from these familiar and significant ablutions that John's baptism was deriA^ed, and not ft-om the practice of baptizing proselytes, the antiqui- ty of Avhicli as a distinct rite is dis- puted." Alexander on Mark. " It AA^as in itself," says Stanley, " no ncAV ceremony. Ablutions, in the East, have always been more or less a part of religious Avorship, easily performed and ahvays welcome. Every synagogue, if possible, was by the side of a stream or spring; every mosque, still, requii'es a foun- tain or basin for lustrations in its court." r. Phar:se3S and Sadducees] Josephus repre- sents these two sects as originating about one hundred and fifty years before Christ. They overlaid the laAV and the prophets by their tra- ditions, and, like all sects Avho trust to forms and traditions, they neg- lected the spirit of their religion, and became remarkable for their super- stition and hypocrisy. They had great influence, as their represent- atives in aU ages haA-e among their OAvn people, and, like their succes- sors now, were the most malignant enemies of Jesus, as he appeared in the simplicity of his instructions and the purity of his life. The Sad- ducees, who were supposed to be so called fi-om a Hebrew word, meaning righteousness, rejected all tradition, and, though it was not originally one of their distinguishing features," yet in our Saviour's time they denied the reality of a future life. By confining themselves to a bare, literal, moral conformity to the laAv of Moses, they lost all spirit- ual life, and with it all belief in spiritual influences or spiritual be- ings. They are the type of the car- nal unbelief which preA'ails among the philosophical classes, and those 68 MATTHEW UI. therefore fruits meet for repentance, and think not to say with- 9 in yourselves, We have Abraham to our father ; for I say un- to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of lo the trees ; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize u you with water, unto repentance ; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear ; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his 12 floor ; and gather his wheat into the garner, but he Avill burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan, unto John, to be .13 whose thoughts are " bound up in a materialistic prosperity." 11. The Holy Ghost] The word translated Ghost or Spirit means also air or wind, and the comparison is between Avater with which John baptized and the more searching elements wind and fire, by wliich the Messiah should try his follow- ers. Whose shoes, &c.] In the Talmud it is said, *' Every office a servant will do for his master, a scholar should perform for his teacher, except loosing his sandal thong." Milman's Historvof Christianity, Book I. Chap. 3. the office lower than that of a disciple to the Messiah, which the Baptist speaks of as still too high for him, is used to indicate, not only his rever- ence for that exalted being, but also his consciousness of the remarkable fact, that, in the purposes of the Almighty, it was not appointed for him to hold even the lowest place in the new kingdom which he had announced. According to Lightfoot, it was the token of a slave having become his master's property, to loose his shoe, to tie the same, or to carry the necessary articles for him ' to the bath. ' and Avith lire] " The double symbolic refer- ence of fire, elsewhere found, e. g. ;Mark ix. 49, as purifying the good and consuming the evil, is hardly to be pressed into the interpretation of ^re iu this verse, the prophecy here being solely of that higher and more perfect bajptism to which that of John was a mere introduction." A 1 ford. 12. Whose fan] the winnowing shovel with which the grain Avhen thrashed was tossed into the air so as to separate the chaff" from tlie wheat. he will thoroughly purge his floor] The threshing-floor may sometimes have been a large, flat rock, but usually it was a level spot of earth trodden or rolled smooth and hard. The gi'ain was beaten out by flails, or trodden out by oxen. 13. to Jordan] " It was the one river of Palestine, — sacred in its recollections, — abiui- dant iu its waters; and yet, at the same time, the river, not of cities, but of the wilderness, — the scene of the preaching of those who dwelt not in king's palaces, nor wore soft clothing. On the banks of the rush- ing stream the multitudes gathered, — the priests and scribes from Jeru- salem, down the pass of Adummin; the publicans from Jericho on the south, and the Lake of Gennesareth on the north; the soldiers on their Avay from Damascus to Petra, through the Ghor, in the war with the Arab chief Hareth, the peasants from Galilee, with One from Naza- reth, through the opening of the plain of Esdraelon. The tall ' reeds ' or canes in the jungle waved, ' shaken by the wind ' ; the pebbles MATTHEW III. G9 14 baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying: I have need 15 to be baptized of thee, and eomest thou to me ? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now ; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all rigliteousness. Then he suffered him. 16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water ; and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting up- 17 on him. And, lo, a voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. of the bare clay hills lay around, to Avhich the Baptist pointed as capa- ble of being transformed into ' the children of Abraham ' ; at their feet nished the refreshing stream of the never-failing river. There be- gan that sacred rite, which has since spread throughout the -world, through the vast baptistries of the southern and Oriental churches, gradually dwindling to the little fonts of the north and west; the plunges beneath the water dimin- ishing to the few drops which, by a wise exercise of Christian free- dom, are now in most churches the sole representative of the fiill stream of the Descending River." Stanley. to be baptized of him] We know too little of the significance of this rite at that time among the Jews, and especially as it was administered by John, to un- derstand why Jesus should liimself have observed it. In addition to what we have suggested in our gen- eral remarks on the subject, it may also be true, as Alford saj-s, that he did it " as bearing the hifirmities and caiTying the sorrows of man- kind, and thus beginnhig here the triple baptism of water, fire, and blood, two parts of which were now accomplished, and of the third of which he himself speaks, Luke xii. &0, and the beloved Apostle, 1 John V. 8, where spirit stands for fre.''' Great stress is laid on the manner in which Jesus Avas baptize