INTRODUCTION. ON THE FIRST TABLE OF THE DECALOGUE. WHEN the lawyer or scribe, according to the narrative of St. Matthew and St. Mark, asked our Lord, "Master, which is the great Commandment of the Law ?"-" Which is the first Commandment of all?" it is probable that he meant to entrap Him into expressing a preference of some one Commandment of the Law over the others. The Pharisees themselves made such distinctions among the various Commandments, dividing them into the "weighty" and the "light," and it may, probably, have been with an intention of exposing the Lord to odium, or, possibly, of gaining His testimony in favour of some view of his own, or, any how, with a view to the design of "catching Him in His talk," set on foot by the Sanhedrim, and B |