16 Woe unto you, "ye blind guides, which say,° Whoson ch. xv. 14. ever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing;

ver. 24.

ch. v. 33, 34. but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, P Ex. xxx. 29. Por the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

17. "That sanctifieth." So C., L., A, all later Uncials, almost all Cursives, &c.; but N, B., D., Z., " that hath sanctified."

that the Jewish religion was a transitional and temporary religion; and the perfect truth of God could not be preached till after the fuller revelation of the true God in the Person of Christ. It was only after the coming of Christ that the true Unity of God could be preached as a Unity in Trinity containing a begetting Father, an only-begotten Son, and a Spirit of Truth. It was only after Christ's coming that the true combination of the justice and mercy of God could be proclaimed-God just, and yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. (Rom. iii. 26.) This may account for the fact that so little is said in the Old Testament about the duty of making proselytes, and why there was so little blessing attending the endeavour so to do.

16. Our Lord now denounces the Scribes and Pharisees, not as hypocrites only, but as blind-blind even to the true significance of that external ritual system of which they professed to be the exponents. They made distinctions between oaths on the most perverse principles, laying down that an oath by the gold of the Temple (whether the ornamental gold, or the money offerings in gold, matters not) was binding, and an oath by the Temple itself was not binding—that an oath by the gift on the altar must be observed, but an oath on the altar itself need not. In this they reversed the order of sanctification. The Temple, because God had made it the place of His peculiar Presence, was the holy thing which made the gold, or whatsoever else it contained, holy. The Altar, because it was the God-ordained instrument of the sacrificial system, made holy the gift upon it. In these references to the relative holiness of the Temple and the Altar, Christ set His seal to the truth of that principle of relative sanctification which is so wonderfully set forth in the books of Exodus and Leviticus (Exod. xxix. 36, 44; xxx. 29, &c.), and which culminates in the extraordinary solemnities (in

CHAP. XXIII.] THE ALTAR SANCTIFIETH THE GIFT. 345

18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is || guilty.

19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

| Or, debtor, or, bound.

q Ex. xxix. 37.

20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.

21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.

r 1 Kings viii. 13. 2 Chron. vi. 2. Ps. xxvi, 8. & cxxxii. 14.

19. "Ye fools" omitted by Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Vulgate.

which the heads of all the twelve tribes of Israel took part) by which the Altar of burnt offering after being sanctified was dedicated (Numbers vii.). Of course God is everywhere, and so all things are sanctified by His Omnipresence; but with all this God separated and consecrated two things with such extraordinary sanctions, that He evidently desired His people to put a vast difference between them and all else in His religious service. These two things were the Mercy-seat within the veil, and the Altar of burnt-offering in the court. He separated the Mercy-seat by the most dread sanctions. It was hidden by a thick veil from the very priests themselves in all their ministrations except those of one day: and on this one day on which the High Priest alone was to lift up this veil and approach the Mercy-seat, it was with fear and trembling, with special sacrifice, and a cloud of incense, "that he die not" (Levit. xvi. 13). Next to this in holiness was the Altar, the centre of the sacrificial worship; and as on the first of these depended the holiness of the Temple, because God especially manifested His presence above it, so on the second depended the holiness of the sacrificial worship. It was the "table of the Lord." (Ezekiel xli. 22, Mal. i. 7, 12). That which was consumed on it was accounted "the food of God;" that which was taken from it to be eaten by the worshippers was most holy, taken from His table to be the food of those who, being at peace with Him, were His guests. (Exodus xxix. 37, Levit. xxi. 22.) Whatever then men may say, God can make one thing holier than another, at least so that we should account it to be holier; and His Son set His solemn sanction to this by many infallible signs: by His extraordinary zeal in cleansing the Temple, by His presence at its

22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

s Ps. xi. 4.

ch. v. 34. Acts vii. 49.

† Gr. ἄγηθον, dill.

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, Luke xi. 42. hypocrites!' for ye pay tithe of mint and † anise and cummin, and "have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: Mic. vi. 8. ch. these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

u 1 Sam. xv.

22. Hos. vi. 6.

ix. 13. & xii. 7.

24. "Strain out;" i.e., "Strain any little insect out of your cups by a strainer."

worship, by His calling it His Father's house (John ii. 16), and as on this occasion, by His discriminating between the holiness of its parts, its Altar, and its Holy Place (the Naos).

For this want of due discrimination, He called the Pharisees and Scribes "blind." Can this sort of sanctification reach into Christian times? The Catholic Church has always held that it can. It must be so if in our sacred buildings we can have that which we account the Body and Blood of Christ, not becoming so by the devout imagination of the worshipper, but by the act of God through the prayer and blessing of His minister. Respecting the iniquity of invocations of sacred things in common talk, I have said enough on Matthew v. 33.

23. "Hypocrites . . ye pay tithe of mint," &c., " to leave the other undone." Here He again pronounces them hypocrites, because they observed comparatively trivial things, such as the paying tithes on pot-herbs, and neglecting such all-important matters as judgment, mercy, and faith.

Judgment here means justice to those wronged or oppressed, as in Jeremiah v. 1. It is remarkable that faith is here put as one of the weightier matters of the law, whereas the Scripture writers, particularly St. Paul, associate it rather with the Gospel; but it is the thing without which we cannot come to God: that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."

He

"Not to leave the other undone." As it is hypocrisy to put the lesser things in the place of the greater, so it is carelessness which betrays a want of God's holy fear, to neglect even the smallest matters, if to observe them is revealed as a part of the will of God.

24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! * for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and

excess.

Mark vii. 4.

Luke xi. 39.

26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed Luke xi. 44. appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

26. "That which is within; " viz., "the inside."

Acts xxiii. 3.

24. "Strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Rather "strain out" from what they drink. The Jews strained their wine, lest they should violate Levit. xi. 20, 23, 41, 42, which forbade the eating of creeping things under pain of contracting uncleanness. "See here," says Quesnel, "the false tenderness of conscience, which serves only to nourish pride and vanity, and to deceive the sinner by an appearance of good. One man is extremely concerned at an omission of a prayer, or of some arbitrary practice which he has imposed on himself, who takes no care to correct his vicious habits of anger, evil speaking, lying, slandering, luxury, or immodesty. Another would not take from his neighbour the value of a gnat or fly, who robs the poor of a sum or heap as big as a camel, by his covetousness or vain expenses."

25. "Ye make clean the outside... extortion and excess." If we had to choose between cleansing the inside or the outside of such a thing as a cup or a platter, we must cleanse the inside because the filth in the inside contaminates the food. Now this cup or platter represents the Pharisees. They scrupulously kept themselves ceremonially clean, whilst they suffered their hearts to be full of extortion and excess, which polluted all within them. The process must be reversed. They must, in the words of the prophet, "make them clean hearts;" they must "keep their hearts with all diligence," and then their ceremonial cleanness would not mock their inward impurity. 27. "Ye are like unto whited sepulchres. . . uncleanness." Sepul

28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Luke xi. 47.

29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous.

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

chres, it appears, were whitewashed, in order that men might avoid them, and not come in contact with them; for if so, according to the Levitical law, they would be unclean seven days (Numb. xix. 16); so that these Pharisees were like unto these whitewashed sepulchres, their very ceremonial scrupulousness and show of outside righteousness being a warning, if men would read the omen aright, that they must avoid them as full of hypocrisy and iniquity. There is a fine irony here which we are apt to miss. As the whitewashing of the sepulchre was an appearance of cleanness, but really a warning of concealed uncleanness, so outward scrupulousness and obtruded show of righteousness in any man is a clear sign that much is wrong within. Real righteousness within would be attended by real humility, which is absolutely incompatible with all obtrusiveness, such as was the very characteristic of the Pharisees.

...

29. "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees... garnish the sepulchres of the righteous . . . ye be witnesses unto yourselves... killed the prophets." There is a surface difficulty about this denunciation; for it seems a righteous act in men to repair the evil done by their fathers to the prophets by building and adorning their tombs: but in these Pharisees it was a part of the same hypocrisy; for whereas they blamed their fathers and disclaimed their murderous deeds, yet they themselves were doing the same things. The only true way of showing their freedom from the guilt of their fathers in persecuting the prophets, was by receiving and following those who were their successors as apostles and messengers of the Living God, the God Who sent the prophets. But, so far from doing this, they were in this very point of persecuting the prophets, filling up the measure of the sin of their fathers. And in their harsh judging of their fathers' sins, and their self-righteous acquittal of themselves, which our Lord noticed, they were simply exhibiting their own want of any sense