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exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted 13 they the prophets which were before you.Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?

limited to the gratification of the senses, not a poor satisfaction of some temporal, superficial desire, but large, deep, intense, commensurate with the vast and undying aspirations of immortals.-So persecuted they the prophets. Prophets include all religious teachers, whether they predicted future events or not. The language of Jesus is, You need not be surprised at the prospect of persecution; it is no more than all the great and good have suffered. In this respect my dispensation is analogous to that of Moses. The religion of heaven will stir up the hostility of a bad world, and its promulgators will inevitably be the first objects on which that hostility wreaks itself. Moses met with disobedience, taunts, and insurrection. Exod. xvii. 2. xxxii. 1. Num. xvi. 13. Elijah was in hazard of his life, and hunted like a wild beast. 1 Kings xviii. 10. xix. 2, 3. Elisha was mocked at even by the children in the street. 2 Kings ii. 23. Jeremiah was put in the stocks, beaten, cast into a most loathsome dungeon, and repeatedly menaced with death. Jer. xx. 2. xxvi. 8-15. xxxii. 2. xxxvii. 13-16. xxxviii. 6. The faithful Three were placed in a red-hot furnace. Dan. iii. 21, 22. Daniel was thrown into a den of lions. vi. 16. The prediction of the Saviour was verified in the persecution of his Apostles and disciples, as we learn from the history of the planting of Christianity. But they joyed in stripes, imprisonment, and death; and sustained, by a good conscience, their Master's example, and the hopes of heaven; they sang "their hymns of lofty cheer" in the

dungeon, and at the stake.

13. Ye are the salt of the earth. Livy, the Roman historian, calls Greece sal gentium, the salt of the nations. Salt is used for preserving articles of food from taint, and for imparting to them a stimulating flavor. Hence naturally, it became a symbol of preservation, of spiritedness, and wisdom. Mark ix. 50. Col. iv. 6. Some understand by the salt, the Jews. But the sense is, more probably, that the disciples would be the salt of the whole world. Through them, the Gospel would season, inspirit, and purify the corrupt race. By hearing him, they had been summoned to a great moral enterprise. The hopes of the earth rested on them. It was a caution to discharge so great a trust, and not lose their savor; not desert him, and prove false to their privileges, and duties to the world. The same warning holds morally good through all ages. Christians are the salt of the earth, the preservers from moral putrefaction. Let them not become insipid, lifeless, good for nothing.-If the salt have lost his savor, &c. By exposure to the atmosphere, rock salt loses its useful properties, and becomes tasteless. His is frequently used for its in the Scriptures. Maundrell, in his Travels in the East in 1697, describing the valley of salt, near Aleppo, says, "Along on one side of the valley, towards Gibul, there is a small precipice, about two men's length, occasioned by the continual taking away of the salt, and in this you may see how the veins of it lie. I broke a piece of it, of which that part that was exposed to the rain, sun, and air,

it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set 14 on an hill cannot be hid; neither do men light a candle, and put it un- 15 der a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that

though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savor; the inner part, which was connected to the rock, retained its savor, as I found by proof." You are to be the preservers and purifiers of the world; but if you become corrupt, what means will there be of reforming and purifying you? Woe unto you, if, when you are thus privileged and commissioned, you prove unfaithful to your high trust. You will be castaways and vagabonds.-Cast out, and trodden under foot of men. It is supposed by some commentators that allusion is here made to a bituminous salt procured from the Dead Sea, which, as it had a fragrant odor, was sprinkled over the sacrifices in the Temple to counteract the smell of the burning flesh; and as it sometimes spoiled when laid up, by exposure to the sun and air, it was scattered over the Temple pavements in wet weather to prevent slipping; thus it was cast out and trodden under foot. The illustration possesses great point, if the practice was observed in our Saviour's day.

14. Ye are the light of the world. The most eminent Jewish Rabbins were called "the lights of the world." Jesus applies the title to those who heard and followed him. They would enlighten the world, not with the rays of material light, but, what was of transcendent consequence, with a moral illumination, chasing away the darkness of superstition and sin. Christ said of himself, that he was the light of the world, the sun of the moral universe. He calls John the Baptist

"a burning and shining light." Paul denominates the Philippian Christians as those that "shine as lights in the world." It is commonly said of illustrious men, that they are "the lights of their age and country." Light, as well as heat, is requisite to vivify the cold, benighted world.—A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Our Lord was accustomed to take his similes from the most obvious things; from the sun in the sky, the birds flying through the air, the lilies in the field. On this occasion, probably, a city was in view from the eminence on which Jesus delivered this address; perhaps that of Japhia or Bethulia.-Christians have not ceased to be the salt of the earth, and the light of the world, and cities set on hills. They are seen and read by all men. Their characters and conduct are criticised. If true, they spread moral fertility and beauty around them; if false, they defeat the cause they profess to aid.

15. Neither do men light a candle, &c. Luke xi. 33. Candles were not used then. The word should have been translated lamp; also lamp-stand, instead of candlestick. For bushel, we ought to read measure; the word in the original signifies a vessel of less capacity than a peck. The sentence contains a proverbial phraseology, to express depriving any thing of its utility by putting it to some use the farthest possible from the one for which it was intended. Religion is not to be kept secret, any more than it is to be ostentatiously obtruded upon the notice of mankind;

16 are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am

but it should shine naturally and unconsciously out of the face and behaviour of every Christian.

16. It is wrong to act for appearance's sake. We should have a higher principle of conduct than the praise of men. Our foremost aim should be to glorify our Father in heaven. His glory, the great ness and goodness of his character, is hidden from the sight of the worldly. But in the good man it flames out, and the blindest can see it. A virtuous being is the most noble manifestation of the glory of God in the world. For example, the purest splendors of the Deity stream forth from the face of Jesus Christ. He made God to be known, revered, and obeyed, and consequently glorious in the eyes of men. Every Christian, however humble the sphere of his action, can do something toward the same holy end. He can praise his Father, can acknowledge his resplendent attributes, can win others "to work and worship so divine." The goodness and happiness of mankind are the glory of the Creator. And the humblest creature that lives can advance that goodness, and augment that happiness in himself and others. No matter if he is poor, sick, ignorant, and unknown; he shines, a cheering and a guiding light, if he has caught the spirit of religion. His lowly hovel is illuminated with a serene ray, his comfortless chamber is irradiated with a light above the brightness of the sun; the star of God's glory, that never sets, comes and stands over the place where that good spirit tabernacles and suffers. He lives with the best effect, though

unaware of his influence.

"How far the little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed on a naughty world."

He

17. Think not that I am come to destroy, but to fulfil. After showing in the Beatitudes, that the worldly hopes of the Jews were without basis, Jesus proceeds to anticipate and correct an erroneous impression which would naturally and immediately arise, that he came to destroy the Jewish system. came not, he says, as they might hastily infer from what he had been saying, for the purpose of destruction, but of fulfilment. He came not to substitute violently one scheme for another, but to supersede an old system, established for temporary uses, "a shadow of good things to come," with a new and perpetual one. His was the completion of that splendid line of revelations of which the law and the prophets were the beginnings. He was so far from wishing to destroy, subvert, or impair the venerable authority of the Law and the Prophets, that the very end of his mission was to fulfil, finish, crown those disclosures of God, with others in harmony with them, but more advanced, and for the reception of which those had served to prepare the world.-The law, i. e. the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, or, more specifically, the Mosaic legislation. The prophets, i. e. the books and compositions which the prophets had written, or the course of religious teaching which had succeeded the Mosaic legislation. The Jewish revelation was designed for a particular people and a limited time. It was pre

not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till 18 heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of 19

paratory to a universal and permanent religion. It was the schoolmaster to train men for the coming of the Great and Perfect Teacher. The master idea, running as a staple through the whole Jewish economy, is THE UNITY OF GOD. Line upon line, precept upon precept, this truth was wrought through centuries into the core of the Jewish heart. This noble principle, with the inferences which diverged from it in every direction, and reached to every motive of life, and every hope of the soul, opened the way for those fuller, tenderer disclosures of truth which Jesus lived and died to make. The Jewish dispensation is not therefore to be judged by the Christian, nor the Christian by the Jewish. Each has its purpose in the counsels of Heaven, and each, when rightly understood, is seen to bear those beautiful characters of wise design, and benevolent adaptation, which are written all over the universe.

18. This verse expands and confirms the sense of the latter clause of the preceding.-Verily. The Greek work is amen, which is used at the end of prayers. It expresses strong affirmation, so be it, truly, certainly. Our Master uses it in many places, to emphasize what he says. Compare Mat. xvi. 28, with Luke ix. 27. Till heaven and earth pass. Wakefield thus paraphrases the verse:"For verily I say unto you, the heaven and the earth will sooner pass away, than one jot or one tittle of the law be destroyed, and fail of its accomplishment." See Luke xvi. 17. The heaven and earth signify the whole creation, the universe. The expression

was no doubt a proverbial one, fitted to convey a vivid idea of its perpetuity, to say that a thing would last as long as the universe itself.

One jot. Jot or iota, is the name of i, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet.-One tittle. This signifies the small points, or the flourishes, made underneath or at the corners of the Hebrew letters, and on the accuracy of which the meaning of a word or sentence often depended. The Rabbins were accustomed to say that an alteration of one of these little marks would destroy the world, because it would change the divine commandments. In transcribing the Old Testament, it was a sufficient reason for destroying the whole manuscript, if a mistake had been committed in reference to these small points and curvatures. The idea is, not only that the law in general was permanent, but that even its least requisitions, and the spirit they breathed, were of fresh, eternal obligation. The smallest part of God's commandments never can become null. The ceremonial and judicial institutions of the Jews were intended, at the time they were made, to be only temporary. But the moral truths, the spiritual requisitions, of Judaism were not to be abated one atom, but to be carried out to perfection, fulfilled by the Messiah.-Till all be fulfilled, i. e. till all the purposes, contemplated in the Mosaic dispensation, are effected; till the gracious designs of God, commencing in the earliest revelations, are completed under Christianity. The Jews would suspect, from what Jesus had said, that he came to subvert the

these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach 20 them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that, except your righteousness shall exceed the righte

law and the prophets. By no means, is his language. The spirit of those revelations is strictly imperishable; it is to last and deepen till the final consummation of all things. I came to breathe into it new energy, and send it forth over the globe, conquering and to conquer, till the purposes of God are at last all accomplished.

19. This verse is intelligible only when we learn that the Scribes and Pharisees, the teachers and casuists most in vogue, were accustomed to make distinctions between moral precepts; calling some of greater, and others of less obligation, and holding that the transgression of one of the less commandments was a venial offence. This method humored the bad propensities of mankind, and vitiated all strictness of morality.

Mat.

xxii. 36.—One of these least commandments, i. e. more properly rendered, one of the least of these commandments, i. e. the laws of Moses, though some with less probability refer the sentence to the doctrines of Jesus which follow. He appears to continue the thought started in the preceding verses. Suppose not, he says, that I have any hostility to the Mosaic system; on the contrary, those will be lightly esteemed among my followers, who set themselves up as violators and disparagers of that dispensation of God, or who, like the Scribes and Pharisees, whilst they profess great fidelity to it, virtually nullify its injunctions by their traditions, and divisions of the law into duties of greater and less weight; but they will be the most honored who

practise and inculcate universal obedience, and who, in becoming the advocates of Christianity, acknowledge also the finger of God in the law and the prophets. So at the present day, whosoever shall break, or undervalue one class of duties, one set of divine laws; whosoever shall discard morality in his zeal for piety, or neglect piety because he is a good moral man, falls under the rebuke of this verse. Whilst one who does and teaches all the commandments, gives to every duty its place, is faithful to man, and God, and his Saviour, shall be great in the spiritual kingdom, and an eminent Christian.

20. Your righteousness, your virtue, goodness.—The righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. They professed great piety and benevolence. They thanked God that they were not as other men are. Their claims to superior virtue seem to have been acquiesced in by their countrymen. For it was a common saying, that, if but two men were admitted to the kingdom of heaven, one of them would be a Pharisee, and the other a Scribe. But notwithstanding their bold pretensions, our Saviour, looking at the heart, detected and laid open their hypocrisy. They tithed the smallest herbs, but omitted those vast concerns, judgment, mercy, and faith. Their religion was one of appearance, not one of reality. They held that the thoughts of the heart were not sinful. They were scrupulous to a fault in things of small consequence, that they might have the greater latitude in the indulgence of selfishness and sensu

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