get beyond them, and if you sbore in their final ruin." The marginal reading in the English version appears to bring out this sense more clearly than the text: "Every one shall be per fected as his master."
How strikingly true this saying of our Lord is, has been painfully proved in England during the last thirty years. All who know anything of our religious history during that period, must have observed, that the leaders of the various new heresies by which we have been plagued, have generally had many ardent followers. These followers have seldom got beyond their masters, and have seldom been able to copy their good points without their bad ones. On the contrary, they have often slavishly reproduced the worst errors of their teachers, and that in a far worse form, and have not imitated their good points at all. They have thus strictly verified our Lord's words, " The disciple is not above his master."
I may remark that the view I have maintained of this text is held by Brentius, Bullinger, Gualter, Stella, and Quesnel. 41. — [The mote.] The word so translated is only used here and in the kindred passage in St. Matthew. It means a small bit of straw, or grass, or dry wood.
[The beam.'] This word means a large piece of timber such as is used for the rafter of a roof. The whole expression is evidently a proverb intended to bring into strong contrast by a figure, little faults and great ones.
43 — iA good tree bringetk not forth.] Perhaps the sense of the Greek words here would be rendered more literally, if thus paraphrased, " There is no such thing as a good tree bringing forth bad firuit."
44. — [Men.,. gatJier figs.] Here, as well as in the verse previously noticed (38,) the word " men " is not in the Greek. It is a form of expression equivalent to saying, "figs aie not gathered of thorns." It is one that ought to be carefully noted, as it throws light on a difficult passage in another part of St. Luke's Gospel. (Luke xvi. 9.)