commei ded in religion, as the mother of devotion, is strongly condemned in this verse. Christ would have Christians " know what they worship."
The testimony borne to the general truth of the religious sys- tem of the Jews in this place is very striking. Corrupt and wicked as Scribes and Pharisees were, Jesus declares that the Jewish religion was true and Scriptural. It is a mournful proof that a church may retain a sound creed, and yet be on the high road to destruction.
Hildersam has along note which is well worth reading on the words " salvation is of the Jews." Considering the times in which he lived, it shows singularly clear views of God's con- tinual purposes concerning the Jewish nation. He sees in the words the great truth that all God's revelations to man in every age have been made through the Jews.
23. — [The hour cometh and now is.] These words mean that the times of the Gospel approach, and indeed have already begun. *' They have begun by the preaching of the kingdom of God. They will be fully brought in by my death and ascension, and the estabhshment of the New Testament church."
[T>'ue luorshippers ..worship. ..spirit and.. .truth.] Our Lord here declares who alone would be considered true worshippers in the coming dispensation of the Gospel. They would not be merely those who worshipped in this place or in that place. They w^ould not be exclusively Jews, or exclusively Gentiles, or exclu- sively Samaritans. The external part of the worship would be of no value compared to the internal state of the worshippers. They only would be counted true worshippers who worshipped in spirit and in truth.
The words "in spirit and in truth" are variously interpreted, and much has been written about them, I believe the simplest explanation to be this. The wprd " spirit" must not be taken to mean the Holy Spirit, but the intellectual or mental part of man in contradistinction to the material or carnal part of man. This distinction is clearly marked in 1 Cor. vii. 34, "Holy in body and in spirit." — " Worship in spirit" is heart-worship in contradistinction to all formal, material, carnal worship, consist- ing only of ceremonies, ofFeiings, sacrifices, and the like. When a Jew offered a formal meat-ofiering, with his heart far away, it was worship after the flesh. When David offered in prayer a bioken and a contrite heart, it was worship in spirit. — " Wor- ship in truth," means worship through the one true way of access to God, without the medium of the sacrifices or priest- li0(^d, which were ordained till Christ died on the cross. When the veil was '-ent, and the way into the holiest made manifest by