king, he departed into a mountain himself alone V His Disciples he sent over the sea, towards Caper- naum : and multitudes, though they saw he was not with them, concluding that, by some means or other, he would follow them, went thither to meet him : and when they had found him, they expressed their sur- prise, and asked him, how he had contrived to come thither ? Our Lord, instead of gratifying their foolish curiosity, turned their attention to the state of their own souls, and pointed out to them the mistake under which they laboured : they supposed that they were evincing a zeal for his glory ; whereas they were not actuated by any conviction that he was the true Messiah, but by a blind hope that he would prove himself such a Messiah as they vainly expected : " Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles," (and were convinced by them of my Messiahship), but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled ;" and con- clude from thence, that I both can and will effect for you all which your carnal ambition can desire b. Then he gives them the solemn admonition which I have just read to you : in unfolding which, I shall notice,
I. The direction here given —
We are not to understand the direction as con- taining a prohibition to attend to the concerns of the body, but only as intimating that they were not to be placed in competition with the concerns of the soul. It is in this way that we are to understand those memorable words, " I will have mercy, and not sacri- fice0." God does not mean to prohibit sacrifices, which he had positively enjoined : but only to ex- press, that if an act of mercy could not be performed without entrenching upon a ceremonial command, the latter should give way to the former; since that which was of a moral nature was of greater worth, in his sight, than any thing which was merely ceremonial.
To attend to temporal concerns is a positive duty —
a ver. 14, 15. *> ver. 25, 26. c Matt. xii. 7.
bb2