116 MATTHEW, V. 21, 22. [l300.
stoning was a more lingering death than beheading, and burning was still worse than stoning. A similar kind of gra- dation there will be in the punishments inflicted in the eternal world. Death, eternal death, will be the portion of all who die in their sins: but some will have a lighter, and others a heavier, weight of misery to sustain, in proportion to their respective degrees of guilt. " Those who are angrj with their brother without a cause, will be in danger of the judgment," that is, of that lighter degree of misery, which may be com- pared to beheading. Those who suffer their anger to " break out into contemptuous expressions," and " say to their brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council," and sustain a heavier punishment, answerable to sto7img. And if any person shall entertain such rancour in his heart as to " say to his brother. Thou fool, he shall be in danger of hell fire," that is, of that heaviest of all punishments, answerable to the being burnt alive in the valley of Hinnom: hell fire being usually expressed, in the New Testament, by a word importing, " The fire in the land of Hinnom*'."
Thus our Lord shews what are to be regarded as violations of this commandment, and that every violation of it shall receive a recompence proportionable to its enormity.]
Having seen his exposition of the commandment, let us consider,
II. The general instruction which it conveys to us —
AVith the right exposition of the commandments every truth of the Gospel is intimately connected.
We may learn from this especially,
1. The spirituality of the law —
[The law is not a mere letter, which imports nothing beyond the literal import of the words, but extends to all the thoughts and dispositions of the heart. It prohibits all tendencies towards the sin forbidden, and enjoins every virtue that is op- posed to it. St. Paul speaks of this as a thing known and acknowledged ; " We kjiow that the law is spiritual'." In his unconverted state, indeed, he did not know it : he had the same view of the commandments as other Pharisees had, and thought he had never violated them, at least not so as to be condemned by them : but when God shewed him the meaning of those words, " Thou shalt not covet," he saw that " the command- ment" was, as David had long before represented it, " exceed- ing broad '^:" he saw that there was not an inclination of the mind, or an affection of the heart, which was not under its
^ See Doddridge's note on the text. ' Rom. vii. 14.
k ps. cxix. 9G.