The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 311

Vere. 15-20.-The bra;n,dedfal,se prophets. This passage brings ns to the last but one of the great typical admonitions of this primaival discourse in Christian ethics. Typical they must surely be regarded, Nor, as we scan them with ever so jealous eye, do we find it at all easy to make comparisons as to any imagined relative temporariness of application belonging to them, or the reverse. But if, on the con• trary, we suffered ourselves for a moment to be the victims of mere plausible impres- sion, and to court illusion therein, then, perhaps, we might be tempted to rule that this present admonition, though it should be the only one, was th6 one the importance of which had dwindled in the growth of time, however real it had once been. The impression cannot vindicate itself, but it might serve to convict us of the extent-the depth and breadth-to which the evil has spread which it fancied was not existent. And we come round to the persuasion that this last but one of the series of admonitions is not behind any other whatsoever in testifying to the foresight of Christ, to his forecast of the character of the history of untold Christian generations, and to his measured, faithful, emphatic warning or bis Church respecting them. In language that cannot be mistaken, the passage certifies to us- I. THE BRAND THAT CHRIST SETS UPON FALSE RELIGIOUS TEACHERS. They are ravening wolves, covered over with sheep's clothing. It may be that through the centuries of Christendom the name of these has been truly enough legion many times multiplied. And it may be that because of this our vexed thought blankly refuses to face the deadly field of slaughter, the widespread, disastrous havoc the ravening wolves have wrought I But on our wearied enr may not then these words of Christ fall, with all their original forcible simplicity, to waken a more natural conscience, graciously to exorcise its callous incli.fference, and to freshen young faith? E.g.: 1. They suggest how Christ would guard, and does guard, the springs and the rudiments and the inspirations of our higher life. 2. They give us to iufer the genuine honour in which Christ holds our real teachers, though they be still only human teachers. 3. They caution us, if for the hundredth time, against deserting well-assured principles in favour of appearance, of soft voices, of smooth vestures, of complaisant manner. These all are but other versions of sheep's clothing, disguising the ravening wolf. Christ strengthens our faith in the sure landmarks of matter, of reality, of plain sincerity, howsoever plain. II. THE CRITERION ACCORDING TO WHIOH THEY ABE TO BE JUDGED. The "fruits" of" false prophets," of false teachers, who invest themselves with the abused title of "religious," are both those fruits which appear in their own manner of life, and those which apJJear in their work, their ill work, among and in others. The false prophet often denounces hi'TT18eif in the utter incoherence of his doctrines, and in the incon- sistency and impurity of his life, But whereas he is also a "ravening wolf," on the highest authority, it is because of the dissensions, divisions, malice, and schism that bis path is strewed with; and because of the falseness of his creed-erring now by defect, now by invention and addition, and now by contradiction of the Word ancl the Spirit. Not all the hostile forces that array themselves from without against the Church compare for a. moment, in the disastrous, ravening havoc that follow in their track, with the cunning, dissembling, subtle havoc of the ravening wolves--a wide- spread foe, that haunt the fold within-in the fleece of the flock that belong to it. And, lastly, it is to be remembered that, whereas it is not always of design, nor always of ill intention and pure malice towards souls, that false prophets work the havoc of ravening wolves, for this very reason-the criterion of their works, or "fruits," is the one given to men. For charity's sake we may not make ourselves judges by any assumed superiority of our own knowledge or wisdom; yet less may we arrogate the authority of the only omnjscient., unerring Judge, nor offer to do the angels' work WA~. •  806 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [oH. vn. t-29.