permanently divided into sexes. They had to learn that souls have ,w sex, so their quest.ion, so far as it applied to them, was absurd,-R. T, Ver. 42.-0ur thoughts of Ohrist's &mhip. "What think ye of Christ? whose Son is he?" 'l'his is what may be called a Socratic dialogue. Our Lord asks questions, and leads his hearers on until they find themselves entangled, and discover how little they had thought about the things of which they had talked so glibly. The expression, " What think ye of Christ?" has been made the text of many general sermons on the claims and Person of Christ; and it has been variously urged that our opinions about Christ decide our religious standing. We try to keep strictly to the passage, and find points in following through the precise inquiry of our Lord, I. WHOSE SoN IS MESSIAH? Our Lord uses the term "Christ," or "Messiah," here in its general sense, and from the Pharisees' point of view. He is not directly speaking of himself, or affirming that he is Messiah. He speaks to these Pharisees, and virtually says to them, "You talk about Messiah, you expect the coming Messiah, you are very learned about the Messiah, Say then, 'Whos!l Son is he?'" Those Pharisees could not read the mind of Jesus as he could read their minds, end they did not susF, qow he meant to puzzle them ; so at once they answered, "The Son of ])avid. ' "The Pharisees were ready e.t once with the traditional answer; but they had never asked themselves whether it conveyed the whole truth, whether it could be reconciled, and, if so, how, with the language of predictions that were confessedly Messianic," Show how fully our Lord met this prophetic necessity. His mother was, and his reputed father was, " of the house and lineage of David." II. How CAN MEsSJ.AH :eE DA vm's SoN AND DA vm's LoBD? This was so exceedingly easy a question, that one wonders how anybody could have been baffled by it. But perhaps these Pharisees were ,wt baffled. They saw the answer plainly enough, but they saw also what the answer involved. This explained it all-Messiah was to be both" Son of David" and" Son of God." But Jesus claimed to be Messiah, and these Pharisees dare not let the people hear them admit that the " Son of David " was also "Son of God." Those people had triumphantly brought Jesus into· the temple as the "Son of David;" and if the Pharisees had ventured a reply to Jesus, they must have acknowledged his claim to be" Son of God." Our Lord was the Divine-human being-of David according to the flesh; of God according to the Spirit. God was the soul of his humanity.-R. T.
EXPOSITION, time, bot that Bt, Matthew has here eol- CHAPTER XXill. lected into one body certain sayings of on? Ven. 1---39.-Denunciation of the scribe, Lord utterl!d at different times and places. and Pharueea, and l.amentati.on or,er Je,-u- It is far more nat1UBI to suppose that Bt. Matthew's statement of the occasion of this ea1,.,"'1B wkich followed thei,,- guidance to hef' disooD?se is historically true, and that Christ oum cle.,l,ructwn. (Peculiar to St. Matthew.) here repeated some parts of the censure he Ver. 1.-Then speke J'eSllll. Some small had already, in the course of his ministry, portion of this discourse, the close of our found it necessary to pronounce, The unity Lord's public teaching, is found in Mark of this utterance in form and essence, ita ill 38-40 and Luke :xx. 45-47 (comp. logical sequence and climaotio oharaoter, also Luke xi, xiii.). It is here addressed to prove that it was delivered at one time, and the multitude, and to his disciples, and seems was intended to form the Lord's farewell to have been designed to comfort the former address to the wayward people who would under the difficulty of having accredited not come unto him that they might have tea.chem who were proved t-:1 have wis- life. The discourse may be divided into anderstood Scripture, and were incapable of three parts. interpreting it aright. He willed to show Vers. 2-12.-The mo,-al charaater of the how far they were to follow these instruc- ,cn"bea and Pharieeu, and t.0arning t.o tors, and where it was necessary to draw a Chri,e, diMJip'lea. line beyond which they were not to be obeyed. Some modern critica hnve suggested Ver. 2.-The 1cribe1 and the Pharisee, that this discomae was not 11poken at this ■it in )loan' Hat.In the seat of the greal on. xxm. 1-39.] THE OOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, 305