rodeemed family. We always go wrong when, on account ot some gift, we asser• ourselves and break the brotherhood. III, THE EQUALITY 01!' THE BBOTilERIIOOD 19 BEEN IN MUTUAL SERVICE. It i1 not that some one member is served by the rest, but that each is ready to serve the other, Each holds his gift at the command of the other. True, a brother's gift may put him in some office; but he is there to serve, not to rule. This idea is preserved, In idea at least, in every section of Christ's Church. The highest offices are never other than brotherly places of service. Our ministers are our brethren.-R. T. Ver. 11.-Greatnessfon,ding etZpression ln llin"IJU'A. This setting of truth was repeated by our Lord again and again, and variously illustrated by parable and by example (as in our Lord's washing the disciples' feet). He must have been much impressed by the unreadiness to serve which distinguished the prominent religionists of his days. The Pharisee class was always scheming to get-to get wealth, to get praise, to get credit. He never saw them giving, or trying to do anything for anybody. They were always standing on their dignity. They loved "salutations in the market-places," everybody paying special deference to these learned and holy men. Even the little boys pulling olf their turbans, and bowing low as the great man passed. It was in the mind of Christ to set a complete contrast to all this before the people; and he would have his disciples continua his example. But it should be clearly shown that our Lord's example was in no sense put on; it was the natuxal and proper expression of his principles and spirit. I. A .MAN 18 m NO BENSE GREAT WHO THINKS CHIEFLY ABOUT HIMSELll'. This is what Christ teaches. This is not what the world teaches. U a man is to "get on," the world says he must take care of" number one." Christ says he may get on that w,i.y, but he will never get up. The inspiration is low which a man gives himself. The old-world idea of greatness was summed up in the ideas of position and achievement. In connection with our text, set out before you a self-centred Pharisee, and say whether that man is, in any sense at all, great. What can you admire in him P No doubt he thinks himself great; but is he? Evidently Christ has raised oux standard of judg- ment, and we find we only despise the man whose life circles round himself. II. A .MAN 18 GREAT WHO TIIINXS OHIEl!'LY ABOUT WHAT HE CAN DO FOB OTHERS. Christ has recovered "ministry," and ennobled it for ever. Recovered it, because : 1. It was God's primal idea for the human race. When he made man male and female, he established the law of mutual service. When he made parents and children, he glorified the law of mutual service, and lifted motherhood into the first human place. When he permitted sickness, trouble, and povert{ in his world, he called for a brother- hood of sympathizing service. 2. It was man s mischief-making to interfere with God's dignity of service. Thie man did when, in his wilfulness, he organized society, built cities, made offices, and set one man above another. Then everybody soon began to think what advantage he could get over hie brother, instead of what he could do to eerve him.-R. T. Ver. 13.-The woe of the hypocrite. The word " woe " is repes.ted again and ag;:i.in in this chapter, and yet the rea11or of it fails to realize what the woe denounced preci~ely was. The suggestive word is left by Christ. It is enough to tell these men that they are surely heaping up woe for themselves in the latter day. Some hint of the coming woe may be given in the closing verses of the chapter, which indicate a time of sorest humiliation, of hopeless ruin. Jewish literature gives quite as bade picture of them as Jesus did. "Fear not true Phnrisees, but greatly fear painted Pharisees," said a Jewish ruler to his wife, when he was dying. "The supreme tribunal," said another, "will duly punish hypocrites who wrap their talliths around them to appear-what they are nol,-tme Pharisees." , L WHAT THINGS WERE HEAPING UP WOE l!'OB THESE HYPOOBITES. Oux Lord marks several things in which their hypocrisy was especially manifest. 1. Their professing to be spiritual teachers, yet keeping the people from receiving spiritual truth (ver. 13). 2. They joined devout prayers for desolate widows with a grasping covetousness chat seized the widows' property and ruined them. 3. They made proselytes, so to say, to righteousness, but compelled them to be as bitter, base, and uncharitable as them- 426 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTIIEW. [oH. xxm. 1----39;
selves. 4. They mRde foolish distinctions, which th~.y took care did not hlnde, themselves. 6. They appeared to be most delicately ecrupnlons, but in their conduct the~ allowed the grossest and _most abominable l!cence. _6. Tiley were supremely enuous about the look of thmge; they were wickedly mdifferent about the real' ccmditwn of things. 7. They wanted 'l7lffl to admire them in publio but they dare not let any oue eee their private lives. It is easy enough to see that,'for such men, a revealing day must come, and, when it came, it would prove humiliation and woe indeed. H is woe for such men to be found out. It was a beginning of woe for Jesus thus to· show them up before the people, and make them objects of scorn and detestation. II. WHAT PEBSONS SUFFERED WOE BEOAUSK OF THE HYPOOBITB. For the religious hypo- crite is a woe-maker. And this point may be opened out with some freshness. Every religiously insincere man : I. Makes woe for himself. He has no enemy like himself. 2. He makes woe for the religious community to which be belongs. He prays agains11 their prayers ; he brings disgrace on them when he is found out. 8. He makes woe for 11◊ciety, which learns, by his failure, the misery of mutual mistrust. 4:. He even brings- dishonour on the name and cause of God.-R. T.