The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 423

Hindoo proverbie.1 saying le, " Swallowing e.n elephant, e.nd being choked with a flea." Reference must be kept to the class of persons the.t me.y be regarded as represented by hypocritical Pharisees. I. HB wuo PBESEBVB8 THIil 8PIBIT 0AN ADAPT THIil J'OBM8. No man may say that the forms of religion are unimportant. They have their place, and only need to be kept in their right place. But life comes before expression of life; and spirit comes before form., Being" born from above" is more important than any religious rite, even the most sacred. Only the man who has the ,pirit can bear right relations to the forms. He will use them. He will not be mastered by them. He nnderstands- that forms were made for him, and he was not made for the forms. They must, there- fore, be adjusted to him and to his needs. To him all forms are servants. Authority in the forms of religion may be voluntarily recognized; but a man's own quickened life is the supreme authority to him. II, liE WHO UNDULY.ESTnlATES THE FOBM WILL BOON BB ENSLAVED BY THIil F0Rll. The student of human nature, who considers the sense-conditions under which we are set, will argue that it must always be so, He who observes Christian life, or skilfully reads personal experience, will declare that it i, ,o. Once let religious forms and ceremonies control conduct, break bounds of the restraint of soul-life, and they will run as does loolil!ned fire; they will overlay the spiritual feeling; they will absorb all the powers; and become supreme interests; and when the spirit is thus overlaid, the result too often follows which we see in these Pharisees-e:uggerated scruples about exact and minute forms going alop.g with a demoralizing indilference to moral purity.-R. T. Ver. 28..,,....Appearance and reality, "Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." This is the revelation, not of a mere observer of men, but of a Divine Heart-searcher, a Divine Thought-reader. I. MAN JUDGES BY THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, AND MAKES MISTAKES, When Samuel saw the. handsome eldest son of Jesse, he said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him." . But he was reproved. " The Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for man lvoketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. xvi. 7). 1. Man can only judge by the help of appearances, because he cannot read the heart. 2. Man is disposed to judge of religion by appearances, because he is daily judging everything in this way. 3, Man js always liable to make mistakes, becanse appear- ances often accidentally, and more often intentionally, fail to present realities. The peril of trusting to appearances may be illustrated by the way in which goods are dressed up to attract sale, The 11ame thing is found in religious spheres. Credit is gained by the show of piety; and the hypocrite is ever over-anxious about his external observances. Our Lord's figure of the cup is common to every age ; his figure of the "whited sepulchres" belongs to the East, Sepulchres were whited so that Jews might not unconsciously walk over them, seeing that thls involved ceremonial defile- ment. The outsides of burial-places were whitewashed once a year. It is not enough to see a man's devoutness at church. See him at home. See him in business. See him in private prayer. See him as God sees him. II. GoD JUDGES BY THE INWARD REALITY, AND MAKES NO HIST.AKE. He looks inside the cup. He knows what is inside the sepulchre. He reads thti secret life of the fastidiously devout Pharisees. He finds Dsvid right-hearted, and chooses him rather than his handsome brother, St, Paul intimates that the Christian man should be so absolutely sincere and true, that he could readily stand out in the l!UllShine, and let it look him through and through, and round and round. See how the good man comes altogether to prefer the Divine appraisemont, and to say," Search me, 0 God, and know my heart." Impress that when the man is heart-right with God, be is properly anxious about his appearance before men. He wants that to tell, as fully as possible, the truth of his inner life,-R. '£. Ver, 33.-Holy drnunciations. Revised Version, "Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?" margin, "Gchenna." It is neither right nor wise to attempt any mitigations or modifications of this intensely severe 11entence. Let the words ,tand precisely as we find them ; and let the sentence bo  ..;.2s THE GOSPEL ACC0ilDINO T(I ST. MATTHEW. [ell. xxm. 1-39.