tist, nor the mild condescension of Jesus Christ. They were a nation of fault-finders, and nothing could please them.

18. Neither eating nor drinking. Not literally going without food and drink, but living very abstemiously. See Matt. iii. 4. Luke says, "neither eating bread, nor drinking wine; i. e. leading an ascetic and secluded life, and not partaking of food regularly. — He hath a devil. He hath a demon. He is melancholy or mad. For the Jews attributed low spirits and insanity to possession by demons. The same slander was uttered against Jesus. John vii. 20, viii. 48, x. 20, 21.

19. Came eating and drinking. Observed the usual customs of social life, and kept no fasts. A man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend, &c. With the cheerful, familiar, and gracious manner of Jesus, and his mingling in all society, even that of publicans and sinners, they were as ready to find fault, as with the abstemious and stern life

of the Baptist. Nothing will satisfy those that will not be satisfied. But Wisdom is justified of her children. Of is old English for by. The children of wisdom are the wise, as the children of disobedience are the disobedient. Eph. ii. 2. Wisdom is the wise course adopted by John and Jesus respectively, which would be vindicated or approved, as best fitted for the ends they came to fulfil, by all wise and candid minds. Such is the general maxim as applied to this particular case. This interpreta

tion agrees best with the context; for having just before shown that the Jews were inconsistent and cavilling, Christ now, by way of contrast, exhibits the different judgment which the wise would pass upon the same measures. They would justify John in his mode of life, and Jesus in his, aware that each acted best according to the high office he filled, and the circumstances in which he was placed. The character and conduct of each were best adapted to his particular sphere and duties. — We find at the present day some, like the ancient Jews, that are disposed to cavil when a good object is presented to them, no matter what its nature or claims. To find fault is their element, and a wilful fastidiousness and lawless caprice their besetting sin. They may indulge in the same disposition now that led the Jews to reject John for his austerity and Jesus for his cheerfulness, and be subject to a like condemnation. "Observe, especially, that God's ministers are variously gifted; the ability and genius of some lies one way, of others, another way. Some are Boanerges, sons of thunder; others Barnabases, sons of consolation; yet all these worketh that one and the self-same spirit, and therefore we ought not to condemn either, but to praise both, and to praise God for both, who thus tries various ways of dealing with persons of various tempers. Henry.

20-24. See Luke x. 12-16. 20. A new paragraph begins here, though it is connected in sense with

Chorazin

21. Woe unto thee. This is not so much a denunciation as a prediction; not, let woe be unto thee, but, woe will be unto thee. See Matt. xxiv. 19. There is compassion also in it, and we may suppose that Jesus uttered it with a tone of the tenderest sorrow and pity. Alas for thee would, according to some commentators, more truly express the sentiment of Jesus. The order of the warnings is varied in Luke by the mention of Sodom first, chap. x. 12, whereas in Matthew it is put last. Bethsaida. These were villages in Galilee, situated near Capernaum, where he then was, and on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Their very locations are now matters of conjecture. Jesus had preached and performed his miracles in all places in that vicinity. The shores of this inland sea were his resort. But with increase of privileges there always comes increase of responsibility; and these towns, where the miracles of Christ had been wrought, and his discourses delivered, and his daily shining life of goodness passed, must have been tenfold hardened, if they continued impenitent. Tyre and Sidon. These cities, so proverbially wicked, were situated in Phoenicia, northwest of Palestine, on the Mediterranean Sea, about

twenty miles distant from each other, and were distinguished for their commerce, wealth, and luxury. Judgments were denounced by the prophets, Isaiah xxiii.; Ezek. xxvi., xxviii., against Tyre, on account of her idolatry and wickedness, which were signally fulfilled. It was repeatedly taken and destroyed, and not a vestige of its former glory remains. A few fishermen now spread their nets to dry amongst the ruins of its walls. A like fate befell Sidon. The waves of the sea now dash on lonely rocks, upon which were built the palaces in which thousands and tens of thousands once revelled in pomp and pleasure. So surely is sin not only a reproach, but a ruin to any people, however powerful or rich. Such is the law of God. They would have repented long ago. Tyre and Sidon, like Nineveh, might have repented and reformed, had they been warned of their impending desolation. They were not irreclaimable. Jesus used these places as illustrations; yet incidentally. It was a remarkable declaration, and is not without its remote significance touching the laws of retribution. For they who sinned under less light will be punished with less rigor, and the opportunities and motives to repentance that were not addressed to them at one time may be at another. Sackcloth. Esther iv. 1; Jonah iii. 5; Neh. ix. 1. A rough cloth, made of goat's hair, or coarse linen, or wool. It was worn by mourners, or as a sign of humiliation. - Ashes. It was customary in the east, where all emotions, whether of joy or sorrow, are ardently expressed, to lie in the ashes, or to cover the head

with dust or ashes, as a token of grief. Job ii. 12; Jer. vi. 26. Says an interesting writer, "We cannot read the record of sorrowful and depressing remembrances which this train of thought (see verses 1619) summons before Jesus, without a keen feeling of the painful trials and disappointments of that tender and sympathetic mind. There flitted before his quick thought the scenes where he had spent his strength for nought, the cities on whose houses and people his spirit had shed its best energies and love, and shed them only to be like water spilt upon the ground, and that cannot be gathered. Devoted to them, life and mind, there comes back to him no return but this recurring experience, that they were offended in him. Nazareth, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, are all before him, pressing their bitter memories on his fainting heart; all sought and lost, toiled for, but not won; sought by works that might have averted heathen Tyre and Sidon from their desperate courses; and ministered unto by one, who, if he had preached unto Sodom, might have awakened even it to repentance, and stayed the fiery indignation of Heaven."

22. See Matt. x. 15, and the note thereon.

the neighbourhood.- Brought down to hell. Or, the abyss. This, as well as the foregoing expression, is plainly hyperbolical. The meaning is, that, from the enjoyment of the noblest privileges, it would, on account of its impenitence and unfaithfulness, be brought down to the lowest condition. The word translated hell is Hades, which means strictly the place of the departed, whether good or bad; it was represented by the Jews as situated beneath the earth. It has sometimes been translated grave. It here refers to the abject degradation to which Capernaum would be reduced, compared with its former distinguished opportunities, and not to any place of punishment in the future world. The prediction has been fulfilled; and even its situation is now lost, so completely has the town been effaced from the earth. The same laws of God's moral government are in action now; and the city or nation, which is exalted to heaven in point of privileges, will yet, if unfaithful and wicked, finally sink into oblivion, and its place be unknown, and its history sound like a fable. - It would have remained until this day. Its wickedness was the sole cause of its ruin.

25-27. Compare Luke x. 21, 22, where the same expressions of Jesus' devout joy are uttered on the return of the Seventy.

25. At that time. As if to mark how soon Jesus reassured his fainting spirit, and turned from the saddening view of the inefficacy of his labors, to the most devout and grateful feelings. "To think of God was again to be revived, again to be his Christ, strong in hope.”— Answered and said. Went on to say. He replied to no question, but proceeded to say, in addition to his foregoing remarks, what follows. I thank thee, O Father. I make grateful acknowledgments to thee, or give glory. This is an ejaculatory prayer. Father is the uniform title with which Jesus addresses the Deity. It argues no small advance in the Christian life, when his followers can with truth and sincerity, and not as a mere form, or from cold imitation, call God their Father. The conviction of God's paternal character is the strong-hold of goodness in the human heart. Lord of heaven and earth. Universal sovereign, whose will there is none to dispute, above or below. The inquiry may be appropriately made here, How could the Saviour address this prayer to God, if he was himself God? If he was the Highest, why did he address a higher than himself? Did he thank himself? Or, if we adopt the doctrine of two natures, which by the

The

way is not once mentioned in the Bible in any place, did one of his natures thank the other? Would that constitute worship? Because thou hast hid these things, &c. That is, the truths of the Gospel. wise and prudent. The worldly wise, those wise in their own conceits. Hast revealed them unto babes, i. e. to men of little learning, fame, or influence, but who were of innocent and docile dispositions. He elsewhere calls his disciples little ones.

Matt. x. 42. In this verse is contained a peculiar idiom of the Hebrew language, an instance of which occurs in Rom. vi. 17. The cause of gratitude was not, as the sentence literally expresses it, that God had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes; but because, having in his providence permitted them to be hidden from the learned and the famous, poets, orators, statesmen, and philosophers, he had communicated them to the meek and the childlike, to the unlearned carpenter and simple fisherman. The Scribes and Pharisees, puffed up with their learning, rejected the counsel of God, but the common people heard Jesus gladly. Preached by persons of such humble origin as himself and his Apostles, the Gospel would appear to be less indebted for its truth and success to any power, or learning, or wisdom of man, and more plainly and unequivocally to be the special revelation of Heaven. The Jews were accustomed to attribute every thing directly to the agency of God, even what was done by the will or instrumentality of man. Thus Jesus, in conformity to the usual mode of speech, repré

sents God as hiding these things from the wise and prudent, by which we are not to understand that their unbelief was caused, but only permitted, by him, and that it was attributable to their own folly. - The latter clause of the verse may be illustrated by two quotations from the Talmuds. "From the time in which the temple was destroyed, wisdom was taken away from the prophets, and given to fools and children." "In the days of the Messiah, every species of wisdom, even the most profound, shall be revealed; and this even to children."

26. So it seemed good in thy sight. For many things this is the only satisfactory explanation, that they are as they are. When the speculations of philosophy can go no farther, it soothes the troubled mind to say, It is the will of our God. That will is so benignant, where we can understand it, that we can trust it, where it is inscrutable; being perfectly convinced, that, could we see the whole, we should see it advancing our welfare through darkness as well as light, through clouds and mysteries as well as in the plainest revelations and blessings.

27. All things, i. e. all things necessary to my mission and the salvation of mankind, and not strictly all things in the universe. All knowledge of God needful for my official work, as the rest of the verse shows; not all power and government. General terms are to be limited in interpretation by the connexion in which they stand. Are delivered unto me of my Father. By my Father. Matt. xxviii. 18; John xvii. 2. A plain declaration

of the subordination of the Son to the Father. Though my religion is rejected by the wise and prudent, would seem to be his meaning, yet I can fall back and repose with joy on the assurance that God has given me this mission to perform, and all things adequate to its triumphant fulfilment. - No man. No one.Knoweth the Son but the Father. Know here, as in many other cases, has the sense of being intimately acquainted with. No one knows the Son as the Son, i. e. in his peculiar and glorious relation to the Father, but the Father. The Gospel was so far in advance of mankind, and even of the Jews, as a religious people, that no one, not even his disciples, fully understood and sympathized with him in his sublime purposes. He could look to Heaven alone for support. But he was not solitary, for the Father was with him, and understood him and his errand into the world. Neither knoweth any man,―any one

the Father, save the Son, &c. So, on the other hand, the Father is not known in his full glory, except to his Son, and those of a like spirit with him, who have been enlightened by him in relation to the character of the Father. Will reveal him. Instead of him read them, that is, both the Father and the Son. The Son reveals himself and his Father, reveals his Father in himself. The sense of the whole is, that the Father has given him a full commission and knowledge in relation to the salvation of mankind, and that none but the Father and Son, and those who are instructed by the Gospel, can enter completely into their plans with regard to the