234 Of the right management of religious fasting. SECT. you for his genuine offspring, and forgive you will your Father for- VI.15 I would also apply the general advice I be- 16 Moreover, when fore gave to fasting as well as to prayer; and ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad 16 would again exhort you, That when you keep countenance; for a private fast (as I conclude my disciples will they disfigure their often do,) you be not like the hypocrites, going faces, that they may about with a dejected melancholy face, and appear unto men to fast; verily I say putting on a dismal air; for upon these occa- unto you, They have sions they emaciate, contract, and deform their their reward." countenances, that by their sad and mournful looks they may appear to men to fast, and may be esteemed as persons of unusual mortification and holiness: verily I say unto you, That in this notice that is taken of them by their fellow creatures they have all their reward, and and 18 That thou ap 17 have not any to expect from God. But thou, 17 But thou, when O my disciple, when thou keepest such a fast, thou fastest, anoint and comest from thy devout retirement, dress thine head, wash thy face: thyself just as thou dost at other times; anoint thy head with oil, and wash thy face," instead of fouling it with ashes; That thou mayest not ap18 pear to men as one that fasteth, but only to thy pear not unto men to Father who is in secret; and thy Father who Father which is in fast, but unto thy sees in secret, and observes what passes in re- secret, and thy Fa tirement, as the surest test of men's true char- ther which seeth in acters, will not fail to reward thee openly for secret, shall reward thee openly. thy genuine and unaffected devotion. IMPROVEMENT. Ver.1, LET us learn from these repeated admonitions of our blessed 15, 16 Redeemer what is the only acceptable principle of every religious to q Emaciate, contract, and deform their rendered it unnecessary for me to add any countenances.] I know not any word in our thing more on this or the following verse. language which exactly answers again this connection. It is rendered Anoint thy head with oil, and wash thy corrupt in ver. 20 (compare Acts xiii. 41; face.] This was usual among the Jews, Heb. viii. 13; and James iv. 14,) and not only at feasts, but at other times; comproperly signifies to change, spoil, and con- pare Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xiv. 2; and Judith sume; and is with peculiar elegance ap- xvi. 8. On the other hand dust and ashes plicable to such an alteration of the natural were often used in times of deep mourning, countenance as proceeded from their ema- or public fasting, which must sadly deform ciating themselves, and contracting their the countenance; see 2 Sam. xiii. 19; Esth. faces into a dismal form. The learned iv. 1, 3; Isa. lxi, 3; Dan. ix. 3; and author of Fortuita Sacra, p. 13-22, has Jonah iii. 6. Reflections on the practice of religious duties. : 235 action; namely, a desire to approve ourselves to God in it and sect. let us particularly bring it into the instances in which it is here XL. recommended. Verse 2, 6 Our Lord takes it for granted that his disciples would be both charitable and devout. Let us cultivate both these branches of the Christian temper and avoid ostentation in both; as remembering the day approaches when every one of us must be made manifest in his true character before the tribunal of Christ. And, oh, what discoveries will then be opened upon the world! How many specious masks will be plucked off, that the hypocrite's character may appear in its native deformity! And, on the other hand, how many secret acts of piety and benevolence, which have been industriously concealed from human observation, will then shine forth in all their glory, celebrated and rewarded by God himself, 18 who sees in secret, and whose eye penetrates all the recesses of our houses and our hearts! There may our praise and our portion be! In the mean time let us with humble pleasure obey the call of our Divine Master, and be often addressing our heavenly Father in such language as he hath taught us; entering for secret exercise of devotion into our closet, and shutting our door, excluding (as far as possible) 6 every thought which would interrupt us in these sacred and happy moments. From thence let our prayers daily come before the throne like incense, and the lifting up of our hands be as the morning and the evening sacrifice. (Psal. cxli. 2.) Christ himself has condescended to teach us to pray. Atten- 9-13 tive to his precepts, animated by his example, and emboldened by his intercession, let us learn and practise the lesson. Shed abroad on our hearts, O Lord, thy Spirit of adoption, which may teach us to cry, Abba, Father! to draw nigh to thee with filial reverence and confidence, and with fraternal charity for each other, even for the whole family, to whom thou graciously ownest the relation! Inspire us with that zeal for thy glory which may render the honour of thy name, the prosperity of thy kingdom, and the accomplishment of thy will, far dearer to us than any interest of our own! On thee may we maintain a cheerful dependence for our daily bread, and having food and raiment, be therewith content! (1 Tim. vi. 8,) most solicitously seeking the pardon of our past sins, and the influences of thy grace to preserve us from future temptations, or to secure us in them! And may our sense of that need in which we stand of forgiveness 14,15 from thee, dispose us cordially to forgive each other, especially as thou hast wisely and graciously made this the necessary means of receiving our own pardon! Our corrupted hearts are too little disposed for these sentiments; but may God's almighty power produce and cherish them in us! and while the comfort is ours may all the glory be his, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen. 236 Christ exhorts to lay up treasures in heaven. SECT. Mat. SECT. XLI. Our Lord cautions his disciples against the love of the present world, and urges a variety of lively and convincing arguments to dissuade them from anxiety about the morrow. Mat. VI. 19, to the end. I MAT. VI. 19. MAT. VI. 19. LAY not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, WOULD also take this opportunity of cautioning you, my hearers, against that covetous temper which the Pharisees are so ready where moth and rust VI.19 to indulge (compare Luke xvi. 14; and Mat. doth corrupt, and xxiii. 14), and therefore add, Do not make it where thieves break your great care to lay up for yourselves treasures through and steal: here on earth, where so many accidents may deprive you of them; where the moth, for instance, may spoil your finest garments, and a devouring canker may consume your corn, or may corrupt the very metals you have hoarded; and where thieves may dig through the strongest walls that you have raised about 20 them, and may steal them away. But build 20 But lay up for your happiness on a nobler and more certain yourselves treasures foundation, and store up for yourselves treas- in heaven; where ures in heaven, where none of these accidents doth corrupt, and 21 neither moth nor rust steal. can happen; where neither moth nor canker can where thieves do not 21 For where your also. The influence which this advice will have on your whole conduct should engage you to treasure is, there attend more diligently to it; for where that will your heart be which you account your chief treasure is, there will your heart also be, and thither will the tendency and series of your actions be referred. a Canker may consume your corn, or cor- thieves; which may seem the more prorupt the very metals you have hoarded.] The word gas is by some translated smut or weavel, and is supposed to signify any little insect that gets into corn and eats it. Mr. Blair seems to understand it so, and thinks our Lord here refers to clothes, grain, and gold, as the chief treasures respectively obnoxious to moth, smut, and bable, as a different word os, is used for rust, Jam. v. 3. But as bewos properly · signifies any thing that eats into another substance, I rather chose to render it canker, which has much the same ambiguity; and to paraphrase it in a manner including both the senses. : There is no serving God and mammon. 237 XLI. Mat. V1.2Z 22 The light of See therefore that you form a right judgment SECT. the body is the eye on so important an article, and do not overif therefore thine value the world and its enjoyments. For as the eye be single, thy whole body shall be eye is the lamp of the whole body; and therefore, V12 full of light. on the one hand, if thine eye be clear, and free from any vitiating humour, thy whole body will 23 But if thine be full of light; But, on the other hand, if thine 28 eye be evil, thy eye be distempered, thy whole body will be full of whole body shall be darkness: so it is with respect to the practical full of darkness: if judgment you form as to the worth of earthly therefore the light that is in thee be and heavenly enjoyments. If therefore the darkness, how great light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! and if the maxims you lay down to yourselves are wrong, how very erroneous must your conduct be! is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters the other. Ye can And do not impose upon yourselves so far as 24 to imagine that your hearts can be equally di for either he will vided between heaven and earth: for as no man hate the one, and love the other; or can serve two masters whose interests and comelse he will hold to mands are directly contrary to each other; but the one, and despise will quickly appear either comparatively to hate not serve God and the one, and love the other; or, by degrees, at least, will grow weary of so disagreeable a situation, so as to adhere entirely to the one, and quite neglect and abandon the other : so you will find you cannot at the same time serve God and mammon, that unworthy idol to which so many are devoting their hearts and their pursuits. mammon. 25 Therefore I And I would charge you therefore to take 25 say unto you, Take heed that your affections be not engaged in a service so inconsistent with religion and true happiness; and in particular, I say unto you, b If thine eye be clear, &c.] Some commentators have explained this as if our Lord intended here to urge the practice of liberality, as what would have a great influence on the whole of a man's character and conduct; and suppose it illustrated by all those passages where an evil eye signifies a grudging temper, and a good eye a bountiful disposition (compare Deut. xv. 9; Prov. xxiii. 6; xxviii. 22; and xxii. 9. Hebr.) and also by those texts in which simplicity is put for liberality, (Rom. xii. 8; and 2 Cor. viii. 2; ix. 11-13. Gr.) See Hammond, Whitby, L'Enfant, and Beausobre, in loc. But the sense given above appears most natural as well as most extensive.-I have rendered as clear, rather than single, as less ambiguVol. I. 2 E ous and with more evident propriety aps plied to the eye it is opposed to an eye overgrown with a film, which would obstruct the sight. c God and mammon.] Mammon is a Syriac word for riches, which our Lord beautifully represents as a person whom the folly of men had deified. It is well known the Greeks had a fictitious god of wealth; but I cannot find that he was ever directly worshipped in Syria under the name of mammon. A late d Therefore I say unto you, &c.] writer, who takes upon him, by the strength of his own reason, to reject at pleasure what the apostles believed and taught, strangely complains of a want of connection between this and the preceding 238 Mat. VI.25 Anxious care is unreasonable and useless, SECT. Be not distressed with anxious cares about your no thought for your XLI. subsistence in life, what you shall eat, and what life, what ye shall shall drink, when your present stock of pro- drink; nor yet for eat, or what ye shall you visions is gone; nor with respect to your body, your body, what ye what shall you put on when the garments you shall put on. Is not have are worn out. Is not life a better and the life more than meat, and the body more valuable gift than food, and the body than than raiment ? raiment? And if it be, why should you not trust that almighty and gracious Being who formed your bodies and inspired them with life, to maintain the work of his own hands? 26 into You may surely do it when you reflect on 26 Behold the his care of the inferior creatures. Look on the fowls of the air for birds of the air, for instance, that are now flying ther do they reap, they sow not, neiaround you for though they are gay and nor gather cheerful to a proverb, yet do they neither sow barns; yet your nor reap: nor do they, like some other animals, feedeth them: are heavenly Father gather a stock of food into hoards, to lay up for not ye much better winter; and yet the rich providence of your than they? heavenly Father plentifully feedeth them; and are not you, his children, much more valuable in his sight than they? as well as much better furnished with means of providing for yourselves? Why then should you at any time sus27 pect his care? And after all, this immoderate carefulness is useless, as well as unnecessary; verse. But can there be any better reason assigned against imunoderate anxiety than this, that such a subjection to mammon as this expresses is utterly inconsistent with the love and service of God? Be not anxious about your subsistence in life.] It is certain that the word μsgiva generally signifies an excessive anxiety (see Luke x. 41 xii. 11; xxi. 34; and Phil. iv. 6; and indeed almost every other place where it is used ;) which is agreeable to the derivation of it. There is no need therefore to say (as archbishop Tillotson, Vol. II. p. 255, and Dr. Clarke, in his Ser mons, Vol. III. p. 116, & seq. do) that our Lord only addresses this to his apostles, who were to cast themselves on an extraordinary Providence, without being any wise concerned themselves for their support. Mr. Blair has well proved the contrary at large in his excellent Appendix to his fourth Sermon, Vol. I. p. 55, & seq. and it is easy to observe that the arguments our Lord urges contain nothing peculiar to their case, but are built on considerations applicable to all Christiane; compare Phil. 27 Which of you iv. 6; and 1 Pet. v. 7; as also Luke xxii. 35, 36; and Acts xx. 34; from whence it appears that the apostles themselves were not entirely to neglect a prudent care for their own subsistence in dependence on miraculous provisions. f The birds of the air now flying around you.] It is not so proper to render la fowls, as that word generally signifies the larger kind of birds, and especially those under the care of men.-For mentioning the birds, as then in their sight, see the lat ter part of note on Mat. v. 14. p. 212. Are you not much more valuable than they, as well as much better furnished with means of providing for yourselves?] Oux upus panñor diapegele autor, may be rendered, Have not you greatly the advantage of them? which may refer to men's being capable of sowing, reaping, and gathering into barns, which the birds are not: and though I rather prefer the former sense, 1 thought it not improper to hint at the other; as I have done in many other places where such ambiguities have occurred. |