V. Æ. 27. 18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, be- J. P. 4740. cause he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. Jerusalem. 19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. gelist has omitted. The subject is the sabbath. The words of our Lord, as the Jews perfectly understood, contain an assertion of his high office, in as plain terms as the plan of his ministry permitted. And none but a being who was invested with the offices and character of the Messiah, could have adopted such language without blasphemy. As my Father on the sabbath day still continues the mighty works which are visible in the kingdom of his great creation, so do I likewise work in the spiritual kingdom which I am now establishing in the world. Since the day when the world was made, the sublime scheme of Providence has been maturing. God, the Creator, has been preserving the world, that his Church might be completed, and the spirits of mankind be admitted the companions of angels. God the Son has governed and directed the generations of Adam; imparting to them gradual revelations of his will, and appointing them institutions to preserve his mercy in their remembrance. Whether he spake by the prophets, himself, or his apostles, he, like the God of the creation, never ceases to benefit mankind. God the Holy Spirit, from the moment when the Angel Jehovah ordained the institution of sacrifice after the fall, has ever continued to make his appeal to the hearts of men, persuading and intreating them to accept the mercy provided for them by the mysterious atonement of the divine Incarnate. The world was created and the plan of revelation was formed at the same time-they have their origin from the same God. His glory, and the happiness of man, are the objects with both; they began together, they continue together, but they will not end together. For as the soul is superior to the body, as God is superior to the universe, he has ordained that the body shall die, and the earth itself shall perish. The heavens shall pass away, but the spirit shall triumph in the ruins of the universe. The world continues till the Church is completed. The scaffolding shall be destroyed when the temple of God is built. With this system of truth the Jews were well acquainted. They knew that from the time the visible world was made, the Angel Jehovah had constantly guided the Church of God; and Christ, by the assertion in this verse, declared himself that great being who began to plan the happiness of mankind at the time when the Father created the world, and who continued equally with the Father to work for their benefit. I use this term, "to work," because it is warranted by our Lord; and shall not stop to discuss the questions which have been proposed by metaphysicians, on the causes of the actions of the Deity. It may, however, be added, that we cannot entertain a more lofty notion of the Deity, than that He is eternally blessing myriads of animated worlds. Παύεται οὐδέποτε ποιῶν ὁ Θεὸς ἀλλ ̓ ὥσπερ ἴδιον τὸ καίειν πυρὸς, καὶ χίονος τὸ ψύχειν, οὕτω καὶ θεοῦ τὸ ποιεῖν. God never ceases from action; but as it is the property of fire to burn, and of the snow to chill, so is it the property of the Deity to act and do.-Philo de alleg. lib. ii. apud Schoetgen. Hor. Hebr. vol. i. p. 354. J. P. 4740. 20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all V. E. 27. things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. Jerusalem. b Mat. xxv.46. c Ch. viii. 14. d Matt. iii. 17. e Ch. i. 7. f Matt. iii. 17. xvii. 5. 21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. 22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: 23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. 25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live. 26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; 27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. 28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. C 30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. 31 If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. 32 There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. 33 Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. e 34 But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. 35 He was a burning and a shining light and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. 36 But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. 37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, fhath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at g 8 Deut. iv. 12. any time, nor seen his shape. 38 And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. 39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have J.P. 4740. eternal life and they are they which testify of me. : 40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. 41 I receive not honour from men. 42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. 43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. h V. Æ. 27. Jerusalem. 44 How can ye believe, which receive honour one of h Ch. xii. 43. another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? 45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. 46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. i 47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words 35? i Gen. iii. 15. Deut.xviii.15. SECTION XV. Christ defends his Disciples for plucking the Ears of Corn on the 36 MATT. xii. 1-8. MARK ii. 23. to the end. LUKE vi. 1-5. 35 Mr. Mann, in his Dissertation on the true Year of Christ's Death, has asserted that the sixth chapter of St. John ought to be placed before the fifth. He imagines a connexion between John iv. 54. where we read, "This is the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee;" and ch. vi. 1. "After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias." This alteration is very suspicious, as it is proposed to defend the hypothesis maintained in his work, that the ministry of Christ lasted only sixteen months, and in it two passovers only were observed. Neither is the supposition at all warranted by the argument. For our Lord, as Doddridge (vol. i.p. 411.) has well remarked, frequently changed his place, and came back again to that which he had formerly visited. It is inconsistent too with his own hypothesis, because, according to that which he has adopted in the harmony, "Christ had crossed the sea to Gergesa, and dispossessed the legion, after the cure of the nobleman's son, and long before the passing over the sea, that is here referred to, (which was plainly not to Gergesa, but to the desert of Bethsaida :) so that there is no shadow of a reason for such an unexampled transposition, which has no copy or version to support it." So far Doddridge, who refers to the subject in other notes in his Expositor, to which it is not necessary now to refer. 36 The plucking of the ears of corn is mentioned by St. Matthew as an isolated circumstance. He has placed it in the midst of a tour through Galilee, without In a progress. after the first, that he went through the corn fields: Luke vi. 1. asserting that it took place there. The phrase, on the contrary, with which the narration is introduced, will remarkably harmonize with the order assigned to it by the other Evangelists. St. Matthew does not say, év rÿ ÿμɛpą, but ¿v τῷ καιρῷ, ἐπορεύθη ὁ Ἰησους τοῖς σάββασι διὰ τῶν σπορίμων. A phrase which by no means connects the plucking of the ears of corn with the event related, either before or after that circumstance. It is related by St. Mark after the feast in the house of St. Matthew, and St. Luke follows the same arrangement, adding, that the ears of corn were plucked after some great festival. As there is no other festival mentioned in the New Testament to which this allusion could be made, but that which is given in its chronological order in John v. I have followed the general authority of the harmonizers, and placed this event in the present section. It is evident that the disciples did not pluck the ears before the passover. It was particularly forbidden to gather any corn before the sheaf of the first fruits had been waved in the temple; the Jews would undoubtedly have reproached them, had they cause for so doing, with this twofold violation of the law, the plucking the corn before the time allowed, and the doing so also on the sabbath; whereas they confined themselves only to the latter charge. According to their canons (a), he that reapeth corn on the sabbath, to the quantity of a fig, is guilty. And plucking corn is as reaping: and whosoever plucketh up any thing from it while growing, is guilty. The Jews, in the days of our Lord, had, for the most part, lost sight of the spirit of their law, and burthened the people with a number of severe and superstitious observances. Their traditional laws respecting the sabbath were intolerably minute and wearisome. The greater part of them are collected by Dr. Wotton, in his work on the Misna, among which is the following prohibition, which our Lord and his disciples were accused of violating. It is to be found in the .העושה מלאכות הרבה מעין מלאכה אחת אינו חייב אלא חטאת אחת .(6) Shabbath He that doth several works under one principal head, is guilty only of one sin. The Jewish masters divided works, as they relate to the sabbath, into principal and secondary, or, as they called them, fathers and children of works. If a man does one principal work, and twenty secondary ones, it is, according to them, but one sin, and consequently deserves one punishment: thus to grind is a principal work. All dividing of things before united in their nature, come under this head. The second section goes on to enumerate thirty-nine principal works forbidden on the sabbath: the first eight of which are sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding, threshing, winnowing, cleaning, grinding; under which last term they included the action of our Lord and his disciples. But not only was this action forbidden in the traditionary law, it was prohibited likewise in that of Moses, Exod. xxxiv. 21. Our Lord, therefore, in his reply to the Jews, asserted his (b) Chap. (a) Talm. in schab. per 7; and Maimon. schab. per 7 and 8. vii. sect. 1, last sentence, and sect. 2. This work is now very rare and valuable; its title is, Miscellaneous Discourses relating to the Traditions and Usages of the Scribes and Pharisees in our blessed Saviour's time, 2 vols. 8vo. 1718. The second volume contains a translation of the Shabbath and Eruvin. 37 See next page. Mátt, xii. 1. and his disciples were an hungred, and began to In a progress. pluck the ears of corn superiority over the traditions of the elders, and his power of dispensing with the Mosaic law. He declares to them, that he was Lord of the sabbath. He it was who had enacted this very law of Moses, in one of those appearances which are justly called the preludes to his incarnation (c), and he now claims dominion over the law which he had made. By the same power which enacted, he abrogated, or dispensed with that law, as it was interpreted by the rigid superstitions of the elders. He restored it to its true use; allowing works of necessity and mercy to be wrought on that day, and declaring that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. To prove to them that such was the spirit, though not the letter of the law, he refers them to their own customs for the justice of his assertion, to the example of David, the practice of the priests, and their own legal violations of that day, when it suited either their convenience or their interest (d). The plan of this work prevents me from directing the attention of the reader to the devotional reflections, so evidently arising from the magnificent and interesting narrative of the conduct of our Lord during his more permanent incarnation; or it would be easy to fill many pages to an indefinite extent. earnestly desire to remind every clerical reader of the admirable sentiments quoted by Lightfoot on this passage-the priests in the temple profane the sab Yet I would The servile work .עבודה שהיא לשם קדושים אין עבודה-bath, and are guiltless which is done in holy things is not servile; and bbɔ wapna mawr, there is S7 There are three explanations of this phrase, εν σαββάτω δευτεροπρώτω. That of Epiphanius and Beza, that the day here meant was the last day of the feast of the passover. The second that of Scaliger, Lightfoot, Casaubon, Whitby, that it was the first sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread. The third of Grotius and Hammond, that it was the day of Pentecost falling on a sabbath. The last opinion is adopted in the present arrangement. To this opinion the greatest objection is, that the harvest would probably be over before the Pentecost: but Grotius remarks, that the wheat harvest was going on at the Pentecost, which on this account was called "the feast of harvest," Exod. xxiii. 16. (c) Preludia incarnationis; vide Bishop Bull's Defensio fidei Nicene, p. 7; (d) Grabe's edit. fol. 170. See also Nares' Review of the Improved Version. Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 185-6, on this chapter, fol. edit. VOL. I. N |