SECTION LIV.

THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES: THEIR SPIRITUAL

WOE

BLINDNESS.

MATTHEW Xxiii. 16 -33.

OE unto you, ye blind guides, which say, "Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor." "

Here is exposed that shameful system of evasion of oaths, which the Pharisees taught, and which since then, as Pascal has shown, the Jesuits, have made so notorious; ingenious expedients to entrap the unwary and release the perjurer. Our Lord strikes at the root of these evasions. "Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold ?'" And again as to another form of evasion. "Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by Him that sitteth thereon." The real Witness and Guardian of every vow, every oath is God Himself; and however we may try to evade responsibility by unmeaning forms of speech, it is He who will hold us to our word.

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin' ”. small insignificant herbs of no computable value"and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, mercy, and faith' "—integrity— "these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel"-a proverbial expression showing that they made the greatest difficulty about some little trifling matter, and not the least about some great one. Excessive strictness about little duties, and often self-imposed duties, adopted as a method of escaping from real and important ones-this was their plan, as it has been the way of false religionists in all times. Do we not see it sometimes amongst Conscientious scruples about some little outside matter in religion, about some form of Sabbath observance, some particular pursuit; combined with great carelessness in the treatment of others, meanness towards dependents, injustice towards tradesmen ; reputation in the religious world really serving as a convenient screen to social deficiencies.

ourselves?

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.'" The outward should be the expression of the inward. A demure exterior, carefully guarded words, preciseness in dress, are very well when they spring from a pure and humble heart, but hateful when they are adopted as a mask

to hide the designs of a covetous and selfish spirit. This characteristic is set in a yet stronger light by the forcible language which follows.

""Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.'

On the occasion recorded by St. Luke, the Lord makes use of another illustration, drawn from the same source, to depict the treachery of the Pharisees of which He had had such frequent experience.

In

""Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them."* the one case it is the ornamental appearance hiding a festering mass of corruption-in the other it is the invisibility of the sepulchre which is the point of the illustration. The former described the active and intentional, the other the passive and habitual hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed. the prophets.' "This passage is rather difficult, but

*Luke xi. 44.

the general meaning seems to be this. These men professed great veneration for the prophets, did honour to their memory, condemned their forefathers' treatment of them. Yet they hated and persecuted with unrelenting malice those living servants of God who were doing in that generation the work for which the prophets "had suffered in earlier days.” They acknowledged in their words that they were by natural descent the children of former persecutors, and though they tried to disclaim it, they manifested plainly enough that the spirit of their fathers was in

them.

"Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" With tremendous irony the Saviour bids them complete their work. It were a pity that it should remain unfinished, that the measure so nearly filled by their fathers should lack that for which it was waiting. They were ripe for the damnation of hell, and it was impossible for them to escape it.

From these awful words we may learn two solemn truths. 1. That it is not inconsistent with holy love to hate intensely sin, and that not merely in the abstract, but the sinner himself so far as he embodies it.* 2. That when men get to a certain stage of wickedness, God does as it were clear the

* There cannot be such a thing as perfect hatred of wrong and unmixed love of the wrongdoer. He who has done wrong has identified himself with wrong, and so far is an object of indignation. This of course in infinite degrees.-Robertson's Expository Lectures on Corinthians, p. 89.

way for them to work out all that is in their hearts, -and with this view amongst others, that we may learn how wicked men can be, and what a hateful, abominable thing wickedness is. They are past conversion, and therefore He holds back all restraining influences which might check and stunt their career, and thus in Old Testament language-" He hardens their hearts."

And now let us see what it was brought down this awful judgment on these men.

They were religious leaders, bound to be better than others, and yet far worse-they obstructed men's progress in religion-they used their reputation for piety as a means to gain-they corrupted those whom they professed to convert, using them only as tools of a party-they tampered with the foundations of society by their evasions of oaths-they made strictness in trifles an equivalent for the violation of essential duties-they masked hateful vices under a carefully smoothed exterior-they professed great reverence for dead saints, whilst they were full of bitterness against their living representatives.

These branches of evil were all from one root, one giant root, hypocrisy, and this it was, cankering their being to the very core, which made them, and will make all like them, fit only for the "damnation of hell!"

And now we have to see their coming down.