Reflections on the necessity of striving for heaven. 35 Behold your call, and to accept my favour. And now, alas, house is left unto you behold with awful dread, and remark the predesolate and verily the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. SECT. cxviii. 19 I say unto you, Ye diction and event, your house is left unto you Luke shall not see me, until desolate; and the hour is just at hand, when XIII, 35 your children, whom I would have gathered to myself, shall perish, and your temple shall be utterly destroyed: and, in the mean time, I assuredly say unto you, That I will quickly cease my labours among you, and retire in such righteous displeasure, that you shall see me no more, till the time come when, taught by your calamities, you shall be ready and disposed to say, Blessed [be] he that cometh in the name of the Lord, and shall in vain wish for the succour of him whom you now despise. (Compare Mat. xxiii, 37-39, sect. clviii.) IMPROVEMENT, AND who would not welcome such a Saviour, when he appears Ver. on so kind a design! who would not bless him that cometh in the 35 name of the Lord, to gather our souls with the tenderest care and to shelter us from wrath and ruin! that Saviour, whose bowels 34 yearned over us, and whose heart poured forth its blood for us! Too many reject him, and will not hearken to the kindest calls of his compassionate voice. Unhappy creatures! the time will come, when they too late will be convinced of their fatal error. Let each of us be solicitous for himself. Away with those vain 23 curiosities, which serve only to amuse and distract our thoughts. Let us call, and fix them down to the great concerns of our own salvation: and, if we would secure it, let us prepare to encounter 24 difficulties, and strive, as for our lives, to break through all the opposition of our enemies, and resolutely to enter in at the strait gate. How many have sought it, when the door has been barred? and how soon may the great Master of the house arise and shut it 25 for ever against those who are yet trifling! i You shall see me no more, till-you shall say, Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.] Some supposing these words refer to the congratulations which Christ received on his entrance into Jerusalem, (Mat. xxi. 9. Mark xi. 10. Luke xix. 38. and John xii. 13. sect. cxlvi.) urge them as a reason for placing this section after the 9th and 10th chapters of John, or between the feast of the dedication and his last passover. But, as our Lord repeats these words again, after his triumphant entry, (Mat. VOL. VII. C Let xxiii. 39, sect. clviii.) they must be ca- 20 Christ eats bread at the house of a Pharisee on the sabbath-day. SECT. Let not hypocrites trust in vain words. The workers of iniquity exviii. shall be disowned by Christ at last, though they may have eaten and Ver. drank in his presence. But oh, who can express the disappoint26, 27 ment, the rage, and despair, of those who fall from such tower28, 29 ing hopes, and plunge, as from the very gates of heaven, into the lowest abyss of darkness and horror! Their hearts will endeavour to harden themselves in vain; their doleful cries shall be distinguished in that region of universal horror! but they shall not penetrate the regions of the blessed, nor interrupt the delight, with which even the dearest of their pious relatives shall sit down in the kingdom of God. 31, 33 If we through grace have more substantial hopes, let us imitate the zeal and courage of our Divine Leader; and, whatever threatenings or dangers may oppose, let us go on day after day, till our work be done, and our souls at length perfected in glory. But let us carefully distinguish between those things, in which our Lord meant himself as our Pattern, and those which were peculiar to his office as a Prophet sent from God. That extraordinary office justified him in using that severity of language, when speaking of wicked princes and corrupt teachers, to which we have no call; and by which we should only bring scandal on religion, and ruin on ourselves, while we irritated, rather than convinced or reformed, those whom we undertook so indecently to rebuke. SECT. cxix. SECT. CXIX. Our Lord being invited to dine with a Pharisee, cures a man who had a dropsy, cautions them against an affectation of precedence, and urges them to works of charity. Luke XIV. 1–14. LUKE XIV. 1. LUKE XIV. 1. as he went into AN ND it came to pass that, just as our Lord was AND it came to pass, finishing his journey through Herod's do- the house of one of minions, he went into the house of one of the chief the chief Pharisees to XIV. 1. Pharisees, who was a magistrate of great dis Luke a As he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees.] As all that follows from the beginning of this xivth chapter to chap. xvii. 10, is placed by Luke before the account of his journey through Samaria to Jerusalem; and, as I find no other event in any of the evangelists before the feast of dedication to which I conclude that journey refers, I am obliged (by the rule I lay down to myscit of never changing the order without apparent reason) to take tinction, eat watched him. Christ cures a man that had the dropsy, SECT. схіх. 21 eat bread on the sab- tinction, by whom he was invited to eat bread, bath-day, that they that is, to dine with him on the sabbath-day; and many of the Pharisees were present there; Luke and, as their usual custom was, they were nar- XIV. 1. rowly watching him, to make the most invidious. observations on his conduct. 2 And, behold, there fore him, which had And, behold, there was a certain man before 2 was a certain man be- him that had a dropsy, who, having heard that Jesus was to dine there, had conveyed himself thither, in hope of cure . the dropsy. 3 And Jesus, answering, spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-day? 4 And they held their peace. -And he took him, let him ago: And Jesus, answering to the secret reasonings 3 which he discerned in their minds on this occasion, said to the doctors of the law and other Pharisees who were then present, What do you think now of this case? Is it lawful to heal a distempered person on the sabbath-day? or can there be any thing in so benevolent an action inconsistent with the sacred rest which is required on that day? But they were silent; as not being able, with any face, to deny the legality of the action, and yet unwilling to say any thing which might seem to authorize or countenance those cures which Christ performed on the sabbath-day as well as at other times; and which, in the general, they had been known to censure. When Jesus therefore found that they would and healed him, and make him no reply, he extended his compassion to the poor man; and, taking him [by the hand], he miraculously healed him before them all, and dismissed him perfectly well, restored at once to his full strength, and reduced in a moment to his proper shape and bulk . 5 And answered 4 And, more fully to convince them how justi- 5 them, fiable such an action was, even upon their own principles, b A magistrate of great distinction.] If (as Dr. Whitby supposes) the person who gave the invitation was indeed one of the grand sanhedrim, he might nevertheless have a country seat in Galilee; as the higher Courts never fail of allowing some recess to the members. So that Grotius's argument for transposing this story till Christ's arrival at Jerusalem seems inconclusive. c Had conveyed himself thither, &c.] I cannot think (as some suppose) that he was one of the family: because it is said that Christ dismissed, or let him go, when he was cured; ver. 4. d Taking him by the hand.] I know some have imagined that Christ led him aside to avoid ostentation: but the words do not express this; and, as our Lord speaks of the cure both immediately before and after e Reduced to his proper shape and bulk.] C 2 f If 10 SECT. Reflections on the guilt and danger of unfruitfulness. the proposal of the gospel in its full extent and cxvi. evidence, they must expect nothing but speedy, Luke XIII. 9. irresistible and irrecoverable ruin. IMPROVEMENT. Ver. WHICH of us may not learn a lessen for himself from this in6 structive parable of the fig-tree? Have we not long been planted in God's vineyard, and favoured with the cultivation of his ordinances, yea, with the dews of his grace too; and yet how little fruit have we borne in proportion to those advantages? How long has he come seeking it in vain, while we have frustrated the most reasonable expectations, perhaps not only for three, but several of us for more than thirty years? Wonderful is it, that the dreadful sentence has not long since gone forth against us, Cut 8 them down, why cumber they the ground? We owe it to the intercession of our blessed Redeemer, the Great Keeper of the garden of God, that this has not long since been our case. Let us not be high minded, but fear! (Rom. xi. 20.) Let barren sinners reflect, 9 that this may be the last year, perhaps indeed the last month, or last day of their trial; for even now also is the ax laid to the root of the tree! (Mat. iii. 10.) And let them remember, that though there be hope of a tree, when it is cut down, that it may sprout again, (Job xiv. 7), yet, when the doom is executed on them, their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will go up like dust (Isa. v. 24); and every tree which brings not forth good fruit, will be hewn down, and cast into the fire. 2 Let such therefore meditate terror, when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth; and, when others are overwhelmed in ruin, let them not harshly censure the sufferers, as if they were 3,5 greater sinners than any others; but let them apply that salutary, though awful admonition to their own souls, repeating it again and again, till they are pricked to the heart by it, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 1 Terrible indeed was the case of those, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, and of those who were dashed to pieces in a 4 moment by the full of Siloam's tower: but infinitely more dreadful will be the condition of them, that fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. x. 31), especially of those deceivers, who, having surrounded his altars with the hypocritical forms of devotion, shall themselves be made the victims of his justice, and be crushed by the resistless weight of his almighty vengeance. f Under the additional cultivation, &c.1 The extraordinary means used to bring them to repentance after the resurrection of Christ, by the effusion of his Spirit, and the preach SECT. ing of the apostles, might, with great propriety, be expressed by digging round the barren tree, and applying warm compost, or dung, to its roots. a Had Christ cures a crooked woman in the synagogue. SECT. CXVII. Christ cures a crooked woman in the synagogue, and vindicates his doing it on the sabbath day; and afterwards repeats the parables of the grain of mustard-seed, and of the leaven, Luke XIII. 10-22. LUKE XIII. 10. ing in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. there was a woman LUKE XIII. 10. 11 AND he was teach- THUS our Lord went on in his journey SECT through Galilee for a considerable time; and as he was teaching in one of the synagogues on Luke 11 And, behold, the sabbath-day, Behold there was present a XIII.11. which had a spirit of in- poor disabled woman, who (as the Jews used firmity eighteen years, commonly to express it, and was now actually and was bowed toge- the case) had been afflicted by a spirit of weakther, and could in no nessa no less than eighteen years, and was bowed wise lift up herself. together in so sad a manner that, from the time it first seized her, she was utterly unabletoraise herself upright, or to stand straight. 12 And when Jcsus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And Jesus seeing her, and intimately knowing 12 all the sad circumstances of her affliction, and the difficulty with which she was then come to attend the solemnities of Divine worship there, called her to him, and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from that affliction, which thou hast long been under by reason of thy weakness and 13 And he laid his malady. And, as he was speaking these words, 13 hands on her: and he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she immediately she was made straight, and was strengthened, and made straight; so that she glorified God. stood before them all in an erect posture, and moved with as much ease and freedom as if she had never been disabled: and, as was most reasonable, she in a very affectionate manner glorified God before the whole assembly; praising him for so signal and unexpected a favour, a Had been afflicted by a spirit of weakness.] It is very evident the Jews apprehended that all remarkable disorders of body proceeded from the operation of some malignant demon. Perhaps they might draw an argument from what is said of Satan's agency in the affliction of Job (chap. i. and ii.) and from Psal. xci. 6. (conipare Septuag.) and 1 Sam. xvi. 14. They also considered Satan as having the power of Death, Heb. ii. 14.—And that, in some maladies, this was indeed the case, is intimated by our Lord's reply here, ver. 16. and by St. Paul's words, 1 Cor. v. 5. where he speaks of delivering an offender to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. and The topic is very judiciously handled by b Utterly unable to raise herself upright.] |