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24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.

apxiouvaywyos, who presided, and called persons to read the sections for the day, or to exhort, out of the congregation assembled, unless some one voluntarily offered himself, for which it appears there was full liberty given. 2. The elders of the synagogue, πρεσβύτεροι, who were the counsellors of the ruler, and with him formed a court for the settling of disputes, and the punishment of minor offences by expulsion or the infliction of "forty stripes save one." Hence our Lord foretels that his disciples should be "scourged in the synagogues ;" and allusion is made several times in the gospel to the penalty of being "cast out of the synagogue." 3. The collectors of alms, diakovo, deacons. 4. The servants. The Jews who were unable to go up to Jerusalem on these great festivals are supposed to have had worship in the synagogue on those festivals as well as the Sabbath. This important institution of synagogues, where a congregation was always to be met with on the Sabbath, and often at other times, and where liberty of exhortation and of interpretation was allowed to qualified persons, our Lord availed himself of to teach his heavenly doctrine; and itinerated through all Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. It was also by ministering in synagogues that the apostles gathered churches in different parts of the world; and when Christian congregations were formed, they followed, during the first ages, nearly the same mode of worship as that of the synagogues, with the addition of the Lord's supper.

Sickness and disease.-These terms are often used promiscuously; but if any distinction can be made, voros rather signifies a violent disorder; μaλakia, a chronic debility. In the next verse is added, divers diseases and torments, with which people were seized and bound; by which

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are probably meant, those torturing spasmodic affections to which the people of those countries are liable, as tetanus, spasmodic cholera, as well as rheumatic and other more lingering maladies, &c. Those which were possessed with devils, δαιμονιζομένους, (see the following note,) and those who were lunatic, σeλnviagoμevovs, that is, epileptic; and perhaps also deranged patients, whose disease was generally thought to be affected by the age of the MOON, and hence the name both in Greek and English; and those that had the palsy, magaλUTIкous, the paralytic. All these disorders are mentioned at once, to indicate the immense number of sick persons that were brought to Christ, and his unbounded benevolence and power. Here truly we see the light shining upon these Galileans and Syrians, the people who sat in darkness and the region and shadow of death, as "the Sun of Righteousness rising with HEALING in his wings."

Verse 24. Those possessed with devils.— An affliction, calamitous beyond all others, and therefore not only distinguished from the diseases which follow, but put at the head of them; and the removal of which, even more decidedly than any other, marked the divine power of Christ, and set the broadest seal upon his mission: "But if I with the FINGer OF GOD cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you." Luke xi. 20. The word used in such cases is Sawv, a term applied by the Greeks to their gods; but which the Jews applied only to evil spirits, in the number of which indeed they reckoned the Gentile deities. Very strenuous have been the attempts of a certain class of commentators to resolve these demoniacal possessions into madness, and other disorders, which they say the Jews popularly ascribed to evil spirits, as the ignorant among our

25 And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judæa, and from beyond Jordan.

CHAPTER V.

1 Christ beginneth his sermon in the mount: 3 declaring who are blessed, 13 who are the salt of the earth, 14 the light of the world, the city on an hill, 15 the candle: 17 that he came to fulfil the law. 21 What it is to kill, 27 to commit adultery, 33 to swear: 38 exhorteth to suffer wrong, 44 to love even our enemies, 48 and to labour after perfectness.

1 AND seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain : and when he was set, his disciples came unto him :

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selves ascribe extraordinary complaints to witchcraft. But who does not see that this theory seriously compromises the character of our Lord himself?-because it supposes him to have practised upon the credulity and ignorance of the people, and to have falsely represented the casting out of devils as a stronger proof of the divine power than the healing of diseases; whereas, according to this view, it was but an act of the same kind. How, also, will they reconcile to this theory the conduct of our Lord, who addressed them as beings separate from, and independent of, the possessed; and held conversations with them? How, again, will they account for the use of the phrase casting" them out? how, that those afflicted persons, who were possessed, should UNIFORMLY address Jesus as the Messiah? And, finally, how can the history of the devils being permitted to enter the herd of swine be interpreted consistently with common sense, unless an actual possession of men by evil spirits, inflicting torments, and producing and exasperating diseases, be admitted? Human philosophy must necessarily be unable to penetrate the mystery of this permitted evil, because the invisible world and its laws cannot be made the subject of investigation; but with such consequences as must follow from the rejection of the historical character of the narrative, no modest or serious man will dare to entangle himself. Better reject the revelation of God entirely, than set up a

mode of interpretation which renders its meaning uncertain, and its use doubtful. (See note on verse 1.) "When," says Campbell, "I find mention made of the number of demons in particular possessions, their actions so expressly distinguished from those of the man possessed, conversations held by the former in regard to the disposal of them after their expulsion, and accounts given how they were actually disposed of; when I find desires and passions ascribed peculiarly to them, and similitudes taken from the conduct which they usually observe, it is impossible for me to deny their existence."

Verse 25. And there followed him great multitudes, &c.-So widely did his fame spread, and so powerful an impression was made, that the news of the actions and discourses of this great prophet was spread from one part to another, until great multitudes followed him from Galilee, both upper and lower; and from Decapolis, a part of Syria, lying on the east of the sea of Galilee, and so named from its ten cities; and from Jerusalem, whither his fame had also spread, though as yet he had not visited it since the commencement of his public ministry; and from Judæa, that is, Judea properly so called; and from beyond Jordan, which was a distinct country, named otherwise Peræa. (See the maps of Palestine.)

CHAPTER V. Verse 1. And seeing the multitudes, &c.-Here both the multitudes, and his disciples, are mentioned distinctly

2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

as his auditors. Probably his disciples sat in a semicircle at his feet, as was customary with the disciples of the Jewish doctors. "The master," says Maimonides, "sits in the chief place, and the disciples before him in a circuit, so that they all see the master, and hear his words." The general audience were at some distance; for it is evident from some passages in this discourse, such as, "Ye are the salt of the earth;" "Ye are the light of the world," that it was immediately addressed to his disciples as nearest to him, and separate from the rest. But Christ publicly showed what those doctrines were, to the knowledge and practice of which he was training up his more intimate followers, and for the publication of which to others he was thus qualifying them. It may throw some light upon our Lord's taking upon himself the office of a public teacher, a circumstance which excited no surprise, and was in fact in itself nothing new, to remark, that any man skilled in the law appears to have had the right to become a doctor or teacher of it, to such disciples as chose to attend his discourses; and these disciples not only attended him at some usual place of teaching, but followed him from place to place, doing him honour as their instructer.

At what exact period of our Lord's ministry the sermon on the mount was delivered, we have no particular account. The place was near Capernaum, and the time early, but subsequent to the calling of several of the apostles, and after his fame had spread throughout Palestine, as stated in the preceding chapter. In the synagogues of Galilee he had delivered many discourses on the subject of his kingdom;" and the effect had been that many now openly professed to be his disciples. That his sermon on this occasion was one continued discourse, and not, as some have supposed, a collection of fragments, delivered at different times, is manifest both from the introductory and the concluding remarks of the evangelists: Multitudes" follow him to the

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and lengthened discourse. It was a phrase frequent among them, as a notice that they were about to deliver something weighty and deliberate, "I will open my mouth in a parable." Psalm lxxviii 2. So also Virgil, finem dedit ore loquendi, "he finished speaking with his mouth." On this divine sermon we may remark generally, that it not only explains and inculcates the most important truths, but that it has frequent reference to those religious errors which the Jewish doctors of different sects had spread among the people, to the perversion of the meaning of the sacred writings, and the destruction of practical piety. Hence Lightfoot well observes, though somewhat too strongly, "To the explanation of this discourse is required quick and ready versedness in the records of the Jews; for Christ hath an eye and reference to their language, doctrines, customs, traditions, and opinions, in almost every line."

Christ shows first who are the truly blessed, or rather happy persons, μаkagioi, that is, in what the true felicity of man consists; a subject of great debate among heathen sages, whose opinions as to the chief good of man were almost equally numerous and contradictory. "To this point," says one, "three hundred sects of philosophers have taught as many dif ferent ways; but to us one alone is fully sufficient." On this subject, also, the Jewish teachers, seconded by their own proud and carnal hearts, had fatally misled the people, though their own scriptures contained most explicit and infallible de

3 a Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

a Luke vi. 20.

clarations on this subject. They might indeed have learned from David, that "blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered; the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile," expressions which are to be taken to exclude all from true felicity who stand not in this relation of friendship with God, and who had not been in heart purged from sin. But they placed happiness in wealth and worldly distinctions; and religion in superstition, and ceremony, which generated pride, in a fancied holiness, and a blind confidence in an external covenantrelation to God as the seed of Abraham. Our Lord opens quite contrary views, and makes the true felicity of man to arise from the moral state of his heart, and shows that it is entirely independent of outward circumstances. All the beatitudes must therefore be interpreted spiritually, and not under those low views in which they are placed by some commentators, who seem little to understand the whole bearing of this discourse, or the true character of Christianity itself, THE SOLE OBJECT OF WHICH IS TO BRING THE HEART OF MAN BACK to God, and to renew it in righteousness and true HOLINESS, in order to restore happiness to the INDIVIDUAL, and to the WORLD.

Verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit. -Not the poor in opposition to the rich, for it is manifestly one great object of our Lord to call off the attention of his hearers from outward circumstances as necessarily connected with true felicity; nor those, as Grotius has it, "poor in mind," that is, patiently and contentedly poor, as though our Lord were no more than a heathen teacher of the advantages of contentment. Poverty of spirit signifies the same thing as humility, considered in a religious sense; or, at least, it is the principle of humility, and so may be the character of men of widely different conditions, as to external rank, and excludes the notion of Campbell, and others subse

quent to Grotius, who resolve it into that disposition which accommodates itself without murmuring to poor circumstances. There are many such contented persons who have no pretence at all to spirituality of mind; and how that should form any special qualification for "the kingdom of heaven," such writers fail to show. Our Lord evidently alludes to Isaiah lxvi. 2: “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor," or lowly," and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Poverty of spirit implies a penitential sense of our guilt as sinners, and a deep conviction of our unworthiness and natural imbecility in all things relating to our salvation, accompanied by an entire dependence upon God for counsel, strength, and grace. It is the root of all true faith or trust in God; the exciting cause of that devotional habit which expresses itself in earnest, constant breathings after intercourse with him, and the exertion of his influence upon us; and it excludes all religious pride and boasting, for which the Jews, through their want of true humility, were so often reproved by Christ.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Such were the only persons in a suitable state of mind to receive the new dispensation of truth and mercy introduced by Christ, and with this preparation of mind they would infallibly embrace it, with its spiritual benefits here and its rewards hereafter; for the kingdom of heaven established by Christ being spiritual, it comprehends both grace here, and glory hereafter. This beatitude is not to be confined to those to whom the gospel was first preached. "The kingdom of heaven" is always among" many who enter not into it for want of true poverty of spirit. To receive Christianity as a divine institution, and, from a sense of our danger and necessity, to press, in the earnestness of prayer, and the vigorous actings of faith, into the personal experience of its spiritual blessings and future hopes,

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4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

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b Psalm xxxvii. 11.

are distinct things; and through this lowly gate of humility only can we enter. The order of grace, as above stated, is, “REPENT ye, and BELIEVE the gospel." Then comes that true "blessedness" which flows from the establishment of that kingdom of God in our hearts, which is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

Verse 4. Blessed are they that mourn, &c. This on the first view appears paradoxical; nor is it to be explained by referring the mourning and the subsequent comfort merely to outward things as their cause. There is, indeed, no blessedness in being plunged into afflictions to have the comfort of being ultimately relieved from them. This" saying” of our Lord may be taken, 1. To refer to that inward distress which the recollection of our offences against God produces in a contrite heart. It implies, however, tenderness as well as alarm; it regards sin against God in his characters of goodness and love, as well as those of majesty and justice; and hence that loathing of it, and those strong struggles to get free from its bondage, which characterize a genuine repentance. Such mourners are pronounced blessed by our Lord, not in reference to their present state, which is one of wretchedness; but to the comfort" of the Holy Ghost which shall assuredly follow To all such is promised the remission of sins, and the pledge of adoption in the abiding presence and solacing influence of "the Holy Ghost, the Comforter." From true poverty of spirit proceeds this holy mourning, as from its principle. 2. It may also respect the afflictions of good men, considered in reference to those moral ends which we know from the doctrine of providence, as it is taught by our Lord and his apostles, the sufferings of such persons actually accomplish under divine direction. The "comfort," however, in such cases, is not always the removal of afflictive circumstances. These may remain, and yet

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the promise of Christ shall stand firm. That consolation arises from the instruction and correction which sanctified troubles administer under the influence of grace; the special supports which are given in answer to prayer; the refining of the affections of the soul from remaining earthliness; and the stronger and more lively anticipations of that eternal rest, where there shall be "no more pain, nor tears, nor death."

Verse 5. Blessed are the meek.-Meekness implies the absence of all irascible and malignant passions, and is the fruit of regenerating grace. It is a state of the soul produced by the habitual and supreme influence of prudence and benevolence. It is, therefore, patient of sufferings, and forgiving of injuries; and however contrary the natural constitution of the mind may be to this affection, it is the certain effect of the Holy Spirit's influence, fully received, to produce it in all who seek it. The example of Christ specially enforces this temper, in which strength and loveliness are so strikingly combined, upon his followers, and it is carefully enjoined in the writings of his apostles as an essential branch of true religion; for in the Christian system doctrines and external ordinances are regarded only as MEANS to the attainment of good principles, benevolent affections, and rightly ordered words and actions, and have no other value assigned them; a circumstance which always distinguishes true Christianity from its own corrupted forms, and from all the systems of Jewish and Gentile superstition. Meekness was little regarded as an element of practical piety among the Jews; though sometimes praised by their writers, and strongly urged in their scriptures. For this reason, as well as to inculcate it upon all his followers, our Lord gives it an eminent place in this discourse, which formally unfolds the principles and characters of his religion.

For they shall inherit the earth.—г7, here

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