Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 5.djvu/51

Rh in such a manner, as plainly spake them to be the immediate products of a divine and supernatural power; and they were God's seal to his commission. Nature could not do these things, it was the God of nature; the cures were many, of diseases incurable by the art of the physician, of persons that were strangers, of all ages and conditions; the cures were wrought openly, before many witnesses, in mixed companies of persons that would have denied the matter of fact, if they could have had any colour for it. No cure ever failed, or was afterward called in question; they were wrought speedily, and not (as cures by natural causes) gradually; they were perfect cures, and wrought with a word's speaking: all which proves him a Teacher come from God, for, otherwise, none could have done the works that he did, John 3. 2. He appeals to these as credentials, ch. 11. 4, 5. John 5. 36. It was expected that the Messiah should work miracles, (John 7. 31.) miracles of this nature; (Isa. 35. 5, 6.) and we have this indisputable proof of his being the Messiah; never was there any man that did thus; and therefore his healing and his preaching generally went together, for the former confirmed the latter; thus here he began to do and to teach, Acts 1. 1.

(2.) The mercy of them. The miracles that Moses wrought, to prove his mission, were most of them plagues and judgments, to intimate the terror of that dispensation, though from God; but the miracles that Christ wrought, were most of them cures, and all of them (except the cursing of the barren fig-tree) blessings and favours; for the gospel-dispensation is founded, and built up, in love, and grace, and sweetness; and the management is such as tends not to affright but to allure us to obedience. Christ designed by his cures to win upon people, and to ingratiate himself and his doctrine into their minds, and so to draw them with the bands of love, Hos. 11. 4. The miracle of them proved his doctrine a faithful saying, and convinced men's judgments; the mercy of them proved it worthy of all acceptation, and wrought upon their affections. They were not only great works, but good works, that he showed them from his Father; (John 10. 32.) and his goodness was intended to lead men to repentance, (Rom. 2. 4.) as also to show that kindness, and beneficence, and doing good to all, to the utmost of our power and opportunity, are essential branches of that holy religion which Christ came into the world to establish.

(3.) The mystery of them. Christ, by curing bodily diseases, intended to show that his great errand into the world was to cure spiritual maladies. He is the Sun of Righteousness, that arises with this healing under his wings. As the Converter of sinners, he is the Physician of souls, and has taught us to call him so, ch. 9, 12, 13. Sin is the sickness, disease, and torment, of the soul; Christ came to take away sin, and so to heal these. And the particular stories of the cures Christ wrought, may not only be applied spiritually, by way of allusion and illustration, but, I believe, are very much intended to reveal to us spiritual things, and to set before us the way and method of Christ's dealing with souls, in their conversion and santification;sanctification; [sic] and those cures are recorded, that were most significant and instructive this way; and they are therefore so to be explained and improved, to the honour and praise of that glorious Redeemer, who forgiveth all our iniquities, and so healeth all our diseases.

CHAP. V.

This chapter, and the two that follow it, are a sermon; a famous sermon; the sermon upon the mount. It is the longest and fullest continued discourse of our Saviour that we have upon record in all the gospels. It is a practical discourse; there is not much of the credenda of Christianity in it—the things to be believed, but it is wholly taken up with the agenda—the things to be done; these Christ began with in his preaching; for if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. The circumstances of the sermon being accounted for, (v. 1, 2.) the sermon itself follows, the scope of which is, not to fill our heads with notions, but to guide and regulate our practice. I. He proposes blessedness as the end, and gives us the character of those who are entitled to blessedness, (very different from the sentiments of a vain world,) in eight beatitudes, which may justly be called paradoxes, v. 3..12. II. He prescribes duty as the way, and gives us standing rules of that duty. He directs his disciples, 1. To understand what they are—the salt of the earth, and the lights of the world, v. 13..17. 2. To understand what they nave to do—they are to be governed by the moral law. Here is, (1.) A general ratification of the law, and a recommendation of it to us, as our rule, v. 17..20. (2.) A particular rectification of divers mistakes; or, rather, a reformation of divers wilful, gross corruptions, which the Scribes and Pharisees had introduced in their exposition of the law; and an authentic explication of divers branches which most needed to be explained and vindicated, v. 20. Particularly, here is an explication, [1.] Of the sixth commandment, which forbids murder, v. 21..26. [2.] Of the seventh commandment, against adultery, v. 27..32. [3.] Of the third commandment, v. 33..36, [4.] Of the law of retaliation, v. 38..42. [5.] Of the law of brotherly love, v. 43..48. And the scope of the whole is, to show that the law is spiritual.

ND seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain; and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2. And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

We have here a general account of this sermon.

I. The Preacher was our Lord Jesus, the Prince of preachers, the great Prophet of his church, who came into the world, to be the Light of the world. The prophets and John had done virtuously in preaching, but Christ excelled them all. He is the eternal Wisdom that lay in the bosom of the Father, before all worlds, and perfectly knew his will; (John 1. 18.) and he is the eternal Word, by whom he has in these last days spoken to us. The many miraculous cures wrought by Christ in Galilee, which we read of in the close of the foregoing chapter, were intended to make way for this sermon, and to dispose people to receive instructions from one in whom there appeared so much of a divine power and goodness; and, probably, this sermon was the summary, or rehearsal, of what he had preached up and down in the synagogues of Galilee. His text was, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is a sermon on the former part of that text, showing what it is to repent; it is to reform, both in judgment and practice; and he here tells us wherein, in answer to that question, (Mal. 3. 7.) Wherein shall we return? He afterward preached upon the latter part of the text, when, in divers parables, he showed what the kingdom of heaven is like, ch. 13.

II. The place was a mountain in Galilee. As in other things, so in this, our Lord Jesus was but ill accommodated; he had no convenient place to preach in, any more than to lay his head on. While the Scribes and Pharisees had Moses' chair to sit in, with all possible ease, honour, and state, and there corrupted the law; our Lord Jesus, the great Teacher of truth, is driven out to the desert, and finds no better a pulpit than a mountain can afford; and not one of the holy mountains neither, not one of the mountains of Zion, but a common mountain; by which Christ would intimate that there is no such distinguishing holiness of places now, under the gospel, as there was under the law; but that it is the will of God that men should pray and preach every where, any where, provided it be decent and convenient. Christ preached this sermon, which was