Ann. Dom. A. M. 4035, ing with such infamous people. But, to vindicate himself in this respect, he compared &c. or 5441. his conduct to that of a man, who, having an hundred sheep, left the ninety and nine † in quest of one † which was gone astray; to that of a woman, searching, with all Vulg. Er. 30. diligence, for a piece of silver +3 that was lost, and rejoicing exceedingly when she found 31, &c. it; and to that of a father +4, receiving his returning prodigal son with all the indications of joy and tenderness, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his elder brother : For under the name of the elder brother, he reproved the unjust murmurings of the Pharisees, who were displeased at his entertaining sinners, though the salvation of such was the main end of his coming into the world. Having thus exposed the pride and envy of the Pharisees, he proceeded in the next place to reprove their covetousness, and, at the same time, to instruct his disciples what the proper use was that they were to make of their riches. To this purpose he introduces an unjust steward †, who, after having abused his trust, and wasted his master's substance, is contriving what provision to make for himself (which he does by abating his master's debtors in their bills) when he came to be removed from his place; and as their companion, and that therefore his proper Here Christ sets ninety and nine just persons in cum. A sheep, when once it has strayed away, is a creature remarkably stupid and heedless. It goes wandering on, without either power or inclination to return back, though each moment it is in danger of becoming a sacrifice to every beast of prey that meets it. And such, in truth, is the condition of people addicted to vice, when they have broken out of God's fold, and forsaken the pleasent pastures which he provides for them. They grow careless and inconsiderate, and are exposed to snares and temptations every moment. They are hardened by custom; are depraved in their affections and judgment; are neither disposed to grow wiser, nor of themselves capable of conquering inveterate habits of vice, though they should now and then shew some good inclination to attempt it. Stanhope on the Epistles and Gospels, vol. iii. +3 By this comparison of a lost piece of money, we are given to understand, that God esteems the souls of men precious, and reckons them among his wealth and his treasures. And this indeed they are; made and formed by his own hand; impressed with his own image and superscription; and from that stamp, which carries a resemblance to the great King of the whole world, deriving all their currency and value. But when they abandon God's laws, and forsake the Divine and rational life, a life of goodness and wisdom, renounced for one of sensuality, and madness, and mischief, then they are lost; lost to themselves; lost to God. Then this coin is debased; the impression obliterated and gone; and that piece of money, as to the worth and use of it, is in a manner as if it were no longer in being. Stanhope on the Epistles and Gospels, vol. iii. + This parable is deservedly reckoned a masterpiece in its kind, and what cannot be paralleled by any of the apologues or allegorical writings of Heathen authors. It is adorned and beautified with the most glowing colours and lively similitudes. It is carried on and conducted with admirable wisdom and proportion, in the parts as well as in the whole; and there is so exact a relation between the things represented, and the representations of them, that the most elevated understanding will admire, and the lowest capacity discover, the excellent and most useful moral that lies under so thin and fine a veil. + There is a good deal in this and the following parable, that alludes to the notions of the Jewish Rabbins, and their manner of expressing them. "The fruits of the earth (says one of their doctors) are like a table spread in an house; the owner of this is God; man in this world is, as it were, the steward of this house: If he behaves himself well, he will find favour in the eyes of his Lord; if otherwise, he will be removed from his stewardship." Kimchi on Isaiah xl. and so the scope of this following parable seems to be this,-That we are to look upon ourselves, not as lords of the good things of this life, as though we might use them at our pleasure; but only as stewards, who must be faithful in the administration of them. The parables indeed make mention of no other goods but those of riches; but we must not therefore imagine, that rich men only stand in the capacity of stewards, since every advantage of nature, or of grace, as well as those of fortune, our life, our health, our strength, our wit and parts, our knowledge natural and acquired, our time, our leisure, our every ability, our every opportunity, our every inclination to do well, are all our Master's goods; all entrusted with us; all capable of benefiting others; and will all at last be brought to our account. Whitby's Annotations, and Stanhope on the Epistles and Gospels, vol. iii. 23. Luke vi. 1. thereupon he teaches his disciples, not to imitate the injustice, but the forecast and po- From Mattis. licy of this steward, by employing their earthly † riches to make them friends in the xii. 1. Mark ii. persons of the poor, that when they should come to leave this transitory world, they might, John v. 1. to by this means, be received into everlasting habitations in heaven; and so the children Matth. xvii. 14. of light become as prudent in things relating to their salvation, as the children of this Luke ix. 37. world are in the management of their temporal affairs. This discourse made little or no impression upon the Pharisees; and therefore (to awaken their attention) he propounded to them the parable of a certain rich man, †2 living in pride, and ease, and luxury, who after his death was carried into the dismal regions of the damned; and of a certain poor beggar, named Lazarus, +3 lying at his gate full of sores and ulcers, and desiring the fragments that came from his table, who, when he died, was transported by angels into Abraham's bosom +4: "That in these different states, the poor man, in compensation for his former misery, enjoyed all the The words in the text are," Make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," Luke xvi. 9. Now mammon, or mammona, is a Syriac word, and properly denotes riches or treasure. It comes from an Hebrew root, which signifies to be hid, and is therefore thought to comprehend, not only gold, silver, and other metals, that are hid in the bowels of the earth, but stores likewise of corn, wine, and oil (a great part of the riches of the eastern people), which they often buried in subterraneous caverns, to conceal them from their enemies. These are called the mammon of unrighteousness, becouse they frequently occasion much iniquity in the world, and are often acquired by very indirect means; but our Lord, by this expression, must not be suposed to command alms to be given of that which is gotten by fraud or injustice, because such charity can never be acceptable to God. No; the duty of those who have acquired wealth unrighteously is, to make restitution to the persons they have injured; if these be dead, then to their heirs or executors; and the poor are only then receivers of the fruits of injustice, when a person is conscious that he has been unjust, but does not know the person to whom he has been so. Calmet's Commentary, and Beausobre's Annotations. + Whether this representation, which our Saviour here makes of the different fates of the rich man and the poor, be a parable, or a real history, is a matter wherein several commentators are not agreed. We are told, however, that in several manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, there are these words in the beginning of the 19th verse, "He spake to them another parable," and that this very parable is in the Gemara Babylonicum, from whence it is cited by the learned Sheringham, in the preface to his Ioma; as indeed, if we look into the circumstances of it, such as the rich man's lifting up his eyes in hell, and seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, his discourse to Abraham, his complaint of being tormented with flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be sent to cool his tongue, or, at least, to convert his surviving brethren : If (together with the great gulph that is fixed between the two places of bliss and torment) we do but consider these particulars, I say, we must needs conclude, that, as they cannot be understood of any departed soul in a literal sense, they must be an allegorical reVOL. III. 1 presentation of things invisible, by terms, in some measure, suitable to the opinion of the Jews concerning the state of souls after death. Calmet's Commentary, and Whitby's Annotations. +3 Lazar, which according to most is but a contraction from Eleazar, is the very same with Aniachad, a poor man in the Gemara, and properly signifies one without help, or rather one that has God only for his help : But in the times of our Blessed Saviour, we may observe, that it was a common name among the Jews, and given to men of some distinction, as we find it was to the brother of Martha and Mary. Whitby's Annotations, and Calmet's Commentary. + The Garden of Eden and Paradise, the Throne of Glory, and Abraham's Bosom, were common expressions among the Jewish doctors to denote a future state of felicity; for so Josephus, in his discourse of the Maccabees, says of good men, that "they are gathered to the region of the patriarchs, and that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, do receive their souls :" And they tell us farther, that the souls of such men are carried thither by angels; for so the Targum, on Cant. iv. 12. says, that "no man hath power to enter into the garden of Eden but the just, whose souls are carried thither by the hands of good angels." Our commentators, however, have perceived something peculiar in the phrase of Abraham's Bosom. They imagine, that the Jewish notion of paradise was a place abounding with delights and perpetual feastings, where Abraham, the great founder of their nation, enjoys the uppermost place at the table, and while all his children sit down with him, some at a nearer and some at a farther distance from him, he who has the honour to recline upon his bosom (as Lazarus is here represented), is in a higher degree of felicity than ordinary. But others deride all this notion, and assert, that Abraham's Bosom was so called, not from any posture of guests at table, but from little children, whom their tender parents do sometimes take in their bosom, and sometimes cause them to sleep there. For since "those that die in the Lord, say they, are said to sleep, or rest from their labours," where can they be said to enjoy this rest or sleep better than in the bosom of the father of the faithful? Beausobre's and Whitby's Annotations, and Calmet's Commentary. 2 C Mark ix. 14. John vii. 1. &c. or 5441. Ann. Dom. 31, &c. A. M. 4035, felicity that his heart could wish; while the rich man, in punishment of his luxury and want of mercy to the poor, was forced to undergo the most inexpressible torments, without being able to procure so much as one drop † of water to cool his inflamed Vulg. Er. 30. tongue; and without being able to prevail for the once despised Lazarus, to be sent upon a message of admonition to his surviving brethren, because they had Moses + and the prophets for their instructors, or a standing revelation of the Divine will (and if †3 it prevailed not with them nothing would) for the direction of their lives." Of the great numbers of people who attended our Lord wherever he went, some came out of necessity, others out of curiosity; some out of a spirit of devotion, and others out of a spirit of captiousness, and with an intent to entangle him in his discourse. Of this last sort were the scribes and Pharisees, who, taking the question of divorces +4 to be somewhat intricate, put it to our Saviour; but he, limiting the permission of such separations to the case of adultery only, reminded them of that strict and natural union † between man and wife, which God had appointed at their first creation, and was not † A good deal of this is to be taken in a figurative sense, but our Saviour might possibly insert this pas sage in the parable on purpose to strike at a vain imagination which some of the Jews were apt to entertain, viz. "that hell-fire had no power over the sinners of Israel, because Abraham and Isaac came down thither to fetch them from thence;" which could not fail of being effectually confuted, when they heard Abraham, as it were, with his own mouth, declaring, that no help was to be expected from him when once they were got into that place. Whitby's Annotations. + Moses and the prophets comprehend all the several dispensations of God's mercy, as expressed either in the Old or New Testament. They signify the whole revealed will of God, and whatever he hath set down therein, as necessary to our attaining eternal life and happiness. Whatever doctrine can be proved out of them, we are bound to embrace it without a new miracle; as, on the other hand, whatever doctrine is inconsistent with them, we must reject, though an angel from heaven, or one from the dead, should come and preach it to us. Bishop Sharpe's Sermons. [This seems not to be accurately expressed. The writings of Moses and the prophets certainly contain all that was required of the Jews under the Mosaic dispensation; and the rich man and Lazarus are represented as having lived under no other dispensation. To hear Moses and the prophets therefore was sufficient for them and their brethren; but the Old Testament literally interpreted, surely does not contain all that we Christians are bound to believe and to practise, whilst it enjoins many things as duties on all who lived under that dispensation, which are no duties on us who live under the Gospel.! +3 One rising from the dead certainly could not do it, because he could come with no greater authority, deliver no better motives to repentance, nor give men any greater assurance of the truth of what he said than what they had already. That a resurrection from the dead was not sufficient to convince them, is plain from hence, that our Saviour had raised Lazarus, and yet the Pharisees were not the more obe dient to his doctrine. Nay, though they had the most clear proofs of his own resurrection, from the testimony of their own prophets and their guards that kept the sepulchre; from the testimony of their own senses, of the apostles, and five hundred witnesses at once; and all this confirmed by miraculous effusions of the Holy Ghost, and a multitude of wonders wrought in his name; yet all this was insufficient to reclaim that wicked generation from their iniquity, or to provoke them to repentance. Bishop Blackall's Sermons at Boyle's Lectures, and Whitby's Annotations. + The Jews, at this time, were divided in their opinions as to the matter of divorces. Some of them who followed the sentiments of the school of Shammai, held, that the wife was to be put away only for the crime of adultery, because Moses directs that this might be done in case the husband "had found some uncleanness in her," Deut. xxiv. 1. But others, who adhered to the notions of the school of Hillel (and they by much were the greater number), maintained, on the contrary, that this was permitted to be done for any cause whatever; because, in the same verse it is expressed, that, "if she found not grace" in her husband's eyes, she was divorceable. was the question which the Pharisees brought to our Saviour, thinking that he must have decided it, either against the law of Moses, or against the deter. mination of one of these two famous schools, and, one way or other, have become offensive to the peuple; but our Saviour evaded all this, by reducing matrimony to its original institution. Beausobre's Annotations. This Whitby's and This is a matter which the heathens themselves seemed not unacquainted with; and therefore it is said in Hierocles, that "nature prompts us to mar riage, in that she hath made us so, that two should live together, and have one common work to beget children;" and that tale of Plato in his Convivium, "That man at first was made male and female, and that though Jupiter cleft them asunder, there was a natural love towards one another, and an inclination to heal human nature, by making one again of two," seems to be only a corruption of the account in Ge nesis of Eve's being made out of Adam's rib. Whitby's Annotations. xii. 1. Mark ii. consequently to be disannulled by any human institution. Here the Pharisees, think- From Matth. ing they had got the advantage of the argument, objected the precept (a) of Moses, 23. Luke vi. 1. wherein he permitted the husband t, in many cases, to give a bill of divorce to the John v. 1. to wife. But to this our Saviour replied, That though, under the Mosaical dispensation, God, atth. xvii. 14. knowing their obstinacy, and perverse inclinations, allowed a dispensation † in this Luke ix. 37. point, by tolerating divorces; yet, according to the original institution of marriage, it John vii. 1. was not so; and therefore, to reduce the matter to its primary establishment, he determined that all divorces for any less cause than that of fornication were illegal, and, on both sides, attended with adultery; which, when some of the disciples heard, and (since the engagement was so rigorous) began to express their dislike of marriage, our Lord allowed it to be true, that in those who had the gift of continency, a single life was more conducible towards the attainment of the kingdom of heaven, but that those who had it not, and thought proper to marry, ought by all means to adhere to the first institution. After this he began to remind his disciples of several things he had instructed them in before, viz. of the impossibility of preventing scandals and offences; of the duty of forgiving our brother his repeated transgressions; of the necessity and efficacy of faith, in order to be heard in our requests to God; of humility in the performance of our duty, because at the best we are but unprofitable servants; and especially of humility in our addresses to God, for which he gave them a parabolical instance in the behaviour of a Pharisee +3 and publican; the Pharisee vaunting over his own praise at his devo (a) Deut. xxiv. 1, &c. The Pharisees, in their reply to our Saviour, seem to intimate, that the lawfulness of divorces was founded upon a Divine command: "Why then did Moses command to give her a bill of divorcement, and put her away?" Mark x 4. But Moses nowhere commands, but only in some cases permits the doing of this; nor is the design of the whole precept to give any encouragement to this practice, but only to provide, that (in case men will be so perverse and hard-hearted as to turn away their wives upon every slight occasion) the thing might be done in a proper and public manner, not by word of mouth, but by bill of divorcement delivered in form, that when the woman is thus dismissed, she may not be quite ruined, but left at her liberty to become another man's wife. Deut. xxiv. 2. the Mosaic dispensation it was not so. From the +3 The Pharisee's temper is sufficiently discovered + But here the question is-Whether this dispensation excused the common divorces among the Jews (which our Saviour looks upon as an infringement upon the primitive institution of marriage) from all sin, especially that of adultery in the sight of God? It is granted indeed, that these divorces were contrary to the equity and genuine intention of God's first institution of marriage; but then it must be added, that God, by his servant Moses, had dispensed with his own institution; that under such his dispensation there could be no prohibition, and that, where there was no prohibition, there could be no transgression; unless we can suppose that God could forbid and permit the same thing at the same time. Our Saviour indeed, upon this occasion, prescribes a new law, which had not before obtained among the Jews; he retracts the dispensation that Moses had given; he reduces marriage to its primitive institution; and, except in cases of adultery, allows of no divorces, but accounts them all null and invalid: However, under A. M. 4035, &c. or 5441. 31, &c. Vulg. Er. 30. tion, and preferring himself before all others; but the publican, with a dejected heart, confessing his sins, and imploring God's mercy; and yet the latter (according to our Lord's judgment) departed more acceptable to God than the other, because the Divine decree is," that pride should be abased, and humility exalted." The Pharisees, who waited for the coming of the Messiah, and had drawn up a romantic scheme of his appearing with the utmost glory of a temporal prince, came, about this time, and demanded of him, when the kingdom of God t, whereof he had told them so much, was to appear? To which he gave them in answer, "That it should not appear with any outward pomp or splendor, as they vainly imagined; and that, in truth, it was already begun among them, though they had no perception of it :" And then, turning to his disciples, he strictly cautioned them not to be deluded by false Christs and false prophets *, who would pretend to shew them the kingdom of God looks not abroad, but confines his thoughts to his own cause it to be propagated almost as quick as lightning through the world; and that then this Son of Man, se scornfully rejected by them, would also appear suddenly and gloriously to revenge upon them their infidelity, and the affronts which they had offered to him. Pool's and Whitby's Annotations. The distinction between false Christs and false prophets is, that the former took upon them to be Christ, and came under that name; the latter were such as promised and foretold false things. Among the number of the false Christs who appeared in the + Whether the Pharisees put this question to our time prefixed by our Saviour, i. e. between his resurSaviour in derision, because, in his discourses, he had rection and the destruction of Jerusalem, are generalso often mentioned the kingdom of God, or in sober ly reckoned Dositheus, who gave it out that he was seriousness, because at this time they were in strong the Christ whom Moses had foretold, (Basnage, Hisexpectations of the coming of the Messiah, and histoire des Juifs, lib. ii. cap. 13.) Simon Magus, who erecting a secular kingdom among them, is not so bewitched the people by his sorceries, and made easy a matter to determine. Their contemptible ohimself pass "for the great power of God," Acts viii. pinion of Christ inclines some to think the former; 9, 10. and those many more whom the time of the but their generally received opinion about the Mes advent of their king Messiah (as Josephus expressiah gives some countenance to the latter: But in ses it) prevailed with to set up for kings, De Belwhatsoever sense they intended the question, our Sa- lo Jud. lib. i. Among the number of false proviour's answer perfectly fits them. Only we may ob- phets who appeared in this period are likewise reckserve, that by the kingdom of God here, the Pharisees oned Theudas, (not the person mentioned Acts v. and our Saviour meant two very different things: 36.) who, in the government of Fadus, promised his The Pharisees, a flourishing kingdom, wherein the followers that he would divide the river Jordan, (as Messiah was to reduce all other nations under the it was in the days of Joshua and Elias) and give Jewish yoke; but our Saviour, a kingdom of wrath them a free passage, Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. c. 1. and vengeance, which he designed to exercise even The Egyptian Jew, who, in the government of Felix, upon the Jews themselves; and withal a spiritual drew thirty thousand after him to the Mount of O. kingdom, which he intended to erect in the hearts of lives, where he promised by his prayers to make the men by the kindly operations of his word and Spirit, walls of Jerusalem (as those of Jericho once did) fall when his Gospel should be more fully propagated. flat on the ground; thence drive the Roman forces; For this is the meaning of that comparison, As the and there fix the seat of his empire, de Bello Jud. lightning which shineth from one part of heaven to lib. ii. A certain magician, who in the government the other part under heaven, so also shall the coming of Festus led great numbers of Jews into the desert, of the Son of Man be in his day," Luke xvii. 24. He and promised them a deliverance from all their trouhad told them that the kingdom of God was already bles, Antiq. lib. xxii. And several others (as the same come among them, and had appeared in the purity of historian informs us, de Bello Jud. lib. vii.) who his doctrine, and the miracles which he had wrought taught the Jews, even to the last, to expect help and to confirm it, though not in that glaring light as to deliverance. Good reason therefore had our Blessed make them take a proper notice of it; and here he Saviour to caution his disciples against all such pretells them farther, that after his resurrection it would tenders to a Divine mission, since, according to his shine with such a fresh and glorious brightness, by prediction, and as the same historian expresses it, the effusion of the Holy Ghost on his disciples, as "the land, at this time, was quite over-run with imwould render it equal to the splendor of the sun, postors and seducers, who drew the people after shining from one part of heaven to the other, and them in shoals," though the Roman governors were |