Galilaeans? Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." As much as to say, though ye did not rebel against the Romans like these Galilaeans, you have your sins, which will ruin YOU. As long as you are hypocrites, with your mouths full of the cant of religion, and your hearts full of all mean and spiteful passions; as long as you cannot of yourselves discern what is right, and have lost conscience, and the everlasting distinction between right and wrong, so long are you walking blindfold to ruin. There is an adversary against you, who will surely deliver you to the judge some day, and then it will be too late to cry for mercy. And who was that adversary? Who but the everlasting law of God, which says, Thou shalt do justly?--and you Jews are utterly unjust, false, covetous, and unrighteous. Thou shalt love all men; and you are cruel and spiteful, hating each other, and making all mankind hate you. Thou shalt walk humbly with thy God; and you Jews are walking proudly with God; fancying that God belongs only to you; that because you are His chosen people, He will let you commit every sin you choose, as long as you keep His name on your lips, and keep up an empty worship of Him in the temple. That is your adversary, the everlasting moral law of God. And who is the Judge but God Himself, who is set on His throne judging right, while you are doing wrong? And who is the officer, to whom that judge will deliver you? There indeed the Jews were right. It was the Romans whom God appointed to punish them for their sins. All which our Lord had foretold, as all the world knows, came true forty years after in that horrible siege of Jerusalem, which the Jews brought on themselves entirely by their own folly, and pride, and wicked lawlessness. In that siege, by famine and pestilence, by the Romans' swords, by crucifixion, and by each other's hands (for the different factions were murdering each other wholesale up to the very day Jerusalem was taken), thousands of Jews perished horribly, and the rest were sold as slaves over the face of the whole earth, and led away into a captivity from which they could not escape till they had paid the uttermost farthing.
Now let us look at this same parable in the 5th chapter of St Matthew. Remember first that it is part of the sermon on the Mount, which is all about not doctrine, but morality, the law of right and wrong, the law of justice and mercy. You will see then that our Lord is preaching against the same sins as in the 12th chapter of St. Luke. Against a hypocritical religion, joined with a cruel and unjust heart. Those of old time, the Scribes and Pharisees, said merely, Thou shalt not kill. And as long as thou dost not kill thy brother, thou mayest hate him in thy heart and speak evil of him with thy lips. But our Lord says, Not so. Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment. Whosoever shall say to him Raca, or worthless fellow, shall speak insolently, brutally,
Do you like this chapter?
Recommend to friends
