Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 5
Verse 5. Thou hypocrite]
This is a dull generation, and must… be … sharply or cuttingly, that they may be … in the …. And Ministers, by our Saviours example here, must learn, soforeign. to instruct, as to sharpen and set an edge upon the word, so as it… may gore the … consciences of their hearers with smarting …, that they may hear and fear, and God may heal them, …. 13. 15. Christ turnes … here to such, and bitterly … against them, as elsewhere likewise he …, but …, …. 23. of the Gospel, dragging them down to … by a chain of eight …, as so man, links, and closing up all with that …, … serpents, ye generation of vipers, How ….… ye … the … of hell? verse 33. and all to shew us, how such kinde of … should be handled. As for those that are … proud and …, that none dare declare their way to …, God will lay them in the slimy valleyes where are … like them, and more shall come after them: … they … be brought forth to the day of wrath, and,… … they, here Ite Maledicti, go ye …, &c.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam, &c.]
St James telleth us, that the … from above is first …, and then peaceable, without judging without hypocrisy. And these two last are setIt was said of …, … a …, not …. It … as truly … of the …. He hates … not sins These he …, those …. Dike. Act. … fol. …. …, to … us, that the greatest censurers, are commonly, the …; and as any one is more wise, he is more … of his …. Hence also St Peter, after he had said, Lay …, guil, hypocrisy, envy, addeth, and evil …: to note, that censuring, and all other evils of the tongue, are gendred of any of the fore-mentioned. For wicked men are apt to … as … use; as the envious devil accused God to our first parents of envy; the covetous person thinkes all the world to be made of covetcusnesse. Caligula did not believe there was any chast person upon earth. And Bonner said to Mr … the …, I dare say that Cranmer would recant, if he might have his living again: so measuring him by himself. Those that have a blemish in their eye, think the skie to be ever cloudy: and such as are troubled with the …, see all things yellow: so do those that are … with malice and hypocrisie, think all like themselves. Contrarily, Mary … thought the gardiner should have had as much good-will to Christ as shee had. Little did Jacob suspect that Rachel had stole her fathers Idols: or the …, that Judas had harboured such a traytor in his heart, as … against his Master. They rather suspected … man himself then Iudas. And when our Saviour bad him, what thou doest, do Iohn 13 26.…, they thought he had meant of making provision, or giving something to the poor. Also when the woman poured the precious … upon our Saviour, and Iudas … the fat as a waste, though he did it because he was a thief, and cared not a pin for the poor, yet all the Disciples approved of what he said, and…. 26. …. are therefore made authors of his speech by one of …; so little did they perceive his … or his …. True goodnesse is not …, censorious, quarellous. It is for an Esau to complain of his fathers store; Hast thou but one blessing? of his brothers subtilty; was he not rightly called Jacob? The godly man casts the … stone at himself, and with Iacob … out, I am not worthy Lord, the least of thy loving …. Loe, I have …, and I have done wickedly, … these … what have they done? Let thine hand I pray thee be against me, &c. said2 Sam. 2. 7. David, when he was come to himself; who before this, when he had … his conscience with the stain and sting of …, both … fact of the cruel rich man (complained of by Nathan) with too much severity, even above the Law; and shortlyIbid. …. 31. after tortured the miserable Ammonites without all mercy, putting them under saws, harrows, and axes of iron, and making them passe thorow the brick-kilne, &c. This he did before … conscience was awaked out of that dead Lethargy (whereinto Satan had cast him) by the trumpet of the Law: before he was convinced of sinne by the sanctifying Spirit, and purged thereby from those pollutions he had … wallowed in. But if God will but once more make him to hear of joy and gladnesse,…, 51. 8. 12, 13 that his broken bones may …; if he will but restore unto him the joy of his salvation, and stablish him with his free Spirit, then, insteed of censuring, and setting against others, he will teach transgressours Gods waies, and sinners shall be converted unto him. He will no longer insult, but in meekness: instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them (as he had done him) repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may awake … of the … of the devil, who (as the Ammonites were by David) are taken captive2 Tim. 2. 26. by him at his pleasure. Put them in minde, saith Paul, to speak Tit. 3. 2, 3.evil of no man. And why? For we our selves also (even I Paul, and thou Titus) were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, &c. and have yet still a world of work within doors about the discovering and …, the mortifying and mourning over our own unruly lusts, and unchristian practices. A fincere heart is ever most censorious and severe against it self. But it is set here by our Saviour, as a visible brand upon the face of the …, that as he is ever tampering and medling with other mens motes; so he never hath either leisure or pleasure to look into his own rotten heart, and rebellious courses. Galileus used …, to … mountains in the Moon: so doe these to finde faults in those that are farre better then themselves; they can pierce beyond the Moon, and spy the least moat in the Sunne, the smallest infirmity in the most glorious Saint; yea, some errours and exorbitancies that never had any … but in their imagination, detesting those sins in others that they … in themselves.
And then shalt thou see clearly, &c.]
There is in every godly man an holy bashfulnesse, an ingenuous modesty, that he would be foully ashamed to charge others with those crimes, which … allow in himself. Not so every profligate …, frontlesse Pharisee, censorious hypocrite. These think, belike, to binde … their own bleeding souls with a palliate cure, as they call it, by goring very bloudily into other mens consciences, whereas they never yet purged their own. Thus dealt the Priests…. and Elders with our Saviour, the false Apostles with Paul, Porphyry Iisdem … & …. Arch. … in gravis. ques. In … & vita sunt boni veraces in sermone, in …: sed … est … & …. Jacob. Lielensten. ….(and others of the same brain) with the Primitive Christians, and the Papists with the Waldensis; whose freedom of speech, in blaming and reproving the dissolute manners, and actions of the Clergy, Effecit, ut plures … iis … a quibus … alieni, saith …, was the cause that they were reported to be Manichees, Catharists, what not? And yet a certain Dominican was forced to confesse, that … were good in their lives, true in their speeches, full of brotherly love one towards another, but their faith, saith he, is incorrigible, and as bad as may be. And why? but because they maintained, that the Pope was Antichrist, that the Court of Rome was intolerably corrupted, the Clergy debauched, &c. Novum … Caie Caesar, &c. S. Paul was become the Galathians …, because he told them the truth, and so were these, the …. There was found a certain Postiller, that meeting withOmnis vita … est, & nihil bonum … summo …. this … passage in S. Augustine. The whole life of … is …; neither is there any thing good without the chiefest good; … est … sententia, said he, This is a cruell sentence. This was a sinfull censure, say I, passed by a man that was never trulyAug. de vera innocen. cap. 56. humbled with the sight and sense of his own wicked and wretched … by nature and practice; a stranger to himself, and therefore so uncharitable to another. It is not evil to marry, saith one, but good to be wary. So, it is not … to reprove an …, but let a man take heed he hear not; Phisitian healthy self. …, Nihil …, …, ….first pull the beam out of thine own eye. The Apostle after he had given rules for reproving, Ephes. 5. 11, 12, 13. …, …. 15. See that ye walk circumspectly, or exactly, that none may … blame or blemish you, with any foul fault. Infirmities are … … o …, qui ….in the best, and will be, till they come to be the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. 12. 23. And this is a means to make them warn the … with more feeling experience and compassion, Heb. 2. 17. But say they be … of grosse sinnes (as these …) though they should begin at home, and first cast out the beam of their own eye, yet if they speak according to Gods Word, and the thing be so indeed, hear them hardly, Matth. …. 2, 3. … by them. An Angel may speak in an …, and God by Balaam. The words doe but passe thorow him (as when…. 13. …. a man speaks … a trunke) they are not polluted by him, because not his.