possess, and Christ really drove them out from their possession, and emancipated the soul from their control.

If the question is asked why this demoniac possession is unknown now, the answer is, that it is not unknown; that, on the contrary, demoniacal possession is the most natural explanation of certain forms of so-called "moral insanity; that it should exist in less degree and extent is just what we should expect from the declarations of Scripture (Zech. 13:2; 1 John 3: 8). How far the victim of demoniacal possession was responsible for his condition, how far he is to be regarded as guilty, and how far as simply unfortunate, is a difficult if not an insoluble question. "The common characteristic of all was cowardice, a cowardly surrender of a weak and lowered consciousness to wicked influences."-(Lange.) Every such surrender by the soul is one step toward a complete enthrallment of the soul by evil, though that enthrallment rarely becomes complete in this life.

The accounts of this miracle in Mark 2: 1-12, and Luke 5: 17-26, are fuller than that given here. From these accounts it appears that the crowd was so great that the friends of the paralytic could not reach the house in which Christ was teaching, and that they uncovered the roof and let the patient down with the bed or mattress on which he was lying. This constituted the evidence of their faith, commended by the Lord. The miracle took place, not, as might be supposed, on Christ's return from the country of the Gadarenes, but more probably at about the time of the healing of the leper, recorded in Matt. 8 2-4. For notes on the miracle see Mark 2: 1-12.

Ch. 9:9-13. THE CALL OF MATTHEW.-A BAD BUSINESS IS A POOR EXCUSE FOR NOT FOLLOWING CHRIST; FOLLOW HIM OUT OF IT. THE POWER OF CHRIST's

CALLING: IT SUMMONS FROM ALL RANKS AND ALL AVOCATIONS.-CHRIST'S SOCIABILITY THE TRUE MODEL OF CHRISTIAN SOCIABILITY.-A RIGHT AND A WRONG WAY TO ASSOCIATE WITH SINNERS; A RIGHT AND A WRONG WAY TO BE SEPARATE FROM THEM. CHRIST ATE WITH SINNERS BUT WAS SEPARATE FROM THEM; THE PHARISEES SCORNED THEM BUT WERE ONE WITH THEM.—MATTHEW AN EXAMPLE OF A FISHER OF MEN: CALLED HIMSELF, HE CALLS OTHERS.-SIN IS BOTH A WEAKNESS AND

v Mark 2: 14;

A DISEASE; PERSONAL SYMPATHY AFFORDS SPIRITUAL STRENGTH AND IS A SPIRITUAL MEDICINE. THERE IS LESS RELIGION IN SACRIFICE WITHOUT MERCY THAN IN MERCY WITHOUT SACRIFICE; TRUE RELIGION CONSISTS IN SACRIFICE AND MERCY.—THE EXCLUDED AND THE INCLUDED IN CHRIST'S CALLING: THE EXCLUDED ALL THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS; THE INCLUDED ALL CONSCIOUS OF SIN.

The call of a publican, and a subsequent feast given by him in honor of the Lord, are recorded by Mark 2: 13-17, and Luke 5: 27-32; but in Mark and Luke the publican is called Levi. Matthew never speaks of himself as Levi in his own gospel, and is never spoken of as Levi by the other Evangelists in any other passage. This has led some commentators to suppose that there were two persons and two feasts, a supposition which is quite improbable, and is now universally rejected. Changes of name in commemoration of any great event were not uncommon among the Jews, of which the cases of Abram or Abraham, Jacob or Israel, and Saul of Tarsus or Paul (Gen. 17: 5; 32: 28; Acts 13 : 9) are striking illustrations; that of Simon changed to Feter (John 1: 42, and note there) is still more in point. If, as is probable, the name Matthew means the same as the modern name Theodore, Gift of God or Given to God, its very significance would help to account for the change. Chrysostom and Jerome note the "self-denial of the Evangelist who disguises not his former life, but adds even his name, when the others had concealed him under another appellation.” Observe that in ch. 10 : 3 Matthew calls himself "Matthew the publican,'

while neither Mark nor Luke so characterize him in the lists of the apostles. There can be no doubt that the call of Matthew preceded the Sermon on the Mount, which was an ordination sermon following the solemn consecration of the twelve to their apostolic office (Luke 6: 13-20); nor that it immediately succeeded the cure of the paralytic, with which Matthew directly connects it by his phrase as Jesus passed forth from thence." At what time the feast was given by Matthew to Christ is not so certain. All the Evangelists connect it with the call of Matthew; it is a rational supposition that Matthew gave it at this time; in that case he would naturally invite his old associates to the feast; whereas, after entering on his apostolate, and breaking off his old

man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

life with them, he would be less likely to invite them; and it seems almost certain that this feast preceded the charges brought against Jesus, and recorded in Matthew 11:19. On the other hand, Matthew connects this feast directly with the healing of Jairus' daughter (see verse 18, below), which Mark and Luke place immediately after the cure of the Gadarene demoniac, but without any definite note of time. The better opinion is that the feast was given at the time of Matthew's call, though this is by no means certain.

Accepting this opinion, and combining the accounts of the three Evangelists, the fact and its significance may be concisely stated thus: Christ calls a tax-gatherer to leave his office and join the band of itinerant disciples; the call is accepted with alacrity; and as a means of knowing his new master, and at the same time bringing him to a knowledge of his old associates, Levi gives a feast to which both Christ and his disciples, and his own former companions, are invited. At the same time he takes on the new name of Matthew, which he henceforth bears. By accepting the invitation Christ enters into familiar intercourse with a class of men whose moral character was bad, whose reputation was worse, and whose iniquitous avocation was justly odious to all men. The Pharisees ask the disciples, tauntingly, for an explanation, and Christ replies by declaring his object to be the elevation and redemption of sinners, and by referring them to the Scriptures which they pretended to teach, but whose spirit they totally misapprehended (2 Cor. 3: 15, 16), as the authority for his course.

9. As Jesus passed forth from thence. This indisputably connects the call of Matthew with the preceding miracle, and places both in the period of Christ's earlier ministry in Galilee, where it is placed by Mark. Chrysostom observes that Christ calls Matthew immediately after having asserted and demonstrated in the preceding miracle his power to forgive sins. Matthew. Luke says that he was the son of Alphæus. This was a not uncommon name among the Jews. It is not probable it was the same Alphæus who is described in Matthew 10:3 (see see note there) as the father of James. This is the first mention of Matthew in the Gospels. On his life and character, see note at end of chapter Sitting at the receipt of custom. The taxes levied by the Roman government on the inhabitants of Palestine may be roughly divided into two classes-internal taxes and tolls. The former included all taxes levied on persons and property directly; the latter, all customs levied on goods in transit; and answered

10.

10 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

to our modern custom dues. They are distinguished in Rom. 13:7 as tribute and custom. The customs were levied on all goods imported for trade, though not, ordinarily, on such as were imported for the purchaser's personal use; they were levied at harbors, piers, and gates of cities; they amounted to a sum varying at different times from one-eighth to one-fortieth of the value of the goods; any attempt at concealment was punished by the confiscation of the articles. Matthew probably sat in the custom-house of Capernaum to gather some rate or toll of those that crossed the sea. Luke adds that he was a publican (see also Matt. 10:3); and some knowledge of the character of the publicans is necessary to understand the significance of his call and the attending circumstances, as well as to explain the frequent references to them in the | N. T.

OF THE PUBLICANS. These were inferior officers employed as collectors of the Roman taxes, which were of a character to make any collector sufficiently odious. Every article exported or imported paid a customs-tax; every article sold paid a tax on each sale; every house, every door, every column, had its special tax; all property, real and personal, was taxed; and the citizens of subordinate provinces, including therefore the Jews, paid in addition a poll-tax. The method of collecting these taxes made them the more burdensome, and those employed in their collection more odious. The provinces were farmed out by the Roman government to wealthy individuals, or joint-stock companies, who paid large sums for the privilege of collecting the taxes. They in turn let these provinces in smaller districts to sub-contractors, who employed in the collection of the taxes the lowest and worst class of the native population, since no others would assume a task so hateful. They were required to pay over to their superiors the exorbitant sum fixed by the law, and depended for their profit on what they could make by fraud and extortion. They overcharged, brought false charges of smuggling to extort hush-money, seized upon property in case of dispute and held it until their levy was paid, forbade the farmer to reap his standing crops until they had wrung from him all that his penury could produce. They were universally feared, hated, and despised throughout the empire; but nowhere more than in Palestine. The Jews not only accounted all payment of tribute to a foreign and heathen government as a national degradation, but also the servitude which compelled such payment as a condition dishonoring to God;

13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, Ix will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.y

14

Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?

hence the publicans were in their eyes not only odious as tax-collectors, but yet more hateful as traitors to their nation and apostates from their religious faith. The Talmud classes them with thieves and assassins, and regards their repentance as impossible. No money known to have come from them was received for religious uses. They were classed with sinners, with harlots, with heathen in public estimation, and probably in their actual and customary companionships (Matt. 9: 11; 11: 19; 18: 17; 21: 31, 32). Nor was their ill-repute confined to the Holy Land. Cicero declares theirs to be the basest of all livelihoods. It was a current Latin proverb throughout the empire, “All the publicans are altogether robbers." Even Nero made an attempt to abolish both the nefarious system and the order of publicans which sprang from it, but their moneyed influence was too great, and he abandoned the endeavor. It was out of the lower class of these publicans that Matthew was called; and from them and their natural associates the guests were composed who attended the feast which Matthew gave.

10. In the house, i. e., in Matthew's house. He gave the feast (Luke 5: 29), using it, as a fisher of men, to catch his old associates. Reclined with him. The posture at meal was that of reclining, as indicated in the cut. Thus, to recline

at table with publicans and sinners was to come into the most intimate social relations with them. That culture which is so refined that it cannot bear contact with the sinful is not Christian culture.

11. Unto his disciples. Not to Christ, of whom they habitually stood in awe (compare Matt. 22:46). Perhaps there was in this question an endeavor to estrange the disciples from their Lord. Luke says they murmured, i. e., talked over in a low voice privately, not intending that Jesus should hear. Their complaint was probably made subsequent to the feast; for the Pharisees could not have been present at it without stulti

fying themselves. Why eateth. Observe the tenor of the complaint; it is not that he taught sinners, but that he associated with them. The same complaint would be made now against any clergyman who should associate with the same outlawed class in the community. It is not always true that the man is known by the company he keeps; nor always true that we are to avoid bad company. There is no instance in the Gospels in which Christ refused an invitation to a social gathering; and none in which he refused to associate with any on account of their social or moral character, though both he and Paul recognize the necessity of casting some out from all fellowship with us (Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5:9). But the significance of Christ's social life is interpreted by the two verses which follow, and by his uniform practice of availing himself of these social opportunities to teach some truth to or to inspire a higher life in the guests of the occasion (Luke 11 : 38, etc.; 14: 1, etc.; 19: 5-10).

* *

12, 13. Jesus X said unto them. The disciples made no answer. It is possible that they were as much perplexed as the Pharisees (see Acts 10: 14, 15). It is not improbable that they were overawed by the assumed religious superiority and purity of the religious teachers of Judaism. They that be whole; rather, strong. Sin is a disease needing cure; it is a moral weakness; the victim needs moral strength rather than instruction; and it is through social fellowship that the way is opened to impart the needed strength to the moral nature and enable it to conquer its temptations.

13. Go ye and learn. This is said to have been a common form of speech among the Jewish rabbis when they referred their hearers to the Scriptures; Jesus thus treats the religious teachers as themselves pupils, and sends them to their own sacred writings to study their meaning. "He signifies that not he was transgressing the law, but they; as if he had said, Whereof accuse me? Because I bring sinners to amendment? Why then ye must accuse the Father also for this.”—(Chrysostom.) I will have mercy and not sacrifice. The quotation appears to be from Hosea 6:6, but its spirit is embodied in many passages in the O. T. (1 Sam. 15: 22; Ps. 50: 8-15); especially in the prophets (Isaiah 1: 11-17; Amos 5 : 21–24; Mic. 6:7,8). It would appear utterly incomprehensible that the Bible students of the first century could have failed to apprehend the meaning of

15 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom2 is with them? but the days will come, when the bride

groom shall be taken from them, and then shalla they fast. 16 No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old.

Ch. 9: 14-17. OF FASTING.-THE CAUSE OF CHRISTIAN JOY IS THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST; THE CAUSE OF CHRISTIAN MOURNING IS HIS WITHDRAWAL.-THE JOYOUSNESS OF THE RELIGION OF JESUS; IT IS A WEDDING FEAST.-TRUE AND FALSE FASTING. THE LAW OF

NEW LIFE CANNOT BE PATCHED UPON THE OLD; THE NEW SPIRIT CANNOT BE CONTAINED IN OLD FORMS.

Not * * the righteous but sinners. This is not exactly equivalent to "those who think themselves righteous" and "those who confess themselves sinners," as Wordsworth explains it. Christ takes the Pharisees at their own estimation of themselves, and the publicans at the Pharisees' estimation of them, and says: “I have come to preach the doctrine of repentance as the condition of entering the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 4 : 17). Evidently the doctrine of repentance is for sinners such as these publicans are, not for the righteous such as you are!" It is in so far a keen irony of their self-righteousness. Chrysostom refers to Gen. 3: 22 and Psalm 50: 12, as similarly ironical. Compare for significance of the entire passage John 9: 39-41; 1 Tim. 1: 15; Rev. 3:17. To repentance. These words are not found here or in Mark in the best manuscripts; but there is no doubt of their authenticity in Luke, and therefore no doubt that they are a part of Christ's response, and qualify and interpret his declaration. He comes to sinners that he may bring sinners to himself; he does not conform to them, but conforms them to him by the renewing of their minds. His example is authority for social mingling with sinners, but not for acquiescing in or giving even tacit sanction to their sinful practices. These words, "to repentance," are the answer to the charge of Celsus (second century). Christ came into the world to make the most terrible and dreadful society, for he calls sinners and not the righteous; so that the body he came to assemble is a body of profligates, separate from good people, among whom they were before mixed. He has rejected all the good and collected all the bad."

"Jesus

This incident is recorded also in Mark 2: 18-22 and Luke 5: 33-38, and in the same connection. No doubt it occurred on the occasion of Matthew's feast.

were

14. The disciples of John, i. e., the Baptist. Luke adds "and the Pharisees." John the Baptist was in prison; he was himself perplexed by the course of Christ's mission (Matt. 11 : 2,3); it is not strange that his disciples felt aggrieved that Jesus, instead of sorrowing and fasting over the national degeneracy that suffered the imprisonment of their master, should be feasting with publicans and sinners. Observe how, customarily, Christ left his sometimes enigmatical example to work out its own effect without explaining it, unless called on for an explanation. We and the Pharisees fast oft. Mark says they "used to fast;" literally, fasting," which may mean that at this time they were observing a fast, with which the joyousness of Matthew's feast seemed incongruous. In addition to the fast of the Day of Atonement, prescribed by Moses (Lev. 23: prescribed by Moses (Lev. 23: 26-32), the Jews had instituted several national fasts, chiefly to commemorate respectively the several captures of Jerusalem by alien armies; special fasts were also common (Esther 4: 15-17; Jer. 36:9; Joel 1 : 14) ; and the stricter of the Pharisees observed the fifth and the second day of every week (Luke 18: 12) as a fast day, because on the fifth Moses was believed to have gone up into Sinai, and on the second to have come down. Fasts were connected with their superstitions as well as with their religion; they fasted to obtain auspicious dreams, or to secure the fulfillment of a dream, or to escape the fulfillment of an inauspicious dream, or to secure any desired object, or avert any threatened ill. This fasting was sometimes an absolute deprivation of all food, sometimes only an exclusion of all viands but those of the simplest and plainest description (Dan. 10: 2, 3).

15. Children of the bridechamber. The companions of the bridegroom, answering to our modern groomsmen. The wedding ceremonies of the Jews lasted often for days; the bride

garment; for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.

17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles,

elseb the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

groom, with the children of the bridechamber, went to the house of the bride, and brought her to the bridegroom's house, where a great feast was given; the nuptials were always celebrated with great festivities and mirth; and the Talmud, which forbade to eat, to drink or to wash the face on the Day of Atonement, made an exception in favor of the bride. The simile used by Christ could not fail to recall to the disciples of John their master's use of the same simile (John 3:29), whom Christ thus cites, though indirectly, in answer to their question. The significance of the metaphor is unmistakable. Christ is the bridegroom; the church is the bride; the ordained teachers in the church are the children of the bridechamber, who are instrumental in bringing together bride and groom; the whole period of time intermediate Christ's first public ministry and his second coming is the wedding-feast, during which the children of the bridechamber are bringing their Lord to the bride; the marriage-supper of the Lamb in the heavenly kingdom is the final consummation | of the wedding ceremony. There is significance in the fact that this metaphor employed in the O. T. to designate the relation between God and his chosen people is used in the N. T. to symbolize the relation between Christ and his Church (Isa. 54: 5: Jer. 3:14; Hosea 2: 19, 20; Matt. 22: 1-14; 25: 1–13; Eph. 5: 30-32; Rev. 19:7). Mourn. Observe that, while John's disciples ask why Christ's disciples do not fast, he replies that they cannot mourn. Fasting is only the external symbol of mourning, or its natural expression and effect; where there is no mourning, there is no virtue in fasting. Luke's report is: "Can ye make the child of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them?" i. e., Can you by laws and regulations make them while in the period of their joy, fast in truth? Shall be taken from them. The first distinct intimation afforded by Christ of his own crucifixion. Its meaning can have been but imperfectly understood by either the disciples of John or by his own disciples; but its pathos could not but have been felt. Shall they fast. Rather, will they fast; it is not imperative, but simply prophetic; it indicates a fact, it does not embody a command. In fact, the disciples suffered no persecution while Christ lived, and neither knew any especial experience of mourning, prior to his passion, nor observed any seasons of fasting. Luther remarks on the two kinds of self-denial and suffering, the one which we inflict on ourselves (1 Kings 18: 28), the other that which God lays upon us, and to

which we cheerfully submit (John 18: 11). There is no virtue in the first; there is benefit in the second.

What does Christ here teach respecting the obligation of fasting? The laws of Moses prescribed many feast days and but one fast day. Christ. himself prescribed no set fasts, and none were observed by the apostolic church. But occasional fasts were observed throughout the O. T. history by the Jews (1 Sam. 7 : 6; Neh. 1:4; Joel 2: 12. Compare Isaiah 58: 3-6), and in the N. T. history both by Christ and his apostles (Matt. 4:2; Acts 13:2, 3; 14:23). Reading Christ's declaration in the light of this history, the plain inference from it appears to be this: Fasting is the expression of mourning; while Christ was with his disciples in the body, there was no occasion for mourning or fasting; so when the soul is conscious of his spiritual presence, when the bridegroom is with the children of the bridechamber, they cannot be made to fast in reality and truth; but whenever Christ has withdrawn from the soul, whenever times of darkness hide, or experiences of sin banish him from the soul, or the strong need of a clearer sense of his presence overcomes the desire for food, or a failure in his work indicates a lack of his presence and power (Matt. 17: 21), then 17:21), there will be fasting. In other words, fasting is Christian only when it is the natural expression of a Christian experience. of a Christian experience. "Fasting should be. the genuine offspring of inward and spiritual sorrow, of the sense of the absence of the Bridegroom in the soul-not the forced and stated fasts of the old covenant, now passed away. It is an instructive circumstance, that in the Reformed Churches, while those stated fasts which were retained at their first emergence from popery are universally disregarded even by their best and holiest sons, nothing can be more affecting and genuine than the universal and solemn observance of any real occasion of fasting placed before them by God's providence.”—(Alford.)

16. No man puts a patch of unfinished (unfulled) material upon an old garment; for the patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent takes place. The student will get the significance of the original in several particulars which may escape him otherwise, if he will compare this transaction with that of our English version. Garments in the East were made sometimes of leather, sometimes of cloth. The leather which had not been dressed, and the cloth which had not been. fulled, i. e., soaked and cleansed with water,