(16) The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. (17) And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than one tittle of the law to fail. (18) Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery.
The last of those verses hath been very fully considered in the subject, Mark 10:1, etc. And the first of them in the doctrine, hath been also somewhat noticed, Matthew 11:12. But on this subject I would take occasion in this place to add, that the pressing into the kingdom of God could never be meant by our Lord as intimating an holy pressure. That multitudes flocked to hear John preach, and so they did to hear Christ, is true; but this, for the most part, was mere curiosity, and, as Jesus told them, for the loaves and fishes. John 6:26. The kingdom of heaven suffering violence, means more, a persecution from the world than from the haste which mere sermon followers run to hear them, or from the earnest petitions of truly-awakened souls, who seek acceptance in Christ. And our Lord evidently in this place, as well as in the parallel one of Matthew, meant to say, that while his sheep knew his voice, and followed him, and he gave to them eternal life, the great mass of the Christ-despising age he was going in and out among, only pressed upon him to hear, but not to regard. See Matthew 11:16-26, and note.