CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 7:3. Mote.—The Greek noun so translated means a stalk, or twig. The illustration seems to have been a familiar one among the Jews, and a proverb all but verbally identical is found as a saying of Rabbi Tarphon (Plumptre). Beam.—A graphic and almost droll representation of a comparatively great fault. The word means a log, joist, or rafter (Morison).
Matthew 7:6. Give not, etc.—The connection between this verse and the preceding section is not quite obvious. It seems to be this—although evil and censorious judgment is to be avoided, discrimination is needful. The Christian must be judicious, not judicial (Carr). Dogs.—Among the Jews dogs were unclean, and, as a rule, fierce and undomesticated. They are the self-appointed scavengers of the streets; and while engaged in their scavenging operations, or while lying basking in the sun, touch-me-not is the outstanding feature of their character (Morison). Swine.—The reference is to wild swine; for the animal was undomesticated among the Jews (ibid.).
Matthew 7:12. Therefore.—The practical result of what has been said both in regard to judgment and to prayer is mutual charity. The thought of the Divine judgment teaches forbearance; the thought of the Divine goodness teaches kindness (Carr).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 7:1-12
True brotherhood.—That duty towards our neighbour which is dealt with as far back as Matthew 5:38-48, is again discussed here; but from a somewhat different side. There we had the general principle, that all men should be loved. Here we have a word of caution as to the exercise of that love. Not everything that seems desirable is to be attempted in that line. Not every way of attempting it is pleasing to God.
I. Not everything to be done.—This is true, on the one hand, on the score of faithfulness and plain speaking. As a general rule this is binding on us in regard to our neighbour. Even the old law recognised this (Leviticus 19:17). If we can in any way help it, it is not being neighbourly to let our brother ruin himself. But there are cases in which to attempt to prevent this would not be profitable to him; and in which, therefore, such an attempt is not incumbent on us. One such case is where our doing so would have the appearance of sitting in “judgment” upon him (Matthew 7:1). That would have the very effect we desire to avoid. Instead of leading him to see his own sin and consequent danger, it would rather set him on looking for ours. He would “judge” us, in fact (Matthew 7:1-2), instead of judging himself; and would rather, so, be encouraged by us, than discouraged, in sin. Not to say, also, that this very anxiety of ours to be “judging” him would show our incapacity for the task. To be so very keen about our brother’s fault is to be ignorant of our own. To make so much of his “mote” is to make too little—at least an equal sin—of our “beam” (Matthew 7:3). Unless, therefore, you would make a double muddle of all in this matter, begin with thyself (Matthew 7:4-5). Rectifying thyself is sometimes the only way—it is always the best way—of effectually rectifying thy neighbour. The same caution applies, next, in the way of kindness and love. Here also the general rule is abundantly plain. Why is that which is “holy” entrusted to us? That we may make it known in our turn (1 Peter 4:10; Matthew 5:16; Matthew 10:8). Why are the precious “pearls” of truth placed in our hand? That we may give them—that we may “fling” (?) them—to others in turn. But there are marked exceptions, as there were before, to this general rule. There are those who, like “dogs,” do what you will, always “return” to their filth (2 Peter 2:22). It is only to profane what is “holy” to offer it here. There are others, like swine, who show by their actions, by their wallowing in the mire, that they cannot appreciate what is precious. No abundance of it, therefore, can be otherwise than offensive to them. Thus to waste our love, therefore—thus to do harm by it—is not incumbent on us. Rather, in fact, it is forbidden to us by the very nature of love.
II. Not every way to be followed.—Not every way, on the one hand, when we do feel that we ought to caution and warn. This on account of our relation to God. Do we not know, on our part, what God is to us? Always ready to listen and grant? (Matthew 7:7-8). More ready by far to do so, in His perfection, than we are, in our imperfection, even to those we love the best? (Matthew 7:9-11). Let us seek, therefore, on our part, so to be in our turn. Not warning men, like Elijah once, in impatience, as though altogether beyond hope (1 Kings 19:10). Nor yet like Jonah (Matthew 4:1, etc.), in anger, as though those he preached to were, in any case, too bad to be spared. For the worst we deal with are, after all, only “dogs” and “swine” in a figure. In God’s sight they are men like ourselves (cf. Acts 14:15; James 5:17). God, in past days, has often enlightened and converted men as brutal and as stubborn as any before us. Let Him, therefore, in this matter, be both our example and motive. In reasoning with others, let us be as full of hope and as full of love as Himself. That is to be like Him—that is to please Him as well. Also, next, when we refrain from speaking, let it be with discrimination and sympathy. Our relation to men shows this to be the only right way of so doing. Before we do thus refrain, let us be quite sure that we have sufficient ground for so doing. And, to be sure of this, let us try to put ourselves in our brother man’s case. This is the old rule about doing our duty towards our neighbour (Matthew 22:39-40). This is Christ’s rule as well (Matthew 7:22). No better rule can be found. No juster one. It carries its equity on its face. No handier one. It is always within reach. No simpler one. Anyone can apply it. Let it be applied then in this case as well as in others. Never refrain from speaking where such refraining—supposing you and your brother to have exchanged places—would seem a hardship to you. Stand where he stands, in short, and then do as you would have him do in that case.
Here, again, we see as before:—
1. How admirable is the wisdom of Christ.—Who else ever thought of such cautions as these? In what other teaching than His could the necessity for them arise? And who else could have seen such protection against the dangers involved in that simple rule which had been taught and studied for so many centuries past?
2. How admirable is the mercy of God.—Even this searching wisdom cannot see any blemish in it. If only man were to man what God is to man, much of the sin of the world would be gone. Also some of the worst of its griefs. So Christ teaches us here.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 7:1-6. Cautions against rash judgments.—
I. The caution given.—“Judge not.” The whole meaning of the passage depends on the meaning of the first word—“Judge” (κρίνετε), which has various renderings. Sometimes it means,
(1) to condemn (John 3:17);
(2) to pronounce guilty (Romans 2:1-3; Romans 14:22);
(3) to proceed against, accuse, arraign (John 12:48; Acts 23:6; Acts 24:21);
(4) to pass sentence of condemnation (John 7:51);
(5) but there is another meaning which doubtless is the meaning in the text—to express an unfavourable opinion of person or persons—censoriousness. Our Saviour does not forbid a righteous judgment. The judicial element is in our very nature and we cannot avoid it. Judges, preachers, teachers, parents, etc., must condemn the wrong and publicly censure it. But the great Teacher cautions earnestly against judging with a censorious or unkindly spirit—the spirit of animosity and illiberality and uncharitableness.
II. The reasons adduced.
1. It provokes retaliation.—That is, all such rash judgments will meet with due retribution (Matthew 7:2). We can never escape this law of reciprocity. A man receives back what he gives. Haman was hanged on his own gallows. Ishmael’s hands were against everybody’s, and every man’s hand against him. “He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it.” Every act has its consequences. This retributive principle is:
(1) In kind. Kindness begets kindness; but censoriousness begets censoriousness.
(2) In quantity. Nature gives back in proportion as we give; society gives back as we give to it.
2. It condemns ourselves (Matthew 7:3).—Is not the disposition to be severe and censorious on others indicative of greater evil in ourselves? What a severe judgment David pronounced upon the man described by Nathan! But who was the man? “Thou art the man.” The Pharisee’s judgment on the publican was very severe; but who was he that went his way home justified?
III. The duty enjoined.—“Give not that which is holy,” etc. Though we are cautioned against rash and censorious judgment, yet we are urged in the passage to discriminate between what is good and evil. The lesson is one of discretion in dealing with certain classes of people—as to admission to the sacred privileges and functions of the church, and as to the reality of their Christian profession and the sincerity of their spiritual experience. Notice:—
1. The prudence required in church government.
2. The proper reserve or safeguard in the kingdom of God.—Do not admit the “dogs” and “swine” to your spiritual communion, for you will only infuriate them. The dogs will bark and snarl at everything holy and sacred, and the “swine” will only indulge in sensuality. “Dogs” and “swine” admitted into the church do more harm by far than out-and-out infidels.—J. Harries.
A twofold warning.—I. Against making too much of the evil we see, or think we see, in others (Matthew 7:1-5).
II. Against making too little of it (Matthew 7:6).—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
Matthew 7:1. Rash judging condemned.—
I. Consider this prohibition in its relation to the scribes and Pharisees.—
1. They had a great deal of pride and self-conceit, as if it belonged to them to be dictators to all others (Luke 18:11).
2. They had in their minds a great contempt of, and a great uncharitableness towards, all other persons that were not of their own sect and party (Luke 18:9).
3. Agreeably to this inward disposition of their minds, they were very censorious of others; making faults where there were none, and aggravating them where they were.
4. When they had made this rash judgment in their own minds, they did not content themselves to contemplate it there, but took all opportunities to vent it in their words and actions; carrying themselves haughtily and superciliously to others (Isaiah 65:5).
5. In all companies they were the dictators, the reprovers, and monitors. It was a crime for a man to see with his own eyes and not with theirs.
6. In admonishing and reproving their neighbour, their aim was not so much his edification and amendment of life, as the gaining him over to their party; or if they could not compass that, the running him down, and exposing him.
II. The true meaning of the prohibition.—
1. Note some lawful practices which might seem to fall under this prohibition.
(1) We are not to understand that the office of judges or magistrates was intended to be prohibited by these words. Our Saviour was now preaching to a multitude of private persons, showing them their duty.
(2) Nor is the authority of any other superiors over their inferiors designed to be taken away or encroached upon. Parents may, and ought to, administer admonition to their children; masters and mistresses, and overseers, may, by authority, judge of their servants, etc.
(3) Nor is it designed that any man should not use a judgment of discretion as far as relates to the conduct of himself and his affairs (1 John 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:6).
(4) Far less are they guilty of the breach of this rule, who, in the execution of their office, do in ever so severe terms, exclaim against vice in general (2 Timothy 4:1; Titus 2:15).
(5) Nor are they guilty of the breach of this rule, who, with a spirit of meekness, and from a principle of charity, and with a design to reform, and not to expose, perform the duty of admonishing and rebuking the offending brother (Leviticus 19:17; Luke 17:3).
2. The evil forbidden is censoriousness, i.e. a love to find fault; and this has commonly some bitter root of vice from which it proceeds; such as pride and vanity, malice and envy, resentment and revenge, cruelty, or delighting in mischief, though often it flows from mere custom and thoughtlessness.
(1) In this censorious spirit there is always a secret joy and gladness to find fault; whereas in a good man there is always the quite contrary temper.
(2) The censorious man is forward to judge without any obligation from his office; perhaps without any clearness of evidences, upon some idle stories, or bare suspicions, surmises, and suggestions; whereas a charitable man is very unwillingly drawn into any such employ.
(3) He has a strong bias and inclination to find his neighbour guilty; accepts of very slender proof of anything that tends to his defamation, sometimes makes up what is wanting in fact, with his own malicious suggestions and fruitful invention.
(4) He usurps the ascendant in all companies.
(5) He allows himself an uncharitable sharpness in censuring other men’s faults; never reflecting on the frailty of human nature in general, nor his own errors and follies in particular.
(6) He is not contented to judge and condemn the evil actions of his neighbour; but commonly adds some aggravating remarks and aggravations of his own, with an intent to show with what an evil spirit and intention he did them. He enters upon God’s prerogative, and judges of his neighbour’s heart and thoughts.
(7) Another character of this judging, censorious temper is that the person in whom it resides never keeps it to himself; he is impatient till he sets it abroad.
(8) He endeavours to fix the crime of every single person upon his whole party, and to load any opinion which he has a mind to blacken with all the evil consequences that can be drawn from the errors and follies of any of those that maintain it.
(9) This spirit of rash and censorious judgment is near akin to schism in the church, sedition in the state, and a downright spirit of persecution.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
On judging.—If there be one thing more injurious to the harmonies and the best charm of life than another it is the habit of judging. The world is full of unjust judgments. Where is the mischief? What matter?
I. If we have any attachment to the gospel of Jesus Christ it ought to matter on this ground—that without any sufficient cause we think less kindly of a fellow-mortal.—It must be allowed, of course, that of many we are bound to think severely; though that in itself is a calamity, and by every follower of Jesus should be felt to be such. But in this case there is no certain or sufficient need. “Where’s the harm?” There’s the harm. Two children of the common Father, two travellers on the common road, two human beings, the pathos of whose life should of itself create a common regard, are unbrothered by an unnecessary and an unjust judgment. This is a habit quickly formed. You will find men, comparatively young, who can hardly indulge in any language but that of depreciation.
II. A soul of this species looks uncommonly lost.—To see meanness everywhere; to suspect and asperse everything; to detract from and to depreciate; to have no great enthusiasms, no great reverences, no admiration, no spontaneous and whole-hearted approval—the soul of a weasel is a better and larger thing than that.
III. Even if we were commanded to judge, we cannot judge.—What, beyond broadest facts, do I know of your life, or you of mine?
IV. There is something so private, so sacredly private, about every life, that this kind of thing should be felt as both irreverent and impertinent.—I am no more at liberty to pass gratuitous judgments upon another, I have no more personal right to enter those chambers, than I have to enter another man’s house.
V. Our hands are not clean enough for this kind of work.—There is a fine touch of humour in the Saviour’s saying here. A fellow with a joist—a huge rafter—in his eye, so anxious—so benevolently anxious—to extract a tiny particle of floating dust from the eye of another! It is ridiculous. It is sad too.—Jas. Thew.
Unseen Virtues.—To give an instance which the preacher knows to be an actual fact: A merchant of his acquaintance was thought to be very selfish with his money. He was known to be very rich, and lived something like a rich man; yet when asked for subscriptions he gave always a small sum—he gave £5 when his neighbours thought he ought to give £
20. He was, therefore, very selfish and miserly, and bore a nickname in consequence. Everybody was looking at this mote which seemed like a beam. This went on for years, and he was generally disliked. One of his neighbours, who respected him on all other points, was determined to bottom the matter. He learned with difficulty, and after careful inquiry, that during all these years this much-abused man was supporting handsomely a large family of poor relatives. He educated them well, and put them out in life with no niggard hand. They lived in another place; no one, not even his intimate friends, knew; he never spoke of it; but he did it for years. The same inquirer found, too, that if a real case of benevolence were put before this rich man, and he were told reasonably what he ought to give, the rich man often gave it. So here was a man whom all men were abusing, because they did not know enough about him.—R. W. Hiley, D.D.
Matthew 7:1-2. Charity in thought and speech.—The meaning of our Lord becomes clear enough when we turn to St. Luke’s words, and find that our Lord there adds, as if to guard against misapprehension, “Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.” We cannot help criticising the conduct of others, but we can guard against the cruel, censorious temper which pronounces off-hand upon the misdoings of a neighbour. What are the reasons urged in the gospel for the suppression of this temper?
I. There is the motive given us in the text: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” “Condemn not, that ye be not condemned.” It is a thought, which ought to give us pause as we scatter our reckless verdicts on the doings of our fellow-men, that not only will God bring all that we ourselves do into judgment, but He makes us the authors of the very standard by which He is trying us now and will try us hereafter.
II. The second reason is to be found in those words which appear to have been so often on the lips of our Lord, and to have been, indeed, a constant refrain of His teaching, “many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”—It has been well said of those words that they must be meant to infuse a wholesome element of scepticism or diffidence into our present estimates of human character and conduct. St. Paul says: “Judge nothing before the time.” That does not mean that we are to suspend our critical faculty, to form no opinions about anything or anybody; but he warns us that all our judgments are provisional as well as fallible, and they proceed upon imperfect data. They are arrived at by observers blinded more or less by partiality or prejudice. The great tribunal before which we must all stand may reverse them.
III. I pass to a third reason for merciful treatment of our neighbours. It is that which follows the text as a searching argumentum ad hominem, applicable to us all.—“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye,” &c. It is very certain that growth in self-knowledge is the best of all cures for self-confidence, and it is only the self-confident, the self-satisfied, who care to judge their neighbours most harshly. That man is most merciful to his neighbour who is least merciful to himself.
IV. According to St. Luke, our Lord prefaced His warning against censorious judgments by the precept: “Be ye, therefore, merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” This is, after all, the great motive for forbearance, as this is also its great reward—likeness to God.—Canon Duckworth.
Matthew 7:2. The give and take of life.—Christ says, in effect, that what you take to life determines what you get from it. What you see in the universe will be the reflection of your own nature. Apply the text:—
I. To the young while under the discipline and processes of their education.—Nay, to intellectual culture generally, whether in young or old. Bring evil habits, sloth, negligence, &c., instead of diligence, patience, the desire to know the truth and to accomplish your work, and what will be the result? You brought not the key of industry. Consequently the door will not open, and you carry away no spoil.
II. To the national and social life of the people.—e.g. Let the well-to-do and the educated keep all their good things to themselves, measuring out to the poor only neglect, and insolence. What will be the result? Illustration, French Revolution.
III. To our relations with the kingdom of God.—Whether the believer is going to have a life full of spiritual triumph and satisfaction, or one only meagre and barren, depends on the measure you mete out towards God and the spiritual world.—J. Brierley, B.A.
The cynical critic.—If he chooses to fight with a tomahawk, he will be scalped some day, and the bystanders will not lament profusely.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 7:3-5. The chip and the beam.—The case has only to be stated in order to carry the inference that he who has the large obstruction in his eye should first get rid of it, so that he may be fit to operate on his brother’s eye. In other words, a man should have his own errors and faults corrected in order that he may be able, first, to see clearly, and then, to correct firmly and wisely, the errors and faults of others.
I. It is a delicate operation to correct the faults of other men.—It may be likened to the feat of taking a chip of wood, a hair, or an insect’s wing out of an inflamed eye. A clumsy operator may easily make things worse. So may a clumsy or unkind censor offend his brother, and do no good, but rather harm. All the greater is the delicacy if one undertakes the task as a volunteer. Something might be said of the risk that attends all human judgment of the conduct of other men. It is not often that one knows accurately and completely the outward facts, and one never quite knows the temptation resisted or yielded to, and the inward motive, or the commanding and determining one among a group of motives, which influenced the action under review.
II. Self-ignorance and self-conceit incapacitate one for performing this operation.—The case indicated by our Lord is that of one who is insensible of his own faultiness, yet presumes to deal with the faultiness of others; and He addresses such a person by the strong term of disapproval, “hypocrite,” which He often applied to the scribes and Pharisees. Literally, it would be impossible for one who had even a small chip of wood in his eye to be unaware of it. The delicacy of the organ would produce acute annoyance. But, alas! one may so destroy the delicacy of conscience as to go about with a great fault obvious to every one, and yet forget it, and suppose that no one else can see it. It is a false zeal which flies at extraneous evil and spares that which is in our own homes, our own hearts and lives.
III. An honest Christian reserves his strictest judgment for himself.—Self-love will suggest excuses, and even tempt a man to ignore his own faults, or, at all events, to change their names; but a supreme love of righteousness, such as ought to possess the Christian mind, keeps conscience at work, and enjoins self-judgment and self-correction. “Have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity covereth a multitude of sins.” Such was the rule for the early Christians, and it is as much in force as ever.—D. Fraser, D.D.
Matthew 7:3. The mote and the beam.—We look at our neighbour’s errors with a microscope, and at our own through the wrong end of a telescope. We have two sets of weights and measures; one for home use and the other for foreign. Every vice has two names, and we call it by the flattering and minimising one when we commit it, and by the ugly one when our neighbour does it. Everybody can see the hump on his friend’s shoulders, but it takes some effort to see our own.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 7:5. Casting out the mote.—A blind guide is bad enough, but a blind oculist is a still more ridiculous anomaly.—Ibid.
Judging: true and false.—I. The first branch of the contrary duty to rash judgment is to employ our censoriousness first and chiefly upon ourselves: “First cast out the beam out of thine own eye.”
1. The more time we spend at home, the less we have to squander away abroad.
2. The better acquainted we are with our own sin and folly, we shall be so much the more charitable to the errors of others.
3. The better we are acquainted with our own sins, we shall be so much the freer from pride and vanity, which is the great cause of rash judgments.
II. The second branch of it is to look charitably on the actions of our neighbour, and not be too sharp-sighted in spying out his small faults.
III. A third branch is that we perform the friendly office of monitors to our neighbour himself, instead of exposing him to others.
IV. The fourth branch is that in administering our admonitions we use prudence not to throw them away where they will do hurt, but to contrive to give them when our neighbour is in the best temper and disposition to receive them kindly, and to make the best use of them.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Matthew 7:6. The dogs and the swine.—It is not an easy thing to be morally and spiritually useful to other men. Christian usefulness requires careful discrimination of what is fitting or unfitting, and a power of reserve as well as a faculty of speech. Our Saviour did not call men by opprobrious names. It would, indeed, be a harsh mode of speaking to stigmatise men as dogs and swine, as vile and stupid animals, but it is quite another thing to introduce such creatures in order to give point to an illustration of what would be unbecoming and unsuitable in the delivery of sacred truth to profane persons. The first case supposed is that of a priest or Levite, who, on leaving the temple, observed one of the ever-hungry dogs that prowled about the city of Jerusalem, but were never admitted within the gates of the sanctuary. Forgetting all considerations of manners and propriety, he returned into the court, took a portion of flesh which had been on the altar of burnt offering, and threw it to the dog. Such an action would violate the Divine law which assigned the flesh of the offerings to the priests, and it would indicate gross disrespect and want of the sense of fitness. The other case supposed is that of a lavish rich man, who for some whim, or intending a practical joke, threw pearls, as if they were seeds, before a herd of swine. The swine in Palestine never were tame creatures, as with us. Though in some parts of the country they were kept in herds, they were by the Jewish law unclean animals, and disallowed as food for man. Accordingly, they were at the most only half-tamed; and the genuine wild boar has always haunted the valley of the Jordan. Now, if one should cast pearls in the way supposed before those animals, they might rush for what seemed to be grain, since they are always voracious, but, quickly discovering the hoax, would trample on the pearls, as pigs commonly put their feet into and upon their food; and, not improbably an enraged boar would rend the foolish man who had played this dangerous game, by a side upward stroke of his tusk, as the manner of such creatures is. Extreme instances are chosen in order to put a much-needed lesson in a strong light. But what is the lesson? It cannot be that Christians are never to press the gospel on an indifferent, unsympathetic, or even hostile audience. In that case it would contradict all those counsels and charges which require a fearless and even an aggressive testimony to the name of Jesus; and it would be at variance with the example of our Lord and His Apostles, who preached the word in the face of angry opposition.—D. Fraser, D.D.
Reverence and discretion.—The positive lesson conveyed in this metaphorical saying of Jesus is one of reverence and discretion. We understand it thus:—
I. As to the preaching of the gospel.—While the preacher is not to evade difficulty or shrink from opposition or personal danger, he is to consult decorum and opportunity so far as not to expose names and things that are sacred, to open and egregious contempt. On this principle one is not to address religious truth to a drunkard in his cups, or to him who sits in the scorner’s chair. Open-air preaching, too, requires very especially to be placed under this rule of Christ. If conducted at fit places and times it is not merely an allowable, but a highly commendable practice; but the question of fitness is of far more importance than inexperienced preachers are aware.
II. As to statements of spiritual experience.—In this matter Christian men are apt to fall into one or other of two opposite extremes. Many pass through life with hardly a word, even to their pastors or their nearest friends, which indicates that they have received any spiritual benefit or have any inward experience of the grace of God. This is the one extreme of unreasonable reticence. On the other hand, a good many talk too much about themselves, and will even volunteer before indiscriminate assemblies an account of their conversion, and of their great peace and joy in believing. This is the opposite, the egotistical extreme. Between these extremes the wise and humble Christian ought to steer his course. He must consider his company and his opportunity.
III. As to the admission to sacred privileges and functions in the church.—The confusion into which Christian society has fallen makes it difficult for the most faithful churches to apply the sound principle of the separation of the holy from the unclean. Churches that have lost or surrendered the power of self-discipline enfeeble discipline in other churches also. But none the less does it remain a sacred duty to warn from the Lord’s table the carnally minded and such as do not discern the Lord’s body, and never knowingly to admit to church privilege or office any who are of impure or intemperate habits.—Ibid.
Perverted judgments.—I think it would not be untrue to say that on the right interpretation of this verse hangs our true understanding of the whole of the chapter. And yet I venture to think that the ordinary signification attached to the words will not satisfy any of us if we reflect. Take this thing judgment, what is behind it? Prejudice! Yes, and a hundred other things. It is not only prejudice which is like the beam in the eye, but also jealousy, and envy, and our own indolence. What Christ warns us against are the dogs within ourselves. He says, “You have capacity, but take care that that capacity is under righteous rule, take care it does not fall into the power of the dogs, the passions within you, which will trample that very faculty under their feet, for if it does so you imperil yourself.” There are two powers of judgment we may exercise in the world, or rather, for the purpose of illustration, we may select two.
I. There are our intellectual judgments.—Is it not a fact that all those who have reflected upon the operations of the human mind, and the evidences of that operation in the world, have reminded us that we are very seldom able to exercise judgment under the influence of what they call the true light of reason? There is a bias, a bias belonging to every race and class in the community; every profession has its bias, and you find it a most difficult thing—and this is the reason very often for the perpetuation of abuses—for the class to dissociate itself from its bias, which makes it judge the thing, not on its merits, but always upon the prevailing, predominating bias of that class. Just in the same way there is the bias of home and family. In our life, Christ says, ever coming to impair the calm, intellectual judgment of our nature, there lurk these evil passions which tend to pervert, and destroy perhaps, the noble gift which God has given us.
II. If you turn to moral judgments, I think the case becomes clearer. There is nothing in the world which is more open to the power of the wild beast within us than your moral judgment. Your conscience is just as capable of falling into bad hands as your reason is, and when the conscience falls into bad hands it is worse with you than when the reason does! The very justification of all the barbarities of the past has been the conscientiousness of the men who have done them. Thomas Lynch says, “We all of us need a conscience in order to keep a conscience.” Catch the spirit of Christ! I said that my text was the pivot of the whole chapter. So it is.—Bishop W. B. Carpenter.
Zeal and prudence.—It is bad to hide the treasure in a napkin; it is quite as bad to fling it down without preparation before some people. Jesus Himself locked His lips before Herod, although the curious ruler asked many questions; and we have sometimes to remember that there are people who “will not hear the word,” and who must first “be won without the word.” Heavy rains run off hard-baked earth. It must be softened by a gentle drizzle. Luther once told this fable: “The lion made a great feast, and he invited all the beasts, and among the rest a sow. When all manner of costly dishes were set before the guests, the sow asked, ‘Have you no bran?’ Even so,” said he, “we preachers set forth the most dainty dishes—the forgiveness of sins and the grace of God; but they turn up their snouts, and grub for guilders.” This precept is one side of the truth. The other is the adaptation of the gospel to all men, and the obligation on us to preach it to all. We can only tell most men’s disposition towards it by offering it to them, and we are not to be in a hurry to conclude that men are dogs and swine.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 7:7-8. Importunity in prayer.—
I. The duty of fervent prayer.—“Ask;” “seek;” “knock.”
1. The occasion of pressing the duty in this place.—Our Saviour had been recommending a great many difficult duties to His disciples. It was very natural for Him to think they would be mightily discouraged, considering how disproportioned their strength was to so difficult a task. Therefore it was necessary to put them in a way whereby they might be enabled to perform it. And herein especially consists the advantage of the Christian morals, beyond the morals of the heathen. They had all the great tasks of duty to undergo, only by their own strength, care, and endeavours, which was a very discouraging, comfortless business; but we Christians are taught where there is supply enough of grace to be had.
2. The nature and exercises of the duty.—It is an intent application of the mind to God, and comprehends the whole commerce which our souls have with Him, whether to pay our homage and adorations to Him, or to thank Him for all His mercies and favours, or to address Him for any mercies and favours to ourselves or others. But that part of it which is chiefly aimed at in this place is the begging of grace, whereby we may be enabled and assisted to discharge the great duties which He requires of us. Consider:
(1) The necessity of grace to enable us to do our duty.
(2) The fitness of prayer towards the obtaining of grace. (a) Grace is a treasure in the hands of God Himself. It is not like silver or gold, to be dug with hard labour out of the bowels of the earth. (b) The right dispositions for the reception of grace are all included in prayer. (c) God is more ready to grant than we are to desire.
3. The circumstance of instancy or frequency.—Taught us in the triple repetition of the precept, ask, seek, knock.
(1) It is not enough that we pray for a good thing once; but we must insist and renew our petitions often, for the words do each of them imply a further degree of industry and diligence. The easiest way of obtaining a thing is to have it for asking. Then the word “seek” implies a further degree of diligence, as when a thing is out of place, and we cannot have it for calling for, then we are at the pains to search and look for it. But the word “knock” signifies a yet greater degree of patience and perseverance in our suit. For it supposes that there may be several difficulties in the way, and that the passage may be shut up, yet that we should patiently wait, and drive on our suit with greater importunity.
(2) Asking, seeking, and knocking imply that we ought not to be discouraged with the difficulties we meet with, either in putting up our prayers to God, or in not receiving quickly a due return of them; but that we should strive to conquer and overcome all difficulties, and be incessant in our prayers to God.
(3) Asking, seeking, and knocking imply a careful watching and embracing the favourable opportunities of devotion, whether these arise from external providences or internal favourable dispositions.
(4) The words ask, seek, and knock import a great assiduity in devotion.
(5) Also that we use our utmost endeavours to obtain what we pray for.
II. Encouragements to this duty, taken from the promises and nature of God.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Prayer.—I. The qualifications of the persons that pray.
1. Faith.—
(1) They must believe in God’s being, ability, and goodwill.
(2) In the mediation and intercession of Jesus Christ.
(3) That God for Christ’s sake will hear and grant their prayers.
(4) That the good things needed cannot be obtained without prayer.
2. Practice.—
(1) There must be a care and endeavour to comply with all God’s commandments (1 John 3:22; Proverbs 28:9; Proverbs 15:8).
(2) If conscious of having committed sin, we must repent of it (Psalms 66:18; Isaiah 1:15).
(3) We must set about our prayers with our hearts free from malice, and full of charity to all men (Matthew 5:23, etc.; Mark 11:25).
(4) There must be no bad design in any petition (James 4:3).
II. The matter of our prayers.—
1. The expression. “Every one that asketh receiveth” must be understood only with relation to good things (Matthew 7:11).
2. The promise is limited to such things as are good for us that ask them. For it is possible there may be gifts good in themselves and yet not proper for us in our particular circumstances.
III. The manner of our praying.—
1. Fervent and hearty.
2. With patience and constancy.
3. With humility and submission.
4. With gratitude for former mercies.
5. With vigilance and the diligent use of other lawful means appointed by God.
IV. The grant of our prayers.—God performs this promise, not only when He grants the very thing we pray for, but in other cases when we are not so sensible of it (2 Corinthians 12:7).—Ibid.
The efficacy of prayer.—Jesus Christ did not mean that His followers may have whatever they like. The way to spoil a child is to give it all it asks, and He does not mean to spoil us. Therefore He must thwart our wishes till they run parallel with His will, and are fixed on higher good than earth holds. So, of course, this promise is true only in the spiritual realm, or in regard to the development of the Christian character. We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the bullion vault of a bank, and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor? Whose fault is it that Christian people generally have such scanty portions of the free riches of God?—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 7:7. How to pray.—
1. Be short.—Jesus, by word and example, inculcated this. Persons who sought His aid offered short petitions. Peter in the water, the publican in the temple, and the thief on the cross made short prayers.
II. Be specific.—Prayer that is indefinite does not avail. “My son,” “my daughter,” “my servant,” “my sight”—that is the form of request: and the accompanying charge is, “Bring him to Me.”
III. Be importunate.—The midnight prayer, “Friend, lend me three loaves,” was short, specific, and importunate. And it was answered, not for friendship’s sake, but because of importunity.
IV. Pray with a forgiving spirit.—“When ye stand praying, forgive.” I once attended an ecclesiastical convention, and was entertained in a refined, Christian household. A young lady in the family in a conversation remarked, “I never offer the Lord’s prayer.” On my expressing surprise, she added, “I don’t dare to; I don’t dare pray, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors’; I am so afraid that I have not a forgiving spirit that I dare not ask God to forgive me as I forgive others.” I asked, “What do you pray?” She replied, “I say, ‘as we ought to forgive others.’ ”
V. We must do what we can to answer our own prayers.—A little boy heard his father pray that God would feed the poor; and when the prayer was over, he said, “Father, if you will give me the key to the granary door, I will answer your prayer myself.” Frederick Douglass tells that when he was a slave he prayed seven years for liberty, but received no answer; at length it occurred to him that he must answer his own prayer; and when, with his eye fixed on the north star, he prayed with his legs, his prayer was answered. If we pray for the conversion of a child, a scholar, or a friend, we must speak to that person and do what we can to bring him to Christ.
VI. We must expect that our prayers will be answered. (Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 9:29).—L. H. Read, D.D.
Prayer a key.—“Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
I. Prayer opens to us the door to the knowledge of God.
II. It opens to us the knowledge of ourselves.—“Now mine eye seeth Thee,” etc.
III. It opens to the soul the glory of the natural world (Psalms 92:4-6).
IV. It opens to us the clearest and most glorious knowledge of heaven.—The Study.
Asking.—Emerson tells how he arranged his first sermon in these divisions:
1. Men are always praying.
2. All their prayers are granted.
3. We must beware, then, what we ask. He had got the theme from the blunt saying of a field labourer, that men are always praying, and all their prayers are heard.—W. M. Macgregor, M.A.
Matthew 7:9-11. God’s love to us and our duty to Him.—
I. God’s readiness to give good things to His creatures.
1. His goodness to those who pray to Him, is really beyond anything we have to explain it by.—We know nothing in nature of a more sincere and steady love than that of parents to their children, yet it is much allayed and abated by other bad qualities.
2. The promise and encouragement of the text are limited to good things.
3. The promise is not restrained to the elect but extended to all that pray.
II. God loves to be asked and waited upon for good things. Three plain reasons for this:—
1. God’s honour.—Suppose a prince ever so merciful, would it be consistent with his honour to pardon his rebellious subjects if they refused so much as to beg pardon, or to petition for any favour?
2. The good of the persons themselves.
3. The right government of the world.
III. What duties are incumbent upon us, from the knowledge and belief of this paternal affection in God, toward His poor creatures. The loving Him out of gratitude, with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; manifested in
(1) faith;
(2) obedience;
(3) hope;
(4) filial reverential fear;
(5) trust;
(6) patience;
(7) disposition to honour Him;
(8) humility.—Jas. Blair, M.A.
Matthew 7:12. The golden rule in the kingdom.—This is the golden rule—the Christian’s law of reciprocity, which will serve as a rule of conduct for all the life. Legitimately applied, it would serve all social life, family life, commercial life, political life, church life, and national life. To obey it out and out would soon bring the golden age.
I. The characteristics of this golden rule.
1. Its principle.—The principle here stated by our Lord is the second great commandment—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Place thyself in thought, in the condition or the circumstances of thy neighbour, and judge accordingly.
2. It is fundamental.—It underlies all public and private justice, government, society, education, and religion.
3. It is reasonable.—Have not others the same rights as ourselves, be their condition or position what it may? It is universal for all classes—for employers and employed; for all lands and times.
4. It is equitable.—The equity of this law is clearly seen if we consider its grounds.
(1) The equality of all men by nature.
(2) The possible equality of all men as to condition and state of life.
(3) Wherein we may be unequal, the inequality is not such as to be the ground of unequal dealing with one another; for we ought to treat our neighbour as we would expect to be treated by him in the same circumstances.
(4) Wherein men may be unequal, the inequality is not fixed. They may rise; others may fall.
(5) Consequently, the great advantage and blessing of such a rule. It teaches that with us, as with God, there is no respect of persons. The law is mutual and universal, and if acted upon would bring social salvation.
5. It is portable.—It is not only easy to be remembered, but it is the handiest, readiest, and best of all moral maxims. “It is the ‘two-foot rule’ which the skilful artisan always carries with him ready to take the measurement of any work to which he is called.”
6. It is evangelical.—It is more than a moral maxim, it is an evangelical principle; for it teaches us that in order to be able to act it thoroughly, truly, and sincerely, we need the grace of God in a large degree. “The Emperor Alexander Severus was so charmed by the excellence of this rule that he obliged a crier to repeat it whenever he had occasion to punish any person, and caused it to be inscribed in the most noted parts of his palace, and on many of the public buildings. He also professed so high a regard for Christ, as having been the author of so excellent a rule, that he desired to have Him enrolled among the deities.”
II. The argument adduced for the enforcement of this rule.
1. “For this is the law and the prophets.”
2. The authority which enjoins obedience to it.—The authority of Christ.
3. The example of Christ also enforces it.—J. Harries.
The sum of our duty to our neighbour.—
I. The dependence of this rule on the foregoing doctrine.—“Therefore.”
1. By way of imitation of God in His goodness.
2. By way of gratitude to God for His goodness.
3. From His relation of a loving Father to us, which makes us all brethren.
II. The rule itself.—
1. It must be limited to the point of duty, and not extended to foolish and unreasonable desires.
2. It was not our Saviour’s design to set all men on a level, taking away all distinction between princes and subjects, masters and servants, parents and children, etc.
3. The rule we are to go by in our dealings with our neighbour is not what he doth by us, but what we should think his duty to do by us, in such and such circumstances.
4. It takes in all duty, and we should ask what we should think to be our duty if our neighbour were in our place and we in his.
III. Our Saviour’s honourable character of this rule.—“This is the law and the prophets.” Consider:—
1. The comprehensiveness of this rule.—It is a complete sum of all the rules set down in the Holy Scriptures concerning our duty to our neighbour; and it is likewise in the nature of a good casuist to decide all the particular cases and doubts which rise from those rules.
2. The brevity of this rule.—It helps both the understanding and the memory.—Jas. Blair, M.A.