This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Ver. 8. This people draweth nigh unto me, &c.] And they are no changelings, for at this day, although they know better, and can write upon the walls of their synagogues this sentence, Tephillah belo cauvannah cheguph belo neshamah, that is, Prayer without the intention of the mind, is but as a body without a soul, yet shall not a man anywhere see less intention than in their orisons. "The reverence they show" (saith Sir Edwin Sands, who saw it) "is in standing up at times, and the gesture of adoration in the bowing forward of their bodies. For kneeling they use none (no more do the Grecians), neither stir they their bonnets in their synagogues to any man, but remain still covered. They come to it with washen hands, and in it they burn lamps to the honour of God, a but for any show of devotion or elevation of spirit, that yet in Jews could I never discern, but they are as reverent in their synagogues as grammar boys are at school, when their master is absent. In sum, their holiness is the very outward work itself, being a brainless head and soulless body." Thus he.
And honoureth me with their lips] But prayer is not the labour of the lips, but the travail of the heart; the power of a petition is not in the roof of the mouth, but root of the heart. To give way to wilful distractions, is to commit spiritual whoredom in God's presence. Is it fit to present the king with an empty cask; or to tell him a tale with our backs towards him? Behold, "I am a great King," saith God; and they that stand before him, "must look to their feet," saith Solomon, that they stand upright, and that they offer not a heartless sacrifice, for that is the "sacrifice of fools," Ecclesiastes 5:1, and ever held ominous.
But their heart is far from me] And so all they do is putrid hypocrisy. God loves "truth in the inward parts,"Psalms 41:6, and calls for the heart in all services, as Joseph did for Benjamin, as David did for Michal, "Thou shall not see my face, unless thou bring it." In all spiritual sacrifices we must bring him the fat and the inwards. The deeper and hollower the belly of the lute or viol is, the pleasanter is the sound; the fleeter, the more grating and harsh in our ears. The voice which is made in the mouth is nothing so sweet as that which cometh from the depth of the breast. Ephesians 6:6; "Do the will of God from the heart." But woe be to all careless professors, to all loose and ungirt Christians! the Lord will make all the churches to know "that he seareheth the hearts and reins," and that "he will kill with death" all such as had rather seem to be good than seek to be so, Revelation 2:23 .
a Sic ut posset quivis animo advertere quod server illam pro consuetudine potius quam pro religione reverentiam. De Theodorico, Sidonius, Epist. i. l.