Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ver. 13. Ye are the salt of the earth] As salt keepeth flesh from putrefying, so do the saints the world: and are therefore sprinkled up and down (here one and there one) to keep the rest from rotting. Suillo pecori anima pro sale data, quae carnem servaret, ne putresceret, saith Varro. Swine and swinish persons have their souls for salt only, to keep their bodies from stinking above ground. Christ and his people are somewhere called the soul of the world. The saints are called all things; the Church, every creature, Mark 16:15; Tabor and Hermon are put for east and west, Psalms 89:12; for God accounts for the world by the Church, and upholds the world for the Church's sake. Look how he gave Zoar to Lot, and all the souls in the ship to Paul, Acts 27:24; so he doth the rest of mankind to the righteous. Were it not for such Jehoshaphats, "I would not look toward thee, nor see thee," said Elijah to Jehoram, saith God to the wicked, 2 Kings 3:14. The holy seed is statumen terrae, saith one prophet: the earth's substance or settlement, Isaiah 6:13. (Junius.) The righteous are fundamentum mundi, the world's foundation, saith another, Proverbs 10:25. (Quia propter probes stabilis est mundus. because on account you may make the earth firm. Merc.) I bear up the pillars of it, saith David, Psalms 75:3. And it became a common proverb in the primitive times, Absque stationibus non stare mundus: but for the piety and prayers of Christians, the world could not subsist. It is a good conclusion of Philo, therefore, Oremus, ut tanquam columna in domo vir iustus permaneat, ad calamitatum remedium. Let us pray that the righteous may remain with us, for a preservative, as a pillar in the house, as the salt of the earth. But as all good people, so good ministers especially are here said, for their doctrine, to be the salt of the earth; and for their lives, the light of the world. (Doctrina salis est; vita lucis. Aret.) Ye are salt, not honey, which is bitter to wounds. Ye are light, which is also offensive to sore eyes. Salt hath two things in it, Acorem et saporem, sharpness and savouriness. Ministers must reprove men sharply, that they may be "sound in the faith," Titus 1:13, and a sweet savour to God; savoury meat, as that of Rebekah, a sweet meat offering, meet for the master's tooth, that he may eat and bless them. Cast they must their cruses full of this holy salt into the unwholesome waters, and upon the barren grounds of men's hearts (as Elisha once of Jericho), so shall God say the word that all be whole, and it shall be done. No thought can pass between the receipt and the remedy.
But if the salt have lost his savour, &c.] A loose or lazy minister is the worst creature upon earth, so fit for no place as for hell, -as unsavoury salt is not fit for the dunghill, but makes the very ground barren whereupon it is cast. Who are now devils but they which once were angels of light? Corruptio optimi pessima, as the sweetest wine makes the sourest vinegar, and the finest flesh is resolved into the vilest earth. Woe to those dehonestamenta cleri, disgraceful ministers that, with Eli's sons, cover foul sins under a white ephod: that neither spin nor labour, Matthew 6:28, with the lilies, unless it be in their own vineyards, little in God's; that want either art or heart, will or skill, to the work; being not able or not apt to teach, and so give occasion to those blackmouthed Campians to cry out, Ministris eorum nihil villus: their ministers are the vilest fellows upon earth. (Campian in Rationibus.) God commonly casteth off such as incorrigible; for wherewithal shall it be salted? there is nothing in nature that can restore unsavoury salt to its former nature. He will not only lay such by, as broken vessels, boring out their right eyes and drying up their right arms, Zechariah 11:17; i.e. bereaving them of their former abilities; but also he will cast dung upon their faces, Malachi 2:3; so that, as dung, men shall tread upon them (which is a thing not only calamitous, but extremely ignominious), as they did upon the Popish clergy; and the devil shall thank them when he hath them in hell, for sending him so many souls: as Matthew Paris telleth us he did those in the days of Hildebrand. Literas ex inferno missas commenti sunt quidam, in quibus Satanas omni Ecclesiastico coetui gratias emisit. As for themselves, it grew into a proverb, Pavimentum inferni rasis sacrificulorum verticibus, et magnatum galeis stratum esse: that hell was paved with the shaved crowns of priests and great men's head pieces. God threatens to feed such with gall and wormwood, Jeremiah 23:15 .