Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Ver. 4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, &c.] How impudent are hypocritical find faults, that can say such things to others, when themselves are most obnoxious! whence is this, but either from a secret desire of purchasing an opinion of freedom from the faults they so boldly censure in others, or that they may thereby the sooner insinuate and ingratiate with them they deal with? The Vulgate translation reads here Frater sine, &c., a "Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye," &c. "Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross. When he speaketh fair, believe him not; for there are seven abominations in his heart," Proverbs 26:23; Proverbs 26:25; but there lies a great beam of hypocrisy between him and himself, that he cannot discern them. These are they that by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple, as the serpent did Eve. b You would think by their smoothing, soothing honey words, they were wholly set upon seeking your good; when they merely serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, as those Popish flesh flies. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" (fair they are and pleasant, saith the Chaldee here), "but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful," Proverbs 27:6, as were those of Joab to Amasa, and Judas to Christ. Καταφιλειν non est φιλειν, saith Philo. Love is not always in a kiss; there are those who kiss and kill. David would not taste of their dainties, nor endure that they should pour upon him the sweetest ointments (as at feasts it was the custom among that people, Luk 7:46). Indeed, if the righteous smite him, he would take it for a singular courtesy. "Let him reprove me," saith he, "it shall be an excellent oil," and shall soak into me, as soft oil doth into wooden vessels,Proverbs 26:6; Psalms 141:4,5. It shall not break my head; my heart it may; and so make way for the oil of God's grace which is not poured save only into broken vessels; for indeed whole vessels are full vessels, and so this precious liquor would run over and be spilt on the ground, as Bernard hath it.
a Frater, quasi fere alter. Gellius xiii. 10.
b Pertinax Imp. vulgo dictus est χρηστολογος, quod blandus esset magis quam benignus. Aurel. Victor.