“Pharaoh more lamented the hard strokes that were upon him, than the hard heart which was within him. Esau mourned not because he sold the birthright, which was his sin, but because he lost the blessing, which was his punishment. This is like weeping with an onion; the eye sheds tears because it smarts. A mariner casts overboard that cargo in a tempest, which he courts the return of when the winds are silenced. Many complain more of the...

“Even more noteworthy is the way in which the believer under affliction discovers the true source of all the mischief and lays the axe at the root of it. “Forgive all my sins”, is the cry of a soul that is more sick of sin then of pain, and would sooner be forgiven then healed. Blessed is the man to whom sin as more unbearable than disease, he shall not be long before the Lord shall both forgive his iniquity and heal his...

“Within the measured and determinant limits of the stadium, the athletes were bound to contend for the prize, which they forfeited without hope of recovery, if they deviated even a little from the appointed course. In allusion to this inviolable arrangement, the Apostle tells the Corinthians: we will not boast of things without our measure. It may help very much to understand this and the following verses, if, with Hammond, we consider...

“The objections which were made against Christ and his disciples gave occasion to some of the most profitable of his discourses; thus are the interests of truth often served, even by the opposition it meets with from gainsayers, and thus the wisdom of Christ brings good out of evil. This is the third instance of it in this chapter; his discourse of his power to forgive sin, and his readiness to receive sinners, was occasioned by the...

Mat 5:18 “For truly I say unto you…” Here, for the first time, does that august expression occur in our Lord’s recorded teaching, with which we have grown so familiar as hardly to reflect on its full import. It is the expression manifestly of supreme legislative authority: and as the subject in connection with which it is uttered is the Moral Law, no higher claim to authority strictly divine could be advanced. For when...