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drained its bitterness. James, the brother of John, was put to death by Herod ; and John, besides the ordinary persecutions which he endured with his brethren, was banished into Patmos.

Is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. The words "it shall be given," are not in the Greek, and have been unhappily supplied by our translators, as though there had been an ellipsis. But ουκ εστιν εμον δουναι, αλλ' οις ητοίμασται υπο του παίρος μου, is to be rendered, is not mine to give, except to them for whom it is prepared by my Father; axxa, but, being used for en, except. Thus et un, in Matthew xvii. 8, is expressed by axxa in the parallel place, Mark ix. 8: "they saw no man,” ɑλλɑ, “save," except Jesus only. It is worthy remark, that in few of our English translations of the Bible, before that of king James, are there any supplied words. The Bishops' Bible has, "is not mine to give but to them for whom it is prepared of my Father." Thus the meaning is obvious; the passage neither states that the Son had no power to dispose of the honours of his own kingdom, nor that eternal glory is to be given only to the elect chosen by the Father in Christ, from the foundation of the world; but simply that Christ had no power, as Salome and her sons supposed, to grant the honours of his kingdom on the principle of favouritism, or from the interest which Salome might have in his regards from her assiduous attendance upon him, and ministering to him, or from the affection which might be thought to arise from the natural relationship between him and James and John, who are called the

brothers of our Lord; but that he administers all the affairs of his kingdom, and assigns its offices and rewards, in perfect conformity to the will and counsels of the Father. Betwixt the persons of the ever blessed Trinity there is a perfect consent, and the laws by which they will distribute the rewards of heaven are revealed. For it is to the final honours of eternity that our Lord must be considered as referring; since we know the fact, that no superiority of one or a few was established among the apostles on earth. But at his second coming he will reward every man according as his work shall be. The highest dignities are therefore prepared for those who are by holiness, zeal, and labour best prepared for them. Thus is both the favouritism of earthly attachments, which might be supposed to exist between our Lord and Salome and her sons, and that which is supposed to arise from an eternal election of persons to eternal glory, equally shut out. The rule of distribution is fixed he that by diligent "occupation" of his Lord's goods makes his five "pounds gain ten pounds," shall have 'authority over ten cities."

Verse 24. Were moved with indignation. -St. Mark says, "were much displeased," a strong emotion of anger having been excited in their minds; which our Lord calmly, and with impressive dignity, restrains, by calling them unto him, and teaching them all a lesson of the deepest wisdom as well as piety, and which, if observed, would banish all ambition and all contentions from among the disciples of Christ for ever.

Verse 25. Exercise dominion over them, &c.-This passage sufficiently shows that

servant :

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Christ's "kingdom is not of this world;" that is, it is not conformed either in its SPIRIT, END, OF FORM, to the civil governments established among men. It does not, however, follow from these words, that his church is without government, or that it has not officers who are commissioned by him to bear rule. This conclusion would be contrary to his own act; for he gave thrones to his apostles, and appointed them to "judge," govern, preside over "the twelve tribes " of the spiritual Israel. See note chap. xix. 28. They too appointed presbyters or elders, to teach and enforce the laws of Christ in the church, to reprove the unruly," and to reject obstinate offenders from the communion of saints. The meaning must therefore be collected from the occasion; and as it is clear that the request of the sons of Zebedee arose out of the notion, more or less still retained by all the apostles, that the kingdom of Christ, however spiritual in some respects it might be, yet, nevertheless, was to be embodied in the form of a civil government over the Jewish nation, so that it should regain its independence, and be ranked again among the kingdoms of the world; our Lord's words oppose this earthly notion, by declaring that in his kingdom there should be no such dominion or authority as the princes and great men, the apxovles, and the μeyaλo, of the Gentiles, the splendour and power of whose governments they envied, exercised among their subjects. Those who take the compound verbs, xalaкkupieuw, and κατεξουσιαζω, to have more force than the same verbs in their simple form, suppose them to indicate the tyrannical and arbitrary power which the Gentile rulers usually exercised; but they do not seem to have considered that the fair inference from this would be, that the same KIND of dominion and authority might, for any

thing our Lord says to the contrary, be set up in the Christian church, provided it were not carried to the extent of severity; in other words, that the same kind of coercion and compulsion might be applied to spiritual matters as to those of civil life. But the fact is not only, that these verbs, in their compound form, are frequently used in no stronger sense than when simple; but that St. Luke, in the parallel place, Luke xxii. 25, uses them only in the simple form to express the very same thing, which is decisive of the question. It is not, therefore, merely the DEGREE but the KIND of dominion exercised by the princes of the Gentiles in their kingdoms, which our Lord excludes from his church. And when it is considered, that the government which Christ and his apostles have established in the church is wholly adapted to it as a spiritual society, and consists,—1. In direction; 2. In brotherly reproof when a fault has been committed; 3. In faithful but patient admonition when it is persisted in ; and, 4. In exclusion from the table of the Lord, the visible sign of communion, but with no infliction of civil disabilities or penalties ;-nothing is more different in kind than this species of government from that exercised in a civil community, and which in its mildest form must accomplish its ends by the threat or by the actual infliction of fines, imprisonments, or corporal chastisement. By virtue of this power operating upon the fears of men, civil rulers acquire authority, and effect the ends of the institution of civil

government. But it shall not be so among you; you are to obtain authority in the churches, and to effect the ends of their institution, by MORAL influence: whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, diakovos, coadjutor or helper; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, dovλos, or, as St. Mark

expresses it, servant of all." In this passage our Lord, according to the style frequently used by the Hebrews, expresses himself in parallelisms, where the second clause is exegetical of the preceding one, with which it corresponds, and expresses the idea with greater force.

Verse 28. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, &c.—NoπEр, in the same manner as, the Son of Man came not into the world to exercise power and dominion, to rule over men and to be served by them; but by laborious and unintermitted application, by "going about doing good," to serve and benefit them.

And to give his life a ransom for many.— The doctrine of the atonement, the great foundation and topstone of the Christian system, is here most clearly laid down. That which was given by Christ was his life, upon that great principle which runs through all the dispensations of revealed religion, that, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission that which man had forfeited by his sin was life; for the wages of sin is death;" and that which alone could free him from this penalty was the substitution of a NOBLER LIFE in place of his own, to which all the sacrifices of animal life under the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations looked forward as instituted types. Christ is said to GIVE his life; which not only intimates that his sufferings and death were voluntarily undergone, but that he had a power over the disposal of his life which no merely human being is invested with. "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again," are words which no man but our Lord ever used; and they prove that his humanity was impersonated in a higher nature, possessing a sovereign authority, and having life and death at command. The precise nature of the act by which Christ, who might have prevented it, submitted to die, is expressed by the term Avтpov, a ransom, or price of redemp

tion, whet her from death, captivity, or any other state of misery. In the Septuagint it generally corresponds with the Hebrew 75, which signifies a piacular sacrifice; in which sense it, or some word derived from it, is constantly used in the New Testament with reference to the death of Christ. "In whom we have redemption, тην ажоXUтрWσw, through his blood." Eph. i. 7. Ye were not redeemed, AUT PWONTE, with corruptible things, as silver and gold; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a LAMB without blemish and without spot." Thus, that deliverance of man from sin, misery, and all other consequences of his apostasy from God, which constitutes our redemption by Christ, is not granted without a consideration as an act of mere prerogative. The ransom, the redemption-price, was exacted and paid; one thing was given for another," the precious blood" of Christ, "as of a Lamb," that is to say sacrificially offered for captive and condemned men. In this manner, "he gave himself a ransom, avτiλuтpov, for all," so that there is no further satisfaction or price to be paid by any.

For many. Here a signifies not merely for the benefit of many, but in their stead, in their place, which is the strong and original sense of this preposition, as in the following passages:-2 Sam. xviii. 33, "Would to God I had died, a σov, for thee," in thy stead. "Archelaus did reign in Judea, art, in the room of, his father Herod." "If he ask a fish, will he, avτ, for a fish, in place or instead of a fish, give him a serpent?" But because TоXX is here used without the article, it has been argued, that the sense is, that Christ gave his life a ransom instead of many ransoms, that is, instead of the numerous and frequently repeated oblations of the Mosaic law. But however true it is, that the one sacrifice of Christ took the place of the many typi cal sacrifices previously instituted, this