John Trapp on Matthew 9:14

Verse 14. But goye, and learn what, &c.] In the history of Ionas, Christ found the mystery of his death, buriall and resurrection. Rest not in the shell of the Scriptures, but break it, and get out the kernel, as the sense is called, Iudg. 7. 15. stick not in [illegible: 1 word], the breaking of the [illegible: 1 word]. the bark, but pierce into the heart of Gods Word. Lawyers say, that Apices juris non sunt jus, The letter of the Law, is not the Law, but the meaning of it. Iohn never rested, till the sealed book was opened. Pray for the spirit of revelation, plow with Gods heifer, and we shall understand his riddles, provided that we wait in the use of all good means, till God irradiate both organ and object. I will have mercy.] Both that which God shews to us, and that which we shew to others, spirituall and corporall. Steep thy thoughts (saith one) in the mercies of God, and they will dy thine, as the dy-fat doth the cloth, Col. 3. 12. I came not to call the righteous.] Those that are good in their own eyes, and claim heaven as the portion that belongs unto them. Scribonius writes of [illegible: 1 word] Cedar, Quòd viventes res putrefacit Physic. lib. 2. & perdit: putridas autem [illegible: 1 word] & conservat: So Christ came to kill the quick, and to quicken the dead. But sinners to repentance.] Not to liberty, but duty. Tertullian Tert de poenit. speaketh of himself, that he was born to nothing but repentance. This is not the work of one, but of all our daies, as they said, Ezra 10. 13. Some report of Mary Magdalen, that after our Saviours resurrection, she spent thirty years in Gallia [illegible: 1 word], Adeò ut etiam lachryme oute [illegible: 1 word] genarum exederint. in weeping for her sins: And of S. Peter, that he alwaies had his eyes full of tears, insomuch as his face was furrowed with continuall weeping. Let not him that resolves upon Christianity dream of a delicacy.

Verse 14. Then came to him the Disciples of John.] These sided with the Pharisees against our Saviour out of emulation and self-love, the bane and break-neck of all true love: yea, they were first in the quarrel. A dolefull thing, when brethren shall set against brethren, Hebrews vex one another, Exod. 2. and Christians as if they wanted enemies, flie in the faces one of another. S. Basil was held an heretike, even of them that held the same things as he did, and whom he honoured as brethren: all the fault was, that he out-shone them, and they envied him the praise he had for opposing Arrianisme, which was such, as that Philostorgius the Arrian wrote, that all the other Orthodox Divines were but babies to Basil. How hot was the contention betwixt Luther and Carolostudius, meerly out of a self-seeking humour, and desire of preheminency? How extream violent are the Lutherans against the Calvinists. In the year, 1567. they joyned themselves at [illegible: 1 word] with the Papists against the Calvinists. And Luther somewhere professeth, that he will rather yeeld to Transubstantiation, then remit any thing of Consubstantiation. Why doe we and the Pharisees fast often.] The Pharisees were perilous fasters, when they devoured widows houses, and swallowed il-gotten goods, as Gnats down their wide [illegible: 1 word], which therefore Christ cals, [non-Latin text not transcribed], the inwards. Their fasts were meer mock-fasts: so were those of John Arch-bishop of Constantinople, sir-named the Faster, who yet was the first that affected the title of Universall Bishop, so much cried down by Gregory the great. These Pharisees had sided with, and set on Johns Disciples in their masters absence, like as the renegado [illegible: 1 word], to keep up that bitter contention, that is between the Calvinists and [illegible: 1 word], have a practice of running over to the Lutheran Church, pretending to be converts, and to build with them.