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guarentee them safety in time, they better comply with this before they enter into enternity, for I wish the glorious welware of all my kindred and fellow citizens, in time and in eternity. And now I leave you to judge for yourselves and O! that you may make a wise choice in time, and now begin to pray for the gift of God, for now is the accepted time and the day of salvation. I told you to pray for the gift, that is, the offerings that you shall make to God shall be, instead of that which should be expended for thy profit This tradition of the Pharisees was calculated to enrich themselves by exempting children from giving any further assistance to their parents, if they once offered to the temple, and the Priests, that which should have been the support of their parents, but this was a violation of the law of God and of nature, which our Saviour here condemns. God's holy word and all christian purity, neither are they to be counted among the doctrines and commandments of men, because they proceed not from mere human authority, but from that which Christ has established in his church, whose pastors he has commanded us to hear and obey even as himself. Luke 10: 16; Math. 18: 17. "That is no uncleanness in meat nor any dirt contracted by eating it with unwashed hands, can defile the soul, but sin alone, or disobedience of the heart to the ordinances and will of God;" and thus when Adam took the forbidden fruit, it was not the fruit which entered into the mouth, but the disobedience to the law of God, in my judgment, which defiled him; the same is to be said of a Jew in the time of the old law, had eaten swine flesh, or a christian convert in the days of the apostle, contrary to their ordinance, had eaten blood, or of any of the faithful at present should transgress the ordinances of God's church, by breaking the feasts, for in all these cases, the soul would be defiled, not indeed by that which goeth into the mouth, but by the disobedience of the heart in wilfully transgressing the ordinance of God, or of those who have their authority from him. Math. 16: 16. See what is said.—"And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ the son of the Living God." Peter here, by divine revelation, made a solemn profession of his faith of the divinity of Christ. So in recompense of this faith and profession, our Lord here declares to him the dignity to which he was
