ing this passage: "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." (Matt. 23:2, 3.)
Before the Saviour had uttered this, He had upbraided these Jewish teachers with making "the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition;" and with "teaching for doctrine the commandments of men;" and He had stigmatized them as "blind leaders of the blind." (Matt. 15: 3, 6, 9, 14.) At another time (Matt. 16: 6, 12) He had given his disciples this general caution: "Take heed and beware of the leaven (doctrine) of the Pharisees;" and, in the very chapter quoted from by the Puritan, our blessed Lord thunders out against these false teachers the most terrible denunciations; denominating them "fools and blind guides," and closing the whole in this awful language: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (v. 33.) Was it correct in the Puritan to assert of teachers thus characterized by Christ, and in regard to whom He cautioned his disciples, that He "allowed their expositions of the law" to be, for the
