Matthew 23:19

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

Ver. 19. Ye fools and blind] The second time so, for behold they have rejected the word of the Lord (yea, the Word, the Lord Christ), and what wisdom was in them? Jeremiah 8:9. True it is, they were accounted the only wise men. "Where is the wise? where is the scribe?" saith St Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:20. As if wise and scribe were terms convertible. And for the Pharisees, they did so carry away the hearts of the people that there was no holy man that was not termed a Pharisee, as we find in their Talmud. And "after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee," saith Paul, Acts 26:5. They were omnium districtissimi, and did utterly outshine and obscure those other sects of Sadducees and Essenes, the latter whereof are not so much as mentioned in the gospel. And yet we see what esteem Christ had for them, and what titles he here bestows upon them. To teach us not to rest in man's applause, nor to think it sufficient that others think well of us. "But let every man prove his own work," Galatians 6:4, and know that not he that commends himself, or is commended by others, is approved, but he whom the Lord commendeth,2 Corinthians 10:18 .