Matthew 18:23-35 Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a certain king, which would take account of his servants.… There is nothing that makes a man so unlike to God, as a hard heart; without pity, without patience. In the tabernacle, the doors of the sanctum santorum were of olive-wood (1 Kings 6:31); which is the hieroglyphic of mercy: but the gates of that fearful dungeon, which is hell, are said to be of brass and iron; "He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder" (Psalm 107:16); the signs of hard hearts and instruments of destruction. Which serves to show, that the way to hell is by inhumanity; to heaven, by pity. Of all the passions in us, compassion is the best; and a man without this tenderness, is but the statue of a man; a mere stone in a human figure. The very stones will seem to weep, when foul weather is a-coming; and as if they had been once so full of sorrow for Christ's sufferings, that their solid breasts could no longer contain it, they brake in pieces. There be men harder than stones, that have hearts more impenetrable, obdurate, and unrelenting, and less capable of remorse; nay, instead of pitying the wounds of the miserable, they make those miserable wounds. (T. Adams.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. |
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