[Footnote 2: Luke xvi. 16. The passage in Matt. xi. 12, 13, is less clear, but can have no other meaning.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 17, 18 (Cf. Talm. of Bab., Shabbath, 116 b). This passage is not in contradiction with those in which the abolition of the Law is implied. It only signifies that in Jesus all the types of the Old Testament are realized. Cf. Luke xvi. 17.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 16, 17; Luke v. 36, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 9.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19; Mark xiii. 10, xvi. 15; Luke xxiv. 47.]
CHAPTER XIV.
INTERCOURSE OF JESUS WITH THE PAGANS AND THE SAMARITANS.
Following out these principles, Jesus despised all religion which was not of the heart. The vain practices of the devotees,[1] the exterior strictness, which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a mortal enemy. He cared little for fasting.[2] He preferred forgiveness to sacrifice.[3] The love of God, charity and mutual forgiveness, were his whole law.[4] Nothing could be less priestly. The priest, by his office, ever advocates public sacrifice, of which he is the appointed minister; he discourages private prayer, which has a tendency to dispense with his office.
[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 9.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 14, xi. 19.]