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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Matthew 15:5 - 15:5
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It is a gift - קרבן korban, Mar 7:11, an offering of approach; something consecrated to the service of God in the temple, by which a man had the privilege of approaching his Maker. This conduct was similar to the custom of certain persons who bequeath the inheritance of their children to Churches or religious uses; either through terror of conscience, thus striving to purchase the kingdom of glory; or through the persuasion of interested hireling priests. It was in this way that, in the days of popish influence, the principal lands in the nation had fallen into the hands of the Church. In those charters, multitudes of which have passed through my hands, a common form was, pro salute meae, et pro salute antecessorum meorum, et pro salute successorum meorum, et pro solute uxoris meae, etc., etc., do, et concedo Deo et Ecclesiae, etc. “For my salvation, and for the salvation of my predecessors, and for the salvation of my successors, and for the salvation of my wife, etc., etc., I give and bequeath to God and his Church, etc.”
Though a world of literature was destroyed, and fine buildings ruined, by the suppression of the monasteries in England, yet this step, with the Stat. 23 Hen. VIII. c. 10, together with the Stat. 9 Geo. II. c. 36, were the means of checking an evil that had arrived at a pitch of unparalleled magnitude; an evil that was supplanting the atonement made by the blood of the covenant, and putting death-bed grants of land, etc., in the place of Jesus Christ, and throwing the whole secular power of the kingdom into the hands of the pope and the priests. No wonder then that they cried out, when the monasteries were suppressed! It is sacrilege to dedicate that to God which is taken away from the necessities of our parents and children; and the good that this pretends to will doubtless be found in the catalogue of that unnatural man’s crimes, in the judgment of the great day, who has thus deprived his own family of its due. To assist our poor relatives, is our first duty; and this is a work infinitely preferable to all pious legacies and endowments.