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The third woe:
v. 15. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
In their eagerness to make an impression upon the people, the scribes and Pharisees were zealously active in gaining proselytes for the Jewish Church. They crossed the seas, they traveled into deserts seeking men and women that might be gained for the Jewish religion, and the number of proselytes of the gate and proselytes of righteousness, those that accepted the Jewish doctrines without and with circumcision and baptism, was at times notable. But in adding people to the Church outwardly, they harmed their souls for all eternity by teaching them the religion of hypocrisy. Many of the proselytes of righteousness were far more fanatical than the Jews themselves. Thus the Pharisees again proved themselves adepts at dissimulation, for it appeared before men as though they were zealous for God, and gained many people away from their idolatry, while, as a matter of fact, they introduced them into far greater, though more hidden, idolatry than before—the faith in their own good works.