45. This is a common Jewish formula: Nwcr Kynpl.
The words,46 with which Christ turned from this Address to the Seventy and
thanksgiving to God, seem almost like the Father's answer to the prayer of the Son.
They refer to, and explain, the authority which Jesus had bestowed on His Church: 'All
things were delivered47 to Me of My Father;' and they afford the highest rationale for the
fact, that these things had been hid from the wise and revealed unto babes. For, as no
man, only the Father, could have full knowledge of the Son, and, conversely, no man,
only the Son, had true knowledge of the Father, it followed, that this knowledge came to
us, not of Wisdom or learning, but only through the Revelation of Christ: 'No one
knoweth Who the Son is, save the Father; and Who the Father is, save the Son, and he
to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.'
46. St. Luke x. 22.
47. The tense should here be marked.
St. Matthew, who also records this - although in a different connection, immediately
after the denunciation of the unbelief of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum -
concludes this section by words which have ever since been the grand text of those
who following in the wake of the Seventy, have been ambassadors for Christ.48 On the
other hand, St. Luke concludes this part of his narrative b y adducing words equally
congruous to the occasion,49 which, indeed, are not new in the mouth of the Lord.50
From their suitableness to what had preceded, we can have little doubt that both that
which St. Matthew, and that which St. Luke, reports was spoke n on this occasion.
Because knowledge of the Father came only through the Son, and because these
things were hidden from the wise and revealed to 'babes,' did the gracious Lord open
His Arms so wide, and bid all51 that laboured and were heavy laden come to HIM.
These were the sheep, distressed and prostrate, whom to gather, that He might give
them rest, He had sent forth the Seventy on a work, for which He had prayed the Father
to thrust forth labourers, and which He has since entrusted to the faith and service of
love of the Church. And the true wisdom, which qualified for the Kingdom, was to take
up His yoke, which would be found easy, and a lightsome burden, not like that
unbearable yoke of Rabbinic conditions;52 and the true understanding to be sought, was
by learning of Him. In that wisdom of entering the Kingdom by taking up its yoke, and in
that knowledge which came by learning of Him, Christ was Himself alike the true lesson
and the best Teacher for those 'babes.' For He is meek and lowly in heart. He had done
what He taught, and He taught what He had done; and so, by coming unto Him, would
true rest be found for the soul.
48. St. Matt. xi. 28-30.
49. St. Luke x. 23, 24.
50. Comp. St. Matt. xiii. 16.
51. Melanchthon writes: 'In this "All" thou art to include thyself, and not to think that thou
dost not belong thereto; thou art not to search for another register of God.'
52. Acts xv. 10.
These words, as recorded by St. Matthew - the Evangelist of the Jews - must have sunk
the deeper into the hearts of Christ's Jewish hearers, that they came in their own old