1 

1:1 Paul - In this epistle St. Paul neither uses the title of an apostle, nor any other, as writing to pious and simple - hearted men, with the utmost familiarity.There is a peculiar sweetness in this epistle, unmixed with any sharpness or reproof: those evils which the apostles afterward reproved having not yet crept into the church.

1:3 Remembering in the sight of God - That is, praising him for it. Your work of faith - Your active, ever - working faith. And labour of love - Love continually labouring for the bodies or souls of men. They who do not thus labour, do not love. Faith works, love labours, hope patiently suffers all things.

1:4 Knowing your election - Which is through faith, by these plain proofs.

1:5  With power - Piercing the very heart with a sense ofsin and deeply convincing you of your want of a Saviour from guilt, misery, and eternal ruin. With the Holy Ghost - Bearing an outward testimony, by miracles, to the truth of what we preached, and you felt: also by his descent through laying on of hands. With much assurance - Literally, with full assurance, and much of it: the Spirit bearing witness by shedding the love of God abroad in your hearts, which is the highest testimony that can be given. And these signs, if not the miraculous gifts, always attend the preaching of the gospel, unless it be in vain: neither are the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost ever wholly withheld, where the gospel is preached with power, and men are alive to God. For your sake - Seeking your advantage, not our own.

23 

23:13 Wo to you - Our Lord pronounced eight blessings upon the mount: he pronounces eight woes here; not as imprecations, but solemn, compassionate declarations of the misery, which these stubborn sinners were bringing upon themselves. Ye go not in - For ye are not poor in spirit; and ye hinder those that would be so.

23:14  Mar 12:40; Luk 20:47.

23:16 Wo to you, ye blind guides - Before he had styled them hypocrites, from their personal character: now he gives them another title, respecting their influence upon others. Both these appellations are severely put together in Mat 23:23 and Mat 23:25; and this severity rises to the height in the Mat 23:33. The gold of the temple - The treasure kept there. He is bound - To keep his oath.

23:20 He that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon - Not only by the gift, but by the holy fire, and the sacrifice; and above all, by that God to whom they belong; inasmuch as every oath by a creature is an implicit appeal to God.