Matthew 15:14

Matthew 15:14. Let them alone Do not trouble or concern yourselves about their censures: neither court their favour nor dread their displeasure, nor much care though they be offended. Seek not to please a generation of men that please not God, 1 Thessalonians 2:15; and will be pleased with nothing less than absolute dominion over your consciences. They be blind leaders of the blind Teachers, who foolishly think to lead their disciples to heaven by the observation of precepts wherein there is not the smallest degree of true piety, and will not be convinced of the contrary, being grossly ignorant of divine things, and strangers to the spiritual nature of God’s law; and yet so proud, that they think they see better than any others, and therefore undertake to be leaders of others. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch The guides and the guided, the blind leaders and the blind followers, shall perish together. Both will be involved in the general desolation coming upon the Jews, and both will fall into the ditch of eternal destruction. We find, Revelation 22:15, that hell is the portion of those that make a lie, and of those that love it when made. The sin and rain of the deceivers will be no security to those that are deceived by them. “Though the leaders of the people cause them to err, yet they that are led of them are destroyed,” Isaiah 9:16; because they shut their eyes against the light which would have rectified their mistake. Hence “it follows,” says Dr. Whitby, “that sometimes the multitude neither ought, nor can, without their utmost peril, follow the guidance of their ecclesiastical superiors;” or, as he expresses himself afterward, believe, or comply with their rules, “because it is their duty never to follow them into the ditch.” “Learn here,” says Burkit, “1st, that ignorant, erroneous, and unfaithful ministers are the heaviest judgment that can befall a people; 2d, that the following of such teachers and blind guides will be no excuse to people another day, much less free them from the danger of eternal destruction.”