Chapter X: INCIDENTAL CORROBORATIVES. Various incidental expressions corroborate

the idea that servants became such by their own contract. Job. xli. 4, is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?" Isa. xiv. 1, 2 is also an illustration. "The strangers shall be joined with them (the Israelites) and _they shall_ CLEAVE to the house of Jacob, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids."

The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they came to Joseph and said, "There is not aught left but our _bodies_ and our lands; _buy_ us;" then in the 25th verse, "We will be Pharaoh's servants." To these it may be added, that the sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2. 3.

The pertinence and point of our Lord's declaration in Luke xvi. 13, is destroyed on the supposition that servants did not become such by _their own choice_. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." Let it be kept in mind, that our Lord was a _Jew_. The lost sheep of the house of Israel were his flock. Wherever he went, they were around him: whenever he spake, they were his auditors. His public preaching and his private teaching and conversation, were full of references to their own institutions, laws and usages, and of illustrations drawn from them. In the verse quoted, he illustrates the impossibility of their making choice of God as their portion, and becoming his servants, while they chose the world, and were _its_ servants. To make this clear, he refers to one of their own institutions, that of _domestic service_, with which, in all its relations, incidents and usages, they were perfectly familiar. He reminds them of the well-known impossibility of any person being the servant of two masters, and declares the sole ground of that impossibility to be, the fact that the servant _chooses_ the service of the one, and _spurns_ that of the other. "He shall _hold to_ the one and _despise_ (reject) the other." As though our Lord had said, "No one can become the servant of another, when his will revolts from his service, and when the conditions of it tend to make him hate the man." Since the fact that the servant _spurns_ one of two masters, makes it impossible for him to serve _that one_, if he spurned _both_ it would make it impossible for him to serve _either_. So, also, if the fact that an individual did not "hold to" or choose the service of another, proves that he could not become his servant, then the question, whether or not he should become the servant of another was suspended on _his own will_. Further, the phraseology of the passage shows that the _choice_ of the servant decided the question. "He will HOLD TO the one,"--hence there is no difficulty in the way of his serving _him_; but "no servant can serve" a master whom he does not "_hold to_," or _cleave_ to, whose service he does not _choose_. This is the sole ground of the impossibility asserted by our Lord.

The last clause of the verse furnishes an application of the principle asserted in the former part, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Now in what does the impossibility of serving both God and the world consist? Solely in the fact that the will which chooses the one refuses the other, and the affections which "hold to" the one, reject the other. Thus the question, Which of the two is to be served, is suspended alone upon the _choice_ of the individual.

XI. RICH STRANGERS DID NOT BECOME SERVANTS. Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47. Since _rich_ strangers did not become servants to the Israelites, we infer that those who _did_, became such not because they were _strangers_, but because they were _poor_,--not because, on account of their being heathen, they were _compelled by force_ to become servants, but because, on account of their _poverty_, they _chose_ to become servants to better their condition.