glad. Let the disposition, the mood, the moment's circumstance, mould
your action. There is no virtue or sanctity in observances which do not
correspond to the inner self. What a charter of liberty is proclaimed
in these quiet words! What mountains of ceremonial unreality, oppressive
to the spirit, are cast into the sea by them! How different Christendom
would have been and would be to-day, if Christians had learned the
lesson of these words!

The two condensed parables or extended metaphors, which follow the
vindication of the disciples, carry the matter further, and lay down
a principle which is intended to cover not only the question in
hand, their non-observance of Jewish regulations as to fasting, but
the whole subject of the relations of the new word, which Jesus felt
that He brought, to the old system. The same consciousness of His
unique mission which prompted His use of the term 'bridegroom,'
shines through the two metaphors of the new cloth and the new wine.
He knows that He is about to bring a new garb to men, and to give
them new wine to drink, and He knows that what He brings is no mere
patch on a worn-out system, but a new fermenting force, which
demands fresh vehicles and modes of expression. The two metaphors
take up different aspects of one thought. To try to mend an old coat
with a bit of unshrunk cloth would only make a worse dissolution of
continuity, for as soon as a shower fell on it the patch would
shrink, and, in shrinking, pull the thin pieces of the old garment
adjoining it to itself. Judaism was already 'rent' and worn too thin
to be capable of repair. The only thing to be done was 'as a
vesture' to 'fold it up' and shape a new garment out of new cloth.
What was true as to the supremely new thing which He brought into
the world remains true, in less eminent degree, of the less acute
differences between the Old and the New, within Christianity itself.