You know--some of you, at least--how these words were misused
afterwards; how the scribes and the Pharisees, in their zeal to
carry out the letter of the law, went about with texts of Scripture
on their foreheads, and wrists, and the hems of their robes,
enlarging their phylacteries, as our Lord said of them. But all the
time they did not understand the texts, or love them, or get any
good from them; but only made them excuses for hating and scoffing
at the rest of the world. They had them written only on their
foreheads, not on their hearts--an outside and not an inside
religion. They had lost all faith in the living God. God had
spoken, of course, to their forefathers; but they could not believe
that he was speaking to them--not even when he spoke by his only
begotten Son, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of
his person. God, so they held, had finished his teaching when
Malachi uttered his last prophecy. And now it was for them to
teach, and expound the law at secondhand. There could be no more
prophets, no more revelation; and when one came and spoke with
authority, at first hand, out of the depth of his own heart, he was
to be persecuted, stoned, crucified.
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