,^i Or P^^^^ SEP . 5 '// :^.n, ■/<' ■< L!^('iLi.ll\V^ Scctiou J14524I8 THE MANIFESTO OF THE KING. v» %\0 f MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, PRIKTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. THE MANIFESTO OF THE KING AN EXPOSITION OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT BT J. OSWALU^DYKES, M.A., D.D. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., BERNERS STREET. 1881. '^^/ PREFACE. THE several books of wliicli this volume is composed were published some years ago, under their respective titles, in three separate volumes. Under that form they have obtained from the Christian public a measure of favour exceeding any expectation on the author's part ; and he is now advised to re-issue them, thrown together into a single volume, at a reduced price, with the hope that (if God will) they may still continue in their new shape to find readers, and to fill a modest place of usefulness among the crowd of recent M'orks devoted to the popular and practical exhibi- tion of the sense of Holy Scripture. As thus completed, the work forms in reality a continuous exposition of our Lord's great dis- course known as the Sermon on the j\Iount. To indicate this, a fresh and more comprehensive title has been selected for it. CONTENTS. v^^ Historical Introduction, TAC.-B 3 THE BEATITUDES OF THE KINGDOM. The First Beatitude : Of Spiritual Poverty, . 25 The Second Beatitude : Of Mourning, . . 45 The Third Beatitude: Of Meekness, . . 61 The Fourth Beatitude : Of Hunger for Righteousness, 81 The Fifth Beatitude: Of Mercy, . . . 101 The Sixth Beatitude: Of Purity, . . . 119 The Seventh Beatitude ; Of Peacemaking, . 139 The Eighth Beatitude : Of Persecution, . . 161 Conclusion: Salt and Light, . . . 181 Boolt Scconti. THE LA WS OF THE KINGDOiL Part I.— Relation of the New Law to the Old. General Principle : Fulfilment, not Destruction, 203 Fiust Illustration :. Sixth Commandment, . . 223 Second Illustration : Seventh Commandment, 245 Third Illustration : Oaths, .... 265 Fourth Illustration : Lex Talionis, . . 287 Fifth Illustration : Who is my Neighbour? . 311 CONTENTS. Paut II. — The Law of Secrecy in Ee The Principle : Before God, not Men, First Application : To Almsgiving, . Second Application : To Prayer, Excursus : The Model Prayer, Third Application : To Fasting, 833 351 373 393 417 THE RELA TIONS OF THE KINGDOM. introduction, ...... 441 Part I.— Relations to the World as a Possession. First Warning : Against Covetousness, . . 449 Second Warning : Against Anxiety, . . 483 Part II. — Relations to the World as Evil. First Relation : Of Correcting the World's Evil, 529 Second Relation : Of Escaping the World's Evil, 551 Third Relation : Of Detecting False Teachers in the Kingdom, ..... 595 Fourth Relation : Of Judgment on Evil withik the Kingdom, ..... 615 Conclusion, . . . ' . . . G37 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. His fame went throughout all Syria : and they brought unto Him all sick people that %vere taken with divers diseases and torments, and those ivhich were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy ; and He healed them. And there folloioed Him great multitudes of p)eople from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain ; and ivhen He was set. His disciples came unto Him : and He opened His mouth, and taught them. — Matt. iv. 24-v. 2. It came to 2^ass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. Andivhen it was day, He called unto Him His disciples : and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named Apostles ; Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bar- tholomew, Matthetv and Thomas, James [the son"] of Alpili£us, and Simon called Zelotes, and Judas [the brother'] of James, and Judas Iscariot, ivhich also tvas the traitor. And He came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of His disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were vexed with unclean spirits : and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him ; for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all. And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said . Luke vi. 12-20, HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. JESUS had been for very nearly a whole year intro- a public teacher in Juclea and Jerusalem "^^°''''' before He went down to the province of Galilee to commence His ministrations there. Though we do not know very much of that earlier stage in His work, we know the issue of it. It was followed by an open rupture with the influential and orthodox leaders of the Hebrew people. The scribes and Pharisees ' persecuted Jesus, and sought John v. lo. to slay Him,' because of the Bethesda miracle done on the Sabbath-day. Eejected thus in the capital by the national rulers, Jesus retired to the northern province, and threw Himself on the sympathies of the common people. He settled in the business town of Capernaum, and had at the outset signal success. He became popular. It was against the importunities of the citizens that He one Sunday morning tore Himself from Luke iv.40ff. them, for the sake of visiting other towns and villages lying in tlie vicinity. From that short 4 Historical Introduction, iNTno- tour He returned to His own city of Capernaum — " ' towards the end of the same week ; but during His absence it would seem that matters had somewhat changed. The crowd, indeed, was as simple-hearted and friendly in its welcome as ever; but a number of doctors and Pharisees from a distance had arrived with no good intent — some from the capital, some from other parts of Judea — sent most probably by the ruling party in Jerusalem. If we keep in view that the influential leaders of the pharisaic sect in Jeru- salem had only a few weeks before decided against Jesus, and driven Him away by threats to kill Him, we shall understand the meaning of this new move on their part. They could not allow Him to have it all His own way among the people of the northern province ; therefore they had sent down after Him a deputation of their own to watch Him and concert with the local Pharisees against Him, in order to counterwork and damage His influence among the people. This band of professed adversaries first appears in Jesus' own house at Capernaum, immediately LuIjcv. I7ff. on His return from His preaching circuit. They murmured there at His forgiving the sins of the Luke V. 27- paralytic. They followed Him when, later in the Matt ix. 9. same day, He called Matthew from his custom- Historical Introduction. 5 Iiouse by the lake. They remonstrated with the intro- disciples that evening, because Jesus sat down among ]Matthe\v's fellow-publicans at his farewell supper-party. The first following Sabbath, the Luke vi. l. same men lay on the catch as His disciples went through the standing corn and rubbed its fast- hardening ears. And soon after there fell a legal Luke vi. off. Sabbath or Holy Day, when they made a public opportunity of challenging Jesus Himself to re- peat at Capernaum the Sabbath-breaking act of mercy for which He had been condemned at Jeru- salem. Jesus did so. He healed the withered hand ; and these emissaries from headquarters seem to have reached the extreme of rage and Luke vi.ii; malice. ' They were filled with madness,' and c' took counsel with their political rivals, the Hero- dian faction, how to accomplish His destruction. ' In those days ' it was, as Luke emphatically Luke vi. 12. notes ; just on the back of a coalition of enemies so formidable ; when Jewish enmity had broken into Galilee to poison its more honest population, and, as He foresaw, to alienate the people from His side ; when by so much the cross was drawing nearer, and His own public teaching growing hazardous : then ' it came to pass ' that He chose the Twelve. This measure was, so to speak. His answer to tlic enemy, the revenge of 6 Historical Introduction. INTRO- His love. As tliey have advanced a step, so ■ He. They strengthen themselves with allies, so will He : and the more men seek to crush out the kingdom of God in its very birth, the more will His divine grace provide for its maintenance and propagation. Yes, Him they may destroy: but in His room there shall be Twelve ; and from the Twelve, how many more ! Up till tliis time it can hardly be said the kingdom of God was set up. True, He had spoken a great deal about His Messiahship and His kingdom; but He preached, like John, a kingdom to come. He had drawn a number of followers to believe in Him, and had even called a few of them to leave their trades and be His constant attendants ; but there was as yet neither office nor organization nor authority ; in a word, no kingdom. Preach- ing there was, not rule ; words which might alarm ecclesiastical officials indeed, but no overt act of which the law could take notice ; the prophet's part played, not the king's. Now there is an end to this. He takes exceedingly solemn and marked action. He selects a band of special ministers, equal in number to the twelve tribes of the Hebrew kingdom ; He invests them with office, not to preach simply, but to rule under Him the kinfrdom of God. To that end Historical Introduction. *t lie binds them to His person cas their Chief or intfo- King. He formally commissions them with super- J ' natural powers as their official equipment ; and tlu-ougli them He promulgates, in legislative ac- cents, the constitutional principles of the king- dom. At the hour of His widest popularity, yet at a crisis of gathering peril, in face of the people and the adversary together, He virtually sets up His kingdom, arrogates kingly rights, and, for the first time, commits Himself to the consequences of His claims to be God's Christ. It was a moment of decision. It was a policy of safety, because a policy of boldness. It was an act of calm, foresighted courage, full in its simplicity of the moral sublime. Let us gather up and realize the circumstances. In the first place, our Lord's night-long pre- paration for this step is worthy of devout atten- tion. We do not know if it was quite alone, or if, more probably, with the band of His now con- stant companions, that He withdrew to that mountain's brow which overlooked lake and town. But if they did try to watch with Him and pray, i,,.kc x.xii. not one, but many hours, must it not have been, as it were, about a stone-cast off? Who could be Ills fellow there ? The veil of loneliness and 8 Historical Introduction. INTRO- of night is on that prayer. What hand dare lift DurnoN. ^^^ y^^ j£^ ^^ ^^,g ggg^ thcTQ was risk in the thing He was about to do ; and if the doing of it was to lay the undermost stones of His king- dom, and be the first act of His kinghood, and open up all His church's coming history ; if, as JuLn V. 19. we know, ' the Son could do nothing of Himself, but what,' with the prayer-purged eye of a human faith, 'He saw the Father do,' — may we not humbly venture, so far at least, into that night's solitary and sacred communings ? Courage to go forward, irreversibly, with deepening shadow on His way; wisdom to choose those whom His Father had chosen, and had given Him for that end : can the Son of God be true brother to us all if at such an hour He needs not to ask these things for Himself? And for them, that they might rise to the height of their high calling, not puffed up, but divinely filled with grace and lowly power; till all — all save one — should be found finally not unworthy of this ministry and apostleship. And for us, and for all the long line of Christian generations to be built up on iit\. \.\i. 11. these Twelve Foundations, believing through their word : may we not so read that long night -prayer of consecration and of intercession by our Priest and King ? A lone dark watch on the cool hill- Historical Introduction. 9 top, with the stars of God looking cahiily down i>^tro- on Him, and the great lake spread silently out — below, as far from earthly care and sin, as near the heavens in their pureness, as may he, — behold the oratory of the Son of God ! When morning broke over the dark wall of the opposite shore, it showed Him pale from sleeplessness, but serene from prayer. Beneath Him, on the hill-side, was the gathering of His disciples. Man by man. He ' called whom He would by name ; ' and man by man, the Elect Twelve left their wondering companions to take their places by the Master's side, to be for ever now chief counsellors in His kingdom, the next in honour and the next in danger. Llost of them have been heard of already in the nar- rative : Simon the Eock and his lesser brother, with the two Sons of Tlnmder, whom He had called together from their fishing-nets to be four partners in the ministry ; Philip of Bethsaida and his friend Nathanael, as together a year ago they found the Christ ; two of the Lord's own brothers and the Capernaum publican, just called two days before ; and one Simon the Zealot and Thomas ; and, last and strangest of all, that one, unsuspected as yet by any save Jesus, who was John vi. 70. ' a devil.' ' The glorious company of the apostles,* 1 0 Hisioi icul Introduction. iNTKo- the cliurcli lias called them in her hymn ; but ■ had we seen them that dawn, as they clustered round their King, we must have thought them a strange, unlikely, inglorious band. Twelve Galilean workmen, with average ability and the prejudices of their class ; attracted, indeed, by the superiority of this Man, and yielding to His influence, but neither comprehending who He was nor what He was to do ; ignorant, rude, strong-passioned, ill assorted : by these Twelve to lay the foundations of the church of God so broad and deep that on them might be built the hopes of all mankind and the destinies of a saved, regenerated earth ! Did ever means seem in more foolish disproportion to the end ? Yet L Cor. i. 27. He did it. These foolish things God chose to confound the wise. The might of Jesus' Spirit turned them to apostles ; and to that dozen work- men on the hill, all Christendom in all time has looked back as to the planters and fathers of its faith. It is always the same. For the humbling of human pride and the practice of Christian faith, God works salvation for men by means which men despise. Look at that morning's scene as the act of God our Saviour, and it will read you this lesson, that by using earthen 2 Ccr. iv. 7. vcsscls, Soiled even and chipped, He would mag- Historical Introduction. 11 nify the treasure of His strength, which groweth intro- ' mighty to save ' through very weakness. Look ""^°^' at it as the great venture of the Son of Man, launching His Father's cause upon the worhl, and it is the grandest example of faith, setting itself to achieve the impossible by the help of the Almighty. At this point there seems to have occurred an interruption. The election over, and formal ordination, through whatever ceremony, there might naturally have been expected to follow some sort of charge on the office and its work ; some such words of private instruction to the sacred apostolic college, as He delivered a little later w^hen He sent them SecT.iuft. x., 1 . o . . r. 1 ^^^^ Luke X. forth on their first mission, bo, perhaps, there i-ig. would ; but the privacy of the Saviour's retreat was never safe from invasion. Already eager crowds from the city had found Him out. Up the gorge He saw them pouring, and over the steep hill-side, bringing their sick with them ; a very great multitude collected by His fame from Galilee on this side the lake and Decapolis on that, from Judea in the far south, even from the commercial centres of Phoenicia to the west and north. Such an interruption at so unseason- able a moment might have discomposed most men ; 12 Historical Introduction. INTRO- but in His holy self-possession, no call of duty ^ ■ seemed ever to take Him at unawares or to jar with any other engagement. Promptly He led His disciples from the summit to a little level pasture spot some way down the hill, where He met and gathered round Him the advancing people. Standing among them. He healed their sick and cast out devils and restored the infirm and lunatic. Drawn marvellously by the abun- dance of His grace, the whole crowd seemed to press round to touch Him, for out from Him was going forth a power which was healing all. Not till after this healing interlude, when all were gathered a-nd their bodily need cared for and their interest secured, did He withdraw again a little way up the slope and sit down to address His disciples. There, with the Twelve in their new place beside Him, and the other disciples in front, beyond them again the vast mixed crowd of peasants and citizens, Jews and foreigners, all grouped on the level spot or round and down the bank ; there, with the morning sky for temple- roof, and the hum of city business creeping up from the lake below ; there ' He opened His mouth, and taught them' in the most profound and ^'eighty sermon which the evangelists have been moved to record — ' tlie Sermon on the Mount.' Historical Tniroduciion. 1 3 The occasion defines its character. Spoken to ikti;o- Ilis own, it was meant for all In form, indeed, "^'^^'"^' it preserves its original character as a noLle in- augjuration charge to these first twelve confessors and officers of His kingdom. Bnt in its con- tents it regards the wider audience. Even as (if one may liken such things) a constitutional monarch, like our own Queen, in addressing her senate on a state occasion, cannot forget that outside the senate hall are listening millions of Britisli subjects, and beyond them, too, the entire civilised world, and must therefore say nothing which all may not hear, but may say much wliich all need to hear ; so the Sermon on the Mount became virtually a proclamation or manifesto, published by the King of tlie new spiritual Israel upon this first public occasion, but couched in the form of a royal charge to His first subjects and earliest ministers. Its tone and matter answer this idea. It is dog- matic and commanding. Its style is regal. He speaks here, not as a reasoner, nor in strict sense an expounder, nor a prophet, nor a preacher ; but as a King. He teaches, indeed ; but it is in the brief declarative style of authority, hardly stooping to argue or explain. He exliorts ; but it is witli the calm and weighty imperative of a 14 Historical Introdudion. INTRO- lawgiver, straiglitforward as an imperial edict. — ■ He predicts ; but His closing words fall like the doom of a judge. The discourse suggests, in fact, a certain parallelism to the former legisla- tion from Sinai, when the mediator of the Old Covenant brought stone tables of law from hea- ven and laid in bloody statutes the constitution of a commonwealth. Yet with what unspeakable grace and tenderness does Jesus temper while He heightens the dignity of the legislator ! From long communing with the God of the thunder- voice and robes of cloud, Moses came down to Dent, xviii. the people, camped about the mountain's foot, and spoke such stern words, guarded with curses, that all the people quaked. Here this other Prophet, with a far kingiier majesty upon His brow, comes from secret prayer upon the hill to speak the higher law of His new kingdom : but He sits meeldy in the midst ; grace and truth are on His lips ; His hands are full of blessings ; His words drop balm upon the wounded heart : ' Blessed are the poor in spirit.' This kindlier tone of the law of the new king- dom lay deep in its relation to the old. He who examines the sermon will find that it presup- Matt. V. 3- poses the whole work of the legal economy. It starts with men who are already poor in spirit^ Historical Introdudion. 15 penitent, and hungering after something Letter. T^-T^o. It takes for granted that the law lias driven the ^^'^""''^ people out of easy sin and self-righteous hopes ; has convinced, pricked, emptied, softened them ; so that now they are ready to welcome as a little child a kingdom which is of grace. It is a gospel for publicans and sinners. It brings near ' blessing ' at the outset. It comforts, it fills, it forgives, it adopts, it restores to the vision and the heritage of God ; it satisfies the mouth with these good things ere ever it speaks one word of law. Only then, when it has taught us to say, ' Our Father "Who art in heaven,' does it lead us up the steeps of a virtue loftier than that of Sinai, bidding us be as perfect as this Father of ours in heaven is perfect. It is the mark and honour of Jesus' kinghood, that it reposes on His Saviourhood. Men must be saved before they can be ruled. His first word therefore is, ' Blessed are ye ; ' His second, ' Be ye perfect.' Matt. v. 4a Till a man yields to be washed, changed, fed, and blessed, as poor and bad and hungry and . friendless, this King of the saved has no word for him. He stands under, not Christ's law, but Moses'. But why need we toil and sigh at a task which God set us only on purpose to show us how hopeless it is ? Let us give over, and coma 16 Historical Tntroduction. down and draw near to lie low at His feet and put heart and head underneath the hand of Him Who says, ' Blessed are ye.' Then, as our Father's sons and our King's brothers, shall not we, the blest ones, walk in love and be perfect as the dear children do ? Since the new covenant kingdom thus begins where the old leaves off, presupposing that as its foundation and rising out of it to fulfil what the old only postulated, it was impossible for Jesus to unfold the statutes of His new kingdom without close and constant reference to the old. Standing as a Jew within that miniature com- monwealth by which God had for some fifteen centuries acted out a standing prediction and prefigure of His New Testament church, speak- ing as a Jew to Jews, it was necessary to exhibit ■ the new in its relation to the old ; especially necessary, environed as He at this moment was with the greatest popular misconceptions on the point. The whole of His controversy with the leaders of His nation, which had just entered on a very alai'ming stage, turned upon the blunders which they made as to the connection between the old and the new kingdoms. The people shared these blunders. The very Twelve were not free. In so popular yet elaborate an exposi- Historical Introduction. 17 tion of His kingdom as tliis, He could not fail to lyrT^n- fall into a running polemic against the current ' . misconceptions of the day. There nnderruns a reference all through to two leading misconcep- tions : first, to the blunder that subjects of the old Israelitic realm were to be ipso facto subjects of Messiah and heirs of material glory and bless- edness, whether they were good or bad ; second, to the blunder that the noble code of social morals which God had given was sufficiently kept by a scrupulous adherence to the letter, from whatever base or godless motive, instead of requiring the service of a loving and honest heart. Prom national Hebrew particularism on the one hand, and from pliarisaic casuistry and literalism on the other, our Lord had come to set God's glorious law free. What wonder if He had been already met by the ignorant and interested cry that He was seeking to destroy the law ? That charge was the motto of His enemies ; they were even now rallying to it these Galileans ; and here, with an opportunity to speak, and thousands of the people waiting on His lips, the spiritual King proclaimed as His counter motto, ' I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.' Very glorious is the idea of a spiritual king .^ B 18 Historical IntroLluction. INTRO- dom, which He then disentangled from Jewish DTTCTioN. jjiisconception, and held up before all men's Matt.v,3-10. eyes ! Its subjects are all penitent, lowly, and pure-hearted people throughout the earth, who unfeignedly long for God's salvation. Its blessings are not material or local aggrandize- ment, but the satisfaction of the spirit's wants through pardon of sin, sonship to God, the purity and comfort of the Holy Ghost, and the final V. 17-43. vision of the divine glory. Its laws are the very will of the King Himself, writ on the heart in love and sweetly conforming affections and character. Its righteousness is far above that of Scribe or Pharisee, in spotless truthfulness within and without, and what seems more than human vL 1-18. charity, generosity, and forgiveness. Its service is spiritual, personal, secret; seen only by the Father, it wins no honour upon earth, but heaps together at the last imperishable and celestial vl. 24-34. treasures. Its all-absorbing dominion is so abso- lute, that this King brooks no rival master; so imdivided and clear-handed, that He relieves His subject of all anxiety for the body or the morrow. vii. 13 ff. But its entrance gate, ready to open indeed, so that who will but knock shall enter, is yet so strait withal, that the proud heart must strive sore for entrance, and may often strive in vain ! Hisiorical Introduction, 19 So clear and pure a conception of the perfect intro- form whicli God designs His community of saved liuman beings to attain, where every age, even to the last, has furnished its elect and faithful ones, had never yet dawned on the widest-sighted of mankind : nothing so catholic, so complete, so perfect ! I do not wonder that the world's most thoughtful men have marvelled at so fair a vision, outshining all that the hopes of ages had been yearning after, yet spoken here, in childlike words, by the lips of a poor man, brought up in the narrowest of all national bigotries ; and spoken, too, with such simple assurance at a moment when there was not the most distant chance, to human calculation, of its ever being more than a vision. Neither do I wonder that the elementary truths of this ser- mon should have entered into the thoughts of all civilised peoples, and taken their place even in the common literature of the race as axiomatic truths, sacred now, and current for ever, to believer and unbeliever alike. But what is all tliis to us as men in need of salvation ? Will it w\arm us to extol a painted fire ? Is there salvation in lingering admiringly outside the city walls, and gazing np at its dazzling turrets ? Or was it with the depressing foresight how ■DUCTION 20 Historical Tntrocludion. INTRO- much patronizing admiration and barren praiso — * would be expended on this sermon by men who shall never see the kingdom of God, that He was moved to close with darkening face in words like these : Every one tliat hearcth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall he likened unto Matt. vii. 26. a foolish man ivhich huilt his house upon the sand ? Take away the living, working Christ from the fore-front of this sermon — leave out Him Who is able to bless us as we are, weak, crushed, and weeping children of guilt and wrath — and you leave me only a mocking picture ! A kingdom of God, forsooth ! when I am a dead slave, deep in the heart of the kingdom of the devil, and you have shown me no Power, no Helper, no one to translate me out of darkness into light, and from the power of Satan unto God ! Nay, but there stands the living Christ on that hill in Galilee ; and heals the people's plagues, and lifts the demon-power from off their bodies. He will not mock me with a phantom kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy ! — a dream- built Palace Beautiful, upreared of clouds, for which I, a captive, can only sigh through my dungeon-bars ! He stands that day among the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry in spirit, as He stood among the sick and demon- vexed — a living Fount to both of spiritual Historical Introduction. 21 blessing. Touch only, and the virtue will How intro- out ! Ah ! but where is lie now ? He thought ^^^J^^- that morning how the machinations of priest and Herodian would not let Him stay long here. But, against His going, He made this provision of the Twelve Apostles. That the dead Christ is alive again ; that the departed Christ is working on by His invisible Spirit ; that neither death could quench nor absence impede that saving action of His on sinful souls, by which He peoples the kingdom of God M'ith re-born subjects : this is the testimony of the Apostolate. A few months, and it was Pente- cost. Jesus had died ; but these Twelve, fore- ordained and elect unto this very thing, Avere witnesses of His resurrection. Jesus was away; but these Twelve had become seats, organs, and channels to other men of tlie Spirit they had got from Jesus. Thus they became twelve foundations to the wall of the new Jerusalem, ecv. x-'ii. 14 being guarantees to all time that this King, by the grace of God anointed in Jordan, though slain by plotting Jews, lives, and not lives only, but works, saves, and to this day blesses, all ' the poor in spirit,' so that ' theirs is the king- dom of God.' The testimony of these Twelve to the living. Spirit-sending King, lives on in the kingdom by a true succession. THE BEATITUDES OF THE KINGDOM. THE "FIRST BEATITUDE. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for tTicirs is tJic hiiujihnn cj heaven. — Matt. v. 3. Blessed he ye poor, for yours is tJie kiurjdom of Go J. . . . But woe unto you tliat are rich, for ye have received your consolation. — Luke vi. 20, 2i. THE FIRST BEATITUDE. T must strike every careful reader of tlic Fir.sT Beatitudes how thoroughly Christ's coiiccp- " '. tion of blessedness contradicts the popular esti- mate of happiness. For mankind at large has its own series of beatitudes, which are so far from being like these, that this Preacher on the mountain seems studiously to reverse the world's judgment. He frames His words so as to fly »^ full in the face of public opinion and the consent of men. He says, ' the poor,' ' the mourners,' ' the meek,' ' the hungry; ' but everybody else has always said in his heart, ' Blessed are the rich ; ' ' blessed are they that are happy ; ' ' blessed are those Avho can hold their own, and such as do not need to hunger or thirst at all' Here, in sober truth, and not at all in bitter satire, is a man whom all the world outvotes. This startling contradiction between Christ and the world rests on a radical difference in their way of looking ^ at human life. They do not mean quite the same thing with their beatitudes. It is of con- y' 2G Tlu First Beatitude. FIRST ^ dition the world is thinking ; Christ of character. ^ ■ When society claps hands to the cry, ' 0 fdix ! ' ' Oh, lucky fellow ! ' Oh, rare success ! ' it is the fortunate circumstances of a man's lot of which society is thinking. It is the blessedness of having a great deal of money, of being always comfortable, of being environed with what may minister to pleasure, and able always to com- mand what one desires ; it is this blessedness of condition which society crowns with its beati- tudes, and to which men pay the tribute of envying it. Alas for this blessedness, which is outside the man ; the blessedness of circum- stance, and accident, and transient condition ; the blessedness which Time's scythe mows down like grass to be cast into the oven ! Not condition V does Jesus bless, but character. He counts no earthly state enviable, least of all a state of unbroken ease. But the happy man is the good man. What a man is in himself, not where he is, nor how he lives, nor how much he has, ^ but what a man is, is the ground of his blessed- V ness. Of these eight marks, all save one are marks of character. Read them over, and there rises before you the image of one large and fair and consistent character, many-sided, indeed, but of one piece. It need hardly be said that Tlic First Beatitude. 27 these eight appellations describe, not so many nnsx separate classes of men, but one class only, in ' — whom all the eight characteristics meet ; so that not one of these blessings is to be had without the rest, nor one of these graces to be wrenched from its place in the sisterhood. But it is worth noting, that not only do these sentences describe the same character — they describe it in the order of its natural development. They are / not strung together at haphazard. From first to last they are linked close to one another in such a way, that although all these eight features of Christian character are present throughout the life of a Christian, yet each of them comes successively to full development as Christian life advances. The earliest grace holds the latest in its bosom, and the latest rests upon the first, and each inherits all that go before, and leads on all that follow. In this fair order they describe a stately progress from blessedness to] blessedness — from the gracious root of Christian ' life to the full fruitage of perfected righteous- ness, which through trial attains to its reward ; not so much, as one has said, like sundry grape- clusters ripening one after another on the vine our Father planteth in believing hearts,^ as like ^ Oiigen, quoted by Tholuck, Bcrcjpredifjt, p.