■^ 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
/? ^ -y a: *^ 
 
 EDINBCKGH : PRINTED BY THOMAS CONSTABLE, 
 
 rou 
 EDMONSTOX AND DOUGLAS. 
 
 LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 DUBLIN M'GLASUAN AND GILL. 
 
 GLASGOW . JAMES MACLEHOSE. 
 
THE 
 
 SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 LECTUEES DELIVEEED 
 
 EEV. WALTEE 0. SMITH, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE EISHOP's WALK,' 'HYMNS OF CHKIST, AND THE 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE,' ETC. 
 
 EDINBUKGH 
 EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS 
 
 186 7. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These discourses are simply the ordinary Morning- 
 Lectures delivered, from week to week, to my Congre- 
 gation during the Winter of 1865-6; and, with some 
 slight exceptions (to be noted by and by), they are now 
 printed exactly as they were preached. In general, 
 such a statement could not be received as any excuse 
 for the defects of a published book, but would be rather 
 an aggravation of every offence ; for though a minister, 
 having to produce a certain amount of more or less 
 edifying matter once a week, may, excusably enough, 
 utter a good deal of commonplace, or even give occa- 
 sional currency to half- considered opinions which he 
 can afterwards review and modify, yet he is not at 
 liberty to inflict these on the general public, or to give 
 permanent shape to that which has no claim to perma- 
 nent usefulness. Nor would I have thought of pub- 
 lishing these Lectures, but for the fact that one of them 
 became the subject of controversy, or more properly 
 of condemnation, in the Free Cliurch Presbytery of 
 
VI PREFACK. 
 
 Glasgow, under whose jurisdiction I am placed, and in 
 this way obtained, at least, a local importance, apart 
 altogether from its intrinsic merits. Portions of it,^ — 
 sentences selected here and there, — were read in that 
 Court, and appeared in the public press ; and these, as 
 it seemed to me, were fitted, however little intended, to 
 produce a wrong impression as to the general character 
 of my teaching. In justice to myself, therefore, I have 
 thought it best to publish the entire series. In justice 
 also to the Church, this appears to be the right course; 
 for it is only fair that she should be put in possession 
 of the whole matter on which her Courts liave still to 
 decide. Hence these discourses are not printed because 
 the author considers them specially ^orthy of such 
 permanent form. They have no claim to critical nicety, 
 or exegetical learning, or even to any peculiar novelty 
 of thought or illustration. They are simply ordinary 
 congregational lectures which have had the misfortune 
 to be denounced as containing heretical doctrine ; and 
 they are now published because neither should the 
 accused be condemned, nor should the judge pronounce 
 sentence, on isolated fragments of what ought to be re- 
 garded as one indivisible whole. I deprecate no severity 
 of criticism, then, whetlier ecclesiastical or literary, but I 
 make this statement, that the critic may have the whole 
 case before him when he applies himself to his task. 
 With some exceptions, these Lectures are printed just 
 
PKEFACE. Vll 
 
 as tliey were preached. The exceptions are these : — 
 the fourth of this series, which the Presbytery specially 
 found fault with, formed originally two discourses, and 
 these have been reduced to their present dimensions, 
 first, by throwing into an Appendix an illustration 
 which was liable to misunderstanding, and which had 
 been more fully handled in a subsequent lecture ; and 
 secondly, by omitting some recapitulation not necessary 
 when the discourse could be read at a sitting. Besides 
 these, I think there are no other alterations w^hich are 
 not simply verbal, and of no moment whatever. Cer- 
 tainly no changes have been made on the character of 
 the doctrine complained of So far, these Lectures are 
 now given in their integrity and entireness. 
 
 It would not be fair to make this book a medium of 
 controversial discussion with the Presbytery ; nor have 
 I the slightest intention of doing so. But I may take 
 the liberty of asking my readers to compare the views 
 given in the first and fourth of these Lectures, with 
 the opinions of a few recognised orthodox divines in 
 Appendix No. II. I could easily have multiplied 
 them considerably ; but in the meanwhile these may 
 suffice. Let me add, that I am not to be understood as 
 either accepting all their views, or as claiming their 
 adherence to all mine. I simply give those extracts to 
 show how some able and sound theologians have looked 
 at those questions. 
 
Viii PREFACE. 
 
 There is only one other point to which I would refer 
 here, at present. In speaking of the whole Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures as being at once fulfilled and annulled 
 in Christ, I would wish my readers to remember the 
 distinction between the authority to impose law, and 
 the authority to teach truth. For the former of these 
 may be abolished, while the latter remains as valid as 
 ever. A book may be annulled as statute law, and yet 
 lose none of its value as a revelation. The ordinances 
 of circumcision and the passover are no longer binding 
 on me ; but they have not on that account lost autho- 
 rity to instruct me. On the contrary, when read m 
 the light of the New Testament, they have even more 
 than their original meaning ; they teach deeper things 
 now than they ever taught of old. Lest therefore it 
 might be supposed that I meant to deprive the ancient 
 Scriptures of all kind of authority, I was careful, from 
 the beginning, to combine the fulfilling with the 
 annulling of them. The one word was meant to re- 
 strict the meaning of the other. They were annulled 
 only as far as they were fulfilled ; but they still re- 
 mained, in various ways, full of profit and Divine 
 instruction. The reader wiU see that this runs through 
 the whole discourses complained of 
 
 For the rest, I regret to publish Lectures which 
 were not prepared with that view, and in which I can 
 see many things which, in other circumstances, I 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 should have probably qualified to some extent. Yet 
 on calmly reviewing them, even as they now stand, 
 I cannot suppose that they will tend to disturb the 
 faith even of any of God's little ones ; for had I 
 thought so, I would much rather have borne any 
 amount of blame than vindicated myself at such a cost 
 to others. But I issue them, honestly hoping that they 
 may do some good, and nowise dreading that they can 
 do any harm. 
 
 WALTEE SMITH. 
 
 Glasgow, 1S67. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI.- 
 
 FA6E 
 
 GENERAL OUTLINE-(Matt. v. 1, 2), . . 1 
 
 -INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES— (v. 3-12), . 20 
 
 -INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER- (v. 13-16), 37 
 
 -THEME OF THE DISCOURSE— (v. 17-19), . 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE- (v. 21-26), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE— (v. 27-32), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE- (v. 33-37), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE— (v. 38-42), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE- (v. 43-48), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY- (vi. 1-4), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY— (vi. 5-W), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY— (vi. 16-18), 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH— (vi. 19-21), . 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH— (vi. 22-24), . 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH— (vi. 25-34), . 
 -THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH— (vii. 7-11), . 
 
 52 
 82 
 100 
 116 
 1.31 
 146 
 162 
 178 
 193 
 208 
 224 
 239 
 256 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 PARR 
 
 XVII. -THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY— (vii. 1-6), . 276 
 
 XVIII. -THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY- (vii. 6, 12^, . 292 
 
 XIX.-CONCLUSION— THE STRAIT GATE— (vii. 13, 14), 308 
 
 XX.-CONCLUSION-FALSE PROPHETS— (vii. 15-20), . 323 
 
 XXI.— CONCLUSION— THE WISE AND FOOLISH 
 
 BUILDERS— (ra. 21-29), . . . .338 
 
 APPENDIX- 
 NO. I 353 
 
 Nt). II. ....... 357 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 
 
 ' Ayul seeing the rmdtitudes, he went up into a mountain ; and 
 when he was set, his disciples came unto him : and he opened his 
 mouth, and taught them.' — Matt. v. 1, 2. 
 
 The great discourse, commonly known as the Sermon 
 on the Mount, was so called because it was preached 
 on one or other of the Mils that skirt the western* 
 shores of Gennesaret. Tradition still points to a cer- 
 tain high ground there, and calls it ' The Mount of 
 Beatitudes;' but tradition also shows the spot where 
 Peter's cock crew, and tlie tree that Zaccheus climbed ; 
 and altogether there has been such a vile traffic in the 
 discovery of holy places, that we must exercise a wise 
 scepticism in regard to such matters, when we have no 
 more reliable guide than tradition. All we can be sure 
 of is, that this discourse was spoken by our Lord on 
 some green hill-side near Capernaum, overlooking the 
 sea. In those days this was a fair and populous region, 
 a well-watered garden, dotted with pleasant villages ; 
 its valleys covered with corn, and its hills with vines 
 and olive-trees, while Peter and his brother- fishermen 
 studded the lake with their sails, or plied their nets 
 
 A 
 
2 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 along tlie shore. Centuries of oppression, however, have 
 sadly changed the scene. It is now a waste and deso- 
 late land, and for the busy throng of fishers, the solitary 
 water-fowl M'ades among the reeds and rushes. 
 
 Sitting down on the mount, then, as the manner was, 
 with his disciples immediately round him, Jesus ad- 
 dressed the crowd that had gathered, at the report of 
 his miracles, from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and 
 from Jerusalem, and from beyond the Jordan, and 
 even from the regions about Tyre and Sidon. A very 
 mingled audience, no doubt, yet surely a highly favoured 
 one, — privileged, certamly, to hear the most Avonderful 
 sermon ever preached by mortal lips. Rather practical 
 than doctrinal, this discourse nevertheless is pregnant 
 throughout with deep, divine verities. Nowise contro- 
 versial, it yet contains the solution of many a vexing 
 dispute. Profoundly experimental, it searches the heart 
 as He only can who knows its thoughts afar off. Pure 
 and sincere, it brushes from the face of truth the 
 gathered dust of centuries — the casuistries and quib- 
 bling traditions which had overlaid its holy beauty. 
 Finally, it lays down, with high authoritative exposi- 
 tion, the fundamental laws of the new kingdom of God, 
 afterwards supplemented by many a thoughtful parable, 
 or expanded with fuller illustration ; but the germs of 
 almost all our Lord's teaching will, I think, be found 
 here. 
 
 We have apparently two reports of it ; this in St. 
 Matthew, which is much the more full and detailed ; 
 another in St. Luke, chap, vi., which, however, contains 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 3 
 
 some sayings that are not found in the former. Some 
 think they are really two different discourses, as that in 
 St. Luke is said to have been spoken ' in the plain/ after 
 coming down from the hill where he had ordained his 
 apostles. They hold that Jesus delivered the substance 
 of this sermon on two several occasions, and to different 
 audiences, with varieties according to the character of 
 his hearers. On the whole, I am disposed to adopt this 
 view, and will therefore confine my observations mainly 
 to the account given by Matthew. In the outset, how- 
 ever, let me show you w^hat seems to be the general 
 structure and drift of the Sermon. It is not, indeed, 
 laid out in formal divisions, but flows naturally and 
 easily along, without the stiff restraint of definite heads 
 and particulars. Our Lord does not tell off his thoughts, 
 or marshal his sentences in that way, as the custom is 
 with us. But you are not therefore to conclude that 
 there is any want of clear order and definite purpose in 
 his discourse, as if it consisted only of a number of loose 
 ideas and unconnected texts strung together at random. 
 For convenience' sake, the various books of the Bible 
 have been mapped out in chapters and verses ; and 
 hence, unfortunately, they are seldom read as other 
 books are, with the view of understanding each of them 
 as a whole. As the proverb says ' some people cannot 
 see the wood for the trees ;' they cannot see the book 
 for the verses ; they are so taken up with isolated texts 
 that the general tenor of the story, or epistle, or sermon 
 is often altogether lost. It is like as if we had taken 
 some noble edifice in pieces, and numbered all its parts 
 
4 THE SEKMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 and fragments, and then were content to examine here 
 a brick, and there a stone, without having any idea of 
 the complete structure. I am anxious, therefore, in 
 the outset, that you should get a definite conception of 
 this sermon in its general meaning and unity; for it 
 is one, and has one distinct object, with clear lines of 
 thought, each filling its part in the gi'eat argument. Let 
 me, then, try to explain what I have called the struc- 
 ture of this sermon. It consists, 
 
 I. Of an introduction, begmning at ver. 3 and ending 
 with ver. 16 of the 5th chapter of St. Matthew. In this 
 introduction Jesus pronounces a series of blessings, and 
 exhorts his followers to serve themselves heirs to those 
 beatitudes, and to let their ' light so shine before men, that 
 they may see your good works, and glorify your Father 
 which is in heaven.' The peculiar characteristic of these 
 opening sentences is, the kind of man whom Christ pro- 
 nounces happy. But, in the first place, let me say that 
 the question, Who is the truly happy man ? or. How may 
 we attain unto happiness ? has almost always been placed 
 in the forefront of every religious and philosophical sys- 
 tem, as if happiness were the great object which we ought 
 to pursue. The Lord therefore begins his discourse, 
 much as other teachers would, by touching on this sub- 
 ject. But we should altogether mistake his meaning, if 
 we therefore concluded that he regarded this as the chief 
 aim and end of man. On the contrary, every word he 
 says here plainly implies that the direct pursuit of hap- 
 piness is not the way to attain it ; that when we make 
 it our main object, we are certain to lose it ; and that 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 5 
 
 we must be, tlierefore, like men rowing a boat wlio are 
 looking in one direction, and making for tlie very oppo- 
 site. While then, the Lord's purpose was to bring joy 
 and blessedness to men. His was not a system of refined 
 pursuit of pleasure, and I daresay his hearers were not 
 a little startled by the strange prelude to his wondrous 
 teaching. For if you were asked to say honestly who 
 is the happy, altogether enviable man in your opinion, 
 would you not at once picture to yourself, almost in- 
 stinctively, a person who was rich, untroubled with 
 sorrow, had abundance to eat and drink, had no ene- 
 mies, and of whom everybody spoke well ? Possibly 
 you may have heard of people who had all these advant- 
 ages, and who yet were hardly blessed ; but for yourself, 
 you probably think that, if you were in their position, you 
 would be as happy as heart could desire. How strange 
 then it must have sounded, how strangely it still rings 
 in our ears, when we seriously think of it, to hear Jesus 
 saying, ' Blessed are the poor ! Blessed are they that 
 mourn ! Blessed are the meek ! Blessed are they that 
 hunger ! Blessed are the merciful, tlie pure-hearted, the 
 peacemakers, the persecuted ! Blessed are ye when all 
 men speak evil of you falsely !' A strange road surely 
 to happiness, this I Nor does it materially alter the case 
 to understand these expressions in a purely spiritual 
 sense ; for spiritual poverty and sorrow and hunger are 
 no more pleasant than natural poverty and sorrow and 
 hunger. Look at them as we may, these beatitudes are 
 very startling ; and so they were meant to be ; for they 
 are just a varied illustration of the profound paradox, 
 
( 
 
 I 
 
 6 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. . 
 
 ' ^Vliosoever will save his life, shall lose it ; but who- 
 soever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall 
 save it.' So, deep and broad, and sweeping over the 
 entire face of existing moral ideas, with almost utter 
 obliteration of all their familiar features, these introduc- 
 tory beatitudes open up to us a new world of spiritual 
 character and holy beauty and consequent joy, such as 
 had not entered into the heart of man to conceive. 
 They show us that happiness lies not in outward cir- 
 cumstances, but in inward life. But they do more than 
 that. They present us also with a spiritual character 
 of a type altogether different from that which the wis- 
 dom of the world had exalted and glorified — a man poor 
 in his own estimation, hungering for something better, 
 sorrowing for his shortcomings, meek, merciful, pure- 
 hearted, and peaceful, who, in virtue of these, should be 
 persecuted and evil spoken of. Yet, in virtue of these 
 too, he should be as light to the world and salt to the 
 earth, blessed and a blessing, leading others to glorify 
 the Father who is in heaven. After this introduction 
 then, we have, 
 
 II. The text or topic of the discourse, in verses 17, 18, 
 and 19:' Think not that I am come to destroy the law or 
 the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' 
 This appears to me to be the great leading principle dis- 
 cussed and illustrated in the remainder of the sermon. 
 Christ did not come to destroy the law. Indeed, no true 
 servant of God is ever sent merely on a work of destruc- 
 tion. He may have to pluck up and to pull down, but 
 he has also to build and to plant. Hence, the sceptic 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 7 
 
 who casts over all beliefs a pale shadow of doubt, and 
 the discontented who only grumble at everything as 
 wrong, but can by no means show us how to put them 
 right, — these and all other merely destructive forces, 
 though God may use them to work out his high design, 
 are not properly his servants, for their mission is not to 
 destroy, but to fulfil. Least of all could any son of God 
 be sent on an errand to abolish any law of God. For his 
 law is like himself, immutable. Its form, indeed, may 
 change, and has changed; or it may have been for a 
 season only partially revealed, and when the fitting time 
 comes, it may be discovered in a full- orbed glory which 
 does away with the former and imperfect utterance of it. 
 Or, again, in the course of ages, human error may have 
 gathered round and obscured it, or the dust of old tradi- 
 tion, and cobwebs of subtle casuistry may have concealed 
 its clear and holy beauty ; and it may, of course, form 
 an essential part of the business of God's faithful ser- 
 vants to sweep away all such undated rubbish of neglect- 
 ful years. For though there be some men who will have 
 the form to be as eternal as the spirit, and who cannot 
 see how the Lord has developed his truth, step by step, 
 according as we were able to bear it ; yea, and some 
 also to whom the very dust and rubbish and cobwebs of 
 Zion have a kind of sacredness, so that they tremble 
 when they are being brushed away, as if the everlasting 
 pillars and solid foundations were being unsettled ; yet 
 manifestly God's true prophet may be sent to alter the 
 form of the law, and to enlarge and perfect the revelation 
 of His will, and to remove all accretions of human error, 
 
8 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 all the consecrated misunderstandings of the truth ; and 
 still of such a workman we should not hesitate to say he 
 has not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Moreover, pro- 
 perly speaking also, the servant of the Lord is not sent 
 to proclaim mere novelties, newfangled systems, the 
 product of his own restless brain or solitary thought, 
 having no kind of paternity or affinity in the history of 
 bygone ages. There is one purpose runs through all the 
 course of Providence ; and he who is working the work 
 of God must necessarily stand in direct contact with 
 that scheme, not to thwart and baffle it, but to fulfil. 
 Such a man who is a faithful prophet may indeed have 
 much to say which is fresh, and even strange, to the 
 minds of men. Nay, just in as far as he draws his in - 
 spiration direct from the fountain of light, he will not, 
 he cannot, merely repeat old formulas, and ring the dull 
 changes of weary commonplace. But, at the same time, 
 underneath all that may be fresh and new and strange 
 in his speech,' you shall find, if you have eyes to see 
 it, that in the deep heart of the new truth lies the old 
 truth as a germ ; his gospel, whatever it be, is not an abo- 
 lition, but a fulfilling of God's law. . Bearing these things 
 in mind then, we may apply them to the word of Jesus 
 here, with some hope of attaining to a clear idea of its 
 meaning, ' He came not to destroy, but to fulfil' the law. 
 And yet the apostle Paul, who verily had the mind of 
 Christ, if ever man had, tells us that the law is now 
 taken out of the way, and nailed to the cross. Nor does 
 he, either directly or by implication, restrict that saying 
 to the typical and ceremonial ordinances of the old cove- 
 
GENEEAL OUTLINE. 9 
 
 nant ; it stands in all the breadth of its application, un- 
 limited and absolute. How then are these statements 
 to be reconciled ? Very easily, brethren, and without 
 any antinomian wickedness whatsoever. For Jesus 
 did come to change the form of the law, in order that 
 its true spirit might shine forth with diviner glory and 
 power ; and he came also to brush away from its holy 
 beauty the long accumulations of base tradition and 
 hateful sophistry, which custom had hallowed with a 
 most mischievous consecration ; and, moreover, he came 
 to take the veil from the face of Moses, and to reveal 
 the will of God as it never was revealed before, so that 
 what was glorious aforetime hath now no glory by 
 reason of the glory that excelleth. For while the gos- 
 pel of Jesus is not a mere novelty, but has its roots 
 deep in the ancient law and testimony of Jehovah, yet 
 it were doing high dishonour to the King and Author of 
 our salvation, were we to narrow the new covenant by the 
 antique limitations of Israelitish idea, or to read it by the 
 glimmering taper of the custom and tradition of Zion. 
 The oak is no doubt contained in the acorn ; but neither 
 is the stately branching tree quite the same as the hard- 
 shelled seed, neither is the acorn destroyed, but on the 
 contrary, its very purpose is fulfilled, when it has deve- 
 loped into the umbrageous monarch of the woods. Even 
 so doubtless the germs of all gospel idea may be found in 
 the statutes and types of the old law of the Lord; but that 
 old law is no more the gospel than the acorn is an oak ; 
 and if it be in one sense now abolished in Christ, it is only 
 abolished because its purpose is accomplished, and its 
 
1 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 promise fulfilled, and all of it that was truly divine and 
 eternal absorbed into the more glorious scheme that has 
 come in its room to abide for ever and ever. 
 
 III. Such being the great theme of this sermon, the 
 rest of it appears to me intended to illustrate and en- 
 force this statement. And, 1st, He explains this 
 principle by showing that the law must be kept not 
 iu the letter only, but in the spirit. Beginning at 
 ver. 21, on to the end of the fifth chapter, we find a 
 series of examples adduced to show how the command- 
 ments of God had been made of none effect, and along 
 with these there is an authoritative exposition of what 
 they really demanded. The Jewish scribes had elabo- 
 rated with extraordinary ingenuity a very subtle casuis- 
 try, wliich really seemed as if it were meant to prove 
 how thorouglily the spirit of the law might be outraged, 
 while the letter was most sacredly, even superstitiously, 
 esteemed. They found the commandment exceeding 
 broad, and they managed to make it as narrow as suited 
 their convenience. One might not kill his brother, but 
 he was quite at liberty to hate him most cordially. One 
 might not commit adultery, but lust was not forbidden ; 
 and with a simple writ of divorcement one might get 
 rid of an inconvenient wife. One might not swear by 
 the name of God, but if he wanted to swear, there were 
 a numl)er of handy oaths, about which he need have no 
 scruple whatsoever. Above all, though one must not 
 causelessly injure his neiglibour, the principle of revenge 
 was thought to be consecrated by the law which enjoined 
 an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, so tliat he who 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 1 1 
 
 was bound to love his neighbour was equally bound to 
 hate his enemy. For each of these ideas some fragment 
 of the letter of the law might be pleaded, either directly 
 or by seeming implication ; yet the spirit of it was 
 thoroughly outraged by all their impious casuistry. I 
 cannot, in this discourse, go into the details ; but what I 
 would here ask you specially to note, is that Jesus does 
 not merely lay down other and broader rules — directions 
 which might also be violated by a literal observance in 
 which the spirit was ignored. He does not merely clear 
 up the laws which had been thus obscured, and so leave 
 the matter to run the same course of deterioration as it 
 had done before. But instead of a new set of formal 
 regulations he gives us one great principle which is ap- 
 plicable to all circumstances, and which will be, if we 
 follow it faithfully, a law-making power within us, a 
 light shining upon our road, whatever that road may be. 
 That great regulative principle is love, — love to brother, 
 to wife, to neighbour, to enemy ; love which is truly the 
 fulfilling of the law. The application of this to each of 
 the cases adduced, though not in every instance equally 
 manifest, will not be found difficult in any of them if 
 you just bear this in mind, that the spirit of God's law 
 is a spirit of love, and that, if in your inner heart you 
 feel that any act, or word, or course of conduct, however 
 sanctioned apparently by the letter, or enjoined by theo- 
 logical casuistry, is opposed to that love which you owe 
 to your neighbour, then it is, and it must be, a violation 
 of the law of the spirit of the new Kfe which is in Christ 
 Jesus. ' I say unto you. Love your enemies, that you 
 
12 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 may be as the cliildren of your Father which is in 
 heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
 and on the good ; he sendeth his rain on the just and 
 on the unjust. Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father 
 which is in heaven is perfect.' 
 
 2. The second iUustration of the great idea of this 
 sermon is comprised in the first eighteen verses of the 
 sixth chapter, and it is to the effect that God's law can 
 only be fulfilled by utter sincerity and truthfulness. 
 Deep-rooted in human nature is the spirit of ostenta- 
 tion, far more so than we are willing to allow. To do 
 anything solely unto God, and without any view to the 
 opinion and applause of men, that is by no means easy, 
 as you will find when you try to enter into your closet, 
 and pray to Him which seeth in secret. This is a 
 common snare, which we have all daily and hourly 
 to watch against. But the Pharisees of old made no 
 attempt to resist it ; on the contrary, they organized 
 and consecrated it, until religion had well-nigh become 
 one vast systematized hypocrisy. If they gave a penny 
 in alms, it was apparently done to the sound of trumpets 
 before a crowd. If they prayed, it was at the street- 
 corners, and in the market-places and chief resorts of 
 the people, so that all might see how very pious they 
 were. If they fasted, they disfigured their faces and 
 clothes, that nobody might be ignorant how deep was 
 their seK-denial. So they won for themselves a kind 
 of superfine religious character, which they turned to 
 various profitable uses, and under covert of it they 
 gave themselves to enjoy the indemnity of a secret and 
 
GENEKAL OUTLINE. 13 
 
 impious indulgence : seeming to fulfil tlie law, they 
 foully violated it ; having a form of godliness, they 
 denied the power thereof. Against them, therefore, and 
 the spirit that was in them, Jesus launched his most 
 unsparing invectives. To other, commonplace sinners 
 he was tender and compassionate. But this was a kind 
 of iniquity utterly hateful to him. Again and again he 
 cried woe on the Pharisees and hypocrites, who clothed 
 their iniquity with the flowing robes and ostentatious 
 phylacteries of piety. And oh, brethren, let us also take 
 heed lest these woes come down in all their sad, sorrow- 
 ful indignation on our heads. The Pharisee is not dead, 
 though his name be in bad repute. His spirit is still 
 abroad ; and hollow and base as it is, it is more con- 
 genial to a deceitful heart than the deceitful heart is at 
 all willing to allow. Out upon all kinds of pretentious 
 piety ! Sincerity, pure-hearted, open-souled sincerity, 
 without veil, or gloss, or pretension of any kind, — that 
 alone can fulfil the law of the Lord. I do not say that 
 sincerity is everything, for no doubt a man may be 
 sincerely in the wrong. But I do say, that nothing is 
 right, or even in the way of being right, without this 
 frank and clear-eyed sincerity ; no creed, no prayer, no 
 fasting, no almsgiving, is of more worth than empty 
 breath, if it be only in appearance, not in sincerity and 
 truth. Yea, I will go farther, and say that whatever 
 is done in an earnest, honest way, as unto God, and not 
 unto man, hath in it so far a quality which greatly 
 excels all the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, 
 and the Father which seeth in secret, sees, under all 
 
1 4 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 possible folds of its error and mistake, a spiritual truth- 
 fulness infinitely preferable to the elaborate pieties of a 
 hollow and pretentious formalism. Be ye therefore true, 
 for your Father in heaven is true. 
 
 3. But yet, further, the theme of this sermon is en- 
 forced in a series of warnings and illustrations directed 
 specially against a worldly spirit, and enjoining a prac- 
 tical faitli in God; and this third part occupies the 
 remainder of the sixth chapter from ver. 1 9 to the end. 
 In this division there seems to be pretty clear reference 
 to the Sadducee spirit, which was material and earthly ; 
 in short, it was simple worldliness philosophized into re- 
 ligion. The Sadducee did not think that there was any 
 soul, or any resurrection, or anything, in fact, but what 
 one could touch, taste, and handle. Holding life there- 
 fore to be no more than meat, and the body no more than 
 raiment, of course the chief end of man was to provide 
 for these. His system had no room for any cares but 
 the cares of this world. Naturally, then, an unspiritual 
 people fell largely into his way of thinking ; and even 
 when they did not quite accept his creed, they prac- 
 tically lived according to his law. ' What shall we eat, 
 what shall Ave drink, wherewithal shall we be clothed ?' 
 —that formed, and still forms, everywhere and always, 
 tlie great concern of multitudes of human beings. They 
 may not deny the existence of a God, a soul, a judg- 
 ment, and an eternity, but they go on as if they were 
 no concern of theirs. To meet this secular spirit, then, 
 Jesus calls here on his followers to lay up treasures iu 
 heaven, to liave no care for to-morrow, but to trust their 
 
GENEEAL OUTLINE. 15 
 
 heavenly Father, and to seek first, and above all other 
 things, the kingdom of God and his righteonsness, be- 
 lieving that all other things needfnl will be added 
 therewith. He sets before them their higher spiritual 
 nature and eternal destiny, as the chief, and infinitely 
 the most urgent concern. He asserts the real dignity 
 of man as being created in the spirit of God, whose life, 
 therefore, ought to be a walk of faith in God. Saddu- 
 cean and Gentile worldliness he condemns as alike dis- 
 honouring and degrading ; and he calls us to trust in 
 the heavenly Father, who knoweth what things we have 
 need of, and is, even more than our eartlily fathers, 
 willing to give them.^ This third part therefore im- 
 plies that God's law is only fulfilled when we yield a 
 chief place and importance, not to things seen and 
 temporal, but to things unseen and eternal, and when 
 we walk accordingly not by sight, but by faith. The 
 lilies are clothed with glory more than Solomon's, yet 
 they toil not, neither do they spin. The birds do not 
 reap nor gather into barns, yet their heavenly Father 
 careth for them. Take no thought then for to-morrow ; 
 seek the kingdom of God, and trust in Him ; ye are of 
 more value than many sparrows ; and your heavenly 
 Father knoweth that ye have need of those things. 
 
 4. The last illustration of the way in which the law 
 is to be fulfilled is finely expressed in chap. vii. 12 : 
 * "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do 
 
 ' Tiere is a reference here to vers. 7-11 of chap, vii., which, for reasons 
 to be afterwards stated, belong, I tliiuk, properly to this third part, and 
 liave been somehow misplaced. 
 
16 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 ye even so to tliem.' This is tlie great law of sym- 
 pathy, without which we cannot do the will of our 
 Father in heaven. It is exemplified in the previous 
 part of the chapter under two forms. Thus, some 
 people are ever ready to judge their neighbours, — ready 
 to see their faults, ready to impute wrong motives to 
 them ; and to such persons Jesus says, ' Judge not, that 
 ye be not judged. For with what measure ye mete, it 
 shall be measured to you again.' ' Whatsoever ye 
 would that men should do to you, do you even so to 
 them.' Again, there are people who give that wdiich is 
 holy unto dogs, and cast their pearls before swine, — 
 people who have no delicacies and no tendernesses, but 
 who drag, perhaps without thinking of it, the most 
 sacred things before those who are utterly unfit to 
 deal with them. You would not like your own more 
 private and personal affairs so dealt with ; and ' whatso- 
 ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
 so to them.' We are to put ourselves, in short, into the 
 position of our neighbour, and try to see how our con- 
 duct would then look ; how we shoidd like to be judged 
 as we are ever ready to judge ; and how we should feel 
 if our holy things were profaned, as we sometnnes pro- 
 fane that which is most sacred. And only when we 
 bring this moral sympathy to bear on our conduct for 
 its right direction, are we in the way of accomplishing 
 the will of our heavenly Father. 
 
 Such are the four great illustrations of the themes ' I 
 am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.' The 
 law is to be fulfilled in the spirit by love, by sincerity, 
 
GENEKAL OUTLINE, 1 7 
 
 by faith, by sympathy, — by doing in short to others as 
 ye would that they also should do unto you. These 
 are the guiding principles of the new life in Christ. 
 They are not mere rules and regulations. They do not 
 simply enjoin this, and forbid that. But they implant 
 in the soul itself the light of a new Kfe, by which it 
 may direct its own steps in whatever position it may be 
 placed. To receive this law, then, is to enter the strait 
 gate ; to walk by this light, is to travel the narrow 
 road that leadeth unto life. Others had made the path 
 broad and easy and flowery, requiring neither thought, 
 nor consideration, nor self-denial ; but Jesus was a true 
 prophet, not coming in sheep's clothing to deceive, but 
 spealdng the very truth of God. Therefore he would 
 have them to beware of false prophets and false gospels, 
 easy and pleasant for the carnal man wlio shrank from 
 the cross which His followers must bear. Therefore also 
 in conclusion he would have them to remember that it 
 was not enough to be hearers of the word, they must 
 be doers of it also. It was not enough to make fine 
 professions ; they must bear fruit too. It was not 
 enough to call him Lord, they must also do the works 
 of his Father in heaven. Christianity is not a mere 
 philosophy of religion ; it is a true and holy life. It is 
 not simply correct ideas, but manful, faithful, self- 
 denying practice. And it is a strait gate and a 
 narrow road, just because it is a life of loye and 
 truth and faith and sympathy. And so he concludes 
 the sermon with a noble and solemn peroration, — 
 ' Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and doeth tliem, I will liken him unto a wise man, 
 which built his house upon a rock ; and the rain de- 
 scended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
 beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for it was 
 founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these 
 sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened 
 unto a foolish man, which built his house upon sand ; 
 and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
 winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell : and 
 great was the fall of it.' 
 
 These are the great laws of the kingdom of God ; and 
 thus it was that Jesus came not to destroy the law, but 
 to fulfil it. It does not fall properly within the scope 
 of this sermon to exhibit the process, the scheme of 
 divine grace and wisdom, by which man's alienated 
 nature is to be brought under subjection to these laws. 
 The meaning and influence of the Cross therefore do not 
 appear in it, except here and there in the most indirect 
 and incidental way. But of course the great work of 
 redeeming love is assumed, and lies at the root of tlie 
 whole sermon, because there is no true obedience but 
 what has its life in the death of Jesus. That underlies 
 the enfire idea of Christian ethics. But that being 
 assumed, then to love our neighbour, be he friend or 
 enemy ; to be honest, sincere, and true in the sight of 
 God and man ; to walk by faith, not by sight, seeking 
 first the kingdom of God, and trusting his fatherly 
 care to provide for all our need ; and, finally, to do 
 unto others as we would they should do unto us ; — 
 so to live is to fulfil the law; so not to live is to 
 
GENERAL OUTLINE. 19 
 
 ■dishonour and outrage it. And this, brethren, is 
 the high design for which Jesus came and suffered 
 and died, even that he might plant in our bosom, as 
 there was in his own, a spirit of love and truth and 
 faith and sympathy, — a divine and inspiring power by 
 wliich we might be enabled to do the will of our 
 Father in heaven. This only is salvation, brethren ; 
 this is the true reconciliation with God ; even the tak- 
 ing away of the enmity of our hearts, and their deceit- 
 fulness, and their unbelief, to make us one with Christ 
 as he is one with the Father. For this the babe was 
 born in Bethlehem ; for tliis the cross was reared on 
 Calvary ; for this He was a man of sorrows ; for this 
 He poured out his soul unto death; even that we 
 might through grace obtain the same mind which was 
 in him, and be able like him to do, and delight in 
 doing, the will of our Father in heaven. 
 
20 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 II. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 
 
 ' Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven. Blessed are they that moiirii : for they shall he comforted. 
 Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed 
 are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they 
 shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain 
 mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. 
 Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the children 
 of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness 
 sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when 
 men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner 
 of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and he exceeding 
 glad ; for great is your reward in heaven : for so persecuted they 
 theprojjhets which were before you.' — Matt. v. 3-12. 
 
 In these introductory beatitudes, Jesus sounds a few 
 startling notes by way of prelude to the high theme of 
 his discourse. And like the prelude of the cunning 
 musician, who seems just to run liis fingers carelessly 
 over the strings, though in reality he touches aU the 
 chief chords of the harmony which by and by he will 
 disclose in a more measured and beautiful strain ; so is 
 it with these singular blessings with which the Son of 
 Blessing commences his more public preaching. At 
 first sight they appear like a series of unconnected and 
 rather paradoxical sayings, yet in reality they touch on 
 the deepest harmonies of spiritual life, and convey to 
 
INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 21 
 
 the thoughtful mind hints deeply significant, sugges- 
 tions of all the truth afterwards unfolded in the more 
 measured discourse. We should quite mistake if we 
 treated these beatitudes, which dropped from his lips 
 like honey from the comb, as if they were only a num- 
 ber of fine disjointed sayings. On the contrary, the 
 same organic prmciple that pervades and gives orderly 
 significance to the whole sermon, shapes also these in- 
 troductory blessings. If the law of God is not to be 
 destroyed, but fulfiUed, this is the road by which we 
 must travel towards its fulfilment. It is the poor in 
 spirit, the mourner, the meek, and those who hunger 
 after righteousness ; it is the merciful, the pure-hearted, 
 the peacemaker, and those who, for Christ's sake, en- 
 dure persecution : these are the men who ' keep the 
 statutes of the Lord with their whole heart and mind,' 
 and to them accordingly belongs ' the blessing from on 
 hic^h, even from the God of their salvation.' Eet it be 
 clearly understood then, brethren, that these beatitudes 
 are not a loose general introduction, scarcely if at aU 
 connected with the body of the discourse; for they 
 really and most effectually prepare the way for the 
 great theme of this sermon, by laying down the import- 
 ant truth that God's law is fulfilled not by outward 
 actions merely, but by inward character ; not by doing 
 certain things, but by being a certain kind of man; not 
 by formal service, but by the living spirit. This is the 
 most important general characteristic of these sayings ; 
 and it runs through the whole sermon. Jesus does 
 not say, Blessed is the man who says so many prayers 
 
22 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 a day ; or, Blessed is the man who fasts so many times 
 a week ; or, Blessed is the man who bestows so much 
 of his goods on the poor. Were God's beatitudes pro- 
 mised to any particular acts, or even to any continuous 
 performance of such acts, however disagreeable and 
 against the grain, people would do them, and resolutely 
 do them, in order to obtain so great a boon. But these 
 blessings are ascribed, not to a particular class of 
 actions, but to a particular kind of men ; not to mere 
 performances, but to personal character ; and, moreover, 
 that character is one of a very special and peculiar type, 
 which in the fulness of its grace and beauty is only 
 developed in us by the mighty working of God's Spirit. 
 Before entering on the details, there is yet one more 
 remark I have to make. In St. Luke's account of this 
 sermon, assuming it to refer to the same event, there 
 are certain of these sayings which appear to rank in a 
 different category from all the others, seeming to in- 
 volve nothing whatever of a properly spiritual charac- 
 ter. Thus he represents the Lord as saying merely, 
 'Blessed are the poor;' 'Blessed are ye that hunger;' 
 ' Blessed are those that mourn;' and again, 'Woe unto 
 you rich; unto you that are full; unto you that laugh.' 
 In various other places also he reminds his followers 
 that it was a hard thing for the rich to enter the king- 
 dom of heaven, and that, in fact, it was as easy for a 
 camel to go through the eye of a needle. Gathering 
 together these various statements, some have drawn a 
 picture of Jesus, in which he is represented as a kind 
 of sublime demagogue, if I may so speak, flattering the 
 
mTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 23 
 
 poor, and throwing contempt upon the rich, proclaiming 
 a gospel which naturally 'the common people heard 
 gladly,' and which just as naturally none of the rulers 
 would believe ; setting class against class, exalting the 
 mean and bringing down the high to a level below 
 those whom they were accustomed to despise. Now, 
 if an ingenious writer, accustomed to draw literary 
 portraits, but unfamiliar with profounder regions of 
 thought, choose to ignore the deep spiritual idea of 
 Christ's life and doctrines, he can easily piece together 
 a number of texts which will form a plausible ground 
 for describing Jesus as little other than a kind of 
 French prophet of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It 
 would be a very shallow picture, essentially untrue, 
 nay, blasphemous ; but it might be supported by rather 
 a formidable array of passages. But the real spirit of 
 our Lord's gospel is utterly alien from this. Christ 
 belongs to no class, — his sympathies are broad as our 
 common humanity, and embrace all men alike, with a 
 fine understanding of every man's trial, and a readiness 
 to help every one in his need. If he blessed the poor, 
 and if he said it was hard for the rich to enter the 
 kingdom of heaven, we have only to remember what 
 was the state of opinion and feeling on this head at that 
 time, in order to understand how his words assumed 
 tliat form. For something of the Gentile spirit had 
 crept in among the Jews, ' holding the faith of God 
 with respect of persons.' Among the Gentiles, their 
 kings and heroes were called the sons* and favourites 
 of the gods, and enjoyed a peculiar title to the divine 
 
24 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 regard. But the mass of tlie common people were 
 viewed as if they were little better than the beasts 
 that perish. God belonged to the higher castes ; and 
 if there was an immortality it was reserved for them. 
 A good deal of this spirit had percolated also into the 
 heart of Israel ; and now the Lord came proclaiming 
 that the rich, instead of having any peculiar facility for 
 attaining the divine blessing, were in reality subject to 
 more than ordinary disadvantages in this respect. Not 
 that God was any^vise reluctant to be gracious to them, 
 but that the deceitfulness of riches formed a strong 
 temptation which it was hard for them to overcome. 
 On the other hand. He also announced to the poor that 
 the kingdom of God was come nigh unto them, that the 
 gate of life was as open and as free to them as to any, 
 that all the barriers and disabilities which men had 
 erected were removed, and that the heavenly Father 
 opened his arms wide to receive the humblest of his 
 children. Thus he might well say, ' Blessed are ye poor, 
 for now yours is the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 I am persuaded, however, that these beatitudes, in 
 as far as they form an integral part of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, do not refer, or only refer in the most in- 
 cidental way, to those who are socially poor : but, as St. 
 Matthew expresses it, to those who are poor in spirit. 
 Let us now then glance at these remarkable sayings in 
 detail ; and 
 
 1. The first of them pronounces a blessing on those 
 who are poor in spirit. Let the limitation, the ' in 
 spirit,' be carefully borne in mind. Poverty itself is 
 
INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 25 
 
 not a blessing, nor does it always inherit a blessing. 
 The poor man's house may be tenanted by drunkenness 
 or uncleanness, envy or covetousness, just as much as 
 the rich. All are not blessed who wear the rags of 
 Lazarus, any more than all are cursed who sit with 
 Dives ' in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously 
 every day.' On the other hand, let us not con- 
 found our Lord's expression 'poor in spirit' with the 
 word poor-spirited, which looks very like it. There 
 are people, not without considerable pretensions to 
 religion also, who have nothing manly, generous, or 
 noble about them, but are chiefly notable for a little 
 and mean and cowardly character ; and these are poor- 
 spirited, but they are not poor in spirit. Those of 
 whom our Lord speaks here are those men who, having 
 learnt what the true riches are, feel themselves in con- 
 sequence to be poor,— poor in wisdom, poor in faith, poor 
 in love, poor in all that which the soul most needs, poor 
 in those imperishable treasures which neither rust can 
 corrupt, nor thief can steal. Now, he who thus feels 
 his need is not far from the kingdom of God. 
 blessed poverty ! it is heir to great riches. All the 
 treasures of divine grace shall belong to it ; for there 
 is nothing keeps a man so poor as the conceit that he 
 is rich, and has need of nothing. Let him be emptied 
 of self, and then shall he receive out of the fulness of 
 Christ. 
 
 2. The Lord blesses those that mourn. Again let 
 me say that sorrow, no more than poverty, is a blessed 
 thing in itself God made laughter as well as tears ; 
 
26 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and grief is no more divine than gladness. There are 
 who mourn with a fretful, impatient murmuring against 
 God, and there is no blessing in that cup ; there are 
 who mourn with a gloomy and impious despair, and 
 surely there is no blessing in such grief. There is a 
 sorrow that never lifts up its tearful eye to the God of 
 hope and of all consolation, nor breathes a prayer to 
 Him who bmds up the broken-hearted ; and it were 
 hard truly to find a blessing there. Grief indeed is a 
 favourite servant of God, going oftener on errands of 
 his mercy than any other minister, and carrying balm 
 and myrrh in the folds of its sad raiment. But then 
 the grief, like the poverty, must be of a godly sort ere 
 it profit much. If not in its first motions spiritual, it 
 must at any rate deepen into such a spiritual sorrow — a 
 -mournmg for sin, for the heart's estrangement from God, 
 for the deadness and coldness of its better affections, 
 for the leanness and poverty of its spiritual life. Let 
 that be its character ; let the soul cry out ' AVoe is me ! 
 for I am undone ; ' and then verily better is the house 
 ■of mourning than the house of mirth. That is a blessed 
 sorrow, — and it shall be comforted. There's many a 
 joyous house in which one could weep tears of blood. 
 Blessed be God, there are also homes of mourning in 
 which the angels sing ; for theirs is the blessing and the 
 consolation of God. 
 
 3. The meek are blessed. The meek are those who 
 go through tlie world in a gentle, unobtrusive way, 
 without forward self-assertion. A man who feels liis 
 spiritual poverty, and sorrows for it, will naturally be 
 
INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 27 
 
 meek ; for he will say, ' Who am I that I should resist 
 ^vrong ? There is no wrong I get, but what is less 
 than I deserve.' Thus he does not make a great stand 
 for his rights, nor yet a great to-do about his wrongs. 
 He does not clamour for place and privilege and power 
 and honour ; and even when injured, he is dumb, open- 
 ing not his mouth. He does not strive nor cry, neither 
 is his voice heard in the streets. The men of the world 
 say, ' If we put up with injuries we shall be injured 
 more and more ;' but the meek rather say, ' Let us not 
 pay evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.' So they 
 pretend to nothing, they assume nothing, they assert 
 nothing for themselves, for they are poor in spirit ; and 
 being meek and patient, they are blessed of the Lord. 
 They shall inherit the earth ; they do not claim their 
 share in it, and on that very account it shall be given 
 to them ; they give up their right to all things, and 
 therefore verily all things are theirs richly to enjoy. 
 ' Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit the 
 earth.' 
 
 4. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness 
 shall be blessed. Let a man be conscious of his 
 spiritual poverty, and sorrowing because of it, and 
 meekly enduring worldly injury and loss, and if you 
 look into his heart you shall find that such a man has a 
 great divine hunger in him — a yearning, craving, long- 
 ing for righteousness. The felt want quickens a sacred 
 desire. happy he ! But how few there be that thirst 
 for righteousness as the hart panteth for the water- 
 brooks in the wilderness ! Many are content with the 
 
28 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. Some are 
 satisfied because they are as good as their neighbours. 
 Not a few are quite comfortable, because they are better 
 than some others that they know. But God's blessing 
 is not for those who are satisfied, but for those who are 
 thirsty, and whose thirst is for absolute righteousness. 
 to be holy as God is holy ! to be perfect, as the 
 Father who is in heaven is perfect ! to be free from 
 every badge of guilt ! to be cleansed from every 
 stain of sin ! to be numbered among those in 
 whom the Eigliteous One seeth no iniquity at all ! So 
 they long for righteousness ; not to be contented with 
 anything less ; ever reaching forth, ever ' pressing on 
 to the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus.' Blessed verily is that man, for he shall 
 be satisfied. His longing shall find peace in Jesus 
 Christ the righteous. He shall drink of the livins 
 water, and never thirst again ; ' for it shall be in him a 
 well of water flowing into everlasting life.' I say not 
 that the thirst shall be removed, rather it will be 
 quickened ; yet ever more as it is quickened, it shall 
 also be satisfied in Christ, until, in the fulness of His 
 Godhead, the man shall at last find the fulness of his 
 own soul. 
 
 5. The merciful are blessed. Mercy is twofold. We 
 call it pity when it has compassion on those who are 
 merely suffering ; we call it mercy when it extends for- 
 giveness to those who have done us wrong. The meek 
 man endures an injury ; the merciful man forgives it. 
 The pitiful man shows mercy to those who are distressed ; 
 
INTEODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 29 
 
 the merciful man has pity for his worst enemy. Our 
 blessed Lord and Master was meek, for ' when he 
 was reviled, he reviled not again ; when he suffered, he 
 threatened not, but committed himself to him that 
 judgeth righteously.' He was also full of pity, for ' He 
 had compassion on the ignorant and them that are out 
 of the way.' But his most glorious character was the 
 mercy which sought out his very enemies that they 
 might not perish. This is the most godlike work then 
 in which a man can be occupied. All God's universe 
 is beaming with mercy. True, there are strange, dark 
 providences every now and then, and great wailings of 
 sorrow borne from the stormy seas and from desolate 
 homes. Yet the mass of God's dealings are full of 
 stranger mercies, as any one may see who only considers 
 the way by which he has been led ; and as every one 
 should see who only considers God's unspeakable gift, 
 which is the emblem of his character, and the pledge of 
 all blessing to the world. Blessed then are the merciful, 
 for they are like God. How shall we ask mercy for 
 ourselves, if we do not show it to others ? How shall 
 we pray, ' Forgive us our debts,' if we cannot also add, 
 ' as we forgive our debtors' ? ' Blessed are the merciful ; 
 for they shall obtain mercy.' ' Put on, beloved, bowels 
 of mercy, gentleness, meekness, forbearing one another, 
 forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake 
 hath forgiven you.' 
 
 6. The pure in heart are blessed. By this it is not 
 meant to indicate men who are altogether sinless ; for 
 in that case, few as there may be now to inherit this 
 
30 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 blessing, they would be fewer still, or rather there would 
 be none at all. But in our Lord's day there were men 
 who were contented with external and ceremonial cleans- 
 ings. They were scrupulous about the washing of cups 
 and platters, hands and vestments ; and meanwhile they 
 were but whited sepulchres, the inner soul of them being 
 utterly defiled. And in our own times there are people 
 very like them — people who are nice and delicate and 
 sensitive about all kinds of outward proprieties, strictly 
 correct and blameless as regards these, who, neverthe- 
 less, take no care to have a clean heart. Now, for such 
 men there is no blessing, but only for the pure in heart. 
 And the pure in heart are they who seek spiritual 
 cleansing, who would purge out every evil thought, 
 and all the leaven of unrighteousness ; for Christianity 
 not only calls us to a warfare with sin, but it promises 
 a triumph over sin, even grace and strength to tread out 
 the embers of unholy desire, and to restore to us perfect 
 purity of heart. This is the only real purity. Vain 
 is it to cleanse the stream if the fountain remained de- 
 filed. Fountain of all evil ! Bitter fountain of all sor- 
 row ! Lord, create a clean heart in us, for we cannot 
 see Thee aright, or know Thee aright, unless the sin 
 which now blinds the eyes of our understanding is wholly 
 purged away. Give us the blessing of the pure heart, 
 that so we may see Thee. 
 
 7. The peacemaker is blessed. Very beautiful surely 
 is the ofG.ce of the peacemaker ; well befitting the man 
 whose God is a God of peace, whose Saviour is the 
 Prince of Peace, whose hope is in the gospel of peace, 
 
INTRODUCTORY BEATITUDES. 31 
 
 whose joy is, that the very peace of God keeps his heart 
 and soul. No doubt, there may be a false peace ; and 
 there is, of course, no blessing for him who cries Peace, 
 peace ! when there is no peace. No doubt, it is said, 
 ' First purity, then peace ;' but that means purity of 
 heart, not merely of doctrine, as it is commonly read ; 
 for certainly the apostle refers to our Lord's word here. 
 Let us not neglect then ' to practise those things which 
 make for peace,' and, ' as much as in us lieth, to live 
 peaceably with all men.' Surely, long enough have the 
 peace-breakers troubled the world with their brawls, 
 and distracted the Church with then- hatreds, seizing 
 on every occasion to rend the seamless robe of Christ, 
 — seamless, alas ! no longer, but rather a garment of 
 shreds and patches. Who, brethren, will believe that 
 we are sons of God, if we are not striving to main- 
 tain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ? To 
 heal divisions, to reconcile discords, to remove mis- 
 understandings, that befits the men who have one God, 
 one Saviour, one baptism, one home in which they hope 
 to spend an eternity together. Verily, blessed is the 
 peacemaker, — the man who will be a Christian and not 
 a mere sectary ; and he shall be called one of the sons 
 of God. 
 
 Finally, the persecuted are blessed, — those who are 
 evil spoken of and evil entreated for Christ's sake, — 
 those men who, in dark and evil days, have grace and 
 courage given them to uphold the truth, to stand by 
 the right, to carry the banner of salvation aloft, to 
 count their own lives not dear unto them, to resist 
 
32 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 unto blood, striving against sin; blessed, indeed, are 
 they to whom it is granted not only to speak for Christ, 
 but also to suffer for his sake. This is the heroic Chris- 
 tian, who truly loves the praises of God more than those 
 of men, and will rather suffer affliction with the chil- 
 dren of God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a sea- 
 son. Verily, blessed is he. The world hates him, but 
 the world is not worthy of him. The world speaks 
 evil of him, but the World said his master had a deviL 
 But he that confesseth Christ before men, him also 
 will He confess before his Father which is in heaven. 
 Blessed are ye, when all men shall speak evil of you 
 falsely for my name's sake ! Ah ! how few covet that 
 beatitude. "We shrink from it; we are afraid of it 
 with a most coward terror ; we praise martyrs and con- 
 fessors in the old times, who gave their bodies ^o be 
 burnt ; yet our own convictions are so feeble, that we 
 cannot face a little abuse from the world, i.e., the Phari- 
 see world, which is ever most ready to say. Thou blas- 
 phemest, and hast a devil. May God deliver us from 
 this weak fear. God grant us grace, w^hen men speak 
 evil of us falsely for his name's sake, to rejoice and be 
 exceeding glad ; for it were a sad thing to be praised by 
 them who so persecuted the prophets that were before us. 
 Such, brethren, is the character of the man on whom 
 the Lord Jesus pours out these rich beatitudes. If I 
 had time, I might show you that the blessings he pro- 
 mises to each have a singular fitness, springing as it 
 were out of the man's character, or else being in some 
 way so closely related to it, as to be the best and most 
 
INTEODUCTOEY BEATITUDES. 33 
 
 natural reward lie could obtain. A little study of each 
 case will show you that tliis is true ; tliat there is an 
 admirable propriety in the special promise given to 
 each of those whom Jesus here blesses.-^ But what I 
 would like you to note specially ere we close is, that 
 these beatitudes are not properly pronounced over a 
 variety of persons, each of them different from the 
 other, but rather over a certain character, whose spiri- 
 tual development and special attributes are here out- 
 lined in no uncertain way, and at every stage crowned 
 with a peculiar blessing. Certainly, we might take each 
 one of the characters sketched so briefly yet faith- 
 fully in these weighty sayings, and freely proclaim 
 to him that Christ's blessing is his. That is unques- 
 tionable. Given any one who is spiritually poor, or 
 filled with godly sorrow, or meek, or hungering for 
 righteousness, or merciful, or pure in heart, or peace- 
 making, or persecuted for righteousness' sake ; and to 
 that man we might justly offer the gracious promises 
 which Christ here proclaims. But I think we should 
 miss the deep meaning of these words if we looked at 
 them chiefly in that light. It is not different men, but dif- 
 ferent stages and characteristics of the divine life, which 
 seem here to be blessed. Do not suppose that I would 
 fix and formulate religious progi'ess in so rigid a way 
 as to insist that it must always go, step by step, after 
 the pattern here laid down. I would be very far from 
 doing that, for that would be to stiffen the living word 
 
 ' I had previously lectured on the Beatitiides in detail ; and this must 
 account for the somewhat slipshod way in which they are treated here. 
 
34 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 in a way which is not consistent with the livinf^ fact. 
 But yet, may I not say, in a general way, that true 
 religion commonly begins with a feeling of spiritual 
 poverty, a sense of the utter want and destitution of 
 the soul ? And is not that followed ere long, or accom- 
 panied, by more or less of godly sorrow, mourning for 
 the sin and leanness of our life ? Such a state of mind 
 will naturally ripen into meekness which is dumb be- 
 fore the Lord, opening not the mouth ; and in the meek 
 and lowly heart you shall commonly find the deepest 
 instinct craving after righteousness. He who thus feels 
 his need of mercy will be the man to show mercy 
 to others. He who hungers after righteousness must 
 needs seek the pure heart ; he who mourns for his own 
 estrangement from God will surely make peace ; and 
 the meek man who seeks nothing of this world is the 
 man, I think, to endure persecution bravely. Thus it 
 seems to me that the spiritual life is ordinarily deve- 
 loped, not indeed rigidly step by step, yet in some such 
 process of gradual unfolding ; arid thus all the blessings 
 of Jesus here properly belong to one man, as he attains 
 to the various stages of divine grace. May I add, in 
 conclusion, that this may help us to determine where- 
 abouts we are, or if we have begun the life of blessing 
 at all ? An observing naturalist once made for himself 
 a dial and a clock, to tell him the hours of the day, by 
 means of the flowers which at certain intervals opened 
 their petals to the sun. One wakened up at the faint, 
 dim sunrise ; another showed its l)lossom only some 
 hours after, when the light was well diffused ; a third 
 
IXTRODUCTOEY BEATITUDES. 35 
 
 kept close till the full blaze of noon ; and so on, all 
 through the hours of the clay. And may we not in like 
 manner estimate, to some extent, the progress of the 
 divine life in our souls, by the gradual unfolding of 
 these various graces, befrinninci; with the sense of our 
 spiritual poverty, and crowned at last with that strong 
 joy which rejoices in being ' counted worthy, not only 
 to speak, but also to suffer, for Christ' ? At any 
 rate, be that as it may, it seems to me quite certain 
 that these beatitudes refer not so much to different 
 kinds of men as to one man, each feature of whose 
 character is here crowned with a blessing. Such, in 
 fact, is • the true idea of the Christian. The saint of the 
 Jewish Church in those days was the Pharisee, self- 
 complacent, haughty, cultivating the righteousness which 
 is by the law, and highly satisfied with its formal obser- 
 vances, much given to ceremonial purifications, but not 
 generally careful to obtain the pure heart, covetiag the 
 praise of men, and by all means avoiding persecution 
 for any cause whatever. The hero of the Gentile world, 
 on the other hand, was commonly proud, unmerciful, 
 given to strife, not altogether destitute of noble and 
 generous qualities, yet nowise cultivating the pure and 
 holy graces of a true spiritual life. Very different from 
 either of these is the man whom Christ here blesses ; 
 more different even from the Pharisaic saint than from 
 the ethnic hero. He is one who is conscious of his 
 spiritual want ; who mourns his sin and shortcoming ; 
 who is meek and lowly in heart ; who hungers and 
 thirsts for perfection ; who, because he needs mercy, is 
 
36 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 himself merciful ; who is purifying his heart by faith ; 
 who seeketh those things that make for peace ; and 
 who will he found steadfast and enduring amid the 
 evil-speaking and persecution of the world. All of 
 these graces we may not be able to find in every 
 Christian ; for alas ! we are not so careful as we 
 should be to attain the fulness of the perfect man. 
 But these are the characteristic features of the true 
 man of God, and such is the man who will not de- 
 stroy, but fulfil the holy law. Through the faith of 
 Christ alone is such a holy and exalted spirit attainable ; 
 yea, it had not even entered into the heart of man to 
 conceive it until it was revealed by Jesus. Therefore 
 let ns draw nigh to Him in love, and beholding this 
 glory as in a glass, let us pray and strive with all our 
 heart to be changed into this image, from glory to glory, 
 by the good Spirit of the Lord. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 37 
 
 IIT. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 ' Ye are the salt of the earth: hut if the salt have lost his 
 savour, wherewith shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth good Jor 
 nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot of men. 
 Ye are the light of the vjorld. A city that is set on an hill can- 
 not be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it tmder a 
 bushel, but on a candlestick ; and it giveth light unto all that are 
 in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may 
 see your good vjorks, and glorify your Father vjhich is in heaven.' 
 -Matt. v. 13-16. 
 
 It is often quietly taken for granted that the great 
 object for which men live is to obtain happiness. They 
 may choose the wrong road for securing this end ; they 
 may fall into mistakes, calling that blessedness which is 
 not really so ; or they may drop the future out of their 
 calculation, and seek present enjoj^ment at the cost of 
 their eternal well-being. But still it is assumed that 
 the end of all their thinking and all their striving, is 
 to obtain happiness ; and, moreover, this is generally 
 esteemed quite right and proper, provided only they 
 seek the right kind of it, and in the right way. That is 
 the key-note of the wisdom of this world ; and at first 
 sight you might suppose that this Sermon on the Mount 
 started exactly from the same point, and that these 
 beatitudes with which it begins are just an answer to 
 
38 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the question of all Imman hearts, How shall we at- 
 tain to happiness ? But it would be quite a mistaken 
 idea to suppose that Jesus would have us to seek this 
 as our chief end. He does promise blessing and joy 
 here to the poor and the mourner and the meek and the 
 hungry and the merciful and the peacemaker and the 
 pure-hearted and the persecuted : and so far he does 
 certainly reply to the question we are all too ready to 
 ask. But he is very far from saying that the pursuit of 
 happiness shoidd be the great object of our life, even 
 looking at happiness in its highest and most spiritual 
 view. It is duty, not pleasure, which he ever sets be- 
 fore us. It is moral character, not comfort, which he 
 presses on our most serious consideration. It is God, and 
 not ourselves, that he exalts into this pre-eminence. 
 Real happiness, indeed, will be the inevitable result of 
 our living for Him. God's glory certainly coincides with 
 our well-being. But that object is kept in such entire 
 subordination to the high moral and spiritual end of our 
 living, that just in proportion as we are putting it out 
 of view, do we really attain it, and when we make it 
 our chief pursuit, we are certain to lose it. ]\Ian's chief 
 end is not to secure his own happiness. Man's chief 
 end is to glorify God. But, at the same time, the man 
 who will glorify God shall go from blessing to bless- 
 ing, and from glory to glory, rejoicing with joy exceed- 
 ingly even amid his poverty and sorrow and tribula- 
 tion. 
 
 I do not know how far Christ may have intended to 
 run a parallel between His own teaching and that of 
 
IXFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CIIAEACTER. 39 
 
 other men, so as to bring out both their differences and 
 their agreements. But both in tlie beatitudes, and in 
 the passage we have this day to consider, he does seem 
 to lay His doctrine quietly alongside of theirs, and to 
 show, Mdthout any unnecessary antagonism, how near 
 the truth and error lay to each other, and by what 
 almost insensible gradations the one might shade into 
 the other. For, in the first part of this introduction, He 
 assuredly calls us to seek goodness rather than happi- 
 ness, yet at the same time He promises to the really good 
 man the highest beatitudes of His kingdom and glory ; 
 therein confronting, on the one hand, those teachers who 
 would have pleasure to be the grand object of life, and, 
 on the other hand, those doctors who taught that any 
 hope of reward took all the virtue out of our good be- 
 haviour. And now, in the verses we have read to-day, 
 he further presents his gospel as being equally opposed 
 to, and yet having equal affinities with, two other kinds 
 of opinion. First, there was in Judea a sect called 
 Essenes, never referred to in the Gospel directly by 
 name, yet to some extent moulding our Lord's utter- 
 ance of truth. They were a sort of monks and hermits, 
 retiring from the world to care for their own souls, cul- 
 tivating, it is thought, rather a spiritual life, but doing 
 little or nothing for the moral well-being of general 
 society. Light they may have had ; but whatever light 
 they had was hid under a bushel. Then there were Scribes 
 and Pharisees, sounding trumpets before all their good 
 works that they might be seen of men; concerning whom 
 we shall have more to say by and by. Now, if there is 
 
40 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 any tiling utterly repugnant to the spirit of the gospel, it 
 is this Pharisaic ostentation. As we read this sermon, 
 we shall find it at once most searchingly and scath- 
 ingly rebuked. Christ's people are certainly not to be 
 like them. Instead of doing his works to be seen of 
 men, the Christian, when he fasts, is to anoint his head 
 with oil, and wear a cheerful look ; when he prays, he is 
 to oo into his closet and shut the door ; when he gives 
 alms, he is not to let the left hand know what the right 
 hand doeth. All is to be done ' as to the Father which 
 seeth in secret.' Yet, on the other hand, the monkish 
 Essene spirit is as little the spirit of the Christian life as 
 that of the ostentatious Pharisee. One must do all to the 
 Father which seeth in secret, and yet he must be as salt 
 to the earth. One must shut himself up in his closet, and 
 yet he must not put his light under a bushel. One must 
 whisper in secret that which shall nevertheless be pro- 
 claimed as from the housetop. Christianity is to be 
 alike unostentatious and influential, — a hidden life in 
 God, yet known and read of all men. And the only way 
 of reconciling these different ideas, or even understand- 
 ing how they can be reconciled, is just to remember that 
 the moral character of any action lies, not in its outward 
 form, but in its inward spirit ; your fasting and praying 
 and almsgiving may be, in fact, perfectly well known to 
 the world around, and yet, in spirit, they may be all 
 done only with a view to God and His will. There is 
 danger, of course, that the external act, with its publi- 
 cation and credit among men, may ensnare your soul in 
 the meshes of Pharisaic pretension, and thereby you 
 
INFLUENCE OF CIIKISTIAN CITAEACTER. 41 
 
 shall suffer loss ; but, on the other hand, there is also 
 danger that the literal and absolute hiding of religious 
 duty should lessen its influence for good, and thereby 
 the world should suffer loss. And, therefore, the re- 
 conciliation of this difficulty seems to lie altogether in 
 the proper regulation, not so much of our actions, as of 
 their motives. Whatever belongs to the privacy of re- 
 ligious life, let it be done in secret, and yet so done in 
 secret as if all eyes were on us. Whatever belongs to 
 public oliservance of worship or mercy, let it be done in 
 public, and yet so done in spirit as if none but God knew. 
 The motive, then, is everything. If we seek glory of 
 men, we have no glory with God ; yet our salt must not 
 lose its savour, nor our light be put under a bushel ; for, 
 in avoiding immoral display, we must also take heed not 
 to lose moral influence. The hidden life may be largely 
 public, and yet a hidden life nevertheless, because it lies 
 in the spirit, in the motive, in the soul's relation to 
 God. 
 
 Now, in the passage before us, this spiritual and pub- 
 lic influence is presented under two aspects : the one 
 under the similitude of salt, the other under the analogy 
 of light. 
 
 I. Christians, such Christians as those to whom the 
 beatitudes of the previous verses belong, are called to 
 be, and will be, ' the salt of the earth,' and they are ex- 
 horted not to let 'the salt lose its savour.' I suppose 
 there is reference here to the fact that the salt used in 
 those countries was not the pure crystals which are 
 prepared for us, and which cannot lose their peculiar 
 
42 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 virtue, but the rock-salt, composed partly of saline par- 
 ticles, partly of earthy matter from which the salt might 
 be washed away by the sun and the rains, in which case 
 it was good for nothing but to be cast out as metal for 
 the roads, and trodden under foot of men. You can 
 easily see that such a compound substance might lose 
 all its virtue ; and when the earths and salts were 
 separated, it would be comparatively useless. Now, 
 obviously our Lord's purpose here is not to show that 
 in like manner the elements of faith and spiritual power 
 may be eliminated from the Christian soul so as to leave 
 it of the earth, earthy. He is not speaking of that sub- 
 ject at all. But what he really refers to is the influence 
 for good which all his people ought to be exercising ; 
 and in that view, he says virtually this : ' Ye ought to 
 be, and, if ye are truly mine, ye are fitted to be, as salt 
 to the earth, keeping it from corruption ; and if ye are 
 not exercising this influence, then are ye as unprofitable 
 as salt which has lost its savour, and is only worthy to 
 be trodden under foot of men.' And quite right that it 
 should be trodden down, if it is not leavening, savour- 
 ing the world. 
 
 Two things then seem to be involved in these words. 
 1st, Salt gives relish to what would otherwise be taste- 
 less or unpleasant ; and Christ's people are, if we may 
 so speak, the relishing element in the world, which pre- 
 vents it from being loathsome altogether to the Lord. 
 So Lot was in the cities of the plain the one savour 
 which made them even so long enduralde. There was 
 not niucli salt in Lot ; but there was a little, there was 
 
INFLITENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 43 
 
 a righteous soul that at least vexed itself because of the 
 unrighteousness around it, if it did not do very much to 
 arrest that unrighteousness. And because of Lot, God 
 almost spared the place, would have spared it had 
 there been only a few more like him, or had he been 
 just a little truer than he was. Even so Christians are 
 to be as salt to the earth which, without them, would 
 be in a manner loathsome, being so possessed with mean 
 and base and ignoble souls. Have you not yourselves 
 felt, now and then, when you thought of all the world- 
 liness and vanity and covetousness and carnality and 
 vice and crime and hypocrisy and lies, which swept like 
 a foul deluge around, not without tainting your own 
 heart, that really it was almost impossible to look on 
 such a world without a kind of sickening despondency, 
 half-contempt half-disgust, and a feeling like that of 
 the Psalmist, when he said that verily the thoughts of 
 man's heart are all evil, and that continually ? But 
 then, on the other hand, what a sense of relief it gives, 
 and hopefulness, reconciling one to human nature again, 
 to witness some act of noble heroism, or patient suffer- 
 ing, or true, loving sacrifice, or pious devotion and worth, 
 in the midst of all the sad and evil elements of the time ! 
 That is the salt of the earth ; and it is your part, if ye are 
 the chosen of God, brethren, so to manifest the life of 
 Christ, as to be thus an element of relish and reconcilia- 
 tion and hopefulness, amid the sins and errors of the 
 world. But, 
 
 2dly, and specially, salt is a preserving agent, arrest- 
 ing the natural tendency to corruption. I suppose 
 
44 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the salt of the sea helps more or less to keep it from 
 stagnant rottenness. At any rate, many substances which 
 would otherwise decay are preserved, by means of this 
 agent, from putrid and unprofitable waste. Now, such are 
 the evil elements in our moral nature, that, left to itself, 
 its tendency is ever to deteriorate and corrupt. The 
 mental degradation of barbarism is always allied with 
 an equal, or greater moral depravity. But the intellectual 
 polish and refinement of civilisation are usually also 
 combined with vices which eat out the core of its pro- 
 sperity, and ere long bring it to ruin. Under all forms 
 of life, therefore, those who are ' dead in trespasses and 
 sins ' exhibit this tendency to increased moral corrup- 
 tion ; and there is nothing so effectual for arresting its 
 progress as the presence and influence of living Chris- 
 tian men. I do not undervalue any other agencies. I 
 do not say that sound knowledge, and high truth, and 
 earnest thought, and faithful administration of justice, 
 do not play a useful part in helping to preserve the 
 world from ever- deepening degradation. But certainly 
 there is no power so able to rebuke iniquity, and cover it 
 with shame — no authority so weighty in favour of what 
 is right and true and lovely, as that of a genuine Chris- 
 tian life, unobtrusively, yet steadfastly, aspiring after 
 God. Of course, if a man sets himself up for an example, 
 if he is always thinking that it is his business to act 
 as salt to the earth, that very effort and consciousness 
 will probably insinuate a leaven of the Pharisees into 
 liim, wliich will render all his good works unavailing. 
 In order really to wield this happy influence over men, 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHAEACTEE. 45 
 
 one must live to the Father which seeth in secret, for 
 more than half the power of the Christian life lies just 
 in its entii'e simplicity as a life not for man, but for God. 
 Its influence on others depends on its utter want of 
 ostentation. But let it be what it ought to be, a meek 
 and quiet spirit of godliness, and then how it sweetens 
 domestic and regulates public conduct, and makes vice 
 to be ashamed, and to hide its head, and is verily salt, 
 everywhere checking the growing evils of the world ! 
 
 Well, brethren, Christ's people are called to this duty; 
 they are to be the salt of the earth ; let them take heed 
 to fulfil their high calling. People we hear often sor- 
 rowfully complaining that the world is waxing worse 
 and worse. Maybe it is ; maybe it is not. I have my 
 own opinion about that. But if it is, let those who 
 complain of it bethink them whether they are playing 
 their part as salt to check this corruption. It would 
 not decay if Christians were all that they should be. 
 But what, if the salt have lost its savour ? What, if we 
 are more given to deplore the ravages of evil than to 
 exhibit the sweet influences of goodness ? What, if we 
 are practically living just as the world lives, never feel- 
 ing our spiritual poverty, nor sorrowing for our sin, nor 
 hungering for better things, nor seeking the pure heart, 
 nor bravely enduring the reproach and cross of Christ ? 
 What then, brethren, is the worth of the salt which has 
 lost its savour, and become of the earth, earthy ? Is it 
 any wonder if men trample it under foot, and despise it ? 
 Does not Jesus say that it is fit for nothing better ? 
 
 II. The second aspect under which this Christian 
 
46 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 influence is presented here is, Believers are to be the 
 light of the world. This figure carries the matter into 
 a somewhat higher region. It expresses a power of a 
 nobler kind than the former. Salt makes the world 
 endurable, bad as it is. Salt also preserves it from be- 
 coming still worse. But light quickens life ; light shows 
 the way of God, and leads into it ; light at once deve- 
 lops and exhibits all the beauty of eartli ; light helps 
 us to fellowship one with another ; light awakens the 
 voice of adoration and praise. Without it the germs 
 would lie dead in the cold earth ; without it no one 
 could walk the viewless road ; without it no flowers 
 would bloom into fragrant beauty ; without it no com- 
 panionship of men were enjoyed ; and the song of birds 
 is silent wlien no light shines. Now it is of course 
 certain that Christ himself is properly the light of 
 the world. It is He who revealeth all things ; who 
 clothes the world with holy beauties ; who fills our 
 souls with melodies of grace ; who is the sun of 
 righteousness, the light that enlighteneth every one that 
 cometh into the world. Yet His people also, in virtue 
 of the grace which he bestows on them, have a work to 
 do in illuminating the world's darkness, and ' must let 
 their light so shine, that men, seeing their good works, 
 may glorify tlieir Father which is in heaven.' They have 
 to avoid ostentation, and yet they are not to put their 
 candle under a bushel. They are to be careful against 
 the pretentious display of the Pharisee ; but tliey are 
 also to sec that the world is not deprived of the light 
 and the help which God enables them to give. They 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHAIUCTER. 47 
 
 are to shine like the face of Moses, and yet of them, too, 
 it must be true that they wist not it so shines. And 
 there are two ways by which this object has to be 
 achieved : — 
 
 1. The Christian must be a light-bearer. He who 
 brings the lamp is not himself a light, yet he brings 
 light ; and every man of God has it laid on him to do 
 something in this way, — ' Holding up the word of 
 life in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.' 
 Brethren, if we have received the light, if we love the 
 light, if it has guided us into peace, if we believe that 
 this light is the life of men, we cannot surely conceal it 
 from those who are perishing for lack of it ? What, 
 then, have we been doing for those who are still in 
 darkness, ignorant of God and his Christ, lying in the 
 shadow of death? Can we let them alone in their 
 ignorance, alone in their unbelief, alone in tlieir sin ; 
 warning no one, exhorting no one, comforting no one, 
 instructing no one, but leaving them to grope and stumble 
 through darkness unto death ? And can we still hug 
 the light to ourselves, and rejoice in it, and glory 
 in its pure truth and help and gladness, though, all the 
 while, multitudes around us, at our doors, under the 
 shadow of our homes and churches, in lanes and alleys 
 and streets crowded with immortal souls, are perishing 
 for want of knowledge, dying without God ? Brethren, 
 bethink you seriously ; Christ says to you, ' Ye are the 
 light of the world.' 
 
 2. It is implied here that Christians are to be light- 
 fjivers as well as lisht-bearers. A candlestick holds the 
 
48 THE SEEMOX OX THE JIOUXT. 
 
 liglit, but itself gives none,' It were a poor tiling to be 
 a mere caudlestick, bringing light, but being one's- self 
 in darkness. Indeed, I question if tlie truth we teach 
 will ever be spoken to much purpose, if we are not living 
 it, as we]l as speaking it. To be a proper light-bearer, 
 one must be also a true light-giver. Eor one soul saved 
 by Christian precept, you shall find twenty saved by 
 Christian example. The greatest sermon one can preach 
 is the silent sermon of a true and pious life. The most 
 heart- stirring eloquence is not that which is rounded off 
 in voluble sentences, but that which is spoken by the 
 still small voice of patient duty, and by the tender 
 graces of a meek and lowdy life. Nor is there anything 
 which has done so much to keep the world in darkness 
 as the contrast between the light which we bring and 
 the darkness in which we too often live, the carnal- 
 mindedness of those wdio profess to be spiritual-minded, 
 the earthliness of those whose conversation should have 
 been in heaven. Clearly understand the word of Jesus, 
 then, to us here. It is not 'Ye must bring liglit to the 
 world ;' but 'Ye must be light to the world.' "We must 
 not only teach Christian theology, but exhibit Christian 
 life. Infinitely greater than any power of eloquence, 
 whatever earnestness or unction be in it, is the quiet 
 outgoing of Christian daily life, the calm shining of 
 meekness, patience, faith, truth, and love ; and all that 
 one could say in behalf of Christ, all the arguments, 
 evidences, proofs of convincing reason, will accomplish 
 far less for the persuasion of souls, for the lightening up 
 of life's dark and troubled path, and for the glory of the 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHKISTIAN CHARACTER. 49 
 
 Father, than shall be done by the purity and simplicity 
 and righteousness and kindness of your Christian walk 
 and conversation. Now, bethink you, brethren, is your 
 light thus shining among men ? That light may be 
 great or little, may hold a high and splendid place, as in 
 the lighthouse gleaming through the storm and the 
 darkness ; or it may be obscure and unnoticed, as the 
 lamp at the fireside round which the household only 
 group, and are glad together. It may be a far-glancing 
 radiance, profitable to those in peril, or a quiet flame, 
 without anything to draw to it the observation and 
 applause of the world. But is it really shining, in its 
 own place and with its proper light, shining so that 
 men understand Christ better by its means, and are led 
 thereby to glorify the Father which is in heaven ? There 
 are lambs of the flock to be led to still waters and fresh 
 pastures. There are stray sheep which have wandered 
 from the fold, and which might be beaconed back again 
 to peace. There are mourners to be comforted, whose 
 drooping faith it might be yours to revive. There are 
 poor neglected ones who have to learn what is the true 
 riches. There are sick-rooms in which ye might trim 
 the watch-light as they go down the dark valley. Oh, 
 many is the tender charity, many the work of faith, 
 whereby you might earn to yourselves the blessing of 
 him that is ready to perish ! Have ye done so ? Have 
 ye tried to do so ? "Would your actual life be any com- 
 forting, quickening, cheering guide to such men ? Was 
 any thoughtless one ever arrested by your example? 
 Was any wicked one ever rebuked by your conduct ? 
 
 D 
 
50 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Was any inquirer ever guided by your patli unto God ? 
 "Was any disconsolate one ever revived by your peace and 
 hope in Jesus ? Did any little one ever learn from you 
 where is the pure and sincere milk for his soul ? Is there 
 a spot in all the earth which, but for you, would have 
 been darker and drearier than it is ? Is there a soul in 
 all the world that, seeing your good works, has been led 
 to glorify the Father which is in heaven ? Or what, if 
 you have even been a source of darkness, and perplexity,, 
 and unbelief to your neighbour, hiding from him that 
 ' life of Christ' which it was your business to ' manifest 
 in your mortal bodies' ? 
 
 Thus the people of Christ have to be lights to the 
 world, first, as light-bearers teaching the truth, and then 
 as light-givers practically illustrating the grace of 
 Christ in their lives. And let me say to you, brethren, 
 there is no witness which we can bear for Jesus, that 
 wiU be found half so effectual as this. I would by 
 no means undervalue the importance of solid argument 
 and learning, or any other light which may lead us to 
 the Lamb. But at all times, and more especially in a 
 troubled, uneasy age like this, it seems to me of infinite 
 moment to remember that there is not only a fine in- 
 fection, as it were, in the example of practical piety, a 
 kind of mysterious though blessed contagion, by which 
 it diffuses itself through the world ; but also that the 
 living illustration of Christian faith is really the most 
 powerful of all reasons for producing clear and stable 
 convictions in the mind. By its fruits the truth is 
 known quite as much as by its arguments. If the 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 51 
 
 world is to learn what the gospel is, it must be shown 
 it not merely in a book, but in a life. And though I 
 would again repeat that all ostentation of self is utterly 
 repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, so that we 
 should be only damaging the cause by setting ourselves 
 up as examples ; yet, on the other hand, ye by your 
 meek endurance, by your patient kindness, by your 
 gentle temper, by your cheerful piety, by your tender 
 mercies, by your ample charity, by your pure love, by 
 your self-sacrifice, by your truth and integrity and 
 holmess, in all which He who walks amid the golden 
 candlesticks is ever willing to minister to you sacred 
 oil so that your lamps may shine, — by these means ye 
 may be the true lights of this world, beaming along the 
 whole path of life, and beaconing many a troubled soul 
 on to its rest in God. This, surely, ye will be, if ye are 
 the heirs of these beatitudes of Jesus. If ye are poor 
 in spirit, if ye have godly sorrow, if ye are meek and 
 lowly, if ye hunger after righteousness, if ye are merci- 
 ful, if ye aim at heart-purity, if ye are peacemakers, 
 and if, in the midst of evil- speaking and persecution, ye 
 are ' steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the 
 work of the Lord,' then, verily, ye shall be a relishing 
 and preserving salt to the earth, and a light which will 
 lead men to glorify, not you, but your Father which is in 
 heaven. 
 
52 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 
 
 ' Think not that I am come to destroy the laxo or the propliets : I 
 cm not come to destroy, hut to fulfil. For verily J say unto you, 
 Till fieaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
 pass from the law, till all he fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall 
 break one of§iese least commandments, and shall teach men so, he 
 shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever 
 shall do and teach them, the same shall he called great in tlie king- 
 dom of heaven. For I say unto you. That except your righteous- 
 ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye 
 shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.' — Matt. v. 
 17-19. 
 
 I HAVE ventured to call this the text, or great theme, 
 which is discussed, with various illustrations, in the 
 rest of the Lord's sermon. Holding so important a 
 position, then, it will require, as from its inherent im- 
 portance it is entitled to get, our very special attention ; 
 and this is more particularly needed at the j)resent time, 
 when many among us are so greatly troubled, or per- 
 plexed, or unsettled in their minds with regard to this 
 very point. God grant that some of that trouble and 
 unsettlement may be removed by a careful examination 
 of this weighty saying ! 
 
 And here let me say, at the outset, that the language 
 of our Lord must be understood by the usage of the 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 53 
 
 Jews, and not by the ideas whicli we may attach to 
 certain words. Now, by the phrase ' the law and the 
 prophets,' they meant the whole of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures ; not the moral law and the prophetical books 
 merely, but the whole of their sacred Maitings, embrac- 
 ing histories, laws of various kinds, psalms, books of 
 wisdom, and prophecies ; all those works, in short, 
 which ' holy men of old wrote as they were moved by 
 the Holy Ghost.' It is necessary to bear this in mind, 
 because the words of Jesus here are often quoted as if 
 they meant that one part of the law was still in force, 
 while it is admitted that other parts of it are abolished. 
 But beyond all doubt, what the Lord said, and what 
 every one that heard him would understand him to say, 
 v/as equivalent to this : ' I am not come to destroy the 
 Scriptures, but to fulfil them. The whole law of God, 
 not the Decalogue only, but the entire law, moral, cere- 
 monial, and judicial, and every jot and tittle of the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, must be fulfilled ; and heaven 
 and earth shall pass away sooner than any of them shall 
 fail.' Let that be carefully borne in mind, brethren ; 
 for that is the real import of Christ's saying here. 
 Many of those who heard him would, I daresay, have 
 made no great objection, had He abolished some of the 
 ten commandments, but they would have raised a loud 
 clamour had He assailed any of those ordinances by 
 which the Jews were specially denoted as God's cove- 
 nant people. Many of those who now read his words 
 think that He did come to annul those statutes which 
 were Israel's peculiar treasure, but that He certainly 
 
54 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 meant to confirm and perpetuate the Decalogue. But 
 that which Jesus really said embraced equally all the 
 law and the prophets, the entire sacred books of the 
 Jews, Mosaic, Davidic, Solomonic, and prophetic, and 
 every divine ordinance contained in them ; and of one 
 and all Jesus said, ' I am not come to destroy them, but 
 to fulfil.' Brethren, there is no possible exposition of 
 the passage which does not start with this as the only 
 fair interpretation of our Lord's words. By the law and 
 the prophets he meant, and could only mean, the entire 
 Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 Note yet further, before going on to discuss the 
 statement thus broadly laid down, that there seems to 
 have been an opinion current at this time that Christ 
 did intend to introduce some changes into the law and 
 worship of Jehovah. He must have been aware of 
 this, and aware of the importance of removing any false 
 impressions on the subject ; and therefore he began by 
 saying, ' Think not that I am come to destroy the law 
 or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to 
 fulfil.' These words certainly imply that people had 
 been so thinking, and that Jesus knew what was in 
 their hearts, and that he was anxious to clear away an 
 opinion which was tolerably certain to create a strong 
 prejudice against his gospel How that idea had arisen 
 in men's minds, I do not know. He had, indeed, on 
 his way from Jerusalem to Galilee, told the woman of 
 Samaria that the day had come when the true wor- 
 shipper was to worship the Father neither in Jerusalem, 
 nor on Mount Gerizim ; and that certainly looked A^ery 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 55 
 
 like an abolition of the Temple and its peculiar con- 
 secration. Possibly also he who could thus boldly 
 foretell to a hated Samaritan the destruction of all 
 those limitations which girt, or seemed to gird, the 
 devotions of men within the precincts of Zion, had 
 uttered many other incidental sayings fitted to pro- 
 duce a feeling of vmeasiness in the jealous minds of the 
 Jews, and a strong suspicion that he contemplated 
 some radical changes in regard to the statutes and tes- 
 timonies of Israel. Obviously this opinion had got 
 abroad some way or another, and as obviously Jesus 
 wanted to counteract it ; and yet I fancy it is even still 
 more obvious that, in trying to counteract it, he must 
 have strongly confirmed it, at least in the minds of 
 many who were then listening to him. 
 
 For just consider a moment what the Lord proceeds 
 to do after this large and decisive statement regarding 
 the law and the prophets. It will be utterly impos- 
 sible to get any clear understanding of the matter 
 unless you pause here, and observe that Jesus, knowing 
 what people thought, knowing how sharply suspicious 
 they would be of any proposal to alter the minutest 
 point of the law, and clearly anxious to remove any 
 such distrust, and to produce a distinct conviction that 
 he meant really to fulfil and establish all the law and 
 the prophets ; yet when he goes on to illustrate this 
 position, he does, in point of fact, directly abrogate 
 some commandments, and so interpret others that the 
 people could scarcely have recognised the old law in 
 its new light. I might, at this point, assuming the 
 
56 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 entire unity and equal authority of the teachings of our* 
 Lord and his apostles, remind you that very many of the 
 most cherished ordinances of Scripture, that is, of the 
 law and the prophets, were abolished by Him, that is, 
 in his name and by his spirit, a few years after. Paul, 
 for example, cast off the bondage of circumcision. The 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews swept away the 
 whole Aaronic priesthood and their sacred rites. Unques- 
 tionably many, and very serious changes were made in 
 the law and the prophets by those who had the mind 
 of Christ, and who were specially anointed by the Holy 
 Ghost to reveal all the fulness of his gospel. But at 
 present I pass these by, and Avill confine myself to 
 what our Lord expressly says in illustration of the prin- 
 ciple that he came not to destroy, but to fulfil them.^ 
 
 And now let me say that a law may be at once ful- 
 filled, and also abrogated, and that this is the case in the 
 present instance. A very simple illustration will ex- 
 plain what I mean here. You prepare some day a 
 draft of your will and testament, giving an outline, 
 more or less clearly, of your various desires and be- 
 quests. You do not mean it to be your real and final 
 will, though, were death to overtake you in the mean- 
 while, it would need only your signature to be a valid 
 legal document. All you design, however, by it is to 
 give the necessary directions for those who are to 
 draw up your last testament in such form and clear- 
 ness as is necessary for so solemn a deed. In that 
 second will, then, you will embrace all the substance 
 
 * Vide Appendi.\. 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUrvSE. 57 
 
 of tlie former. The directions may be clearer, the be- 
 quests may be larger, the reasons may be more explicit, 
 and altogether the document may wear a very different 
 aspect from the first rude sketch of your design. Still 
 the whole purpose indicated in the earlier document 
 may be contained, and even more completely expressed 
 in the later one, so that in the strictest sense those 
 who observe your last directions shall be accomplishing 
 your previous will. It is fulfilled then, but at the 
 same time it is annulled. I do not say it is useless. 
 On the contrary, it may, if occasion require, be found 
 in many ways serviceable, as explaining the terms of 
 the real testament. But as the authoritative document 
 it is set aside by the later and completer deed. Your 
 trustees will administer under the second will. Your 
 legatees will heir according to its provisions. And in 
 all disputes which may arise, it will be recognised as 
 the only valid and authoritative expression of your 
 design. Thus a draft will, which if duly signed and 
 witnessed would be a sufficient testament, is at once 
 fulfilled and annrdled by the later and final deed, and 
 your trustees might quite honestly say, when carrying 
 out the provisions of the latter, that they were not 
 abolishing, but really accomplishing, the purpose out- 
 lined in the previous document. 
 
 Now, the Scriptures are divided into an Old Testa- 
 ment and a New Testament, and it was not without 
 reason that they were so named. Of course the analogy 
 suggested by that word may be stretched too far ; and 
 therefore we must be careful how we handle it. It is. 
 
58 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 however, an apostolic illustration, and affords, I think, 
 the only sufficient key to explain our Lord's language 
 here. Tlie law and the prophets, that is, the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures, contain, as it were, the draft and outhne 
 of the divine will with regard to liis creatures. I do not 
 speak of them merely as Jewish documents; for, though 
 intrusted to them specially, they were the only revela- 
 tion of God's purpose existing for many centuries, 
 and all the world had an interest in them as well as 
 the covenant people. They contained, then, a sketch 
 or outline of the plan and purpose and law of God, hut 
 that sketch was avowedly imperfect, and contained 
 many explicit intimations of a future and more per- 
 fect revelation of his will. Still, so long as that New 
 Testament was not promulgated, the first imperfect 
 deed remained as the one authoritative utterance of 
 God's law to all men. It consisted of various docu- 
 ments, — historical, legislative, poetical, philosophical, 
 and prophetic, — hut all were embraced under the 
 phrase, ' the law and the prophets,' and all were alike 
 binding and authoritative up to the fulness of time, 
 because all were stamped, as it were, with the seal and 
 signature of the most high God. But now the period 
 had arrived, indicated by the Old Testament itself, 
 when the economy or dispensation which was adminis- 
 tered according to its provisions, was to give place to 
 another economy, for the ordering of which a New Tes - 
 tament was to be prepared. It is granted at once that, 
 under very diverse forms, there was to be, and is, an 
 essential unity in both these dispensations. It is fully 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 59 
 
 admitted that the divine will, imperfectly indicated in 
 the one Testament, is embraced and far more clearly 
 expressed in the other. There are changes indeed, 
 some of them even affecting important moral prin- 
 ciples, — for the first covenant was given to a people 
 who were not j)repared for the fulness of the truth, and 
 therefore we are told that, because of the hardness of 
 their hearts, God suffered some things which are no 
 longer permitted. But it is essential to our argument 
 that all the real principles of moral rectitude and 
 spiritual truth contained in the Old Testament, are, 
 with added clearness and completeness, carried for- 
 ward into the New. The one is the draft or prepara- 
 tory will, the other is the perfect and final deed, by 
 which the former is at once thoroughly fulfilled and 
 also for ever annulled. 
 
 I say the Old Testament Scriptures were fulfilled by 
 Christ, not destroyed or dishonoured, even in the least 
 of their commandments. He came to do the will of 
 his Father, and to accomplish his promise ; and even so 
 He did, maintaining God's holy law in all its integrity, 
 in all its spirituality, in all its eternal right, and in all 
 its lofty supremacy. Were you to enter a room in the 
 early morning where a company were sitting or drows- 
 ing, with sickly hue, by the dull glimmer of candles, 
 which never had given a sufficient light, and were now 
 guttering, neglected, and burning down to the socket, 
 you would not think you were destroying the light by 
 flinging open the casement, and letting in the clear 
 sunshine upon them. You would, on the contrary, feel 
 
60 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 that by tliis process only could they get the full light 
 which they needed, though certainly the faint glimmer 
 of their lamps would be lost in the full blaze of day. 
 Now, much in the same way the Lord Jesus came into 
 the world, and found there, as it were, the old seven- 
 branched candlestick of the tabernacle still burning, 
 though dim and low, for it was not well trimmed 
 in those neglectful years ; found there the old law of 
 Moses, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, still recognised, 
 though a good deal obscured by their traditions. But 
 it was not his mission simply to revive it in its old 
 purity, and to restore its ancient power. It was his 
 purpose to bring from the same Father of Lights a 
 kindred, but fuller and more glorious law, which should 
 be to the ancient economy as the splendour of the 
 morning sun is to the twinkling of the midnight lamp. 
 So he fulfilled the ancient Scriptures, and in that very 
 fact annulled them. We are no longer under their 
 economy, but under the grace and truth which came 
 by Christ Jesus. That New Testament contains in 
 itself, and without mixture or addition from any other 
 quarter whatever, the complete revelation of God's will 
 for our salvation, — the whole truth we are to believe, 
 the whole law we are to obey, the whole rites of divine 
 worship, the entire covenant of our redemption. As the 
 servants of Christ, v.^e administer only its provisions. 
 As the heirs of God, we get our inheritance only accord- 
 ing to its appointment. It is the one supreme autho- 
 ritative document for determining His purpose ; and 
 it holds this place of high and exclusive power just 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 61 
 
 because it has fulfilled, and in fulfilling has abrogated, 
 the entire Old Testament dispensation. 
 
 I do not indeed say — you would utterly misunder- 
 stand me if you supposed me to mean — that those 
 ancient Scriptures are now altogether useless. On tlie 
 contrary, they remain, and ever shall remain, a most 
 helpful commentary and illustration, profitable in a 
 hundred ways for doctrine, and correction, and instruc- 
 tion, and reproof in righteousness. Their histories 
 record many a cheering example of worth, and truth, 
 and faith. Their laws, many of them, are such brief 
 and weighty words as we could indeed ill afford to 
 forget. Their psalms breathe some of the highest and 
 purest aspirations of vital godliness. Their books of 
 wisdom shed great masses of light on many of the dark 
 problems which have in all ages perplexed the souls of 
 men. And their prophetic writings are pregnant with 
 righteousness, and glowing with ardent expectation, 
 begotten of the Spirit of God. Were they by any 
 strange chance to be lost to the world, that were a loss 
 which could be paralleled only by the destruction of 
 the new and better testament. Were they to be lost, we 
 should most certainly lose the point and full meaning 
 of many a gracious word both of Christ and his apostles. 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews would become a dark and 
 hopeless mystery almost from beginning to end, and 
 the entire ISTew Testament would lose its best and 
 clearest and most faithful commentary. Instead of 
 regarding the ancient Scriptures as mere obsolete, anti- 
 quated, useless documents, to be left to the moth and 
 
62 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the cobwebs, I hold that, rightly used, they are infinitely 
 the best helps to our understanding of the doctrines 
 of Christ. But while I thus regard the first draft of 
 the will as of quite unspeakable value, I must again 
 repeat that it is not now the legal and authoritative 
 document under which I act as God's servant, or ye 
 claim to be his heirs. The first deed is not partly 
 set aside and partly obligatory, but all of it has been 
 fulfilled, and all of it has been annulled. All of it that 
 is eternal is embraced in the New Testament ; and, 
 therefore, that New Testament is now the one complete 
 and sufficient will of God for our salvation : so that 
 even, as I have said, were the ancient Scriptures, by 
 some strange unhappy chance, to be lost, — though 
 we should thereby, no doubt, lose not a little of the 
 point and force of many a precious New Testa- 
 ment word, — yet we should still have the whole will 
 of God, the perfect law of life, the complete scheme 
 of grace, all of absolutely essential to the salvation 
 of men. 
 
 In illustrating this general principle now, I select, in 
 the first instance, one of its applications in regard to 
 which all Christian men are agreed. For it is univer- 
 sally allowed that tliose rites and ceremonies of the 
 Old Testament dispensation, which typified the coming 
 Messiah, and were only of value as far as they shadowed 
 Him forth to the faith of ancient Israel, are of course 
 fulfilled and abolished in Him. This fact will, in itself, 
 show that the general principle of this discourse is a 
 sound one, viz., that some laws may be alike honoured 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. C3 
 
 and put an end to, obeyed and abrogated. I suppose 
 that there is no one here present competent to form an 
 opinion on such a subject, who will not at once admit 
 that what is called the ceremonial law was assuredly 
 fulfilled in Jesus ; and that in its fulfilment it was cer- 
 tainly abolished. Limiting ourselves for the present 
 then to that one point, it is sufficient to prove that some 
 laws may be at once obeyed and abrogated. Hence, 
 nobody can object to our general principle ; it is mani- 
 fest ; it is undeniable ; the only question possible must 
 relate to the detailed application of it in certain cases. 
 We have no circumcision now ; not because the rite was 
 dishonoured, but because in Christ there is a cir- 
 cumcision of the heart, a cutting away of the fleshly 
 nature, which is the true sign of the better covenant. 
 We have no passover lamb — because Christ our pass- 
 over is slain for us. We have no day of atonement— 
 because Christ is our atonement, having offered himself 
 ' through the eternal Spirit,' that he might ' purge our 
 conscience from dead works to serve the living God.' 
 We have no consecrated priesthood — because Christ is 
 the eternal High Priest, after the order of Melchisedec. 
 And we have no local temple — because His people are 
 built up on Him, lively stones, into a living temple, to 
 offer spiritual sacrifices well-pleasing to God through 
 Christ Jesus. Thus, these provisions of the Old Testa- 
 ment are at once fulfilled and abolished ; Christ is the 
 end of all that law for righteousness to eveiy one that 
 believeth. Does he then make void these ordinances ? 
 Nay, He establishes them ; for all the virtue of them lay 
 
G4 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 entirely in Him. This the Christian world now sees 
 clearly. But it was not so always. It was not by any 
 means clear to Peter and some other apostles ; and when 
 Paul first proclaimed it, it was amid a storm of obloquy 
 and misunderstanding and bitterness and reproach. 
 And if inspired apostles were at first slow to receive this 
 part of the truth, ought not we to exercise forbearance 
 and charity, and even to think it possible we may be 
 mistaken, when many faithful servants of Christ, and 
 painstaking students of Scripture, venture to think that 
 Christ's words and Paul's words have yet larger mean- 
 ings than we have been wont to suppose ? Meanwhile, 
 let us be well assured of this, that He who was^the heir 
 of all the promises made to the fathers came not to 
 dishonour the prophets, or to violate the law of God, but 
 to give to them a deeper significance, and to work out 
 for them a far higher accomplishment than ever had 
 entered the heart of man to conceive. Dim at the best 
 had been the vision of even the saintliest men of Israel 
 into those deep things of God, which angels desired to 
 look into, and were not able; and I daresay that Moses, 
 and David, and Daniel, had they looked on the child of 
 Bethlehem, and the spectacle of Calvary, would have 
 been amazed to think that that was God's method of 
 fulfilling the law and the prophets. ' But His ways are 
 not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. 
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His 
 ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than 
 our thoughts.' 
 
 But now in further applying the principle that a law, 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUKSE. 65 
 
 or legal document may be at once fulfilled and an- 
 nulled/let me say again that I cannot limit this to any 
 particular part of the Old Testament Scriptures, reserv- 
 ing some other parts as stiU valid and authoritative. 
 At least, I cannot do this, unless the New Testament 
 itself declares what portions are abolished, and what 
 remain in force. Obviously there were two courses 
 which might have been adopted in such a case as this. 
 The Legislature in framing new laws on any subject 
 may, on the one hand, either generally declare that all 
 previous enactments referring to it are hereby abro- 
 gated, and that the new law is to be the sole and 
 exclusive authority in the matter ; or, on the other 
 hand, it may explicitly annul certain things, leaving all 
 that is not thus distinctly specified as still the recog- 
 nised and authoritative law. Now, in like manner, the 
 New Testament might have explicitly stated that this, 
 and that, and the other ordinance of Moses was abo- 
 lished, but that all the rest was in as full force as ever 
 it was ; or it might have done what it actually has 
 done — that is, it might have boldly asserted that all the 
 ancient Scriptures are fulfilled, and also annulled, that 
 not a fragment of them is dishonoured or broken, and 
 yet that they are, as the legal and authoritative docu- 
 ments of the new covenant, abrogated and set aside. 
 Very many excellent Christians have adopted the for- 
 mer view, setting aside the ceremonial and judicial part 
 of the Mosaic ordinances as no longer binding, but reso- 
 lutely clinging to other parts of the law and the prophets 
 with a zeal and a tenacity and a passion which will not 
 
 E 
 
6G THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tolerate either question or explanation. I can qnite 
 understand why they assume this position, and why they 
 are so vehement in supporting it ; and of that I will 
 speak by and by. But meanwhile I would simply ask 
 you to note that the New Testament, in point of fact, 
 makes no such distinction, — that whatever it says about 
 the law and the prophets is spoken as applicable to all 
 alike, and that we have no right, without its distinct 
 authority, to select this for abolition, and that for per- 
 petuation. But if any one should say that he is 
 prepared to act on the principle that all the Old Testa- 
 ment economy which is not expressly abrogated in the 
 New is still binding on the Christian, then I would 
 remind him that, even assuming that all the proper 
 ceremonial law is so abolished, by far the greater part 
 of the judicial law is left in full force, so far, at least, 
 as regards direct and definite statements of the Lord or 
 his apostles. The laws which acknowledge and regu- 
 late slavery ; the law concerning Sabbath and jubilee 
 years ; the law of tithes ; the laws which punish the 
 adulterer and Sabbath-breaker and undutiful children 
 with death,- -these and a hundred other ordinances re- 
 main unrepealed by any explicit enactment of the New 
 Testament. Is any one prepared to carry into practice 
 these now obsolete statutes ? Our fathers and the 
 Puritans frankly allowed that those laws were not 
 specifically abrogated, and therefore honestly they tried 
 to work them out ; honestly, manfully, consistently 
 they did this ; but, alas ! with no very happy results. 
 They were logical, and true to their logic ; but what 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 67 
 
 standing-ground have we who repudiate what they saw 
 clearly to be the inevitable result of their position, and 
 yet insist that some parts of the Mosaic law, in virtue 
 of their Mosaic character, are still the formal and 
 authoritative statutes of the New Covenant ? 
 
 Brethren, the origin of the mistake I am now dealing 
 with, at least as it appears among us at the present 
 time, is very obvious ; and while I would maintain that 
 intellectually it is a mistake, I must also hold that 
 morally it is entirely creditable to the parties concerned. 
 Those who cling so tenaciously to the idea that some 
 portions of the Mosaic law are still formally binding 
 on all men, manifestly do so because they believe the 
 Decalogue to be identical with the moral law, and 
 because they justly hold that the moral law never can 
 be abrogated, and because they shrink with an intense 
 and most righteous and most Christian repugnance, as 
 we also shrink, from every aspect and shade and form 
 and tendency of antinomianism. May I ask you, 
 brethren, to believe me when I say that I do heartily 
 sympathize with this feeling ? I am not in the way of 
 protesting much ; but in this case I do protest that I 
 look upon antinomianism as the devil's own version of 
 the gospel, and the most thorough example of turning 
 light into darkness that I have ever come across. An 
 edition of the Bible printed in Gehenna, and cunningly 
 bound in Tophet, and circulated by emissaries from 
 the bottomless pit, would, without any exaggeration, 
 express my idea of that wicked perversion of Chris- 
 tianity. Brethren, I look upon the Ten Command- 
 
68 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 ments as ten of the weightiest words ever uttered by 
 God to man. I cannot, for my part, conceive how 
 any servant of God could, for a moment, deem himself 
 justified in saying aught that could make liglit of them, 
 or lessen the high esteem in which those grand and 
 simple words have been held for so many ages. He is 
 verily a slight man, and a flimsy thinker, a mere trifler 
 in ethics, and in moral history blind, who cannot see 
 that God's ancient people were, in virtue of those Ten 
 Commandments, exalted mightily above the carnal 
 heathen, having conscience developed thereby as it was 
 nowhere else, and being brought, as none else were, into 
 harmony with the thoughts and ways of Jehovah. 
 Verily not without meaning were those laws engraven 
 on stone by the finger of God. They do contain the 
 elements of an everlasting duty, solid and abiding as 
 the rocks. And for my part, instead of hinting, or 
 whispering, or insinuating the faintest syllable to their 
 dishonour, I would infinitely rather say that every jot 
 and tittle and shade and fragment of them is for ever 
 binding on all men, in all countries, and at all times, 
 and that, precisely in the same sense as they were bind- 
 ing upon Israel of old. Infinitely rather the Decalogue 
 in its veriest letter than the Decalogue in any sense 
 dishonoured. 
 
 But OTantintj all that, I must still fall back on Christ, 
 and on the great truth of the gospel, that He has at 
 once fulfilled and annulled the law. There is, of course, 
 this difference between the proper moral law and the 
 merely ceremonial, that while both alike are formalhj 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 69 
 
 abolished, yet the special observances of the one are 
 actually put an end to, while those of the other are 
 really more binding than ever. Let me note here, by 
 way of clearing up some of the difficulty which troubles 
 men's minds, that the law and the gospel being often 
 contrasted with each other in order to bring out, in clear 
 and distinct opposition, the difference between salva- 
 tion by works and salvation by faith ; and these words, 
 law and gospel, being also often used as synonymous 
 with the Old Testament and the New, a common mis- 
 understanding prevails on this head, to the effect that 
 the gospel — the New Testament — contains no law 
 proper, but only promises of mercy, provisions of grace, 
 and hopes of divine forgiveness and glory. A loose and 
 inaccurate use of words, in short, familiar to the philo- 
 sophic thinker, has produced a sad confusion of ideas. 
 But there could not be a more entire misunderstanding 
 of the nature of the New Testament than to suppose 
 that it contains no moral law, and that it is exclusively 
 occupied with what is technically called the gospel. 
 By far the greater part of our Lord's sayings are essen- 
 tially a high, divine law, a more perfect Decalogue, to be 
 written not on tables of stone, but on fleshly tablets of 
 the heart. Nor is there a single Epistle, however fully 
 setting forth the doctrine of the Cross, which is not 
 penetrated throughout with moral principles and duties. 
 Is there one commandment of the Decalogue which is not 
 enforced and enlarged in the New Testament ? There 
 is not, indeed, any such brief compend of law as the ten 
 weighty words of Sinai. But does not the New Testa- 
 
70 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 nient require us to worsliip one God, tlie Father of all? 
 Does it not forbid us to tliink that ' the Godhead is like 
 unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's 
 device?' Does it not require us to hallow the name of 
 our Father who is in heaven ? Does it not give us a 
 Sabbath, not of rest merely, but of worship and fellow- 
 ship and charity, such as the ancient Jew knew not for 
 real solemnity and sacredness ? Does it not forbid 
 murder, stealing, filthiness, lies, and covetousness, as 
 surely as ever was done by Moses ? And, besides all 
 this, does it not rise far above the region of mere nega- 
 tions, which narrowed of old times God's exceeding- 
 broad commandment ; yea, far above the sphere of mere 
 moral regulations, in whose bare literality so much room 
 was found for cunning and sophistical casuistry : and, 
 by laying down the great principle of love as the only 
 fulfilling of the law, does it not shed into the heart of 
 moral duty a light from heaven purer and more search- 
 ing than any that broke through the clouds and dark- 
 ness of Sinai ? Hear the Lord Jesus proclaiming that 
 ' God is a Spirit ; and they that worship him must wor- 
 ship him in spirit and in truth.' And again, ' Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy strength.' And again, ' What- 
 soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
 so to them : for this is the law and the prophets.'^ 
 
 ^ Of course, those great principles, or others equivalent to- them, will be 
 found in the Old Testament. The contrast drawn here has special refer- 
 ence to the Decalogue ; yet as a whole, the two dispensations may also be 
 contrasted in their ethical aspect, the one as characterized hy ^necepts and 
 the other by princijilcs. 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 71 
 
 And can you fail to recognise in these broad, all-regu- 
 lative principles a deeper law of religion and morality 
 than is to be found in the two tables of stone — a law 
 which supersedes them just because it fulfils them, 
 and summons us to a loftier walk with God than that 
 which guided the footsteps of his ancient people? 
 Again, therefore, I repeat that the New Testament is 
 now the one authoritative and sufficient document ex- 
 pressing to us the whole will of God ; containing at 
 once a far more perfect gospel, or revelation of his 
 mercy, than that which was dimly typified in the 
 emblems of the old covenant ; and also a far deeper 
 and broader law of moral duty than that which was 
 engraven on the tables of stone. And hence it was 
 that Jesus could truly say, even when about to abro- 
 gate the ancient Testament, ' Think not that I am come 
 to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am not come to 
 destroy, but to fulfil.' 
 
 AVhat I have now stated with regard to the combina- 
 tion of a legal with the evangelical element in the ISTew 
 Testament, will help at once to remove another difficulty 
 which seems to be troubling some minds — or rather two 
 difficulties connected with the spiritual uses and neces- 
 sity of a law. The first of these presents itself gene- 
 rally in some such form as this, — ' Does not,' it is asked, 
 — ' does not an apostle tell us tliat by the law is the 
 knowledge of sin ? "I had not known sin," he says, 
 " except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." But 
 this knowledge, or conviction of sin is necessary in 
 order to our getting the broken heart, which is God's 
 
72 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 accepted sacrifice, — necessary in order to our feeling 
 the need of Christ ; for the law is a schoolmaster to 
 bring us to him. And, alas ! if you abrogate the 
 Decalogue, you will have few mourning for their sins, 
 few weeping penitents, few prodigals sobbing, Father, I 
 have sinned against thee — few fleeing for refuge to a 
 Saviour, their- need of whom they have never learnt, 
 because the law that would have taught them has been 
 said to be annulled.' Thus do some men look at the 
 matter, no doubt quite sincerely, only with a strange 
 confusion of ideas. For manifestly their trouble arises 
 from a sheer mistake. They confound the moral law 
 and the Decalogue, as if these were identical. Now, 
 the Decalogue was the moral law as revealed to ancient 
 Israel, and a very blessed boon it was — jDerfect as far as 
 it went, for there was neither error nor flaw in it. But 
 though perfect in itself, as being without mistake, it 
 certainly was not the perfect moral law. That, it was 
 reserved for Jesus to reveal. The fulness of divine 
 grace, and the fidness of human duty, were not to be 
 discovered at different times, but in union the one with 
 the other, as was fitting and best. The perfect law of 
 God therefore emerges along with the final gospel of 
 divine love. That in all things He might have the pre- 
 eminence, the brightness of the glory of God, both in 
 respect of moral holiness, and also in respect of tender 
 mercy, shines into our hearts not in the face of IMoses, 
 but in the face of Christ Jesus. Will any one, then, 
 venture to say that the Decalogue is a better school- 
 master than the searching spirituality of the law 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 73 
 
 revealed by Christ ? Does Jesus deal with sinful souls 
 less effectually than Moses ? Does He heal their 
 wounds slightly in comparison with the prophets ? Was 
 there not one day a young man who came to him, 
 asserting confidently and honestly that he had kept the 
 whole commandments from his youth up, and who so 
 far was at ease in his mind, with no prickings of con- 
 science, no broken-hearted contrition? And was it 
 with a word from the old law, or a requirement of the 
 new, that Jesus reached his soul, and filled him with 
 a great sorrow ? Yea, do not the prophets themselves 
 declare that the godly sorrow which worketh true 
 repentance is to be found, not by looking to the com- 
 mandments, b\.\t by looking to Him whom we have 
 pierced ? brethren ! the thoughts that are cuiTent 
 among us just now fill me, not with amazement only, 
 but with solemn anxiety and fear, as a substantial denial 
 of the all- sufficiency of Christ — a virtual dethroning 
 and dishonouring of Him, the Lord's anointed. Can 
 you suppose for one moment that the old law of Sinai 
 produced more contrite hearts than Calvary, more tender 
 consciences than Jesus, more broken spirits than the 
 law and love of Christ ? The moral law, as known to 
 the Jews, was perfect so far, being free from error or 
 mistake ; but the perfect law of God is only uttered in 
 the New Testament, and illustrated in the life of Jesus ; 
 and as it is there seen it is verily, far more than any 
 word ever before spoken, quick and powerful,- dividing 
 asunder the joints and marrow of our being, a discerner 
 of the thoughts and intents of our hearts, producing 
 
74 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 more and truer and keener repentance tlian any that 
 ever wept and lamented before the ark of the testimony 
 of Israel. 
 
 But further, another difficulty to the reception of this 
 truth arises from anotlier quarter, and has an aspect of 
 greater subtlety, if not solidity, though it springs from 
 precisely the same mistake. What ! it is asked, do you 
 mean to substitute some internal, purely subjective 
 principle for the clear, objective revelation of God's 
 law? I do not much like the use of these two words, 
 subjective and objective, only they are handy and ex- 
 pressive, and I do not know any better. The meaning 
 is this : On the one hand, there is a law or rule written 
 in a book, which is called the objective commandment ; 
 and on the other hand, there is within us a spirit of 
 duty, which is in some measure a law to itself, regu- 
 lating our conduct in accordance with certain principles 
 of right, — and that is called a subjective rule. Both 
 these laws exist, and all parties allow that they exist. 
 Both have a province of their own, and most people 
 allow they have such a province. There is an external 
 law, ordained of God, and authoritatively requiring 
 obedience ; there are also internal princii)les, equally 
 planted there by God — a law written on the heart, — 
 and also claiming the right to regulate our conduct. 
 And the difficulty which some men feel, or rather the 
 reason which they put forth for refusing the truth I 
 have been trying to enforce, is this : ' You want,' they 
 ■ say, ' to substitute the law of the spirit of the new life 
 in Christ Jesus for the external and authoritative com- 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 75 
 
 inandment. You would give us a purely subjective power 
 for the objective rule. You would make a man's heart 
 the guide of life, and not the divine statutes. You 
 would give us a most uncertain and fluctuating law 
 instead of tlie everlasting testimony of Israel ; and this 
 we have practically found to be the first stage of anti- 
 nomianism. All Church history proves that those who 
 set out wath a denial of external law, and who claim 
 to be a law to themselves, and the only law they can 
 acknowledge, inevitably, on that plea, justify in the long 
 run any and every outrage of the law of God.' And so 
 they conclude that this is the beginning of wickedness, 
 and that they will and ought to resist its beginnings. 
 They allow that the gospel of Christ brings a new motive 
 for moral obedience, and a new, or at least greatly in- 
 creased, power to yield such obedience ; but the old 
 external, objective divine law they cannot allow to 
 be touched, even in the least of its commandments. 
 Thus fully and fairly I have stated their opinion ; for 
 I have no wish to lessen its force. I have no motive 
 for lessening its force ; for I think there is a great truth 
 in it, only there is also a very considerable mistake. 
 
 And the mistake lies here, brethren ; for it will be 
 best to put our finger on it at once. It lies in this, 
 that we, who hold the Old Testament Scriptures to be 
 abrogated as the authoritative Will^ of God, do not, in 
 point of fact, repudiate an objective moral law, or sub- 
 stitute a mere inward idea for it ; but, on the contrary, 
 
 1 The word Will here has obvious reference to the illustration formerly 
 used of a Testament. 
 
76 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 we hold — I at least, for my part, hold — as firmly as 
 any man, oy the outward, authoritative, New Testa- 
 ment commandment, which is the only full and perfect 
 utterance of the law of God. In the New Testament 
 I recognise a new, or at least a more persuasive, motive 
 for obedience, in the redeeming love of Christ. He 
 who brought Israel out of Egypt by great power and 
 mighty wonders does not plead with such force as He 
 who died for us that we might not perish, but have 
 everlasting life. In the New Testament I also recog- 
 nise that God gives a new, or at any rate a greatly 
 increased, power to do the will of the Father ; for even 
 the prophets allowed that, in God's new covenant, He 
 would write His laws in their hearts, that they might 
 keep His commandments and walk in His statutes in 
 a way that they had never done before. Thus, all will 
 grant that under the gospel the motive is more per- 
 suading, and the power is more complete, than they 
 were under the old economy. Moreover, it must also 
 be admitted that there is a greater inwardness in the 
 new covenant than in the old; that the idea of obe- 
 dience springing not from an external command merely, 
 but specially from the heart's love and delight in God, 
 has a prominence in the gospel which it had not in the 
 ancient dispensation. Not, indeed, that it was want- 
 ing in the Mosaic economy; for it was not. But all 
 will admit that tlie New Testament economy is so far 
 in advance of the Old, that there is more inwardness, 
 more spirituality, more thoroughness in its moral duty 
 than there was in the Old. So far all are ajjrced. So 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 77 
 
 far there can hardly indeed be any dispute whatever. 
 But we do not abolish the external law. We do not 
 substitute for it a dim, uncertain, changeful rule of 
 right. I utterly repudiate any such doctrine. I sin- 
 cerely acknowledge the necessity of an objective law, 
 even to develop the internal idea of right. Look at the 
 artist. He may be born with certain capabilities and 
 susceptibilities for conceiving what is beautiful. He 
 may ]3ossess from nature a certain exquisite ideal of 
 what is true in form, and fair in colour, and right in 
 its expression of human emotion. In his silent musings 
 and in his lofty dreams he may be ever prompted by 
 dim gropings and aspirations after a perfect ideal ; 
 and indeed, if there is no such law in his inward life, 
 he will come to nothing in the end. But, on the other 
 hand, he must also look out on the fair forms and 
 colours of the outer world. He must brood over the 
 high achievements of former art and skill. He must 
 fill his soul with models of every varied passion and 
 emotion touched by the painter's pencil, or carved with 
 the sculptor's chisel. An external law, imperfect per- 
 haps, yet true as far as it goes, is necessary to quicken 
 and ripen his own inward ideal. His genius commonly 
 smoulders till it be kindled thus from Avithout ; and its 
 rich and fruitful powers are unfolded in proportion as 
 he has opportunity for studying and copying these 
 forms of graceful beauty. And as it is with the artistic 
 nature, so is it with the moral. All men have doubt- 
 less a conscience — a certain susceptibility for judging 
 of what is rinht or wrong. But where there is no ex- 
 
78 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 ternal revelation of God's will, that conscience is gene- 
 rally shrivelled and withered np, and of little vital 
 force ; it lies smouldering under heaps of immoral 
 tradition and superstition. Among the Jews it was 
 largely set free from these, being quickened into vigor- 
 ous exercise, and developed to a measure of comparative 
 efficiency by means of the Ten Commandments. But 
 no one can read tlie history of their most saintly men 
 — men, too, sustained in their path of righteousness by 
 frequent miraculous help and supernatural insight — 
 without feeling that, in respect of moral light, the least 
 in the kingdom of heaven is greater than they were. 
 The Christian conscience possesses the advantage of a 
 higher law than they knew ; consequently it is more 
 keenly sensitive, more fully developed, and covers a 
 far larger field of recognised duty. Instead, then, of 
 substituting the inward idea for the external command- 
 ments, I frankly acknowledge that the law of the spirit 
 of life in our hearts attains to its fulness and vigour and 
 purity just in virtue of the perfect revelation of God's 
 will which is made to us in the New Testament. In 
 Christ we get a new motive for obeying the law. 
 Through Christ we obtain a new power for keeping 
 its statutes. But in Christ also we have a new and 
 higher conception of what moral duty is ; for the dim 
 gropings and uncertain susceptibilities of natural con- 
 science are guided and unfolded by Him who alone 
 teacheth us the perfect way of God's commandments. 
 There is no question, then, between us as to the pro- 
 priety of substituting an internal and varying concep- 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOURSE. 79 
 
 tion of duty for an external and unchanging law. It 
 is simply one of tlie unfair tricks of controversy to put 
 the matter in that light, and so create a prejudice. All 
 are agreed that there is an objective law revealed from 
 heaven. All are agreed that there is also a subjective 
 moral power, or conscience, which is at once directed 
 and developed by that revelation of God's will. And 
 the only question really at issue is this : Do the 'New 
 Testament Scriptures contain the complete and perfect 
 expression of tliat law, or have they to be supple- 
 mented by portions of the Old ? Is Christ sufficient 
 in himself, or must his imperfect Testament be helped 
 out by selections from Moses — selections, too, made 
 purely at our own will, without any authority of Scrip- 
 ture to guide us what we are to choose and what we 
 are to reject ? That is the real state of the question ; 
 and while I frankly admit that, in trying thus to blend 
 some parts of the Old Testament economy with tlie 
 New, a large amount of the spirit of Christianity has 
 been infused into the Jewish ordinances, enlarging and 
 elevating our idea of them ; yet, on the other hand, I 
 am equally certain that in adopting this course the 
 Church has not only acted without warrant, but has 
 often in the course of her varied history encroached 
 upon the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, 
 and has marred the spirit of the gospel quite as often 
 as she has refined that of the ancient covenant. Look 
 back on the sad pages of Christian story ^ — sad in spite 
 of many a noble heroism and holy service,^ — and as you 
 read the tale of cruel persecutions, and absurd preten- 
 
80 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 sions, and meddlesome interferences, and grasping claims, 
 let me tell you, you will lose all tlie lessons of wisdom 
 to be gathered from such facts, if you ascribe them to 
 any peculiar wickedness in those by whom they were 
 done ; for they were often good, and loving, and pious, 
 and true men ; but they were men who tried to work 
 out both the Old Testament and the New, and the 
 consequence was that they turned the gospel of Christ 
 into oppression, and cruelty, and wrong. Hence it is 
 that I am so anxious to impress it on you that the law 
 and the prophets are alike fulfilled and annulled in 
 Christ ; for I am quite certain that in any attempt to 
 combine them, if the law will gain something, the 
 gospel will suffer more. Moses may be enlarged, but 
 Christ will far more be straitened. 
 
 There is one point on which I have not touched, 
 simply because all are agreed about it. That the old 
 law, moral as well as ceremonial, is abolished so far 
 as regards our justification, no one among us enter- 
 tains any doubt whatever. Not by obedience to it is 
 any soul saved ; nor is its condemnation valid against 
 the children of God. By faith alone we are saved, not 
 by any works of righteousness which w^e have done. 
 That applies equally to the law as revealed in the Old 
 Testament or the New. As a law of righteousness for 
 us it is all alike taken out of the way and nailed to the 
 cross ; for even the Ten Commandments, and still more 
 the deeper and more spiritual moral requirements of the 
 gospel, are, in that sense, to one and all of us, not a law 
 of righteousness and life, but a law of sin and death. 
 
THEME OF THE DISCOUESE. 81 
 
 We have fully kept neither of them. We have trans- 
 gressed in many things, and come short in all. Verily, 
 Christ is the end of all law for righteousness to every 
 one that belie veth, and of the New Testament law even 
 more than of the Old, because it is so much harder to 
 obey. But being wholly at one on that head, let me 
 say in conclusion, that through our faith in Christ we 
 are not delivered from law, but rather delivered over 
 unto a better law — the law of the new life in Jesus. 
 To be set free from moral law would be simply to be cut 
 off from all fellowship with God. That were a very 
 devil's gospel, fit only for the blackness of the outer 
 darkness. But while Christ delivers us from the con- 
 demnation which our sins have deserved, he brings us 
 into new and loving relations with a new and glorious 
 law which is not to be observed as a bondage or a mere 
 letter, but with a joyful delight in its spirit and truth, 
 by meek endurance, by patient trust, by merciful 
 kindness, by integrity of life, by truth in the inward 
 parts, by charity towards all men, by guileless sim- 
 plicity, by honest thought and dealing, by self-sacri- 
 fice, by the pure heart, by walking in the spirit and 
 footsteps of Jesus, who is in all things our example, 
 and in following whom only shall we do the will of 
 our Father which is in heaven. 
 
 So He came not to destroy the law or the prophets, 
 but to fulfil them. And so might he most truly say, 
 ' Whosoever shall break one of these least command- 
 ments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the 
 least in the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 F 
 
82 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 
 
 * Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt 
 not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall he in danger of the judg- 
 ment : but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his 
 brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and 
 whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca. shall be in danger of the 
 council; but whosoever shall say. Thou fool, shall be in danger of 
 hell-fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there 
 rememberest that thy brother hath axight against thee ; leave tJiere 
 thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy 
 brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree icith thine ad- 
 versary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him ; lest at any 
 time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the jtidge deliver 
 thee to the officer, and thou he cast into jirison. Verily I say unto 
 thee. Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid 
 the uttermost farthing.' — Matt. v. 21-26. 
 
 As I stated in last lecture, tlie moral law of God 
 cannot be abolished, but abideth for ever and ever. It 
 may be more fully revealed at one time than at another. 
 But such a more perfect discovery will only deepen its 
 meaning, and strengthen its authority, and can in no 
 wise weaken its binding claims. For moral law is not 
 a mere arbitrary appointment. It is not so much an 
 expression of God's will as it is the very law of his own 
 just and holy Being, in obedience to which, and only in 
 such obedience, can we really enjoy fellowship with the 
 Father. Certainly, the Lord Jesus did not come to 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 83 
 
 deliver us from obedience to that law, but to take 
 away its condemnation, and to take away our enmity, 
 and to bring us more entirely and spiritually under 
 subjection to it. And accordingly He says, ' He that 
 hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is 
 that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved 
 of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest 
 myself to him.' 
 
 Now, the Scribes and Pharisees, while affecting to 
 honour the law, and to be exceedingly scrupulous in 
 its observance, had really by their quibbling glosses 
 and literalities been straining the very life-blood out 
 of it. From an allusion in verse 19, I suppose that, 
 for one thing, they had been distinguishing the com- 
 mandments into little ones and great ones ; with the 
 usual result, no doubt, of leading men to think that 
 some sins were venial, and others mortal. Now, of 
 course, there are some sins ' which are more heinovis in 
 the sight of God than others.' To take a man's life is a 
 weightier offence than to steal his goods. But every 
 jot and tittle of the moral law is most sacredly binding, 
 and carries with it the most awful penalties in case of 
 disobedience ; for there is no such thing as venial sin, 
 and there is no more mischievous exercise of casuistry 
 than to speak of some commandments and some trans- 
 gressions as if they were of little moment. It is one of 
 the most common snares laid for the conscience by the 
 ingenious subtlety of men, to discuss the comparative 
 importance of certain duties, instead of upholding the 
 supreme authority of all, and of the great lawgiver of 
 
84 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 all ; and therefore Jesus declared in one place that he 
 who is guilty in one point, is just as really guilty as if 
 he had broken the whole law; and therefore also he says 
 here, that ' whosoever shall break one of these least 
 commandments, and shall teach men so, the same 
 shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. For 
 except your righteousness shall exceed the righteous- 
 ness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 You will remember, that in the introductory lecture 
 to these discourses on our Lord's sermon on the mount, 
 I stated to you that the passage beginning at verse 21, 
 and going on to the end of this chapter, might be called 
 the first head or division of the sermon ; and that its 
 specific object was to illustrate the principle that God's 
 law must be fulfilled not in the letter only, but in the 
 spirit. That great principle he explains now by show- 
 ing its application in reference to various commandments 
 and customs, and also how it rebuked the righteousness 
 of the Scribes and Pharisees. But before going into the 
 details, there are two preliminary observations which 
 require to be made. 
 
 1. When I say that the law must be kept not in the 
 letter, but in the spirit, I mean of course that it may be 
 kept in the letter, while the spirit is utterly neglected ; 
 but I do not mean that one may obey it in spirit while 
 violating the letter. There are circumstances indeed 
 in which the literal observance would really be a trans- 
 gression of the deep spiritual meaning of tlie law. 
 Were you absolutely, when smitten on one cheek, to 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 85 
 
 turn the other also, I question very much whether that 
 would be an illustration of the meek and patient spirit 
 which our Lord there enjoins. And when some men 
 so understand the words, ' Swear not at all,' as to refuse 
 an oath m a court of justice for securing the admini- 
 stration of righteousness, again I am afraid that they 
 are not carrying out the real meaning of the command- 
 ment. But, in general, when we say that God's law is 
 to be obeyed not in the letter, but in the spirit, we mean 
 that it requires both the one and the other, — both the 
 actual observance of what is clearly enjoined, and also 
 the inward and heartfelt and genuine submission of our 
 souls to the whole broad spirit of the law. What is 
 intended, in short, is that, in the first instance, there 
 is to be an absolute and literal obedience to what the 
 Lord requires ; but that we are not to stop short there, 
 for the formal injunction is after all only the symbol of 
 a deeper and wider spirit which Ave are bound to under- 
 stand, and to bring our whole souls under subjection 
 to it. We must obey both in the letter and in the 
 spirit also. 
 
 2. My other preliminary observation here is, that this 
 principle, though it stands forth with a peculiar vivid- 
 ness in the 'New Testament Scriptures, was by no means 
 absent from the Old. The Scribes and Pharisees, indeed, 
 in their casuistical glosses, had practically set it aside 
 altogether. They had established a kind of moral, or 
 rather immoral science, by which they lorded it at once 
 over the human conscience and over the divme law ; 
 a science the great object of which seemed to be, to see 
 
8G THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 liow narrow they could make the exceeding broad com- 
 mandment, how far they could reduce it to a dead and 
 impotent literality. But the law itself was always 
 spiritual. In the Psalms we find this spirituality most 
 distinctly acknowledged over and over again. David 
 longs for truth ' in the inward parts/ and prays for ' the 
 clean heart ;' and with his whole soul he loves the 
 statutes of the Lord. In particular, this truth appears 
 fully disclosed in the tenth commandment, which is not 
 so much an additional and specific requirement as it 
 is an injunction to yield a true spiritual obedience to 
 all the previous commandments. For you shall find its 
 full and real meaning best, if you apply it to the pre- 
 vious statutes of the Decalogue, and understand it to 
 mean this, that, passing beyond the region of mere 
 external observance, it requires us not to steal by covet- 
 ing our neighbour's property, and not to kill by covet- 
 ing or grudging our neighbour's life, and not to commit 
 adultery by coveting our neighbour's wife, nor yet to 
 bear false witness against him by coveting his good 
 name. It would be a mere Pharisaic notion to regard 
 the old law of the Lord as one that demanded only 
 external and literal observances. All our relations with 
 the heart-searching God were, and are, and must always 
 be, spiritual ; for He never could liave been pleased 
 with a heartless and formal obedience. Therefore, 
 again, I repeat that, while Jesus goes on here to illus- 
 trate the principle that God's law must be fulfilled, not 
 in the letter only, but also in the spirit, he is not intro- 
 ducing any novelty into the Church, for it was always 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 87 
 
 SO recognised by the real saints of God. At the same 
 time He does certainly exhibit this truth with a fulness 
 which it never had before. He fulfils the law by pour- 
 ing into it a light akin to what it always possessed, but 
 purer and brighter than ever yet had entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive. 
 
 In dealing with this principle, then, our Lord adduces 
 certain examples by way of illustration, and asserts for 
 Himself a high right and authority to declare to the 
 people the very will of God in the matter. He reminds 
 them of certain things which had been said by 'them 
 of old time.' Of these sayings some are selected from 
 the Ten Commandments, some from other parts of the 
 Mosaic law, and some apparently from the glosses of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees. But no matter with what autho- 
 rity they had been spoken, Jesus claims it as his prero- 
 gative to enlarge, or to alter them by His own authority. 
 I know nothing more emphatically indicative of his 
 divine right to speak to men as the very Son of God 
 than the simple ' I say unto you,' so frequently recurring 
 in this chapter. The everlasting God had spoken from 
 Mount Sinai, and written on stone tables his unbending 
 law ; but this meek and lowly man has no scruple, and 
 no fear, and no presumption either, in dealing with those 
 commandments as the Lawgiver only could deal with 
 them, and, with a voice of calm authority, not to be 
 questioned. He explains their real meaning, and enforces 
 their high claims, and enlarges their spirit and power. 
 No man indeed can read these expositions and injunc- 
 tions of the Lord, without feeling that every word He 
 
88 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 utters tends to the real fulfilment of God's will. It was 
 his meat and drink to do that will. He rejoiced in it, 
 rejoiced to know it, rejoiced to obey it, rejoiced to exalt 
 and honour it. But because He was the only-begotten 
 Son, who was one with the Father, He also claimed 
 the right to fill up, to complete, in virtue of his divine 
 character, the whole spiritual import of that holy law, 
 resting his expositions on no derived authority, but on 
 his own solemn assertion, ' I say unto you.' And take 
 heed, brethren, lest ye dishonour Christ, the brightness 
 of the Father's glory, by refusing to him this his in- 
 alienable power and prerogative. 
 
 Now, the first of the divine commandments which He 
 handles here, with the view of showing its real spiritual 
 character, is that which concerns the preservation of 
 human life. It had been said by them of old time, 
 said in fact by God, ' Thou shalt not kill.' No doubt, 
 the Scribes and Pharisees, with their usual meagre 
 literality, had restricted, and qualified, and explained 
 away this law, showing in how many cases killing might 
 be no murder, and, at any rate, limiting the guilt of this 
 offence to the actual and criminal taking of human life. 
 And, of course, our Lord's exposition rebuked all such 
 unspiritual glosses. But it may be also fuUy allowed 
 that the Old Testament saints, the men really fiUed 
 with the Spirit of God, took a far larger view of their 
 duty than the Pharisees did ; and felt that they were 
 called to do everything in their power to preserve the 
 life of their neighbour, I would be very slow to think 
 that men like Samuel and David and Isaiah had any 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 89 
 
 part whatever in the casuistical literalities of the Phari- 
 sees. They were true men, spiritual men, loving and 
 righteous men ; and the law of God was no meagre 
 ordinance to them of formal obedience, but verily and 
 for ever an exceeding broad commandment. At the 
 same time, I question very much whether any of them 
 had any idea of the high requirements of this law, as 
 here set forth by Jesus. At any rate, it must be clear 
 to you all, that, while the literal observance of it still 
 remained in full force, one might be perfectly guiltless 
 of any transgression in that respect, and yet, for all that, 
 he might be most truly a murderer according to the 
 interpretation of Christ ; for he that speaketh evil of his 
 brother may take away his life ; and he that hateth his 
 brother hath already the spirit of murder in his heart. 
 But the precise words of our Lord here will require a 
 somewhat nicer investigation. 
 
 You will observe that there is a word, ' Raca,' which 
 is left here untranslated ; and another word, ' More,' 
 which is translated, ' Thou fool.' Now, the former of 
 these words was an expression of contempt or scorn, 
 nearly equivalent to our saying that such an one has 
 played the fool. The latter word, which is translated 
 ' fool,' seems to imply more deliberate wickedness, and is 
 liker our English miscreant or mllain. Our Lord then 
 may be understood here as saying that the man who 
 without cause is wroth with his brother ; and the man 
 who scornfully says of another that he has played the 
 fool ; and again, the man who maliciously speaks of his 
 neighbour as a miscreant or villain — all of them alike 
 
90 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 are guilty of breaking this law. You will observe 
 furtlier, that there are three different expressions to 
 indicate the gradations of the penalty thus incurred. 
 The "judgment was the common court that sat in every 
 city gate for the trial of ordinary offenders, and it was 
 empowered to inflict certain punishments. The council, 
 or sanhedrim, was a higher judicial body, who were 
 authorized by the law to condemn a criminal to be 
 stoned with stones until he die. Gehenna was the 
 name given to the Valley of Hinnom, where once Moloch 
 was worshipped by fire, and where now men guilty of 
 very heinous offences were burnt to death, so that the 
 name became a symbol of hell-fire. The sum of the 
 whole matter then is, not that men were to inflict these 
 punishments on the parties indicated ; but that, in the 
 sight of God, the causeless anger, the cruel scorn, and 
 the malignant speech, were all infractions of this law, 
 and would all receive one day their merited and fitting 
 punishment. Tliere might be gradations in the amount 
 of guilt, and all these would doubtless be taken into 
 account, and the penalty rightly adjusted to the crime. 
 But this, at any rate, is certain, the law, ' Thou shalt not 
 kill' miglit be broken, not merely by the violent invasion 
 of life, but also by the wicked tongue and the cruel 
 thought ; and for all of these alike, God will bring us 
 into judgment. 
 
 Such, my friends, is the Lord's exposition of this 
 commandment, and such is the way in which He will 
 have it to be fulfilled. There was need of some such 
 interpretation in his days, for the Scribes and Pharisees 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 91 
 
 had gone far to narrow the law mto a miserable letter. 
 But is there not still the same evil to be combated ? 
 Doubtless, you all recognise the exceeding sacredness of 
 human life. There is no crime which is regarded with 
 more natural horror than that of the man who sheddeth 
 his brother's blood. Whether the fell deed be done 
 by the rude weapon of violence, or by the knife of the 
 stealthy assassin, or by the bowl of the cunning poisoner, 
 you shrink with an almost pitiless abhorrence from the 
 murderer ; and you feel as if even inanimate nature 
 must rise up against him, and stern eyes look into him 
 out of the darkness, and spectral forms of terror haunt 
 him with remorse and fear, until the law he has broken 
 shall have been avenged. That is all right and natural ; 
 evermore the law abideth, 'Thou shalt not kill;' ever- 
 more the true heart will shudder and revolt at such a 
 crime. But think not that the bowl or the bullet or 
 the dagger are the only weapons that take away life. 
 There are words that kill as effectually as the deadliest 
 poisons ; and the law of God is not for mere Cains or 
 Lamechs, and other high-handed criminals only. Have 
 you not all heard — ay, perhaps known, — of cases in 
 which foul murder was done by a cruel word, — cases 
 in which malignant gossip whispered of some one 
 ' Eaca, — she hath played the fool !' and by and bye she 
 who was but a little ago as blithe and beautiful and 
 healthful as ever gladdened a fireside, now, with pallid 
 cheek and drooping form, withers away into an imtimely 
 grave ? Was there no law broken by that whispered 
 ' Eaca ' ? Is there to be no remorse for that victim of 
 
92 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 heartless evil-speaking ? Think ye God has no penalty 
 for offences such as these? Nay brethren, whoever 
 shall say to his brother ' Eaca/ shall be in danger of tlie 
 judgment. Again, thoughtlessly it may be, and with 
 utter indifference to the consequences, you take up an 
 ill report against your brother ; or harshly and hastily 
 and without inquiry judging huu, you whisper ']\Iore — 
 he is acting as a rogue, a miscreant;' and so you rob 
 him of his good name ; and he, being perhaps a sensitive 
 and tender spirit, finds himself surrounded with an at- 
 mosphere of- misunderstanding and misrepresentation, 
 and distrust and cruel suspicion, under wdiose hateful 
 influence, innocent as he is, life's feeble taper gradually 
 flickers and expires. Again, I ask, is there no law 
 broken there ? Is there to be no remorse for the mur- 
 ders wrought by malignant tongues ? Are men to be free 
 to shoot these poisoned arrows at their brethren, and yet 
 claim to be maintaiuinf^ the law of the living God ? 
 That is what the Pharisees did ; and our Lord's words to 
 them were, ' I say unto you, whoever calleth his brother 
 Mor^ shall be in danger of Gehenna.' Nor does that 
 holy and heart -searching law stop short even there. 
 It is not enough to refrain from criminal action, or ma- 
 lignant speech ; God's requirements penetrate beneath 
 these outward things, and lay claim to the very inner- 
 most thoughts of our heart. He who is wroth with 
 another without cause, is also guilty of breaking this 
 law. No doubt there is an anger which may be to some 
 extent justifiable. To be indignant at any one guilty of 
 a base, ignoble deed, that is to be angry, and sin not. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 93 
 
 But to be angry with, a brother who has injured us, is 
 not, indeed, to be angry without cause altogether, yet 
 there is no small peril in indulging such feelings, and 
 the wrath which is caused by personal wrong is just the 
 murderous spirit of revenge. However, that which is 
 condemned specially by our Lord here, is the anger 
 which springs wp properly without cause — such, e.g., 
 as the wrath of Cain, which arose from the malignant 
 passion of envy because his own works were evil, and his 
 brother's righteous. Ah ! brethren, I beseech you, take 
 heed, and watch and pray against such thoughts as these. 
 They are the roots and germinating forces of all most 
 fell and hateful crimes. Cherish them, and the children 
 who have prayed at the same mother's knee, may repeat 
 the old sad tragedy of Cain and Abel. But even if it 
 never come to open acts of crime, the very thoughts of 
 envy, malice, and hate are murderous ; and God's law is 
 only fulfilled when thou lovest thy brother with a true 
 evangelical love, a love like that of Christ ; loving him 
 for all the good that may be in him, loving him in spite 
 of all the bad that may be in him, loving to do him all 
 the good you can, loving to make him better as far as in 
 you lies. For this, and this only, is the fulfilling of the 
 law, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour even as thyself.' 
 
 In the remaining verses we have a beautiful applica- 
 tion of the law, showing its bearing on the true worship 
 of God. Assuming that any of those forms of sin will be 
 condemned at the throne of judgment, Jesus reasons that 
 they will be equally offensive at the throne of grace ; if 
 they merit divine wrath, they will prevent divine mercy, 
 
94 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 unless they be confessed and repented. ' Therefore,' 
 he says, 'if thou bring thy gift before the altar, and 
 there remember that thy brother hath aught against thee, 
 leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; 
 first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and 
 offer thy gift.' And again, he adds, in order that no de- 
 lay may take place, for it is not a matter that may be 
 safely put off, ' Agree with thine adversary whiles thou 
 art in tlie way with him' — avail thyself of the present 
 opportunity, — ' lest at any time thine adversary deliver 
 thee to the judge, and thou be cast into prison.' The 
 general drift of the passage is this : If we have wronged 
 our brother, if we have cherished thoughts of causeless 
 anger against him, or if we have uttered evil words 
 about him ; or if he has wronged us so as to stir up bit- 
 ter and revengeful feelings in our minds, which may 
 seem to be justified by his conduct, but are in reality 
 wicked and ungodly ; then it will be in vain that we 
 come to the altar with either thank-offerings, or sin- 
 offerings ; in vain that we draw near to the God of all 
 grace with either praise, or prayer, unless w^e go and make 
 it up with him ; for we cannot say to any purpose, ' For- 
 give us our debts,' unless we can also say, ' as we for- 
 give our debtors.' And it should be observed that 
 Jesus calmly assumes it as a thing likely enough to 
 happen, that men may actually be guilty of such con- 
 duct ; that the heart may be so deceitful as to go up to 
 God's holy altar full of malignant hate, conscious of 
 having cherished wrathful thoughts and spoken wrath- 
 ful words against another, and yet expecting the 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 95 
 
 righteous God to accept its offering. Very earnestly and 
 solemnly, therefore, he warns us, if even at the very 
 altar we find such passions in us, or remember such 
 words to have been spoken by us, to lose not a moment 
 in casting out those thoughts and acknowledging those 
 offences ; for the wrong that is done and cherished to a 
 brother will hurl our petitions from a throne of grace. 
 Let no time be lost then, but as soon as you call to mind 
 the evil you have done, let it be confessed and repented, 
 lest the opportunity be gone ; for be assured of it, that 
 causeless wrath, cruel scorn, malignant speech, if not 
 covered with godly sorrow, will be such a dead fly 
 in the apothecary's ointment, as to cause our best 
 and devoutest worship utterly to stink before the 
 Lord. 
 
 brethren, by the mercies of God I entreat you to 
 think of this solemn and earnest word. Why is it that 
 our general religious life is so poor and meagre and 
 unspiritual ? Why is it that our prayers seem to fall 
 leaden-winged and helpless and fruitless to the ground ? 
 W^hy are we so little refreshed and strengthened and 
 helped for the battle of life by all our mvdtiplied devo- 
 tions ? Why is it that we have so little joy in God, so 
 little glory in tribulation, so little peace amid all the 
 changeful troubles of the world, and that we make so 
 little progress in the life of faith ? That we are in 
 these days so meagre and poor and feeble a folk is the 
 all but universal complaint ; and I cannot but allow 
 there is much truth in it. But when I witness the 
 causeless anger of brother against brother ; when T 
 
96 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 hear on all hands the cry of ' Eaca' and 'Mor6' — fool 
 and rogue — passmg from mouth to mouth, reckless how 
 it may wound tender souls to the very death ; when I 
 find that such things are done, and even gloried in, I 
 do not wonder that men bring their gifts to the altar, 
 and do not find a gracious God there. I daresay many 
 do not remember it even when they come to the altar ; 
 I daresay some who do remember it, try to persuade 
 themselves it is right. But God has commanded of old, 
 ' Thou shalt not kill.' And Christ has indorsed and 
 expounded that law as forbidding all envy, hatred, 
 malice, and evil -speaking. And, therefore, the gift 
 at the altar is an offering of abomination which is 
 brought by a heart full not of love and gentleness, but 
 of hate and bitterness ; and the prayer will never enter 
 the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, which is pleaded by 
 lips that have just been crying fool and miscreant at 
 a brother. 
 
 Of course, in saying this, I am assuming that the 
 parties so accused are innocent, and that those who 
 indulge in such feelings, or utter such words about 
 them, are wantonly giving way to wrath and bitterness. 
 There are fitting times, when it is right, and in the 
 interests of law and justice, to discover the folly of the 
 fool and the roguery of the miscreant ; though in doing 
 so we must take heed that our motives are such as can 
 bear the scrutiny of the heart- searching God. Still, if 
 it be not done in malice, it is right on proper occasions 
 to be angry at the wrong-doer, and to proclaim his 
 wrong- doing. Some of the sternest, sharpest words ever 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 97 
 
 uttered were spoken by the meek and gentle Jesus 
 concerning the Pharisees, because it was high time to 
 lay bare those whited sepulchres and their rottenness. 
 There is a duty of severity as well as of mercy; and 
 mercy to the wicked may be cruelty to the righteous. 
 Such cases, however, are easily distinguishable from the 
 wanton and malignant, or heartless and thoughtless, 
 evil- speaking, to which the Lord here refers. And, there- 
 fore, in summing up the whole of this matter, let me 
 again remind you with all earnestness, that the law, 
 the ever-abiding law, ' Thou shalt not kill,' is not to be 
 read only according to the letter, as if it merely forbade 
 the violent invasion of life, but that in its true spirit it 
 can only be kept when we love each other as Christ 
 hath loved us. It is possible to do cruel murder by 
 other means than by the bowl of the poisoner, or the 
 knife of the assassin. The tongue is an unruly member, 
 full of deadly poison ; and the wanton cry of fool or 
 rogue hath laid its victims in the grave as surely as the 
 blow of a bludgeon, or a bullet in the brain. And even 
 though no such fatal result can issue from it, yet the 
 unspoken feeling of envy, malice, or hate, hath in it the 
 guilt of murder too ; and he that cherishes, or gives 
 way to such evil passions is verily, in the sight of God, 
 as another Cain upon the earth ; for His law requires 
 truth and love in the inward parts. And if we yield 
 ourselves either to wrathful and bitter thoughts, or to 
 contemptuous and malicious words, our offerings, and 
 prayers, and devotions, and all other our most pious 
 services in which we seem to delight, shall not be 
 
 G 
 
98 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 accepted at the throne of grace, shall not obtain the 
 blessing from the God of our salvation, and shall not 
 bring to us the joy which they are meant to bring. 
 Iniquity and solemn meeting the Lord hates. To what 
 purpose is the multitude of our oblations while we go 
 on in our envy, malice, hatred, evil -speaking, and un- 
 charitableness ? Brethren, such things dry up and 
 wither our spiritual life, and stunt our growth in grace, 
 and make us to be indeed the least in the kingdom of 
 heaven. For it hath come sorrowfully to pass in these 
 years that, to a great extent, a man's faithfulness and 
 zeal and Christian discipleship are estimated, not by 
 the love he bears to all his brethren in the Lord, but 
 rather by the hatred he bears to all who happen to 
 differ from him in opinion, by the harsh construction 
 he j)uts on all they say and do, and by his readiness to 
 cry ' Eaca' and ' More '—fool and rogue — at all his 
 adversaries. Woe is me ! And can you wonder that in 
 stich circumstances spiritual life is at a low ebb, and 
 men feel as if their souls were in a dry and parched 
 land where no water is ? Beloved, if you bring your 
 gift to the altar, and there, even there, at the last mo- 
 ment, remember that your brother hath aught against 
 you ; if your heart is so deceitful as to have cherished 
 causeless anger, or indulged in malicious speech, and 
 yet has thought to be accepted of the righteous God ; 
 pause for a moment, and mock not the heart-searcher ; 
 pause and repent lest a worse thing befall you ; pause, 
 and lose not the opportunity of being reconciled to your 
 brother, for it is not him only you are wronging, but 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 96 
 
 your own soul too, and God's holy law, and God's 
 gracious gospel, all of which miserably suffer, unless 
 you and I are labouring to walk in love, as Christ 
 gave us an example that we should walk in his 
 steps. 
 
100 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY LOYE. 
 
 ' Ye have heard that it was said by them, of old time, Thou shalt 
 not commit adxdtery : but I say unto you, That ichosoever looketh 
 on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her 
 already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, ijluck it 
 out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of 
 thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body shordd be 
 cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and 
 cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy 
 members should perish, atid not that thy whole body should be cast 
 into hell. It hath been said. Whosoever shall jmt away his wife, 
 let him give her a writing of divorcement : but I say unto you, 
 That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of 
 fornication, causeth her to commit adultery : and whosoever shall 
 marry her that is divorced committeih adultery.' — Matt. v. 27-32. 
 
 The second illustration of the true spiritual obedience 
 which the law of God requires is taken from the seventh 
 commandment; and though the subject is not one 
 which it is easy to handle in a promiscuous assembly, 
 yet the moral well-being of society requires that neither 
 should it be slightly passed over; for, after all, true 
 delicacy lies, not in ignoring the existence of sin, but in 
 resisting it, and striving to remove it. 
 
 And here let me say in the outset that this com- 
 mandment, and all the other concurring laws which 
 bear upon the subject of moral purity, had been of un- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 101 
 
 speakable benefit to tlie people of Israel. For wliereas 
 they were surrounded on all hands by nations that 
 were, in this respect, rotten to the very core — nations 
 given over to all vileness and filthiness, — it is certain 
 that the Jews, on the whole, were quite unusually free 
 of that sorrowfvil stain which defiled and degraded the 
 neighbouring peoples. Even Greece, with all the splen- 
 dour of her intellectual powers and achievements, and 
 Eome with her stern polity, wise in all the arts of law 
 and government, were so tainted with this vice that con- 
 science had all but forgotten that it was a vice, and was 
 not ashamed of its sin. Of course, if this was the case 
 among the colder and better regulated communities of 
 the "West, you can easily imagine that the Eastern 
 empires, always more prone to yield themselves to the 
 indulgence of a voluptuous appetite, would present a 
 picture of moral impurity of which we may say nothing 
 more than this, that its very religious worship was a 
 consecrated obscenity. But in the midst of all this 
 vileness the families of Israel maintained a high and 
 most happy singularity. Not that there were no mourn- 
 ful examples of a very different spirit, Not that the 
 marriage-law of Israel was at all on a level either with 
 the primitive, or with the Christian law. It is the very 
 object of our Lord here to show that it was not, and 
 that so far it was defective. But still the matrons and 
 maidens of Israel walked in a chaste and delicate 
 modesty, unspotted by the vices of the neighbouring 
 world. The streets of Jerusalem were not defiled by 
 the effronteries of a flaunting courtesanship. The 
 
102 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 damsels of cheerful Galilee sang with pure and honest 
 hearts as they ground the daily corn, or plucked the 
 grape-clusters from the bending vine. When, indeed, 
 the idolatries of Assur, or Egypt, or Moab, made them 
 to forget the God of Abraham, the prophets complain 
 that the land became polluted with consequent adulteries, 
 and sternly and mournfully they cry out against these 
 iniquities. But as a general rule, Israel and Judah had 
 learnt this lesson as no other nation had learnt it ; and 
 this high moral level to which they had attained was 
 most certainly owing to the pure and authoritative law 
 of their God. 
 
 The practical benefits reaped by the covenant people 
 from the various statutes, some of them very severe, 
 bearing on this point, cannot for a moment be ques- 
 tioned. Indeed, they are so manifest that some thought- 
 ful writers have not hesitated to say that perhaps the 
 most significant characteristic of Jewish history is just 
 this fact of the moral purity of its women. That is 
 certainly going too far. The chief result of their 
 history, as I read it, is something higher even than that 
 — higher than any question of social morality ; for they 
 were set apart to maintain a testimony for the unity and 
 spirituality, and righteousness of God, and to illustrate 
 this by faith in His word. Yet it is certain that one 
 most obvious and significant and blessed result of that 
 faith was, that it filled the land with pure and happy 
 homes, 'cutting away the filthiness of the flesh,' and 
 creating a far nobler and holier domestic life than could 
 be found elsewhere in all the ancient world. And I 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 103 
 
 think this should be borne in mind when we are read- 
 ing some of the ancient prophets. The custom of inter- 
 preters has been to use the words adultery and idolatry 
 as synonymous terms, and to explain this usage by the 
 metaphor that Israel was as a wife espoused by Jehovah, 
 so that all worship of idols was akin to the faithlessness 
 of a spouse. And so far that is quite right. Israel was 
 the bride whom He had chosen, and was called to a 
 lowly, loving, and faithful worship of her Lord. But 
 the evil against which Hosea and others cried out was 
 no merely metaphorical vice. When God's law was 
 forsaken, Israel became most literally an adulterous 
 people, like her neighbours. When God's law was 
 maintained, straightway the homes of Judah were filled 
 again with an atmosphere of moral purity. Hosea does 
 not cry and mourn against a mere figurative sin, but 
 against one that was terribly real at aU times when 
 Israel departed from the statutes of the Lord; and 
 therefore I would like you to understand that, in a 
 profoundly important sense, to have a divine law is 
 really to obtain a singular divine grace. It is a great 
 favour to a people to be legislated for by the living 
 God; and in keeping of his commandments there is 
 ever a great reward. Israel was honoured, helped, 
 purified, and comforted by the possession of these 
 statutes ; and while other countries might exhibit 
 qualities of intellectual pre-eminence higher perhaps 
 than theirs, these were far more than counterbalanced 
 by the lofty moral purity which reigned among the 
 households of Jacob. 
 
104 THE SERMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 1. Yet this law, as it was practised in Judah, was 
 not quite the law which must rule over the Christian. 
 It is difficult to say how far the proper spirituality of 
 its claims was appreciated by the people in general. I 
 have already said that David felt it to be ' exceeding 
 broad ;' and I cannot, for my part, believe that the 
 saintly men of the Old Testament ages could ever have 
 narrowed tlieir obedience to a mere formal and external 
 rule. No doubt, they did understand that the God of 
 Abraham required a most heartfelt and genuine sub- 
 mission to every one of His injunctions. But how far 
 the general conscience was instructed in regard to the 
 real inwardness and spirituality of true obedience, that 
 is not so easy to determine. One thing, however, is 
 perfectly clear, and that is, that at this time when 
 Jesus began to teach, that true sj^iritual obedience 
 needed to be discovered anew ; for it had been miser- 
 ably obscured by the dust and rust of Pharisaic inter- 
 pretation. Consequently, when Jesus adduced the 
 commandment as they had heard it laid down by 
 them of old time, he felt himself constrained to add a 
 word which profoundly, and even terribly, deepened its 
 meaning, and which must have flashed convictions of 
 sin into many a heart present. For virtually the Lord 
 said, ' The Fathers have told you that God's law is, 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery. Well, that is true; 
 for evermore true, and binding on all men. It is one 
 of the most marked and significant characteristics of 
 His covenant with you, that ye shall not yield your- 
 selves to filthiness of the flesh. Ye men, and matrons 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 105 
 
 and maidens of Israel, God hatli sealed you to himself, 
 by many a sacred blood- sprinkling and baptism, that 
 ye should walk before him blameless, and clean and 
 unspotted from this pollution of the world.' Most 
 clearly does He thus enforce the old law of Sinai. But 
 then He goes on to say, ' This commandment requires 
 a deeper and holier observance than that of mere out- 
 ward behaviour. It is far broader than ye may have 
 imagined. It may be broken by wicked lusts quite as 
 effectually as by wicked acts: "Whosoever looketh 
 on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery 
 with her already in his heart." ' Let me entreat you to 
 note the exceeding spirituality of this law. The true 
 moral perfection which God requires, and at which we 
 should all be aiming, struggling to attain it, demands 
 not merely outward good conduct, and a refraining from 
 actual wickedness ; and also not merely a steadfast re- 
 sistance to, and quenching of, sinful lusts; but posi- 
 tively a pure heart in which such desires shall not 
 arise to defile us. I am perfectly aware that this state 
 of moral purity is never absolutely attained while we 
 are in the flesh. The body of death clings to us ; and 
 the lusts of sin rise up as bubbles in the impure foun- 
 tain within us, do what we will. And, therefore, it 
 might be said that all that can really be required of a 
 man is, that he shall resist these, and refuse assent to 
 their evil instincts ; and then if he do so, he has not 
 sinned. But this is not the whole truth of God. It 
 is indeed good to resist the tendency to do what is 
 wrono- ; but that is not enough, if the lust stiU remains. 
 
106 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 It is good to fight against tlie sinful instinct ; but that 
 is not enough, if it still return upon us. What the 
 covenant of God promises and provides for his people 
 is, not merely a power to resist and tread down the 
 embers of evil within us, but a positive new heart to 
 love, and to love only what is holy and pure and good. 
 Still, I am ready to admit that in this world this new- 
 ness of heart is only partly realized, and is always 
 accompanied with something of the old nature. Only 
 I would like you to bear this in mind, that, as often as 
 a sinful lust rises up in you, even though you resist 
 its craving, yea, even though you drive it out of your 
 mind as speedily as possible, yet you have not the 
 really pure heart, and are not quite perfect as your 
 Father in heaven is perfect. ' He that looketh on a 
 w^oman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with 
 her in his heart.' He may resist it so far as not to do 
 the evil thing. He may even refuse to cherish the 
 very thought itself. And so far all w^ell. But a nature 
 wholly renewed after the image of Christ has no such 
 thoughts at all. jCsTo bitter water springs up in its 
 sweet fountain. No darkness mindes with its lioht. 
 And so long as such lusts arise in us, we are still 
 guilty in the sight of the true and holy One. It is 
 not enough to resist and keep down the fire ; the 
 fire must be wholly quenched. Christianity does not 
 undertake merely to enable us to resist temptation, but 
 to extinguish it altogether. For surely they are wrong 
 who say that sin lies wholly and only in the will. If 
 my will be renewed, so that I never consent unto evil. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 107 
 
 that is SO flxr good ; yet if my heart, or mind, or flesh 
 is perpetually suggesting evil, I am not yet wholly 
 conformed unto God. Now, it is this conformity which 
 Christ aims to produce ; and so long as a man cherishes 
 sinful lusts, even though he does not carry them into 
 action ; and so long as a man feels sinful lusts, even 
 though he does not cherish but resists them ; so long 
 is he liable to the condemnation of the law, which is 
 altogether holy and just and good. 
 
 2. But of course this state of perfection is not at- 
 tained all at once, nor yet without diligent and painful 
 effort. Hence the Lord calls us to an exercise of self- 
 denial and a crucifying of the flesh with its affections 
 and lusts. ' If thine eye offend thee,' or cause thee to 
 offend rather, ' pluck it out and cast it from thee.' The 
 point of these words lies in the 'cast it from thee.' 
 Jesus does not intend that there should be a literal 
 maiming of ourselves in order that we may be pure and 
 perfect. In fact, victory attained by any such process 
 would not be truly victory, for the battle would not be 
 fairly contested; nay more, it would not be victory at all, 
 for the sinful lust might linger still in the mind when 
 the eye was plucked out, and the hand was cut off. The 
 true idea here is, that if the use of any organ, or mem- 
 ber of the body suggests evil to the soul — if the eye, for 
 example, by looking on a form of beauty, arouses in the 
 mind any evil or impure appetites, then are we to deny 
 ourselves what might otherwise have been an innocent 
 gratification, ' mortifying our members which are on 
 earth.' That is to say, if this battle with sin is to be 
 
108 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 fought effectually, we must not give way so far, and 
 only arrest ourselves on the eve of actual transgression, 
 but we must come down upon all the predisposing 
 causes of iniquity, and check them ; we must kill it in 
 the tap-roots and first beginnings of it ; and even that 
 which in itself might be lawful, we must resist and 
 deny, if we find that in anywise it cause us to offend. 
 This, brethren, is the part of the work which is spe- 
 cially laid to our hands. I grant at once that the mere 
 negation and deprivation of certain innocent indul- 
 gences will not of itself purify our hearts ; I grant that 
 we need in addition, as Jesus elsewhere abundantly 
 shows, perpetual quickenings and accesses of a holy 
 and good spirit. But, in the first instance, we must 
 strive to empty our house of the unclean spirit, and to 
 shut up all the avenues of his approach, by denying 
 ourselves and crucifying the flesh, by plucking out, as it 
 were, the offending eye, and cutting off the offending 
 hand, and so preparing the way for the more abundant 
 entrance of the Holy Ghost. For surely it were better 
 for us to lose a pleasure which we might have other- 
 wise enjoyed, and to be, as it were, maimed for a season, 
 than, for any such gratification, to forfeit eternal life. 
 Let us begin, then, by rooting out the hidden causes of 
 evil ; let us not wait till they have sprung up and are 
 on the verge of yielding their bitter fruits ; let us arrest 
 the lust in its first stages, for ' lust when it hath con- 
 ceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished 
 bringeth forth death.' Better to enter heaven maimed 
 and blind than for such things to be cast into hell-fire. 
 
THE LAAV KEPT BY LOVE. 109 
 
 3. But further, our Lord here not only demands a 
 true spiritual obedience to God's law, by asserting that 
 the sinM lust is as truly forbidden as the sinful act, 
 and by requiring us therefore to resist the very begin- 
 nings and tendencies to evil ; further, He explicitly sets 
 aside a portion of the Jewish law of marriage as tend- 
 ing to produce adulterous conduct. In the beginning, 
 he tells us in another place, God made man a male and 
 a female, and ordained that they twain should be one 
 flesh ; one in such a sense that they were not to have 
 separate interests, but verily to blend their lives as 
 when two streams mmgle into one. A single cause, 
 and only one, was sufficient to dissolve that union ; and 
 apart from that one sin, the husband was bound to love 
 his wife and to cherish her, even as his own body. 
 But because of the hardness of the heart of Israel, 
 Moses allowed a man, for certain causes not very defi- 
 nitely specified, to give his wife a writing of divorce- 
 ment and put her away. You will find this law in 
 Deuteronomy xxiv. 1 ; and manifestly it was, according 
 to our Lord's view, a serious departure from the jDrimi- 
 tive idea of marriage. In point of fact, it made this 
 sacred union, on whose absolute indissoluble sacredness 
 so much of the weU-beiug of society depends, little 
 other than a provisional contract terminable by the 
 husband, if his wife did not turn out altogether to his 
 mind, even though she had nowise sinned against him. 
 I do not enter into the reasons which might be urged 
 in favour of such a law. Jesus gives but one reason, 
 viz., the hardness of their hearts. Many have since 
 
110 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 urged that, if people have ceased to love each other, and 
 therefore cannot live happily together, it were better for 
 them to separate at once and altogether. Such plaus- 
 ible arguments, however, the Lord utterly refuses. He 
 asserts, in Mark x. 2, that this indulgence was not 
 according to the original law, and that it is now with- 
 drawn appears from His words here. For a man, imder 
 the new covenant, to give his wife a writing of divorce, 
 was to cause her to commit adultery ; and if any one 
 married a woman so divorced, he too was guilty of the 
 same offence. For one cause, and for one cause only, 
 could marriage be absolutely dissolved ; and I confess, 
 though I do not like to assert it too strongly, yet I am 
 disposed to think, on the whole, that He meant to say 
 also that a woman divorced, whether for a sufficient 
 or an insufficient cause, if she married again, was really 
 forming an adulterous connexion. At any rate He 
 most distinctly and unequivocally annuls the dispensa- 
 tion allowed by Moses in the 24th chapter of Deutero- 
 nomy, and utterly forbids any one to give his wife a 
 writing of divorcement, holding such conduct to be an 
 incentive to sin. For under the New Testament, mar- 
 riage is a very holy union, as it was at the first ; yea, 
 more so, for it is now a symbol of the union between the 
 soul and its Lord, for so men ought to love their wives, 
 even as the Lord the Church. INIoreover, mider the 
 Christian system, man and woman are again placed on 
 the very same level, as having equal rights and duties 
 the one to the other, which was not the case in the 
 Mosaic dispensation. There a man might give his wife 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. Ill 
 
 a writing of divorcement, but a like privilege did not 
 belong to her. In Christ, however, this sacred bond 
 can only be broken for one cause, and the rule applies 
 equally to liusband and wife. When it was said, ' Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery,' the Lord taught them to 
 understand that this Mosaic permission to divorce was 
 so far a departure from that law, and that Judaism had 
 authorized what the gospel forbade. 
 
 So much by way of expounding the passage ; and 
 now, ere I close, permit me to add a few words on the 
 general theme here discussed. Brethren, the seventh 
 commandment, as understood by ancient Israel and by 
 its godliest men, permitted polygamy, authorized these 
 loose divorces, and did not apparently bring out very 
 clearly that the sinful lust was as much forbidden as 
 the sinful act. In the gospel it is not so. In Christ 
 the union of one man with one wife is a very sacred and 
 indissoluble union ; and the purity required is as much 
 purity of heart as of conduct. But alas ! how is this 
 high and holy law obeyed? Tliat Christianity has 
 elevated the moral sense of society on this subject 
 cannot be denied. But yet what deplorable facts exist 
 among us who profess the name of Jesus ! I hardly 
 dare to speak of those things which are done among us 
 secretly and openly : the abandoned profligacy ; the 
 brazen and bedizened courtesanship ; the ante-nuptial 
 frailty which dishonours the marriage-bed so largely ; 
 the sad and stricken homes from which a daughter has 
 gone forth unto a life of shame, or which a son is for- 
 saking for filthiest debaucheries, rioting in all vileness. 
 
112 THE SEiniOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 perhaps, while his mother prays in utter agony of soul 
 for her lost one. I cannot, I dare not picture the wide- 
 spread and loathsome misery which is produced by the 
 violation of this law of the holy Lord. Happy homes 
 are saddened ; happy hearts are blighted ; not a little of 
 the grace and beauty of the land is sacrificed to the 
 indulgence of base appetite ; and the Church of Christ 
 is shamed by the contact and the neighbourhood of 
 utter abominations. Brethren, I may not dwell on these 
 sorrowful facts. I could not trust myself to speak of 
 broken hearts crying for their once bright and joyous 
 children, weary hearts treading the dark and joyless 
 streets in despair, and dead soids drudging in the devil's 
 vilest service. God almighty help them ! God all- 
 merciful pity them ! But, beloved, as ye think of such 
 things, and know the truth of them, oh let them bear in 
 upon your heart deeper and ever deepening convictions 
 of the profound truth of these words of Jesus, and a 
 stronger and ever stronger determination to walk in the 
 ways of the Lord. Eemember that it is not the wicked 
 deed only that is forbidden, but also the wicked lust. 
 You will find in that word a twofold lesson of wisdom 
 and profit to your soul. It will teach you sympathy 
 and compassion to remember that your own heart is not 
 so pure as that you dare to say, * Stand aside, for I am 
 holier than thou;' and it will be good for you thus 
 to feel the sad brotherhood of sin, even when you 
 may be resisting its snares. It will teach you also to 
 withstand the beginnings of evil, to pluck out the right 
 eye and put it from you ; for alas ! if you do not watch 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 1 1 3 
 
 the first tendencies and uprisings of sin, you shall find it 
 hard to resist iniquity when it comes in like a flood. 
 But above all, remember that love is the only fulfilling 
 of this law, as of all the rest of God's commandments. 
 Surely, if we did but receive, in all its fulness, the good 
 word of the Lord, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself,' this foul blot on our Christian civilisation 
 would be wiped away. He that truly loved his neigh- 
 bour, could not drag her into a path that inevitably 
 led to misery and shame. It is an utter lie and 
 devilish wickedness to apply the sacred name of love 
 to any selfish lust and indulgence. 'Love seeketh 
 not her own, and thinketh no evil.' He that loves in 
 the spirit of Christ, will tender the peace, the purity, 
 the happiness of his neighbour, and especially of those 
 whom godless social customs are so ready to cast off 
 into utter despair, when they slip from the way of truth 
 and right. But the man who can look upon some fair 
 form of blooming youth and innocent beauty, and lust 
 after her, and wile her from a father's happy home, and 
 from the cheerful enjoyments and assiduities of a 
 blameless domestic life, to make her for a brief season 
 the minister of his voluptuous appetites, by and by to 
 cast her off to the shameless shame and horror and 
 misery which now lie between her and an early grave ; 
 that man has a heart surely black as hell, and it will 
 never be right with us so long as we visit with inexor- 
 able penalties the hapless victim of his selfish cruelty, 
 while the real criminal is courted and respected even 
 by those who are fain to call themselves Christ's pecu- 
 
 H 
 
114 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 liar people. Not thus doth Jesus regard such offenders. 
 Pure and holy He was, as never man was before or since. 
 But the publicans and harlots were nearer the kingdom 
 of heaven, He said, than the whited sepulchres whose 
 social respectability covered such deliberate wickedness ; 
 and were he now among us, the compassionate Saviour, 
 I verily believe he would rather walk along the streets 
 with the most wretched sinner who plies her guilty 
 traffic there, than he would sit at table with some who 
 circulate freely in the choicest society. Therefore let 
 me tell you that, when it is said, ' Thou shalt not commit 
 adultery,' that not only forbids the practice of such evil 
 deeds, or the cherishing of those sinful lusts, but it also 
 requires you to lend no countenance to those, of what- 
 soever station, who deliberately ensnare the innocent, 
 or habitually work iniquity. I trust and fondly hope 
 that such wickedness is not common among us, and oh, 
 let me entreat you, in conclusion, who are young and 
 thoughtless, to remember that 
 
 ' Evil is wroiiglit by want of thought. 
 As well as want of heart. ' 
 
 Take ye good heed, then, of this good word of the Lord. 
 How often, from causes innocent enough in themselves, 
 ruin irretrievable is wrought among us ! For the sake of 
 little vanities of dress and show, or for the silly ambition 
 of holding intercourse with those above them in social 
 status, or for the passing pleasures of an evening's 
 excited amusement, or for many other like reasons, not 
 very blameworthy in themselves, how many place them- 
 selves in the way of fatal temptation, and come to a 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 115 
 
 sorrowful end ! Take heed. ' If thine eye offend thee, 
 pluck it out and cast it from thee.' If any such indul- 
 gence threaten your purity and simplicity with danger, 
 resist it, refuse it, in the name of Christ. Better go in 
 honest rags than come at last to tlie rags of shame. 
 Better the poorest man's honest wife than that other 
 thing which I may not name. Eemember the word of 
 Jesus. Stand in awe, and sin not. ' Know ye not that 
 your bodies are the temple of God ? Now the temple 
 of God is holy, which temple are ye.' 
 
116 THE SERMOX OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 
 
 ' Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, 
 Thmt, shalt notforsivear thyself, hut shalt perform unto the Lvrd 
 thineoaths: hut I say unto you, Sioearnot at all : neither by heaven ; 
 for it is God's throne : nor by the earth ; for it is his footstool : 
 neither by Jerusalem ; for it is the city of the great King. Neither 
 shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not nuiJce one Imir 
 white or black. But let your communication be. Yea, yea; Nay, 
 nay : for ivluitsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' — Matt. v. 
 33-37. 
 
 Our Lord continues here his ilkistrations of the state- 
 ment that He came not to destroy the law, but to fultil 
 it ; not to lessen its authority, but to exalt it ; not to 
 narrow its spirit, but to deepen and broaden it. The 
 third commandment had said, ' Thou shalt not take the 
 name of the Lord thy God in vain.' And as a proper 
 commentary on that law, it was written. Lev. xix. 12, 
 ' Ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt 
 thou profane the name of thy God;' and again in 
 Numbers xxx. 2, ' If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, 
 or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he 
 shall not break his word ; he shall do according to all 
 that proceedeth out of his mouth.' Thus it had been 
 said by them of old time, ' Thou shalt not forswear thy- 
 self, but shalt perform unto the Lord tliine oath.' The 
 Lord's words are not an exact quotation of any part of 
 
THE LAW KEPT B^^ LOVE. 117 
 
 the ancient Scriptures. But tliey give, with sufficient 
 accuracy, the meaning of several passages ; and what 
 he proposes here to do, is to show the true spirit and 
 meaning of this law, and how only it is really fulfilled. 
 And here, in the outset, let me remind you that the 
 Jews had an exceeding, and even superstitious, reverence 
 for the sacred name of Jehovah. Their lips seldom 
 uttered it, even when reading their holy books. They 
 commonly substituted the word Lord for it ; and they 
 thought there was a kind of mystic sanctity even in its 
 very letters. This reverence, in its proper aspect, no 
 doubt originated in the injunction of the third com- 
 mandment, which taught them never to speak of the 
 High and Holy One, except with the solemnity which 
 beseems the creature when he alludes to the Creator of 
 all. But the superstitious form which it finally as- 
 sumed, and which shrank from using the name even 
 on sacred occasions, was probably borrowed from the 
 heathen customs, or, if not actually borrowed, arose 
 from precisely the same source. Among the heathen 
 it was common to select some particular god to be 
 the tutelary deity of their country, under whose special 
 protection it was placed, and whose aid they were 
 eager to secure exclusively to themselves. Hence 
 they were careful to conceal from all others the name 
 of their chosen god. The people were forbidden to 
 utter it in the hearing of strangers, or indeed to speak 
 of it at all, except in the most secret worship of their 
 temples. For they wanted to keep him all to them- 
 selves, and were jealous of any one else knowing or 
 
118 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 worshipping him, lest his favours should be divided or 
 withdrawn altosjether. This Avas a base and de2rrading 
 idea of God ; yet something of the same kind would 
 appear to have led the Jews to avoid, by all means, 
 uttering the peculiar name of Jehovah. He was to be 
 their God ; their exclusive i)Ossession and helper. 
 Therefore the Gentiles were to be kept in ignorance of 
 his very name. Hence, not from any true reverence, 
 but from a selfish superstition, when they read the 
 Scriptures, they commonly substituted Adonai for 
 Jehovah, Lord instead of God. 
 
 Apart from the superstition, however, the law still 
 attached a profound solemnity to the Divine name. It 
 was by no means to be lightly regarded, or tossed from 
 mouth to mouth in careless flippant speech. On special 
 occasions it was permitted to swear an oath for confir- 
 mation, as, for example, in a court of justice ; and such 
 an oath, adjuring the name of God, was most sternly 
 binding; for he who should afterwards perjure himself 
 would have been cut off from Israel, Only the vilest 
 and most degraded of men, therefore, could be guilty of 
 such an offence. So far the Jews and their Pharisee 
 doctors all recognised the validity of that word, ' Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself But there were among 
 them, as there are among us, many loose notions on 
 this head nevertheless. It seems to have been thouoht 
 that, although certain formal oaths were binding, so that 
 to break them was to imperil the soul, yet there were 
 a great many ^?^a6-i- adjurations which by no means in- 
 volved any such penalty, even should they be as lightly 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 119 
 
 broken as they were liglitly taken. So have we read in 
 old times of men of battle, who being sworn by their 
 sword, deemed their truth and honour pledged by that 
 oath, but for aught else, however holy, they held such 
 bonds as lightly as Samson's withes of withered grass. 
 So, even at present, the false and treacherous Chinese, 
 if sworn over the fragments of a broken porcelain plate, 
 reckons his soul to be pledged to speak the very truth ; 
 but for any other oath, however dreadful, he esteems it 
 no more than so much idle wind. These, no doubt, are 
 extreme cases : but something closely akin to them 
 seems to have prevailed among the Jews, and to have 
 been fostered by their Pharisee teachers. Their solemn 
 oath by the Lord God might not be broken. The man 
 was forsworn, and to be abhorred, who took that name 
 to witness, and did not perform his Avord. On that 
 head conscience was keenly, even superstitiously alive. 
 But while they allowed no relaxation of such a vow, 
 they accustomed themselves to an easy, familiar, and 
 careless use of other adjurations which were not sup- 
 posed to be sacred, or to mean anything in particular, 
 or to involve any particular obligations. Had not 
 Joseph sworn by the life of Pharaoh to a thing which 
 he never meant? Why then might not an Israelite 
 swear by heaven, or by earth, or by Jerusalem, or by his 
 own head, even though he never intended to bind him- 
 self by such an adjuration ? There was nothing sacred 
 in these words. The commandment was not broken 
 therefore. God's name was not taken in vain. What 
 harm could there be in such language ? What peril to 
 
120 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tlie soul of any one ? Thus, to say the very least of it, 
 the people learned to garnish their speech with idle and 
 unmeaning expletives ; and what was far Avorse, the 
 habit of simple truthfulness was broken ; they came to 
 play fast and loose with their veracity ; a lie was 
 treated as if it were no lie, and a promise as if it were 
 no promise, and an oath as if it were no oath ; and so 
 falsehood flourished, and conscience was debauched, and 
 alas ! no man regarded it. This will explain then what 
 our Lord means here when he says, ' Swear not at all ; 
 neither by heaven ; for it is God's throne : nor by earth ; 
 for it is his footstool.' And here I observe, 
 
 1. That He does not, I think, forbid a solemn oath, 
 such as may be required, for example, in a court of 
 justice. The law clearly allowed such an oath for con- 
 firmation. It is said in the New Testament that for 
 this very purpose, to give the most absolute assurance, 
 God sware by himself, because he could swear by no 
 greater. "VVlien the high priest adjured Jesus by the 
 living God, Jesus found no fault with it. And there- 
 fore it seems to me the act, not of an enlightened, but 
 of an over-scrupulous conscience, to refuse an oath 
 in such circumstances. Those who administer these 
 solemn adjurations, indeed, too often do so without due 
 reverence ; for the habit of daily reiterating the same 
 formula tends to produce a careless manner, a rapid 
 and unsolemn mumbling of the most awful words, 
 which is not favourable to the dread impressiveness of 
 such an act; and that certainly ought to be guarded 
 against, if the value of an oath is to be upheld. But 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOYE. 121 
 
 allhougli it is quite true that a man of genuine veracity 
 will speak nothing but the truth, whether he be sworn 
 or not, I can quite understand how the administration 
 of an oath may make him doubly careful and guarded 
 to utter onl}- -what he absolutely knows to be very fact, 
 by calling him specially to remember that he stands in 
 the presence of the heart-searching God and Judge of 
 all, to whom he must render an account for every word. 
 I do not think it necessary to discuss this particular 
 point at greater length with you. Enough to observe 
 that, when Jesus says, ' Swear not at all,' He follows it 
 up, in the way of illustrating his meaning, not by adduc- 
 ing the solemn asseverations made in a court of justice, 
 but by examples of those lightly- taken, lightly-broken 
 oaths, with which men are so apt to garnish their foolish 
 conversation. ' Swear not at all,' he ,says : ' neither by 
 heaven ; for it is God's throne : nor by the earth ; for 
 it is his footstool :' and obviously this leaves the ques- 
 tion of more solemn adjurations perfectly free. He 
 does not aUude to them at all ; but only to the flippant 
 expletives which were and are so largely used, in such 
 a way as to impair the perfect simplicity and veracity 
 of men's souls. Therefore I observe, 
 
 2. That our Lord here obviously forbids all profane 
 swearing. The Jews also, as we have seen, stoutly 
 objected to any profane use of the peculiar name of 
 Jehovah, and were scrupulously careful not to infringe 
 that law. But while they would not expressly name 
 the holy name in their light or idle conversation, they 
 managed, for all that, to break the holy commandment. 
 
122 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 by larding their common speech with many other oaths, 
 swearing without cause and without meaning, by heaven, 
 by earth, by Jerusalem, by their heads and beards, and 
 other equally needless expletives. To this day, this 
 kind of thing is exceedingly common in the East, and 
 it is always accompanied with an untruthful character. 
 Travellers assure us that the Arab chief, when most 
 fully minded to cheat his man in a bargain, will most 
 vociferously multiply such imprecations. And we all 
 know that he who protests too much is pretty certain 
 to be only covering his roguery thereby. Our Lord, 
 therefore, goes on here to show that God's law forbids 
 all such oaths ; and this is the way he does it. He 
 points out to them that they have no meaning except 
 as they are related to God ; that they all, in fact, imply 
 a distinct reference to God; that everj^thing in the 
 nature of an oath is an adjuration of His name, so that 
 he who sits loose to such words is just as much perjured 
 as if he had literally taken God's name in vain. To 
 swear by heaven, he said, was as much as to swear by 
 the throne of God. To swear by earth, was the same 
 as to swear by God's footstool. To swear by Jerusalem, 
 was all one as to swear by the city of God. To swear 
 by one's head was just to swear by Him, the living God, 
 who made it, and who alone could make one hair white 
 or black. Thus, every oath has a reference to Jehovah ; 
 and therefore the commandment forbids all profane 
 swearing, whether that holy name be expressly uttered 
 or not. Such is, in the first instance, the general drift 
 of this passage : and let me pray you to lay it to lieart, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 123 
 
 for God 'will not hold liim guiltless who taketh his 
 name in vain.' The custom of profane swearing, 
 whether in the shape of round oaths, or minced oaths ; 
 the wretched habit of garnishing our common conversa- 
 tion with such adjurations, is at once wicked and un- 
 profitable—a silly and a gratuitous vice. For other sins, 
 as it has been said, one may have something to show. 
 There may be some pleasure in them, however little 
 profit. But in the case of the profane swearer, a man 
 sells his soul absolutely for nought. It is the veriest 
 wilful and wanton outrage of God's law, without advan- 
 tage to the sinner himself, and most revolting to every 
 well- constituted mind. And consider what an abuse 
 it is of the precious gift of speech. That power was 
 bestowed on us for noblest ends ; not for banning, but 
 for blessing. It was given for the expression of truth 
 and wisdom, and the precious lessons which experience 
 gathers in life's thorny paths and in the wondrous ways 
 of God. It was given for the utterance of all gentle 
 courtesies and kindnesses, and to gladden our days by 
 the cheerful intercourse of friendship and love. It was 
 given to drop balm on wounded hearts, and to bring 
 consolation into the house of mourning. It was given 
 for praise and prayer and all devout worship of Him 
 who is the Author of every good gift. It was given for 
 proclaiming the glad tidings of great joy unto all the 
 weary and sin-burdened cliildren of men. It is the 
 body, as it were, in which the thoughts of the wise and 
 c^ood walk abroad, and we become acquainted with them 
 and rejoice in their fellowship. And without it our 
 
124 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 days would be sadly companionless, and our souls shut 
 up as in the silence of a solitary prison. Is it meet, 
 then, that a gift so precious should be desecrated to 
 profane the name of its great Author ? Should this 
 fountain of sweet waters become a fountain of bitter 
 waters too ? Eemember that tlie influence of habit is 
 so great, and may be so pernicious, that, if you have 
 once debased the good gift of the Lord to unhallowed 
 uses, you may chance to find it little fit for its proper 
 uses, when a day comes that you would fain turn it to 
 better account. Bethink you that a time may come 
 when you would gladly be able to utter words of sooth- 
 ing and consolation : and what, if then your tongu.e 
 refuse its office, and nothing come naturally to your lips 
 but those familiar, uncouth profanities ? And a day 
 may come when you would fain, very fain, utter a 
 prayer at a throne of grace : and what, if your mouth, 
 so long full of cursing, hath never a gracious word to 
 say to the living God ? And be on your guard, too, I 
 beseech you, not only against the round oaths and more 
 outrageous violations of this law, but also against those 
 minced oaths and needless expletives which are all too 
 common among us. Jesus would liave us to understand 
 here that everything in the nature of an adjuration hath 
 an implied reference to God, and is really a taking of 
 His name in vain. Therefore, ' Swear not at all;' neither 
 by faith, for it is the gift of God ; nor by life, for that 
 is all one as if you said, by the life of God ; nor by 
 goodness, for that is as much as to adjure the goodness 
 of God. It is an utterly profitless vice, a debasing of 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 125 
 
 God's good gift, without reason and without excuse. 
 Therefore, ' Let your Yea be yea^ and your ISTay, nay ; for 
 whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' 
 
 3. I apprehend that our Lord's special object here is 
 to insist on his people practising the habit of absolute 
 truthfulness, which will not need any oath to confirm 
 it, and which is apt to be greatly weakened by the use 
 of such language. An oath is taken in a court of jus- 
 tice, not because the witness's truth is suspected, but in 
 order to give solemnity to his evidence, and that there 
 may be the utmost care to speak only what for certain 
 he knows to be the fact. But, in common conversation, 
 were any one to ask any stronger confirmation than your 
 simple word, that would imply some doubt of your 
 truthfulness. In this view you can see the force of 
 Christ's saying, that whatsoever is more than Yea or N"ay, 
 cometh of evil. If you were known to be a sincere 
 truth-loving man, your word would be of itself suffi- 
 cient. If anything more be required besides your simple 
 affirmation, it shows that you are not walking in the 
 blameless sincerity and veracity of the Christian life. 
 It cometh of evil in you. But that is not all, nor by 
 any means the worst of the matter. For the needless 
 takingof oaths tends to loosen a man's sense of truth, 
 and enfeeble his regard for it. That must be familiar 
 to you all as a matter of fact, nor is it very difficult to 
 discover the reason of it. For when any one falls into 
 the miserable habit of larding his conversation with un- 
 called-for adjurations, it is ten chances to one that some 
 of them are pledged to statements that turn out not to 
 
126 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 be strictly true. Had he simply affirmed the matter, 
 people would have concluded that he had merely fallen 
 into a mistake; but liaving sworn to it, they naturally 
 begin to doubt his word. In order, therefore, to be 
 believed at all, the man will require to swear harder 
 and ever harder; and gradually his mind is turned 
 away from the question as to the truth or untruth of 
 the matter, and gets to think only of how by solemn 
 asseverations he may hope to be believed. He does 
 not think with himself what now is the very fact of the 
 case ; but he asks rather what oath can I take that will 
 obtain credence from others ? And so in the long-run it 
 comes to pass that the truth sinks quite into the back- 
 ground, as altogether a secondary matter ; his object 
 being not to speak in all things what is strictly correct, 
 but only to get people in the meanwhile to believe him. 
 And when he has reached that stage, his progress from 
 bad to worse, from loose and unguarded assertions to 
 conscious and intentional lies, all backed and buttressed 
 by most valueless oaths, becomes rapid and all but 
 inevitable. Thus whatsoever is more than Yea and Nay, 
 cometh of evil. It is caused by a want of honest vera- 
 city and single-hearted sincerity ; and it all too surely 
 implies a mind which is departing from the love of truth. 
 Men who swear much by heaven or by earth do not 
 regard such oaths as very binding ; and once they have 
 accustomed themselves to untrutli in tins way, bigger and 
 rounder adjurations will be needed, and will be found 
 equally useless, until the whole soul becomes corrupted 
 with that worst of all rottenness, an utterly lying spirit. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 127 
 
 Brethren, allow me to urge this matter home upon 
 you with all earnestness for a little. We in this coun- 
 try speak much about the truth, and we are doubtless 
 exceeding fond of it, and very properly so. But the 
 truth, which is so highly valued by us, is the outward 
 revealed truth of God, the word and doctrine of grace. 
 Well, it is all well to love and esteem that most highly ; 
 it is quite impossible to value it beyond its exceeding 
 worth ; and it will be a sad day for our dear country 
 when it is held less precious than it is. But there is 
 another truth which also Christians have to consider 
 seriously — truth in the inward parts, simple single-eyed 
 veracity, which is one of the noblest fruits of our re- 
 newing faith. And I beseech you to pause and think 
 whether that holds so high a place in our regard as 
 surely beseems its godlike character. Is our Yea or 
 Nay of such unstained sincerity that it needs no other 
 confirmation, and would not be strengthened by it ? 
 Have we gotten the Christian character for utter truth- 
 fulness which can only be earned by unchanging, un- 
 tainted veracity ? If you are dealing and trafficking in 
 the market with some one who is known for his zeal in 
 behalf of the truth, does your experience constrain you 
 to feel that his word in matters of trade may be relied 
 on as absolute truth ? If you are transacting with 
 some one who is among the foremost perhaps in main- 
 taining sound opinion, do you feel perfectly confident 
 that his every word will be spoken in frank and guile- 
 less sincerity ? I put the matter thus to you, leaving 
 it to the decision of your actual experience ; but having, 
 
128 THE SERMON OX THE MOUXT. 
 
 for my own part, a sorrowful conviction that a love for 
 the truth may co-exist with a woful disregard of truth- 
 fulness. Now, brethren, without under- estimating the 
 worth of true and sound views, I want you, as Chris- 
 tians, also to adorn the gospel of Christ by the un- 
 feigned truth of your lips. There is nothing more 
 diabolic than a lie, for he is the father of lies ; there 
 is nothing baser on earth than mean equivocation and 
 half-truths which are meant to deceive ; there is 
 nothing, in the long-run, that so rots out the right 
 heart of a man, as to speak the thing that is not, to 
 palter with the sacred verity. Of all the attributes 
 of God, there is none to which the believing soul 
 clings with more tenacity, or in which he finds greater 
 comfort, than in God's unstained veracity, his true 
 and faithful word. Good it is to think of his long- 
 suffering patience ; sweet it is to call to mind his ever- 
 mindful goodness ; cheering it is to remember his 
 unsearchable mercies ; and it is ever most inspiring to 
 dwell on his tender loving-kindness ; but not less pre- 
 cious is the thought of his truth, whereby we have 
 assurance that all his exceeding great and precious 
 promises shall be fulfilled. He that would be truly 
 perfect, then, as the Father which is in heaven is per- 
 fect, will give himself with all diligence to practise 
 truth in every thought and word and act, so that his 
 Yea should be like God's, not Yea and then Nay, but 
 ever Yea and Amen. Tlie poor barl^arian utters lies by 
 the bushel, and only laughs when he is found out ; 
 the civilized heathen lies with deliberation and circum- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 129 
 
 stance, cunningly patching his untruths into a likeness 
 of fact. But nothing more decisively indicates the 
 presence of a true Christian spirit than its guileless 
 simplicity, its utter abhorrence of all lying and crafti- 
 ness and mean equivocation. Oh, brethren, let it not be 
 so with you. Eemember that a lie is the surest means 
 of affiliating you, not with the God of glory, but with 
 the father of lies. Set a watch then before your lips ; 
 keep the door of your mouth ; guard every outlet 
 against falsehood in every shape ; and pray God to give 
 you truth in the inward parts. And as one important 
 means for this end, avoid all needless oaths, round or 
 minced ; and let your object be not so much to be be 
 lieved as to speak always and in all things the very 
 truth as ye know it. For wanton adjurations tend 
 surely in the long-run to loosen the bonds of veracity ; 
 and there is no man so likely to be an utter liar as he 
 who is perpetually swearing and asseverating his truth 
 without cause. ' Wherefore let your Yea be yea, and 
 your Nay, nay : for whatsoever is more than these 
 cometh of evil.' 
 
 The sum of the whole matter then is this — 'Thou 
 shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,' 
 which certainly implies in the first instance, ' Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself.' But the spirit of the com- 
 mandment is far broader than that. It does not merely 
 imply tliat God will not hold him guiltless who delibe- 
 rately perjures his own soul. That were a narrow re- 
 striction of its meaning, worthy only of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees. But in its full and proper spirit it forbids 
 
 I 
 
130 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 all the idle expletives and minced oaths of common 
 conversation, both because they have an implied refer- 
 ence to God, and do really profane his name, and also 
 because their tendency is to relax the sense of truth ; 
 for ' whatsoever is more than Yea and Nay cometh of 
 evil.' And hence the true obedience of this law is only 
 attained by him who, feeling himself ever in the pre- 
 sence and under the eye of the heart-searching God, 
 strives in every act and look and word to be perfectly 
 honest and true. For no lie is of the truth, brethren ; 
 but CMery lie of every kind, — the lie downright, the lie of 
 equivocation, the lie of insinuation, the lie of silence, 
 the lie of look or manner, — every attempt to deceive, 
 is to dishonour the name of Him who is faithful and 
 true and right. And if ye love Him, ye will love his 
 holy name too well to associate it in any way with that 
 which is false ; and if ye love your brethren, as Christ 
 hath loved you, ye wOl be carefid to use God's good 
 gift of speech not to familiarize his ears wdtli profanity, 
 or to deceive him with falsehoods, but always reverently 
 to speak the truth in Love. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 131 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 
 
 ' Ve have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a 
 tooth for a tooth : hut I say unto you, That ye resist not evil ; 
 bx(t whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the, 
 other also. And if any man will sue thee at the laiu, and take 
 away thy coat, let him have thy eloak also. AjuI whosoever shall 
 compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him thai 
 asketh thee; and from him tJiat would borroto of thee turn not 
 thou away.' — Matt. v. 38-42. 
 
 In Exodus xxi. 24, it had been said that the criminal 
 guilty of certain offences should give ' life for life, eye 
 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 
 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.' 
 Again, in Leviticus xxiv. 19, 20, it was added, ' If a man 
 cause a blemish in his neighbour ; as he hath done, so 
 shall it be done to him ; breach for breach, eye for 
 eye, tooth for tooth : as he hath caused a blemish in a 
 man, so should it be done to him again.' Such was the 
 law of Israel as laid down by Moses, the servant of the 
 Lord. How far it was carried out into strict literal 
 fulfilment, it is not very easy to say. In the East, the 
 sense of justice is somewhat prone to gratify itself by 
 such inflictions. To maim the body is not an operation 
 from which they shrink so instinctively as we do. Pos- 
 
132- THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 sibly therefore the brawler really had his own teeth 
 drawn, or his hand cut off, or his eye plucked from its 
 socket, in recompense for like injuries done to his neigh- 
 bour, though certainly it is not necessary to assume that 
 the law was always thus rigidly carried out to the letter. 
 Neither, I may add, was the person injured anywise 
 compelled to demand redress after this fashion. It was 
 obligatory on the judges to inflict the penalty when the 
 guilt of the party was proved; but it was not obligatory 
 on the man who had been hurt to insist on the punish- 
 ment of the evil-doer. Doubtless he might forgive him; 
 might forego his own vengeance ; and in so doing he 
 would have been acting in accordance with the word 
 which said, 'Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge 
 against the children of thy people ; but thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself.' This law, then, was not 
 necessarily carried out in the strict letter of its terms, 
 neither did it bind the injured party always to demand 
 the stern infliction of its sentence ; but it laid down an 
 absolute rule for the judge, according to which he must 
 administer justice in Israel. 
 
 The principle, and it is a principle of no little im- 
 portance in its own place, — the principle involved here 
 is that there should be, as far as possible, a just pro- 
 portion between the offence and the punishment, that 
 the penalty to be inflicted should neither be too light 
 nor too severe ; but that the one should be a fair equi- 
 valent for the other. In the case of murder, for 
 example, the sentence was to be literally deatli ; life 
 for life: 'Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, bv man shall 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 133 
 
 his blood be slied.' In other cases, a fine might perhaps 
 be justly considered an equivalent punishment. And 
 the scale of penalties might vary according to what 
 men would feel to be a deprivation and a loss ; only, in 
 all cases, they must be regulated by a strict sense of 
 justice, avoiding undue severity as well as injurious 
 lenity. Thus, if a rich man had committed a breach on 
 his neighbour, this law, I think, would hardly have been 
 satisfied with a trifling fine, for that was no sufficient 
 infliction on one who had enough and to spare, and to 
 whom the loss of a shekel of silver was of no moment. 
 Or if a poor man had stolen his neighbour's goods, 
 this law certainly would not have justified the judge 
 in putting him to death, for that was a far greater 
 punishment than he had deserved. The principle that 
 must guide all the decisions in such cases was that of 
 rigid justice, neither more nor less, as represented by 
 the words, ' An eye for an eye.' In the practical work- 
 ing out of this, no doubt, there was room for the exer- 
 cise of a wise discretion, and there was also possibility 
 of mistake. But I am fully persuaded that it is only 
 by steadfastly keeping this principle in view, and try- 
 ing honestly to adjust the penalty to the offence, that 
 our administration of criminal law can be preserved 
 from a dangerous leniency or a cruel severity. And 
 before leaving this point, I may add, in conclusion, that I 
 believe our national statute-book would never have been 
 disgraced by many of its bloody and unwise enactments, 
 had this good and sound principle been remembered. 
 But for a period our legislators were carried away by 
 
] 34 THE SERJION OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 metaphysical ideas of the nature and object of penal 
 inflictions. At one time they held that a criminal was 
 required to suffer only for the good of society, and to be 
 a warning to others ; and the result of this notion was 
 most cruel, for, not being regulated by the strict law of 
 justice, human life was taken for stealing a sheep, or 
 forging a signature, or for uttering opinions which the 
 ruling powers disliked. By and by, the penduhmi 
 swung to the opposite extreme, — the sentiment of 
 compassion seized hold of the theory that all punish- 
 ment was purely or mainly for the good of the criminal 
 himseK; and the result was most unfortunate, for the 
 worst part of society was coddled and taken care of, 
 and made far more comfortable than its honest poor. 
 In both cases the effect on men's minds was altogether 
 pernicious ; for undue severity produced recklessness, 
 and undue leniency wrought indifference, and crime of 
 all kinds multiplied and throve. The doctrine of our 
 text, rightly understood, is the only true guide to wise 
 penal legislation. Let us be guided by the principle of 
 justice. Let there be an honest attempt to approxi- 
 mate the severity of punishment to the greatness of the 
 offence. We may have to adopt diverse expedients for 
 this end ; but at any rate let our effort be to act on the 
 rule, that no more than an eye should be demanded for 
 an eye, and no less than a tooth for a tooth ; that, in 
 short, the penalty should be as near as possible equiva- 
 lent for the crime, — neither so lenient that men will 
 make light of it, nor yet so severe as to be a real in- 
 justice and wrong. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 135 
 
 But while thus granting to the full the exceeding 
 wisdom of the Mosaic law on this head, I must add 
 that even in this its judicial aspect, it by no means 
 comes up to the requirements of the gospel. There is 
 indeed nothing more beautiful than justice, and nothing 
 more divine. The judge sitting without bias and 
 without wrath, with clear, unclouded vision searching 
 out the truth, and with calm judgment administering 
 righteousness, is a true image of God ; and nothing is 
 more grateful to heaven than his work, nor is anything 
 more wholesome for men. But Christian men. Chris- 
 tian society. Christian legislators, have otlier duties 
 even to the criminal population, besides punishing their 
 offences. It is not enough for the judge to require an 
 eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It is not 
 enough just to administer righteous judgment, taking 
 care that there shaU neither be undue severity nor un- 
 due leniency in the sentence. We have not done our 
 duty even to the most wilful and wayward and wicked 
 of our brethren, when we have exacted from them the 
 uttermost farthing, and yet no more than the utter- 
 most farthing, of their debt. The Lord's counsel to 
 those who are smitten, that they should turn the other 
 cheek, and to those who are robbed of a coat, that 
 they should add the cloak to it also, though expressed 
 in language strongly figurative, has meaning and rela- 
 tion also even in respect of these judicial procedures. 
 For we are not working righteousness unless we mingle 
 it witli mercy. We have not done all our duty to the 
 thief when we put him in jail, and give him hard work 
 
136 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and hard fare. We have not done full justice to the 
 murderer when we rear a gallows for him, and ordain 
 him to be hanged some morning in the face of the sun 
 and the day. Christianity has bowels and mercies for 
 all ; and the mercy is as much a part of what is just 
 and due as the penalty is. It may be necessary — it is 
 necessary — to inflict punishment on the wrong-doer; 
 but it is equally necessary to put away all wrath and 
 revenge, and go to him in the spirit of brotherly love, 
 and heap also coals of fire on his head, to turn him, if 
 possible, to better thoughts and better ways. I recog- 
 nise fully the justice and the wisdom of punishment 
 for offences done ; but I also recognise as equally obli- 
 gatory that justice demands the putting forth of every 
 effort to amend the criminal, to do him good, to en- 
 lighten his mind, and to change his character. There- 
 fore, even in the mere judicial aspect of this question, 
 the old law is not the full Christian law ; the eye for 
 an eye is not enough, without the forgiving and merci- 
 ful spirit, which seeks the good of the offender even 
 more than his punishment. We have not done our 
 duty even to the vilest criminal, when Ave merely visit 
 him with condign punishment, however measured and 
 adjusted by the strictest sense of righteousness ; unless 
 we also blend our severity with mercy, with kindness, 
 with all charitable consideration and helpfulness, as 
 far as is consistent with the high ends of justice. For 
 all this, however, no provision was made in the Mosaic 
 law ; nor was there anything in the spirit of it which 
 seemed to require such conduct. But under the gospel, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 137 
 
 Justice is only perfected in tlie spirit of mercy, even 
 as the Psalmist sang of the living God : ' Unto thee, 
 Lord, belongeth mercy ; for Thou renderest to every 
 one according to his works.' But now, 
 
 2. For the right understanding of what our Lord 
 says here, it must be remembered, that while this law 
 properly belonged to the judicial procedure of Israel, it 
 was often applied by the people as a rule of private 
 conduct. As a rule of judicial procedure, we have seen 
 that it was, and still is, and with certain modifications 
 must always be, obligatory. Jesus never meant to say 
 that a man accused of smiting his neighbour was to re- 
 ceive for sentence a right to smite him again ; or that 
 one who sued for his neighbour's coat was to get liberty 
 to take his cloak also. That would have been to per- 
 vert judgment, and to turn righteousness into gall, and 
 the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. As a prin- 
 ciple of public justice, the law of Moses remained in all 
 its force. But it had become among the Jews a rule of 
 private revenge. There was nothing akin to our public 
 prosecutor among them. The duty of prosecuting rested 
 on the injured party. And being entitled to demand 
 strict justice at law, he naturally enough carried the 
 idea into the morality of private life, and fostering the 
 spirit of wrath, he deemed himself to be obeying the 
 law when he sought to repay evil with evil, instead of 
 trying to overcome evil with good. This idea, in a 
 partially organized state of society such as existed 
 during the greater part of Jewish history, inevitably 
 became a root of ffreat bitterness. For revenue has no 
 
1 38 THE SEKMOX ON THE xMOUNT. 
 
 moderation, and waits to hear no evidence. When the 
 law is taken into private hands justice is forgotten, 
 passion bears down all before it, an insult is visited as 
 if it were a crime, might gets the better of right, feuds 
 are handed down from father to son, making blood- 
 thirstiness a duty ; and the worst passions of our nature 
 are not only cherished, but appear to be sanctioned by 
 the most sacred obligations ; so that really it is hardly 
 possible to conceive of a worse or more fatally mis- 
 chievous spirit getting a hold of private society than 
 that which is the very law of judicial procedure, — an 
 eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. To overthrow 
 this spirit, then, Jesus takes up his position here, ' I 
 say unto you. Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 
 cheek, turn to him the other also.' 
 
 Does He then altogether, and in all circumstances, 
 forbid a law-plea, however unjust and wicked the con- 
 duct of the offender may be? Does He deny to his 
 people the right to resist oppression, however criminal 
 and illegal the usage they are receiving ? Does He re- 
 quire us absolutely to give to all who ask, and lend to 
 all who would borrow, whatever our own condition is, 
 and however little it mi^ht be for the good of those 
 who seek it ? He says that we are not to resist evil ; 
 that we are to submit to wrong and injury which may 
 be done to us. Does He then mean that, under all cir- 
 cumstances, we are bound to give way, and to allow the 
 wickedness of men to triumph without check or re- 
 straint? That is the way in wliich his words have 
 been sometimes read. Nay, the x)rinciple of non- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 139 
 
 resistance has been occasionally carried so far as to 
 make the gospel appear to lend its sanction to every 
 enormity of oppressive government. Let us see, then, 
 how far such an idea is borne out by these remark- 
 able j)aradoxical sayings of our Lord. 
 
 You will remember, then, that he is dealing, in gene- 
 ral, with the principle of private revenge, Avhich he is 
 anxious to destroy, because it is most fatal at once to 
 the spiritual and social life of men. But, as usual, he 
 goes for this purpose down into principles of moral 
 duty, which lie far deeper than the precise question 
 on hand ; because his object is not merely to prevent a 
 certain evil from being done, but to implant another 
 spirit altogether in our hearts. It is not enough, with 
 his views of God's law, just to tell his followers that 
 they were not to demand an eye for an eye, or a tooth 
 for a tooth ; and that, in particular, they were not 
 to take justice into their own hands. A mere negation 
 of that sort would not have served his purpose. He 
 wanted to cast out of them a certain evil spirit ; but he 
 could only do so by putting a better spirit in its room. 
 
 Therefore he tells them that they are not only not to 
 avenge themselves, but that they are not even to resist 
 evil, but rather to overcome evil with good. And then 
 he goes on to illustrate this in four different cases. 
 First, he adduces the injuries that may be done to one's 
 person, regarding which the so-called laws of honour 
 have always and everywhere inculcated not only the 
 justice, but the very obligation to seek revenge. If 
 thine enemy smite thee on the cheek, men had said, 
 
140 THE SERMON" ON THE :\IOUNT. 
 
 you may not only return the blow, but your honour is 
 tainted until you demand satisfaction ; and it was 
 commonly thought that nothing but blood could wipe 
 that stain away. But Jesus says, ' Nay ; rather turn 
 the other clieek also to him. Eevenge is human ; but 
 mercy is divine. If you repay evil with evil, you are 
 only making two evils in the world instead of one. If 
 thine enemy is wicked, why should you grieve the 
 Lord by showing a kindred spirit? Best to endure the 
 insult, for evil is never overcome with evil. Commit 
 thyself to Him who judgeth righteously.' In the 
 second example, He forbids a litigious spirit as decidedly 
 as a revengeful one. The Jewish dress consisted essen- 
 tially of two garments, — a coat or boddice, and a cloak 
 or loose robe flung over the other. This last M^as also 
 used as a blanket during the night, and, according to 
 the law, though it were pledged, it must be returned 
 when night came on. To sue a man for his body-gar- 
 ment of course betrayed a hard, exacting spirit ; for 
 that was as much as to wish to strip him of the only 
 clothes in which he could do his daily work. But 
 rather than fall into litigious strife, Jesus counselled 
 his followers to let the night-raiment go with the day 
 one ; for it were better for them to suffer almost any 
 loss of bodily comfort than to get into litigation, with 
 its bitterness and vexation and delay and disappoint- 
 ment, so apt to engross all our thouglits, and to sour 
 the whole spirit. If thy neighbour sue thee for thy 
 coat, it is not a neighbourly or a brotlierly thing ; but 
 rather than be involved in the misery of lawsuits, with 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 141 
 
 their crops and after-crops of ill-will, let him have coat 
 and cloak too ; and when he has stript thee naked, he 
 may begin to relent. Anyhow, commit thyself to Him 
 who judgeth righteously. In the third and fourth 
 examples, He seems to me to refer to oppressive acts of 
 government, felt to be galling, but to which he still 
 counsels submission ; for Jesus would render to Csesar 
 the things that are Caesar's, would obey all lawful 
 authorities, unless they required actual participation in 
 wrong- doing. Thus it was a part of the system of 
 government in the East, that a post riding on royal 
 errands, or indeed any one having the firman of govern- 
 ment, when journeying through the land, could demand, 
 at certain stations, horses and men to carry him on his 
 way. This was felt, and still is felt, in those countries 
 to be a sore grievance. The horse may be in the 
 plough, and every moment precious to the farmer, but 
 when the order is exhibited, he must carry the traveller 
 the appointed stage on liis journey, at whatever loss or 
 suffering to himself Certainly it is an oppressive, 
 really a stupidly oppressive arrangement ; but though 
 the Lord nowise justified it, he says that it were better 
 to convey the traveller twice the distance than to fall 
 a- quarrelling about it. It is wrong in men to require 
 this service ; but there is no wrong in your yielding it, 
 and as long as you are not required to do evil, it is best 
 for you to submit to any evil almost that may be done 
 to you. So it is also in regard to the loans and gifts 
 they may demand from you. For the last illustration, 
 ' Give to him that asketh of you, and from him that 
 
142 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 would borrow of you turn not thou away,' refers, I 
 think, to the same kind of oppression. Jesus, you per- 
 ceive, is exjDlainiug the principle that we should not 
 resist evil or injury done to us. But if a poor man 
 begs our help, he is not doing us any wrong. Or if a 
 poor friend in difficulty would fain borrow from our 
 purse, he too is nowise injuring us. Common begging 
 or borrowing, however mistaken, however injurious to 
 the party concerned, is not a matter of wrong-doing to 
 us, and is not therefore to the point. But it was, and 
 is a frequent custom with oppressive governments, 
 when they have exhausted all fair means of taxation, to 
 ask from their subjects a gift or a loan, and such asking 
 is equivalent to a command. Peaceable subjects have 
 been often troubled to know what to do in such cases. 
 And as a general rule, the Lord says to Christians 
 here, when these enforced gifts and loans are required, 
 though they be undoubtedly evil, 'Better pay them, 
 better suffer injury than identify the gospel of the 
 kingdom with what might seem to be a spirit of politi- 
 cal disaffection — from him that would borrow of thee 
 turn not thou away.' Such is the general drift of this 
 passage. It inculcates a spirit of meek submission, 
 instead of revenge and the assertion of our own rights. 
 It teaches us not to return evil for evil, but rather to 
 overcome evil with good. 
 
 Now, there are a great many questions which might 
 be raised on the portion of Scripture thus expounded, 
 questions which could not be settled exactly on any 
 grounds of abstract principle, but which would require 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 143 
 
 to be dealt with, one by one, or else must be left to the 
 discretion of Christian wisdom. Thus, for example, it 
 might be asked, ' Am I, as a follower of Jesus, to allow 
 my home to be invaded, my women and children to be 
 destroyed by wicked men, and never to put forth one 
 effort of honest manhood for their protection ? And if 
 not, at what point is endurance to stop, and resistance 
 to begin ? Am I bound to allow wrong, under the guise 
 of law, to strip me of all that is necessary for work and 
 the maintenance of those dependent on me ? And if 
 not, when does meekness cease to be right, and litiga- 
 tion cease to be a sin? Am I required, for Christ's 
 sake, to yield to every encroachment of political oppres- 
 sion, and to homologate, by my subserviency, the way- 
 ward, wanton exercise of power, in violation, not of my 
 rights only, but of those of all my brethren ? Does 
 Christianity teach a doctrine of slavish obedience, by 
 which man's nobler nature is debased, and society in 
 the long-run utterly corrupted ? And if not, at what 
 stage does the duty of non-resistance give place to the 
 higher duty of standing by what is right and true and 
 just, be the issue what it may ?' These are questions 
 which people can hardly avoid asking; and it is not 
 only difficult, it is utterly impossible, to give a definite 
 categorical reply which will apply to every case alike. 
 I am very desirous that you should understand this 
 clearly. Possibly a time may come when, one after 
 another, all the difficulties of this kind shall have 
 been discussed and determined to the satisfaction of 
 every right-hearted man. I don't know. It may be. 
 
144 TEE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 But certainly at present we have not readied that 
 point ; and all I can say is, that the law of the new life 
 which is in Christ Jesus has been left largely to the 
 action of its own self-directing powers in the interpre- 
 tation of this as of various other matters. This much, 
 however, is clear enough : as a general rule it is 
 wrong to return evil for evil. It is wrong to cherish a 
 revengeful spirit ; it is wrong to foster a litigious spirit; 
 it is wrong to give place to a rebellious spirit ; we 
 ought not to demand eagerly an eye for an eye when 
 we suffer personal injury or wrong ; we ought not to 
 rush into law-pleas, with their bitter and vexatious 
 results on the mind, merely because we are injured ; 
 and we ought not to plunge into political antagonism 
 merely because we are made the victims of a wicked 
 and oppressive system of government. So much at 
 least is clear, that our spirit as Christians is to be a 
 peaceable spirit, willing to endure unto the verge of 
 what is right, not revengeful, not contentious, not self-, 
 asserting, but meek and lowly and patient of all per- 
 sonal wrong. A detailed and specific rule for your 
 conduct in every case I cannot give. With growing 
 light the path of duty will grow clear. There is in you 
 a spirit of life which must be your main guide, not any 
 regulations which I can easily state. Christianity lays 
 down principles rather than precepts for our guidance. 
 Only always bear this in mind, that you are called to 
 be like Jesus, who was meek and lowly, and who 
 * when He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suf- 
 fered. He threatened not, but committed himself to 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 145 
 
 Him that judgetli righteously.' That is the only prin- 
 ciple that will really and rightly guide you in all 
 circumstances in which you may be placed. Let that 
 spirit dwell in you, and control you; and when excep- 
 tional cases arise, seeming to demand a different line of 
 conduct, pray God to direct you, so that even in resist- 
 ing evil you may still show forth the spirit of Jesus. 
 No doubt, it may be hard, it is hard, to act out this idea. 
 But be assured of it that it is a nobler work, and a 
 higher triumph to overcome yourself than to overcome 
 your enemy. And besides, evil is never overcome with 
 evil, but only with good. Your fire will not put out 
 your neighbour's ; rather they will combine and make 
 a double conflagration, his wrong and your wrath to- 
 gether vexing the world. Wherefore see that ye ' resist 
 not evil,' but take up your cross and follow the Lamb, 
 ' for so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may 
 put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. For this 
 is thankworthy, if a man for conscience towards God 
 endure grief, suffering wrongfully ; and even hereunto 
 were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, 
 leaving us an example that we should follow in his 
 stej)s.' 
 
146 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 
 
 ' Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say iinto you, Love 
 your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate 
 you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute 
 you ; that ye may be the children of your Father xvhich is in 
 heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love 
 them which love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the pub- 
 licans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do 
 ye more than others ? do not even the p)%Micans so ? Be ye there- 
 fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' — 
 Matt. v. 43-48. 
 
 It should seem that the Scribes taught the Jews to 
 believe that God's law enjoined them ' to love their 
 neighbour, and to hate their enemy.' But there is no 
 such word in all the ancient Scriptures. You will 
 search the Bible for it in vain. The first part of the 
 saying indeed you may find; 'Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour,' was enjoined once and again ; but it is nowhere 
 added, ' Thou shalt hate thine enemy.' The Canaanites 
 were to be cut off ; and there was to be no peace with 
 Amalek ; and doubtless the Lord had good satisfactory 
 reasons both for inflicting these stern judgments, and 
 for using Israel as the instrument to accomplish His 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 147 
 
 design. But He never laid down a general principle 
 such as this, which would have been quite alien to the 
 whole spirit of his law, and which, moreover, would 
 have lent the sanction of Divine approval to that spirit 
 of wratli and bitterness which is already hard enough 
 to restrain. The Jews had a great power of hating 
 their enemies without being commanded to do so. This 
 reference, then, to what had been ' said by them of old 
 time' is unlike the others adduced by Jesus in this 
 passage, for they all may be really found in Scripture, 
 though their true spirit was misrepresented by the 
 Scribes. But this case is an example of what our 
 Lord elsewhere lays to their charge, ' that they taught t 
 for doctrine the traditions of men, so making the com-/ 
 mandments of God of none effect.' 
 
 Sad it is to think that those men to whom were 
 committed the oracles of God should have made un- 
 authorized additions to his sacred precepts, or subjoined 
 glosses like this, which altogether changed the spirit 
 and character of the law. I do not suppose that they 
 actually asserted that any such word was to be found 
 in Scripture. They were very careful of the letter of 
 revelation ; scrupulously nice and exact in keeping that 
 intact ; for which we are thankful to them, as it gives us 
 assurance that the stream of the inspired testimony has 
 come down to us in comparative purity, unmingled with 
 those traditions which made the commandment of none 
 effect. But being enjoined to love their neighbours, 
 they esteemed it a good and valid deduction from this 
 that they might hate their enemies, and then by and 
 
148 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 by that they ought to hate them. And I apprehend we 
 may learn a lesson of caution here, not to be ready to 
 claim for our own supposed necessary conclusions the 
 same authority as belongs to God's explicit commands. 
 These acute and subtle scribes were no dull reasoners. 
 Tliey were probably as cunning logicians as most of us. 
 But their minds were for all that far from the mind of 
 God, and consequently never was anything more alien 
 from the command ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour,' 
 than the unhappy deduction, ' Thou shalt therefore hate 
 thine enemy.' And this was soon apparent in the re- 
 sult to which it led. For ere long, and most naturally, 
 questions of casuistry began to be agitated. Men began 
 to ask, ' Who is my neighbour whom I am bound to 
 love? And who is mine enemy that I am free to hate?' 
 
 <And while ample scope was provided for the free exer- 
 cise of hatred, the region in which love was to reign 
 -^ was ere long narrowed to a span. Tor first of all, they 
 I- determined that the whole heat hen worl d were not to 
 be viewed as neighbours, but as enemies ; them, there- 
 fore, they regarded with a proud contempt or a cordial 
 I hate. One might have fancied that such a field was 
 ' wide enough for wrath to range in. But the spirit of 
 evil is not easily satisfied. The fire once begun will 
 spare nothing in the end. Besides the heathen, there 
 a- were heretics in Samaria ; men who worshipped the God 
 of Abraham, but not in Jerusalem or on Mount Zion. 
 The Samaritans, therefore, were not to be treated as 
 neighbours ; no love was due to them. Nay, but fur- 
 ther, as bigotry always finds it more difficult to endure 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 149 
 
 a heretic than to have mercy on a heathen, therefore a 
 special intensity of hate was reserved for the separa- 
 tists who worshipped God on Mount Gerizim. More- 
 over, besides those religious and national enmities, 
 there were of course many cases of a private kind 
 which still further excluded men from all rioiits of 
 loving neig hbourhood. If m y brot her cursed me, or 
 spited me, or persecuted me, was he still to be called 
 my neighbour ? Had I any debt of love to the very 
 man who wronged me ? Once let in the idea that one*^ 
 is free to hate his enemy, and such questions as these 
 will inevitably arise, narrowing more and more the 
 domain of brotherly love, until gradually the principle 
 of intense selfishness shall absorb and engross the whole 
 soul, and we come, as those Jews came, to think that 
 we are required only to love those who love us, and to I 
 do good only to those who do good to us. So was the 
 law of God narrowed, and made of none effect through 
 this tradition. 
 
 Against this spirit, therefore, the Lord entered his 
 solemn protest, laying down the true Divine law with 
 its true Divine commentary : * I say unto you, Love 
 your enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to 
 them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully 
 use you and persecute you.' 
 
 You will observe here that our Lord does not say 
 that all men are to be equally dear to us, or equally 
 esteemed by us. He does not substitute a vague prin- 
 ciple of universal philanthropy in the room of those 
 special affections which arise either out of kindred or 
 
150 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 kindness. Neither does he teach ns to show equal 
 honour to the evil and the good, the just and the unjust. 
 There is still, no doubt, a pecuHar love of family and 
 country, different from what is due to the general world ; 
 and Christ finds no fault with that, but only denies that 
 love should be limited by ties of blood or name. There 
 is still, no doubt, a special feeling of gratitude for 
 kindness received, which every right-minded man will 
 cherish ; and Jesus finds no fault with that, but only 
 asserts that goodwill is not to be restricted to those 
 who do us good. There is still, no doubt, a singular 
 affection among those who are brethren in the house- 
 hold of faith, and a singular respect due to the up- 
 right man of God ; and Christ finds no fault with that, 
 /TDut only teaches us that love should embrace the ene- 
 \ mies of our faith as well as the enemies of our persons, 
 and show kindness to the wicked as well as to the good. 
 What he means, in short, is to assert in all its fulness 
 the law of God, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour,' and 
 to deny in all its application the corollary of the 
 Scribes, ' Thou shalt hate thine enemy.' He forbids 
 hate altogether, and will not allow it any rightful place 
 in our hearts. He would have us to understand that 
 God is love, and that he only who dwelleth in love, 
 dwelleth in God, and He in him. 
 
 This principle He illustrates in several distinct com- 
 mands, all of them certainly hard for fiesli and blood to 
 obey ; but all of them essentially necessary for the life 
 of faith, the life which is in God. On another occa- 
 sion he answered the question, ' Who is my neighbour?' 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 151 
 
 by a parable of rare beauty and significance, which 
 illustrates almost to the letter the various mjunctions 
 given here. Some one — a scribe, a lawyer — familiar 
 with the ensnaring casuistry of the Eabbis, put that 
 question to him, thinking to catch him unawares, and 
 entangle him in the miserable sophistries which had so 
 wofully enfeebled the Divine law. And ui reply Jesus 
 told him the story of a Jew who was going down from 
 Jerusalem to Samaria. On the way he fell among the 
 thieves who haunted that road then as now, and was 
 robbed and wounded, and left half dead. By and by 
 a Levite came up, and would not see a neighbour even 
 in his Jewish brother, and crossed to the other side. 
 Then a priest drew near, and looked on hun; but as the 
 man had never done him any good turn, he did not 
 see that he had any claim upon him. These two had 
 well learnt the lesson of selfishness, only to love those 
 who loved them, and to benefit those by whom they 
 had profited, or by whom they might hope to profit. 
 The law of the Scribes had effectually rotted the heart 
 out of them. So they looked on a suffering brother, and 
 passed on, as if it were no concern of theirs. Ere long 
 a Samaritan came along the road, and he also looked, 
 and saw the Jew lying there naked and wounded. 
 Now, here lies the whole point and force of the story. 
 The Jews hated a Samaritan. As one of a rival 
 people who occupied the land of promise, the Jews 
 cursed a Samaritan, as a dog who had and could have 
 no part in the covenant, living in the house, but not 
 being of the seed of Abraham. The Jews persecuted 
 
152 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and spited a Samaritan as a heretic who worshipped God 
 in the wrong place, and in quite a wrong way. If, then, 
 it was the law of God that a man should love his neiiih- 
 hour and hate his enemy, this Samaritan merchant had 
 abundant reasons for passing the poor Jew, as the priest 
 and the Levite had done. But instead of that, he bound 
 up his wounds, and poured oil upon them, and put him 
 on his beast, and trudged by his side to the nearest inn 
 or caravanserai, and there had him housed and cared 
 for, and finally paid for his keep till he might be able 
 to go again on his journey. Whereupon the Lord asked 
 the very pertinent question, ' Which of these now, Levite, 
 priest, or Samaritan, was neighbour to him that fell 
 among the thieves ? Which of them did his brotherly 
 duty ? Wliich of them obeyed the law of the Lord ?' 
 And, as usual, they were tongue-tied, and knew not 
 what to say. Yov with this simple and beautifid story 
 he had cut in sunder all their casuistical entangle- 
 ments, and flashed into the heart of those cobwebs a 
 light of divinest and most searching truth, in whose 
 presence they were ashamed and confounded. 
 
 Now, this wonderfully simple and effective parable 
 clears up in a moment the whole matter before us. For 
 it teaches us that the offices of neighbourly love are 
 nowise dependent either on the character of him who 
 claims them, or on his treatment of us. It is in a sense 
 natural to hate our enemies ; but it is only natm^al 
 because our better nature has been miserably changed 
 and corrupted. It is the instinct not of true, but of 
 fallen humanity, to burn with wrath, and return evil 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 153 
 
 for evil. It may be liard then to obey our Lord's in- 
 junctions here. It is no doubt hard for corrupted flesh 
 and blood ; but it is only in the denying and crucifying 
 of that sinful nature that we can attain to fellowship 
 with God. Therefore, Jesus says to us, ' Love your! 
 enemies. Though a man has not shown, and does not 
 now show, a friendly spirit to you, that is no reason 
 why you should not do a friendly turn to him ; still less 
 will it justify the indulgence in a similar enmity. If 
 he curse you, do not curse him in return, but rather 
 bless him with a true and kindly heart. If he hate you, 
 do not hate him, but rather do him good ; for to let hate 
 into your heart will only embitter it, and verily will not 
 anywise better your affairs. If he spite and persecute \ 
 you, perhaps you may have no other opportunity to \ 
 return good for evil, but always, and at the worst, you/ 
 can at least pray for him. Poor man ! his enmity, his 
 hate, his cursiag, his persecution, are, to say the least, 
 as injurious to himself as they can possibly be to you ; 
 he is, if you would understand him truly, a fit object 
 for exceeding pity, — one for whom you coidd do no 
 better turn than to pray, " Father, forgive him, for he I 
 knows not what he does." And if you do not — if you 
 copy his example and give way to his spirit, — if you 
 too yield yourself up to enmity and cursing and hate 
 and spite and persecution, I see nothing fitter for your 
 state than just to take up the same prayer, and cry, 
 " Father, forgive him, for he knows not what manner of 
 spirit he is of" ' I grant that it is hard to meet with 
 harsh, unfriendly dealing from anybody, and specially 
 
154 THE SEEMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 hard, wlien it is done by those from whom you had ex- 
 pected other things, as brethren in the Lord. And it is 
 hard to find the cruel weapon of a malicious tongue 
 either rudely cursing your name, or insidiously poison- 
 ing your reputation. And it is hard for one who is reach- 
 ing forth after loving sympathy to meet only with a cold 
 hate, like ice, chilling all his kindly affections. And it 
 is exceeding hard to endure persecution when conscious 
 of righteousness and integrity and truth in the inward 
 parts. Not a doubt of it ; to frail human nature these 
 injunctions of Christ's are among the most difficult he 
 could possibly have laid down. The tradition of the 
 Scribes was an easy and comfortable one, — to love a 
 neighbour, and to hate an enemy ; but it was an em- 
 phatic cross, to ask us to love our neighbour, and to 
 reckon our worst enemy still to be our neighbour. 
 That, however, is clearly the law of the Lord, and 
 nothing less than that. That is the law of perfection — 
 the law of the divine life — the law of the living God. 
 Love, pure and holy, must rise and triumph above 
 enmities, curses, hatreds, persecutions, and clasp in its 
 goodwill all, whatever their character or conduct to us, 
 doing good to them as it has opportunity, and when it 
 can nought else, at any rate praying for them. Thus 
 the Lord claims for every man the right of a neighbour, 
 — the right to be loved, — or, at any rate, he imposes 
 on all his brethren this duty, that whether others de- 
 serve it or not, they at least shall never cease to love 
 them. ' See that ye repay not evil for evil, but rather 
 overcome evil with good ; for verily the wrath of man 
 worketh not the riuhteousuess of God.' 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 155 
 
 And now, in conclusion, observe the reason He gives 
 for this law. It is that ye may be the children of your 
 Father which is in heaven ; and that ye may be perfect, 
 as your Father is perfect. This is the spirit of Chris- 
 tian perfection, for love is the fulfilling of the law. 
 This is the spirit of the Lord, for God himself is love. 
 The children of this world love those who do cjood to 
 them. The very publicans did that, and all Israel held 
 them to be sons of Belial nevertheless. The children of 
 this world saluted their brethren, and were courteous 
 and kind to them. So did the publicans, and small 
 tlianks to them. It is easy to love those who love you. 
 But the children of the kingdom must live by a higher 
 law. They must be ' like their Father in heaven, who 
 causeth his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
 sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust.' Now, 
 by these words I do not understand the Lord to mean 
 that God treats all men alike, and regards all with 
 equal favour, making no difference between Israel and 
 Egypt — between the Christian and the Christless, — 
 between those who believe, and tliose who despise him. 
 That is not the case. There is, unquestionably, an 
 immense and quite incalculable distinction drawn be- 
 tween these two classes ; and the feelings with which 
 the Father views them are as diverse as could well be 
 imagined. The Lord is angry with the wicked. They 
 provoke him by their sins, and their hard, heartless 
 unbelief, to a most righteous indignation. And, on the 
 other hand, there is a love wdierewith He regardeth his 
 own, drawing them to himself with fond caresses and 
 
156 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 everlasting kindnesses ; a love of unspeakable tender- 
 ness and faithfulness and watchful care, trausceudinfr a 
 mother's affection for her first-born child. The Lord 
 would not have us for a moment to think that the 
 everlasting Father acknowledges no difference between 
 the just and the unjust, the evil and the good. So far 
 as their outward lot is concerned, there may be — there 
 often is — no apparent distinction drawn ; yea, the 
 I troubles that afflict the just are frequently more 
 y numerous and hard to bear than commonly fall to 
 ' the men of the world. But then, underneath all the 
 severity of their external life, there are fountains of 
 living water springing up in them — graces, helps, con- 
 solations, joys unspeakable and full of glory, — which 
 give to them assurance of God's veiy special kindness, 
 and are an ample compensation for all the ills they 
 have to bear. Thus the righteous God has his own 
 way of manifesting a peculiar love to his peculiar 
 people. And if the Lord would not have us to think 
 that the heavenly Father recognises no difference be- 
 tween the evil and the good, neither does he mean to 
 say that that distinction will not one day be manifested 
 in the decisions of a most righteous judgment. He 
 r' does not at present cause his sun to shine on Mount 
 Zion, and to darken over Gerizim. He does not as yet 
 water with tender rain the pastures of His flock, and 
 blight and wither the corn-fields of the wicked. This 
 is not the time when judgment is done, yet such a 
 time, nevertheless, shall verily come, when God shall 
 judge the poor with righteousness, and his people with 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 157 
 
 equity, making most solemn and abiding separation 
 between the sheep and the goats, between the evil andj 
 the good. 
 
 Still while that is all true, and all to be faithfully 
 remembered, let it also never be forgotten that Jesus 
 requires us here to love even our enemies, in order that 
 we may be the children of our Father which is in 
 heaven. For though there is a peculiar love which 
 clasps in a fond embrace the chosen, redeemed, and 
 believing ones, there is also in God's heart a most 
 pitiful, yearning, compassi onate love, which does good 
 to all, striving to make them good . It is the very per- 
 fection of the Father's nature that he does not hate 
 any, but loves all his creatures. You are a parent, and 
 you have perhaps an unhappy prodiga l among your 
 children ; he has disobeyed you ; he has been cruelly 
 selfish to you ; he has wounded you in your quickest, 
 keenest sensibilities. And, alas ! he has gone an evil, 
 ruinous way, too, for himself. You cannot approve of 
 him as of the well-behaved part of the household. You 
 cannot feel the same pleasure in him as you do in 
 them. There is a great difference, then, in the feelings 
 you entertain for him and those with which you cherish 
 your dutiful and affectionate children. Yet for all 
 that, he is still your child, all unlike a true child as he 
 is. You cannot but be angry with him, and yet you' 
 cannot hate him. You cannot but be grieved with 
 him, and yet you cannot cease to love him. You can- 
 not further his wrong- doing, and yet you cannot but try | 
 to do him good. Thus your sun shines on him as well 
 
158 THE SEEMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 as on the others ; and you would not regard any one of 
 your children who liated their erring brother as a true 
 child of yours, because that were departing from the 
 whole spirit of your life. Now, this analogy of the 
 Lord's beautiful parable goes into the very heart and 
 marrow of divine truth. For God is even such a Father 
 who cannot approve of sinners, cannot feel for them as 
 he does for his faithful ones, cannot but be indignant at 
 their selfish and cruel waywardness, and yet cannot cease 
 to pity and love them ; and will not regard us as his 
 true children, unless we also partake of the same spirit. 
 Therefore Jesus says to us here, ' Love your enemies, 
 that ye may be the children of your Father which is 
 in heaven.' I beseech you, brethren, to receive this 
 truth in all its fulness. Let nothing whatever turn you 
 from love to hate. Let no kind of plea or subterfuge 
 get that a lodgment in your mind. For be what it 
 may, it is false to the spirit of your Father in heaven. 
 Ah ! people sometimes persuade themselves that while 
 they should love their own enemies, they o ught to hate 
 those who are enemies of God ; and no sooner does 
 this idea get a footing in their thoughts than it spreads 
 and extends its domain, and, under covert of a pious 
 duty, all malice, hate, and uncharitableness riot in their 
 deceitful hearts. But the Lord's word is most absolute, 
 and without qualification. Love is due to all, good and 
 evil, just and unjust, saint and sinner, heathen and 
 heretic, godly and godless; for our duty does not 
 depend on theirs, neither is our spirit to be regulated 
 by theirs ; but all we think and do and feel is to be 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY L0\T;. 159 
 
 ordered by this, let ns be the true children of our 
 Father in heaven, who causeth his sun to rise on the 
 evil and the good, and his rain to fall on the just and 
 on the unjust. 
 
 I cannot conclude this discourse, and this part of 
 the Sermon on the Mount, without one further ob- 
 servation. It has often been said that what is 
 called, by way of pre-eminence, the gospel, is hardly 
 to be found in this sermon of our Lord's. It seems 
 all concerned with law, unfolding its true meaning, 
 explaining its real spirit, magnifying the law and 
 making it honourable ; but scarcely uttering a word 
 which the sinner can lay hold of as God's good news to 
 his soul. And certainly, in the poor, meagre, formal 
 sense of that word, as it has been sometimes used, there 
 does not seem to be much gospel here. Yet he would 
 miserably mistake and misunderstand the Lord Jesus, 
 who should therefore conclude either that this word of 
 Christ's was without the good news, or that the gospel 
 was a kind of afterthought — a doctrine which grew up 
 in later times, and did not belong to the roots and 
 essential ideas of Christianity. For Avhile there is no 
 specific and formal expression of it here, it is all 
 implied, and all runs through the strain of our Lord's 
 sermon, as an undertone essential to its harmony, 
 fulness, and power. And in the word now before us, it 
 crops up in a way which only wilful blindness could 
 possibly overlook. For though it be true that, in his 
 general providence, God makes his sun to shine on the 
 evil as well as the good, and his rain to fall on the just 
 
160 THE SEEMOX OX THE MOUXT. 
 
 and on the unjust, and so far the specific doctrine of 
 love is vindicated; yet no one can well read those 
 words with the purged eyesight of evangelical under- 
 standing, without carrying the idea further still, and 
 ^remembering the special manifestation of the Father's 
 love in Jesus. God loves us, and does good to us, and 
 tries hard to draw us to himself by his providential 
 kindnesses ; but this spirit is far more perfectly ex- 
 hibited in his gracious covenant. ' God so loved tlie 
 world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
 ever believeth on him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life.' The gospel, therefore, the scheme of 
 Divine mercy, is just the high and crowning illustration 
 of the spirit which Christ enjoins here. The Father is 
 good to the unjust as well as to the just, and the 
 grandest proof of that goodness is that He spared not 
 his own Son. The Father is pitiful to the evil as well 
 as the good ; and the most glorious manifestation of 
 that compassion is, not his shining sun or falling 
 rain, but the mission and mercy of Jesus. For we 
 were prodigals, and yet he loved us ; we were enemies, 
 and yet he loved us; we despised and rejected him, 
 and yet he loved us ; we persecuted and slew the Lord 
 of glory, and nevertheless he loved us. ' Greater love 
 hath no man than tliis, that a man lay down his life for 
 his friends.' 'But God commendeth his love toward us, 
 in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' 
 Here, then, is the very gospel — the root of the new 
 life — the fountain of our soid's joy — the motive of our 
 new obedience— the mighty power of God for our 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY LOVE. 161 
 
 salvation. It all lies in t he Father's nndeserved love. 
 The entire gospel springs from that rich and gracious 
 source, — not from any merit of ours, not from any 
 spirit of ours, not from any work of ours, but all 
 and only from the fulness of the Father's love. Hence 
 the special force of that concluding word, ' Be ye 
 therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is per- 
 fect.' Consider the wondrous love of God, manifested 
 to us while we were yet without strength and un- 
 godly ; and let that be the animating and regulative 
 power of your whole life, casting out of you all malice, 
 hatred, envy, wrath, and bitterness, and filling you with 
 that love which is indeed the only fulfilling of the law. 
 So shall ye approve yourselves as the children of the 
 heavenly Father. So shall the true spirit of His per- 
 fect law abide in your heart, and conform you unto 
 Christ. See then that ye love one another as He hath 
 loved you ; for there is no law kept where there is no 
 love to keep it, and there is no law broken where love 
 seeketh not her own. 
 
 > 
 
162 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 
 
 ' Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to he seen of 
 them; otherwise ye have no reioard of your Father tvhich is in 
 heaven. Therefore, %vhen thou doest thine alms, do not sound a 
 trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, and 
 in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say 
 %mto yov. They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, 
 let not thy left hand knoiv what thy right hand docth ; that thine 
 alms may he in secret : and thy Father, which seeth in secret, him- 
 self shall reward thee openly.'— Matt. iv. 1-4. 
 
 The passage I have read to-day forms part of the 
 second head or division of this great sermon, the general 
 object of which is to show that God's law can only be 
 fulfilled by a spirit of utter sincerity, earnest and single- 
 minded. Of course, it is not enough that a man be 
 sincere ; but, on the other hand, if lie is not, there is 
 no value whatever in anything he does. Sincerity is 
 not everything in religion, but it is essential to every 
 religious act. One may be thoroughly in earnest, no 
 doubt, and yet thoroughly wrong; nor will his earnest- 
 ness turn wrong into right. In science, for example, a 
 man might stoutly believe that the earth stood still in 
 the centre of the universe, while the sun, moon, and stars 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 163 
 
 were all wheeling round it; but his entire sincerity would 
 make no difference in the astronomical facts. And so 
 it is in religious matters. The tliorough honesty of a 
 man's belief will nowise alter its essential truth or 
 untruth. And because religibus ideas enter so deeply 
 into our real life, and mould and fashion its character, 
 the moral injury arising from the sincerest erroneous 
 belief may be exceedingly great, for it may poison the 
 very springs of life, and embitter and degrade the whole 
 soul. Sincerity, then, is not everything in religion, yet 
 nothing, as I have said, is of any value without it. We 
 may feel a measure of respect for one who is honestly 
 working out his convictions, however mistaken they 
 be ; but we cannot esteem the man who is not earnest 
 and sincere, however sound his views, and however 
 correct his habits. He wants the true heart, and God 
 requireth truth in the inward parts. He is essentially 
 a lie ; and the more pious-lilce his behaviour, so 
 much the more repulsive that lie becomes. To turn 
 worship into a mere form of godliness, denying the 
 power thereof; or, still more, to make religion a mere 
 cloak of hypocrisy in order to gain favour of men ; 
 that is of all sins perhaps the worst and blackest : 
 and accordingly there was nothing so roused the meek 
 and lowly Jesus into terrible indignation as the lying 
 religion of Pharisaic insincerity. IsTor let us suppose 
 for a moment that such a spirit is one that is not likely 
 to ensnare us. The Pharisee is not dead, though his 
 name be in bad repute ; the forms of hypocrisy change, 
 but the heart is still deceitful ; and I know of no more 
 
164 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 wholesome exercise than to read every now and then, and 
 make personal, testing application of it to our own souls, 
 that stern chapter in which the Lord stands with his 
 fan in his hand throughly purging liis floor as He de- 
 nounces woe, and again woe, on hypocritical scribes and 
 Pharisees. Ah ! brethren, we may deceive the world, 
 we may also deceive ourselves, but God is not de- 
 ceived ; and it is good to stand forth in the searching 
 light of His truth so that our very hearts and reins 
 may be tried. In dealing, then, with this all-important 
 matter of religious sincerity, our Lord selects for illus- 
 trations three special duties, viz., almsgiving, prayer, 
 and fasting. They are a class of duties essentially 
 different from those which we had to do with under the 
 former head. To use a common distinction, they are 
 more properly religious than moral. A man might love 
 his neighbour, and keep the seventh commandment, and 
 speak the truth, and do good to his very enemy, and 
 yet he might perhaps neither be, nor get any credit for 
 being, a very religious man. Of course, genuine piety 
 will do all these things, and will breathe into them a 
 holy and loving spirit whereby they shall become an- 
 acceptable service of the living God. But some who 
 make no pretensions to religion whatever, may practise 
 such works, and be only known as men of amiable and 
 excellent moral character. It is different with the 
 class of duties noticed under this second head. They 
 are really nothing, if they do not indicate real piety. 
 The man who practises them lays claim at once to a 
 high religious position ; the charity of almsgiving, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCEKITY. 1G5 
 
 tlie clevontness of prayer^ and tlie spirituality of fasting 
 are the recognised characteristics of the children of 
 God. If real and sincere, they are surely good and 
 beautiful ; but how hateful, on the contrary, if they 
 are only a cloak of hypocrisy. Hence our Lord 
 selects them to illustrate the earnest truthfulness of the 
 Christian character ; for if such things are done as 
 unto man, and not as unto God, then is the law 
 verily not fulfilled, but shamefully outraged and dis- 
 honoured. Let us then look at the first of these illus- 
 trations. 
 
 It was the custom for great personages, princes and 
 governors and such like, when making high procession 
 through some favoured province, to sound a trumpet 
 before them, and scatter largess of gold and silver, 
 whereby they gained the goodwill of the poor. In 
 such distribution of money there was no real charity, 
 and the amount of good done was extremely small 
 indeed. It had more of the show, than the reality of 
 benevolence. It was often accompanied with extortion 
 and oppression ; it arose from no genuine compassion 
 for the sufferings of the poor. It was simply an osten- 
 tatious display, intended to win golden opinions from 
 the thoughtless multitude. Our Lord then likens the 
 almsgiving of the Pharisees to this kind of lordly dis- 
 play of munificence. I do not know that they ab- 
 solutely sent the trumpeter before them through the 
 streets, when they were bent on doing their charities. 
 It is not necessary to understand the words so literally 
 as that. Enough, that their alms were never distributed 
 
166 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 without their taking good care, one way or other, to let 
 the good deed be known, so that they might get honour 
 among men. It was not pity that moved them. Theirs 
 was not the tender heart that bleeds for human want 
 or suffering. But they wished to get credit for a high 
 benevolent spirit, and so they trumpeted their alms that 
 they might be seen of men. 
 
 Now, let me ask you to note here, in the outset, that 
 the guilt of this conduct lay entirely in the spirit which 
 actuated them. Jesus detected that spirit. He knew 
 what was in men ; He knew what was in them ; He 
 knew that they gave alms only to gain favour of men. 
 It was not the publicity of their conduct in itself which 
 He blamed, but the ungodly motive which led to that 
 publicity. And I think it is necessary to bear that in 
 mind, lest we may get into the way of judging others, 
 and judging them unjustly, by the mere external ap- 
 pearance. Thus we find, in the present state of society, 
 certain names at the head of every charitable list ; and 
 alongside of them the most ample and generous contri- 
 butions. Those men, too, are highly honoured in the 
 Church and in the world, for they never fail to respond 
 to any just appeal made to their compassions. Exter- 
 nall}^ their conduct may look exactly like that of the 
 Pharisees. They do much alms in a way that is seen 
 of men, and they get a reward in the esteem of their 
 fellow-citizens. But if we were at once to jump to the 
 conclusion that those parties were hypocrites, that they 
 had no object in view except to win favourable opinions 
 of the world, we might be doing very cruel wrong to 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 167 
 
 them. For, as you know very well, there are many 
 who regulate their givings, not by the clamant nature 
 of the case, nor yet by their ovm ability to bestow 
 charity, but solely by the example of others, Avhich, in a 
 manner, shames them into doing their duty. Hence 
 the really compassionate and liberal man is often put 
 into the front, and obtains a prominence from which he 
 would otherwise gladly shrink ; and he gets this position, 
 not with the view of exalting him, but in order that his 
 example may stimulate and encourage others. I be- ^^ 
 lieve that to many a meek and quiet soul this is a fre- 
 quent distress. They don't want such publicity ; they 
 would gladly hide their good deeds under an anony- 
 mous contribution, and they have infinitely more satis- 
 faction in those silent and unnoticed charities where 
 their left hand knoweth not what their right hand is 
 doing. But the wants of society appear to demand a 
 different line of conduct from what their own humble 
 instincts would dictate ; and the words of our Lord 
 also elsewhere appear to justify the very publicity 
 which He seems here to condemn. For, while it is laid 
 down clearly that the one hand should not know what 
 the other hand is doing, it is also said, in another part 
 of this sermon, that we must not let our light be hid 
 under a bushel. And the difficulty is to reconcile r f 
 these two things, — to avoid all ostentation, and yet at "J 
 the same time to get all the advantage of generous 
 Christian example. I am sure that very many feel 
 this difficulty to be a serious one, and are often afraid 
 of falling into a snare by placing their candle in its 
 
168 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 proper candlestick, and would be most glad to be left 
 in the calm and quiet privacies of pious benevolence, 
 doing good, and getting no credit for it ; and hence it 
 would be altogether wrong to judge that, because some 
 men are foremost in all benevolent liberalities, there- 
 fore they must be Pharisees who are seeking praise of 
 men. Brethren, the spirit here is everything; your 
 alms may be distributed publicly or privately as cir- 
 cumstances may require ; but whether the one or the 
 other, they must be done as unto God, and not as unto 
 men. Publicity is not necessarily ostentation ; though, 
 I believe, the true Christian will shun it as much as he 
 can, because it is very apt to become a snare, and be- 
 cause the credit it brings is prone to gratify the deceit- 
 ful heart. Yet, on the other hand, ' Judge not, that ye 
 be not judged;' for under all the notability of some 
 men's benevolence you may find a spirit shrinking from 
 honours which it never sought, feeling that its talent 
 has been poorly used at the best, and only dragged into 
 a most unwelcome publicity by the apparent necessities 
 of social life. God knows the heart ; Christ knows the 
 heart. But for you and me, who only know outward 
 appearances, the one law should be that of the ' charity 
 which thinketh no evil' 
 
 Bearing that in mind, then, let me now say farther, 
 
 that the phrase, ' Let not the left hand know what the 
 
 ; right hand doeth,' is a proverbial expression, implying 
 
 1 \ that our charity is not to be done ostentatiously so as 
 
 \ \o be seen of men, nor yet self-righteously so that we 
 
 liiay pride ourselves upon it. That almsgiving is, and 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 169 
 
 alM^ays will be, a duty is plainly involved here. ' The 
 poor ye have always with you,' and they always have 
 their claims upon you. It is our duty, indeed, loisely to 
 consider the poor, as the Psalmist says, and not a little 
 of the wholesomeness and efficiency of our charities 
 depends on the wisdom which we bring to bear on this 
 matter. Unwise and inconsiderate benevolence may be 
 an indulgence of private feeling not very much to be 
 blamed in itself, and yet it may be extremely pernicious 
 to the parties on whom your charity is bestowed. It 
 may gender a spirit of pauperism ; it may only supply 
 means to gratify sinful appetites ; it may please the 
 giver, and yet hurt the receiver ; and consequently, 
 in these later times, thoughtful men have very gene- 
 rally placed themselves in sheer antagonism to indiscri- 
 minate almsgiving, as one of the most unwise and in- 
 jurious exercises of an otherwise amiable spirit; and, 
 no doubt, they are quite right on the whole. I do 
 not think indeed that Christian benevolence is never to 
 be exercised in ignorance of all the circumstances, and, 
 as it were, on the mere chance of doing what is good 
 and needful. I would not like to lay down such a rule, 
 or to walk by such a rule, as never left any room for 
 the possible contingencies of the merest incidental 
 charity. It may be abused. No doubt, it often is 
 abused. Yet to have ministered to one case of real 
 want, may well compensate for the possibility of many 
 cases of abused benevolence. I cannot quite dry up 
 the present instinct of compassion, merely because it 
 may be turned to no good account. Still there is can- 
 
170 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tion to be exercised in this matter, and a tliouglitless 
 and indiscriminate almsgiving is far from the wisdom 
 of the gospel. 
 
 It is assumed then that the Christian has a duty to 
 perform in this respect ; and what our Lord would have 
 us to understand, is that, in order to be of any worth, our 
 charity must be administered inthe simple sincerity of a 
 benevolent heart, not to get praise of men, but because 
 it is the will of God. The fine expressive proverb, ' Let 
 not the left hand know what the right hand doeth,' very 
 probably involves also a lesson of tenderness and delicacy 
 in our almsgiving, so that there shall be no needless pub- 
 licity, but everything done to spare the feelings of those 
 who receive our bounty. For in this matter, as in many 
 others, it is better to give than to receive. There is a pro- 
 per spirit of independence, wdiich naturally and rightly 
 shrinks from accepting such gifts, and will rather bear 
 to the verge of endurance than proclaim its necessity. 
 And that feeling is entitled to our thoughtful considera- 
 tion and respect. It is hard enough to feel the pinching 
 of poverty, without having also a sense of shame aroused. 
 And while it is quite true that there may be a sinful 
 pride which calls itself manly independence, while it is 
 true that one may receive a kindness with as much grace 
 as another may confer it, yet everything should be done 
 to spare the sensitiveness of the poor, for there is a sting 
 in the receiving of alms which is not in the honest earn- 
 ings of labour. Por my own part, when I see those who 
 have striven to win their bread by the sweat of their 
 brow, reduced to beg, or to accept alms, that they and 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 171 
 
 their cliildren may be fed, I feel almost disposed to ask 
 pardon for offering the aid they need ; and I can well 
 understand the tenderness implied in our Lord's word, 
 ' Let not the left hand know what the right hand doeth.' 
 Let no one offend with needless publicity the sacred 
 sensibilities of the honest poor. 
 
 Still that, though fairly enough involved here, is not 
 the special truth which our Lord would fain enforce. 
 His object is to warn us against hypocrisy and self- 
 righteousness. In the first place. He charges the Phari- 
 sees with doing their alms in order to be seen of men. 
 There is almost no more certain way in which a man 
 can obtain a high character for piety than to be known 
 for his benevolence. Indeed, prayer and fasting may 
 be recognised as more peculiarly spiritual exercises, 
 having more direct bearing on the inner life, and its 
 fellowship with God; but they are a kind of cheap 
 religious service, and are consequently more open to 
 suspicion than the splendid compassions which minister 
 to the wants of the poor. When a man's religion so far 
 gets the better of his selfishness as to open his purse- 
 strings freely, and cause him to irrigate the arid wastes 
 of poverty with the surplus streams of his abundant 
 wealth, naturally those who partake of his bounty, and 
 those also who merely look on and witness it, are not 
 disposed, unless they be of a mean and envious spirit, 
 to inquire too curiously into his motives, or to ascribe 
 any, but what are good and honourable to him. Hence 
 the giving of alms is a tolerably sure way of gaining a 
 high religious character. And along with properly 
 
172 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 eleemosynary charities, we may fairly reckon all other 
 kinds of religious benevolence, whether for relief of 
 human suffering, or for the maintenance of the Church 
 of Christ. All sorts of giving may he ranked under this 
 general head, and to all of them the same word of the 
 Lord applies. They are now, as of old, the readiest 
 method for getting praise of men. And it may be 
 granted, I think, that even when the liberal giver has 
 no higher object than to stand well with the Church and 
 the world, yet a Pharisee of that type is on the whole 
 preferable to another who has no higher aim, but whose 
 meagre and avaricious nature seeks ever to do its 
 ^ religion in the cheapest possible way. The ostentatious 
 I liberality is better after all than the ostentatious prayer. 
 StUl it behoves us, not indeed to judge others, not to 
 be eager to set men down as hypocrites, merely because 
 their charities are blazoned abroad, and their praise in 
 every one's mouth, — for that, as I have already shown 
 you, may be nowise of their seeking ; but it behoves us 
 also to judge our own hearts faithfully, for if our motive 
 be to gain applause of men, if our almsgiving does not 
 flow from a genuine compassion for the poor ; or if our 
 pious contributions for religious objects do not arise 
 from a real and sincere belief in the great and blessed 
 work of the Church ; if, consciously or unconsciously, we 
 crave for the publicity and the praise of liberality, then, 
 alas ! all the virtue shall have gone from our most ex- 
 cellent gifts ; they are a lie and a pretension, and God, 
 who knows the heart, knows them so to be. I do not 
 think, — I should not like to say, — that there are many 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 173 
 
 who, of set and deliberate purpose, administer their 
 charities only with this view. It might be going too 
 far, and intruding into the province of the All-seeing 
 One, to assert so hard a thing as that. But I do believe 
 this, at any rate, that very few men are in the habit of 
 keeping a jealous watch on their motives so that they 
 may be maintained pure and high ; very few men have 
 such a conviction of the heart's deceitfulness as to keep 
 a vigilant eye always on its ensnaring ways ; and con- 
 sequently many are probably actuated by far meaner 
 motives than they are at all aware of They take things, 
 as we say, in the slump ; and there being various reasons 
 for doing what is manifestly right and needful, they do 
 not pause often to inquire which of them is the real 
 moving cause in their own case ; for if they did, they 
 would, I am afraid, often find that their almsgivings and 
 other liberalities were done, not rarely, as unto men, and 
 not as unto God. They are regulated by what others 
 do ; or they want to look well before the public. But 
 they only half admit this to themselves ; and fancy tliey 
 are entitled to all the credit of a sincere and liberal 
 charity. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. 
 They have it now. They get very much what they 
 want, — even the praise of men. But God regards not 
 such works. Only to this man will He look, whose 
 simple and genuine spirit makes no ostentation of its 
 good deeds, but shrinking from the display and com- 
 mendation of them, ' doth not let the left hand know 
 what the right hand doeth.' 
 
 But further, this proverb also implies that our alms- 
 
174 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 givings shall not^ be done in a self-rigliteoiis spirit. It 
 is quite possible not to be seeking praise of men, and 
 yet to take all the merit from our conduct by a compla- 
 cent sense of the merit that was in it. My friends, one 
 may not sound a trumpet in the streets so as to be seen 
 of men, and yet he may sound the trumpet in his own 
 heart, and thus quite as effectually destroy the spiritual 
 character of his work. Let me here draw a distinction, 
 however, of some moment. There is a certain pleased 
 satisfaction in doing right, the testimony and approba- 
 tion of a good conscience, which may not be anywise 
 found fault with, for it is the law of God, and accords 
 with his own nature. I suppose that the happiness of 
 the Divine nature lies essentially in the absolute good- 
 ness and holiness and truth of all His thoughts and 
 ways, whicli, being unchangeably excellent, fill Him, 
 doubtless, with unchanging delight. Now, to partake 
 of a grateful joy like that, from having grace to work the 
 works of the Father, is not, by any means, the same 
 thing as the complacency of a self-righteous spirit. For 
 the self-righteous man does not merely feel happy in 
 doing what is good, but he is pleased to think of his own 
 exceeding goodness. There is an element of pride and 
 vanity in him, and self gratulation, and also a forgetful- 
 ness of his many sins and perpetual shortcomings ; 
 which altogether mar the simple delight of a true heart 
 in doing what is right. You must distinguish, then, 
 between these two things. I believe that there is a 
 happiness beyond any other, which we find in obeying 
 the will of the Lord. But I also believe that there is a 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCEEITY. 175 
 
 snare more dangerous than any other, in tlie self-satis- 
 fied complacency of doing occasional good. Now, this 
 last is altogether repugnant to our Lord's teaching here 
 and elsewhere. For the charity which does not let its 
 left hand know what its right hand doeth, is manifestly 
 a spirit of meekness and simplicity, which neither courts 
 the observation of others, nor cares to dwell on its own 
 excellence, but drops its beneficence like dew, in the 
 silence and darkness, so that its presence is known only 
 by the blessing which it leaves behind. But the man 
 who gives an alms, and then settles down in the pride 
 and contentment of his own good desert, hath therein 
 his reward. He has taken all the worth from his work. 
 It has lost its divine character as a deed of true pity, 
 and become an act of merest vanjty. God hath no re- 
 spect to it, — no respect to him : he is not one of those 
 who does not let his left hand know what his right 
 hand doeth. 
 
 Finally, let me remind you of another word of Christ's, 
 which appears to me well fitted to crown with a pecu- 
 liarly blessed significance the somewhat negative teach- 
 ing of this portion of the word. The Lord here forbids 
 insincerity and display and seeking praise of men in our 
 almsgiving ; and he denounces the hypocrisy of those 
 who sound a trumpet before their good deeds. All well 
 so far; and it is meet to warn us against such a spirit. 
 He exhorts us also to practise, as it were, an uncon- 
 scious simplicity in our charities, which will neither 
 think much of them itself, nor regard what others will 
 think of them. But there is a still higher view of the 
 
w 
 
 176 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 matter, which gives the positive aspect of duty in this 
 respect a spirituality and evangelical depth of meaning, 
 tliat must he taken along with this word of Christ's in 
 .order to form a perfect idea of the will of God. You 
 will, therefore, remember that our Lord, when he de- 
 scribes to us the great day of judgment, identifies him- 
 self with the sorrow and suffering of men, and speaks of 
 all benevolence sincerely shown to them as having been 
 done to him. ' I was an hungered,' He says, ' and ye 
 gave me meat.' Under the garb, then, of afflicted and 
 distressed humanity, Jesus makes an appeal to us. He 
 adopts all such as his own, his children, his peculiar 
 care ; and whatever mercy is done to them, he debits to 
 Himself, as if it were done to him. And the obvious 
 meaning of this seems to be, that instead of doing our 
 alms to be seen of men, and instead of doing them in 
 a spirit of self-righteous complacency, He would have 
 us to think of himself as the type of all poor and needy 
 ones, and for His sake, as well as for pity's sake, to show 
 mercy upon t.hem. Let us see, as it were, Christ under 
 all human rags, and in all human afflictions, for He 
 makes the sorrow of man his very special care. And 
 as we love Him, and would render something to him for 
 all his mercies to us, let us deal bountifully with them 
 as we have opportunity, not for praise or reward, but 
 rather as making some fitting acknowledgment of our 
 infinite debt to Jesus. Thus animated in our charities 
 by the love of Christ, our gifts shall be an acceptable 
 offering, a sweet incense of evangelical benevolence ; 
 one day to be repaid with a very godlike interest, when 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 177 
 
 He shall say unto ns, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father. 
 I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : thirsty, and 
 ye gave me drink : naked, and ye clothed me : sick and 
 in prison, and ye visited me.' For thus the sincerity 
 of our benevolence is consecrated and exalted by the 
 spirituality of our faith, and the loving service of man 
 becomes truly most acceptable service of God. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 
 
 ' A nd when thou pray est, thou shaJt not he as the hypocrites 
 are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the 
 corners of the streets, that they may he seen of men. Verily 1 say 
 unto you. They have their revxird. But thou when thou pray est, 
 enter into thy closet ; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to 
 thy Father ivhich is in secret; and thy Father, vjhich seeth in 
 secret, shall reward thee openly. But vjhen ye pray, use not vain 
 repetitions, as the heathen do : for they think that they shall he 
 heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: 
 for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask 
 him,. After this jnatiner therefore pray ye,' etc.— Matt. vi. 5-9. 
 
 The privilege of access to a throne of grace, to confess 
 our sins that they may be forgiven, to make known our 
 wants that they may be supplied, to pour all our sor- 
 rows and troubles into a Father's ear that he may com- 
 fort our souls, — that surely is one of the greatest boons 
 that God could well give, or man could possibly get. I 
 am not going at present to discuss any question as to 
 the efficacy of prayer, and how God, who hath before- 
 hand determined every event, can yet hear the request 
 of his poor and needy ones. I shall have to say some- 
 what on that head in a future lecture ; but alas ! for 
 him who, in the day of his sore distress, when all 
 other help is gone, cannot lift up his voice, like a 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY, 179 
 
 child ' crying in the dark/ yet assured that its cry 
 shall reach, and touch a father's heart ! Meanwhile it 
 is assumed here that the Lord is a prayer-hearing God, 
 and that his people wait upon him that He may incline 
 his ear unto them. It is assumed that wherever there 
 is a contrite heart pouring out its broken, half- articulate 
 sorrows ; wherever there is a vexed and troubled spirit 
 calling for Divine help in despair of all other ; wherever 
 there is a loving soul longing for the fellowship of God, 
 and that it may see his glory, — there also is an ear open 
 to hear their cry, and a very present help to them in 
 their time of need. Hold fast your confidence in this, 
 brethren, and let ' no one spoil you through philosophy 
 and vain deceit, after the rudiments of the world, and 
 not after Christ.' And though it does require a lively 
 exercise of faith to separate your mind from all the en- 
 vironments of sense, and to feel that you are transacting 
 directly with the unseen God, yet when you can thus 
 realize Him, and speak to Him all the fulness of your 
 heart, you shall find in this fellowship the richest 
 blessing, the surest comfort, the greatest strength, that 
 man can have on earth. Therefore the truly spiritual 
 man delights in prayer, doth all things by prayer, prays 
 always with all supplication and thanksgiving ; for 
 prayer is the joy and the might and the peace of the 
 Christian soul. 
 
 But in order that it may be so, it must be done in 
 entire sincerity. It must be done as unto God, and not 
 as unto man. It must be spiritual and true, not a mere 
 form and vain repetition. It must neither be a hypo- 
 
180 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 critical display in order to be seen of men,- nor a hea- 
 thenish outcry clamorous to be heard for its much 
 speaking. It must be the secret, closet exercise and 
 communion of the soul with the Father that seeth in 
 secret. It must be the believing, confiding prayer 
 of one whose Father knows what he needs, and who 
 trusts that Father to do what is best. These are the 
 four thoughts suggested by this passage, and to these I 
 would now draw your attention : — 
 
 \st, ' When thou prayest,' the Lord says, ' thou 
 shalt not be as the hypocrites are ; for they love to 
 pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of 
 the streets, that they may be seen of men.' The hypo- 
 crites to whom Christ here alludes were doubtless the 
 Pharisees ; not indeed all of them, for ISTathanael and 
 Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and Saul of 
 Tarsus were all of that sect, and were obviously true 
 and right- hearted men. But they were exceptions to 
 their class ; and the system which they followed tended 
 to produce, not su»li as them, but such as Annas and 
 Caiaphas, and the other pious rogues who were so 
 abhorrent to the soul of Jesus. The Sadducees being 
 of a materialistic way of thinking, probably did not 
 pray at all, having lost faith in prayer altogether, and 
 being, at least, honest enough not to pretend to much 
 religion of the spiritual kind. So one might con- 
 clude in a general way, though I am by no means 
 sure that they did not do pretty much as the Pharisees 
 did, even while they utterly despised the whole matter. 
 Scepticism is apt to have an easy conscience ; and in 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 181 
 
 the long-run you sliall find it much more ready to agree 
 with the Pharisees than to accept of the heart-search- 
 ing Christ. At any rate, the hypocrites alluded to here 
 were mainly the Pharisees, the popular religionists, 
 who did not love prayer for its own sake, but for the 
 credit which it gave them ; and whom one might see 
 in any synagogue standing in rapt adoration, or at any 
 street corner, in the throng and concourse of men, lifting 
 up their eyes to the hearer of prayer, and their hearts 
 to the people around, 
 
 Now, neither the synagogues nor the streets were the 
 appointed places of prayer. But a custom had risen 
 smce the days of Daniel the prophet, to pray seven 
 times a day, at certain appointed liours ; and when 
 those hours came, the Pharisee turned at once to his 
 devotions. He might be in the street, or the market 
 domg business, or he might be in the synagogue hearing 
 the reading of the law ; and of course when people saw 
 him, even in such circumstances, faithful to his pious 
 task, they naturally said, 'How good and holy a man 
 this must be !' Naturally, also, when the Pharisee 
 perceived the high estimation in which he was thus 
 held, he would come by and bye to find himself gene- 
 rally in some public place when the hour of prayer drew 
 nigh ; and so, what may at fiist have been only a rigid 
 and punctilious observance of a religious custom, gradu- 
 ally, perhaps even insensibly, came to be an ostentatious 
 display — a pretentious exhibition of self-righteousness, 
 without heart or faith or truth, turning the most sacred 
 duties into a very mockery of God. And I wish you to 
 
182 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 mark liow, as I have just stated, this may have arisen 
 without very much conscious and deliberate and inten- 
 tional hypocrisy. I am loath to think that there are 
 many people who could calmly say to themselves, ' I 
 will put on a mask of devotion, I will pretend to be 
 more than ordinarily pious, and so 1 shall gain favour 
 of men, and under cover of that do all the evil that is 
 in mine heart to do.' I cannot think that such base 
 creatures either are now, or ever were very common. 
 And it seems to me that the value and efficacy of our 
 Lord's warnings against hypocrisy are very much les- 
 sened, when we suppose them to apply only to charac- 
 ters so vile as that. Let me therefore remind you that 
 most probably the iniquity of the Pharisee grew up in 
 a very natural way, beginning with a scrupulous, but 
 honest observance of religious forms, and gradually 
 sliding into a pretentious and hypocritical display, as he 
 found himself a growing object of respect and esteem 
 among men. Now, when we look at the matter in this 
 light, we shall not find the Pharisee quite so far away 
 from us ; and consequently our Lord's warning will not 
 be so readily set aside, as if it did not concern us. For 
 alas, brethren, the deceitful heart is still as prone as 
 ever to get itself entangled in these snares of the devil. 
 Woful as it is, to think of men standing in the presence 
 of the heart- searching God, and taking into their 
 mouths words of lowly contrition, words of holy faith, 
 words of meek submission, words of devout adoration, 
 and yet all the while only thinking, when they think 
 at all, of the effect they will have on other men, and 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 183 
 
 the approbation which tliey will accord, yet am I by 
 no means sure that such hollow prayers are at all un- 
 common, or that we are, any of us, wholly free from 
 this guilt. We may set aside the picturesque allusion 
 to the hypocrite standing in the synagogue and at the 
 street corners, when the appointed hours of devotion 
 came round. We have no such hours and no such cus- 
 toms ; but the thing itself, the evil which grew up in this 
 way, may be among us for all that, and all the more 
 dangerous that it is not suspected. Bethink you, then ; 
 we too have our pious customary duties, such, for ex- 
 ample, as the beautiful exercise of daily family devotion. 
 And how often is that performed in a dull, leaden, 
 spiritless way, just because religious social opinion 
 favours the observance of it, and not because our hearts 
 have any real longing after God. Observe, I do not 
 say that any man can be always in an equally spiritual 
 frame when the hour of daily prayer arrives. And I 
 do not say that he is not to bow the knee duly as the 
 time draws nigh, merely because, on occasions, he finds 
 himself not in so fitting a state as he has sometimes 
 been. But what I do say is, that it is possible, without 
 your perhaps deliberately intending anything of the 
 kind, that by allowing the influence of public opinion 
 to constrain you to engage in such religious exercises, 
 you may in reality go on from day to day, and from 
 year to year, praying from that motive and for that rea- 
 son only, and never once taking your soul to task, or 
 asking yourself earnestly whether there has been all the 
 while one single gleam of fellowship with God, or one 
 
184 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 real yearning of your soul for His salvation. In this 
 way there may grow up a systematic, yet unconscious 
 hypocrisy. For such prayers do not flow out of the 
 fountain of the heart's trouble and care and sorrow. 
 They have nothing to do with the heart at all. They 
 are only constrained by the influence of religious public 
 opinion ; and though they may not seem to be offered 
 up at the shrine of Pharisaic ostentation ; though they 
 may belong to the quiet privacies of domestic life only ; 
 yet not one cry of true prayer may be in them all, — 
 they are simply a sacrifice to the custom of men, done 
 for their sakes only, and not from the felt need, and con- 
 scious guilt of the soul, or from any faith in the prayer- 
 hearing God. And is not that, brethren, very much the 
 same thing as the hypocrite's prayer at the street- 
 corner, that he may be seen of men ? Again, let me ask 
 you to compare, for a moment, your private devotions 
 with those which you may be called to conduct in the 
 presence of other men. To-day, you are alone with 
 God, and save His ear there is none to hear you; and it 
 is the hour of prayer. But alas ! you have little to say ; 
 and that little is cold, poor, and meagre. There are 
 no passionate cries, no fervent pleading of promises, no 
 mournful confessions of sin, no rapt views of the riches 
 of Divine grace in Christ Jesus. It is a didl heavy 
 work, soon huddled over, that your thoughts may turn 
 to far other matters. To-morrow, you have to guide, 
 perhaps, the devotions of others, and what a change 
 there is ! Your words flow freely, and with all the unc- 
 tion and charm of sacred texts and allusions. Hallowed 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 185 
 
 thoughts leap up, and crowd for utterance ; godly sor- 
 row wails forth its penitence; faith and love seem 
 panting for the Lord, who is their portion, their strength, 
 and their joy. And people say, 'Surely this is a man of 
 God ! he has a rare gift of prayer, he must needs live 
 under the shadow of Him that is almighty.' Now, sit 
 down and ask yourself honestly, ' What was the differ- 
 ence between those two prayers ? And was there one 
 bit more reality in the one than in the other ? I have 
 confessed and deplored sin — did I truly feel its burden ? 
 I have pleaded many a promise — had I any trust in 
 its faithfulness? I rejoiced in the grace of God — 
 was I indeed glad for its salvation ? I cried unto the 
 Lord with my voice, and made supplication — but how 
 much heart was there in it all ? Perhaps I did feel for 
 the moment a certain glow and sensibility and emotion ; 
 but how much of it was only the excitement of a 
 speaker, not the genuine tenderness of a soul in the 
 presence of its God ! What, if I was praying like the 
 hypocrite, only to be seen of men ? Why should my 
 solitary prayer to the Father wdio seeth in secret be so 
 markedly different from my public devotions in the 
 sanctuary ? ' Ah ! brethren, that is a kind of question 
 which we especially, who minister in holy things, would 
 do well to put often and earnestly to ourselves, though 
 it is fitting also for others as well as for us. I am afraid, 
 too, it will be rather a humbling one to many of us. I 
 am afraid it will discover a good deal of the leaven of 
 the Pharisee lurking where perhaps it was little sus- 
 pected. But I am very sure it will be a wholesome 
 
18G THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 thing for us all strenuously to search out even the most 
 secret element of unconscious hypocrisy, and to cast 
 it from us, for otherwise it will be a dead fly in the 
 apothecary's ointment, tainting and corrupting our most 
 sacred services, turning them into a mockery, instead of 
 a trust in God. Therefore, brethren, without adducing 
 other examples of the operation of this deceitful spirit, 
 let me entreat you, with all earnestness, to be on 
 your guard, and watch and pray, and pray and watch 
 against this snare. It is very insidious. It wears often 
 a guise of simplicity and evangelical fervour. It rarely 
 puts on the revolting aspect of deliberate hypocrisy ; for 
 that would commonly be to lose its game. But it 
 comes in the shape of a bidden duty, about which all 
 good men are agreed. Or it comes in the shape of a 
 hallowed phraseology which all spiritual minds have 
 accepted as befitting. Only it always, one way or other, 
 puts men and not God in the forefront, and wiles us to do 
 for tliem what we would not do for Him. Therefore let 
 your prayer and your effort be that the Lord would put 
 truth, utter truth, in your inward parts, that He would 
 set a watch before your lips, and keep the door of your 
 mouth, lest 'ye come before him as his people come, 
 and sit before him as his people sit,' while your hearts 
 all the time are verily seeking the praises of men, and 
 not the favour of God. 'When thou pray est, be not as 
 the hypocrites are.' Therefore, 
 
 2fZ, Our Lord enjoins that his people, when they 
 pray, ' should enter into their closet, and shut-to the 
 door, and pray to the Father which seeth in secret.' 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 187 
 
 There are a good many lessons which may be fairly 
 enough deduced from this injunction. It is, for ex- 
 ample, a legitimate conclusion from such words that 
 every man ought to have a closet, a place of calm pri- 
 vacy, to which he may retire for fellowship with God 
 alone ; and that consequently our social arrangements, 
 which make no provision for this in so many cases, are 
 seriously injurious to the true religious life of the 
 world ; for, alas ! there are many among us who can 
 have no place in their homes to retire to, and pray to 
 the Father who seeth in secret. It is also a fair appli- 
 cation of the text, that while the fellowship of united 
 prayer is right and good, yet the special sphere for real 
 communion with God in this exercise is the solitude of 
 a most private intercourse, when one can be alone with 
 the Father, undisturbed by any other influences, to 
 pour forth the whole heart to Him. Still the closet is 
 not absolutely necessary ; the shutting of the door is 
 the one essential point of importance to be considered. 
 For one might have his closet, and might go to pray in 
 his closet, and yet the thought of his heart might be, 
 ' Now, men will see how spiritual I am. I turn aside 
 from them. I go apart to meet my God. I do not 
 make any show of religion. They must admit that a 
 man, so much given to closet devotion, is surely a true 
 and faithful servant of the Lord.' It were quite pos- 
 sible in this way to make the closet as much an osten- 
 tation as the synagogue or the street-corner. Therefore 
 thejtrue idea of prayer lies in the shutting of the door. 
 My friends, you may make a closet for yourselves in 
 
188 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the veriest crowd, provided you shut out tlie world from 
 your thoughts, aud lift up your soul to God alone. 
 And that is essentially what the Lord requires of you. 
 It boots not where the real prayer is made. It may be 
 in the synagogue, only it must not be done for the 
 praise of men ; it may be at the street- corners, only it 
 must not be to draw attention of them ; it may be any- 
 where, only it must be a real uplifting of the heart 
 imto God, and a shutting out of all consideration for 
 the opinion of the world around — a simple, heartfelt, 
 genuine cry to the Father that seeth in secret. This, 
 and this only, is real prayer. It is to be alone with 
 God, and to transact with Him in the utter truth and 
 sincerity of our soids. let it be your effort, brethren, 
 thus to shut out of your minds all but the thought of 
 Him with whom you have then to do — all regard for 
 the opinion and the praise of men ; for however your 
 prayer may commend itself to them, however evangeli- 
 cal in its form, however full of apparent unction, how- 
 ever glowing with a seeming earnestness, yet if it be 
 not the cry of a true and honest heart, it is idle as the 
 passing wind ; and the Lord will not regard it. Shut 
 to the door, then ; shut out the world ; be alone witli 
 God in spirit and in truth. But 
 
 3d, There is yet another kind of unreal, and there- 
 fore insincere, prayer, against which also the Lord warns 
 us here. We are not to be like the hypocrites who 
 pray to be seen of men, nor yet like the heathen 
 who think they shall be heard for their much speak- 
 ing. Witli them prayer was a kind of bodily and 
 mechanical process, supposed to be efficacious just in 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 189 
 
 proportion to the number of times they could repeat 
 the same cry. So the priests of Baal howled from 
 morning till night their ' Baal, hear us ! Hear us, 
 Baal !' making the rocks and forests of Carmel echo 
 with their vain repetitions. So, to this day, in the East 
 you may see fanatical devotees yelling a similar prayer, 
 as they whirl their bodies round, until their litany be- 
 comes a convulsive and inarticulate gurgling, and they 
 fall to the earth in utter physical exhaustion. The 
 idea in the minds of those men seems to be that prayer 
 is not a spiritual act, but purely a form of words, the 
 virtue of which lies in their clamorous repetition. 
 Now I do not say that one who is in much earnest, or 
 in deep affliction, will not indulge in redundancies of 
 expression. There are times when it is most natural, 
 and indeed when one can do nothing else but just cry, 
 ' God have mercy upon me ; Lord have mercy upon 
 me.' There is a state of mind when thought is swal- 
 lowed up in mere emotion, and one has no words to 
 express the agony of soul, nor any calmness to ui^ge 
 pleas and arguments, so that he can do nothing but 
 pray, and again pray, ' Lord help me ; Lord save 
 me, else I perish.' But that is very far from the 
 heathenish kind of vain repetition. There is real soul 
 and heart, and even agonizing emotion, in such a 
 prayer ; while the other is but a meaningless mechani- 
 cal form. Be not ye, then, like the heathen who think 
 that they shall be heard for their much speaking. As 
 to whether even these poor heathens may be heard, or 
 no ; whether even their meagre, confused, and dis- 
 tracted cries may, or may not, find something in the 
 
190 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 infinite Divine compassions, which is touched by 
 their hapless state ; of that the Lord says nothing 
 here whatever. All He says is, that theirs is not 
 true prayer such as becomes his children, and that 
 we are not to do as they do, for our Father knoweth 
 what things we have need of before we ask Him. 
 
 And this leads me, in conclusion, to remind you 
 that ye, when ye pray, should come believing in the 
 unseen Father, and trusting in his gracious disposition. 
 Brethren, true prayer is just the cry of children to their 
 Father, and it is the childlike feeling of trust in Him, 
 and love to Him, which gives to their prayer all its 
 efficacy. He does not need to be told what we want ; 
 He knows all that already better than we can tell him. 
 If in the dark night your child in its trouble or pain 
 call for you, not being able to see you, or sure whether 
 you hear, it will call again, and make its weeping com- 
 plaint until you come. But there is no such uncer- 
 tainty about your heavenly Father, for the feeblest moan, 
 the faintest inarticulate whisper of your soul, yea its 
 very thoughts, are well known to Him. He is not a 
 God afar off, or asleep, or gone on a journey, so that 
 you need to clamour with vain repetitions like the 
 heathen ; and if He sometimes delays his coming to 
 help you, it is only because He would prove your faith, 
 and see in your patient trusting the true spirit of a 
 child. ' Wait upon the Lord, then, and be of good 
 courage, for the Lord forsaketh not his saints, none of 
 them that wait on him shall be ashamed.' Wait upon 
 the Lord, not as the hypocrite, who has an eye all the 
 while to the praise of men, and considers what they 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 191 
 
 will tliiiik of his devout customs and words, so full 
 of the apparent unction and savour of godliness; but 
 try to shut out all other thoughts, and to realize the 
 presence of the heart- searcher and the prayer-hearer. 
 Wait upon the Lord, not with mechanical forms and 
 vain repetitions, as if mere unmeaning clamour were 
 pleasing to him, or as if He did not know your need 
 unless it were thus dinned into his ear. All He wants 
 in your prayer is a spirit of childlike trust in him, and 
 love to him. Therefore, wait on the Lord after that 
 manner which He has so fully and graciously and 
 beautifully set forth in that prayer, which he now gives 
 as the model of all prayer, and which I have already 
 expounded to you so fully, that it needs at present only 
 briefly to mark its general characteristics. Let your 
 cry, then, be to the Father, your Father in heaven, for 
 that is the key-note of all effectual supplication. And 
 if you are truly a child of His, your desire for his glory 
 will surely take precedence of your own personal wants, 
 however urgent, — for a father's honour is more to a child 
 than his own cares or troubles. Therefore, will ye 
 pray that His name may be hallowed on earth, as it is 
 ill heaven ; that His kingdom may come on earth, as it 
 is in heaven ; and that His will may be done on earth, 
 as it is heaven. And because His name, so often dis- 
 honoured, shall only be hallowed by the establishment 
 of the reign of Immanuel ; and because that kingdom 
 can only come through the renewing work of the Holy 
 Ghost ; therefore will ye have respect to the work of 
 that holy and glorious Trinity, wherein lies the blessed 
 fatherhood of God. Nor will you forget the fellowship 
 
192 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 of other brethren, find their communion with yon, in 
 the wants and sins and temptations of this life ; for 
 when yon draw near to the common Father it will not 
 be with a selfish ' My Father,' but, bearing the burden of 
 all the household, you will seek for them, as Avell as 
 yourself, those things ye all have need of Therefore, 
 will your prayer be, ' Our Father, give us,' not a compe- 
 tency, to prevent the sense of continual dependence, but 
 daily bread in answer to daily labour and prayer. And 
 ' forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors ;' for be 
 assured that 'if ye forgive not men their trespasses, 
 neither will your heavenly Father forgive your tres- 
 passes.' To the froward, He will show himself froward ; 
 to the bitter and implacable. He will be bitter and im- 
 placable. The cry of a hard and heartless man will 
 meet only with a hard and stern God. And finally, 
 conscious of your own weakness, you will seek to be 
 guided in a straight path, in a plain path, not to be 
 sorely tried, at any rate not to be tempted above that 
 you are enabled to bear. In this spirit pray ye the 
 Lord's prayer. It is not hypocritical ; it is not heathen- 
 ish ; it is the simple, natural, honest cry of children to 
 a Father; children who have done wrong, but would fain 
 do right ; children who have wants and weaknesses, 
 but who truly trust in the Lord to supply all their 
 need ; children who bear each other's burden lovingly 
 \on their hearts, and are not merely selfish in their de- 
 sires ; children whose supreme wish is that all things 
 may be done so as to hallow and glorify their Father 
 in heaven. 
 
THE SERMOX ON THE MOUNT. 193 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 
 
 ' Moreover, when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad 
 countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may a2')pear 
 unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. 
 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and icash thy 
 face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast, hut unto thy Father 
 which is in secret : and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall 
 reward thee openly.' — Matt. vi. 16-18. 
 
 It does not appear that Moses instituted any regular 
 periodic fasts, except one. For the worship of Israel, 
 though enforced by terrible penalties, and exalting Jeho- 
 vah always as ' a jealous God,' ' a consuming fire,' was 
 nevertheless in the main a joyful kind of service, with 
 its trumpets cheerily ringing to prayer, its green and 
 fragrant booths made of the myrtle and acacia boughs, 
 its feasts and processions, not without the song and the 
 dance, to the sound of harp and timbrel and all manner 
 instruments of music. But though generally thus of 
 a cheerfid type, as became the people whom the Lord 
 had redeemed from bondage, their Divine service had 
 one annual fast, on the great day of atonement, when 
 every man was ' to afflict his soul ' and ' to bow down 
 
 N 
 
194 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 his head like a bulrush.' It was a day of deliverance 
 indeed, for the scape-goat carried away their sins into 
 the wilderness ; hut this deliverance was fitly associated 
 with humiliation and godly sorrow for sin, and there- 
 fore the day of atonement was a solemn fast before the 
 Lord. But this was the only fast ordained by the 
 Mosaic law. On the Sabbath, indeed, no fires were 
 to be kmdled for cooking meals, but this was simply 
 with the view of procuring a cessation of bodily 
 work, not for the purpose of afflicting the flesh ; and 
 as the Jewish Sabbath began at sunset on Friday, and 
 ended at sunset on Saturday, they could have their 
 evening meal, as usual, prepared without encroaching 
 on the sacred hoiu's, and might well enough put up 
 with their customary breads and fruits and wines in 
 the interval Certainly the Sabbath was no day of 
 fasting among them, nor do we learn that they had 
 any other prescribed fast, except the yearly day of 
 atonement. 
 
 But though they had no appointed periodic fasts, we 
 find them in the course of their history repeatedly abs- 
 taining from carnal comforts and delights, both indi- 
 vidually, and as a nation. When the ten tribes were 
 smitten before Gibeah of Benjamin, ' they fell down 
 before the ark, and fasted till the evening.' So also, 
 when sore pressed by the Philistines, they assembled 
 before the Lord at Mizpeli, and fasted till the sun went 
 down. Moses fasted forty days on Horeb, and Elijah 
 as many ui the same neighbourhood ; and David fasted 
 while his child lay a- dying, and his sin was heavy on 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCEEITY. 195 
 
 liis soiil. In New Testament times we find tlie dis- 
 ciples of Jolm given to this exercise, wliile tliose of 
 Jesus were exempted from it ; but tlie reason was that 
 the cliildren of tlie bride-chamber could not fast so long 
 as the bridegroom was with them ; yet ' when the bride- 
 groom was taken away/ it was said their time for it 
 should surely come. And accordingly we read that, 
 whether of necessity or choice, Paul and his brother 
 apostles were ' in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.' 
 We are assured, therefore, that this was a frequent 
 practice both in the Jewish and in the early Christian 
 Church, though it was not expressly enjoined, but was 
 left in a great measure to be regulated by the devout 
 feelings, or spiritual wants of the individual soul. Paul, 
 indeed, resolutely objected to voluntary humility and 
 neglecting of the body, which had a show of wisdom 
 only ; but he and all truly spiritual men, in all ages of 
 the Church, have acknowledged the profit and the 
 necessity of occasional fasting, both as the natural ex- 
 pression of an inward sorrow, and also as a wholesome 
 exercise for subduing the law of the flesh which is in 
 our members. 
 
 Properly speaking, then, fasting is not so much a 
 duty enjoined by revelation, as it is the natural expres- 
 sion of certain religious feelings and desires. There is 
 but one special fast appointed in the Old Testament, and 
 there is none at all ordained in the New. Yet one can- 
 not fail to see that this exercise is nevertheless quite in 
 accordance with the whole tenor of a true, religious life 
 in all ages ; and that, if it is not expressly commanded, 
 
196 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 it is only because nature itself teacheth us, in certain 
 circumstances, thus to afflict the soul. These circum- 
 stances, which would obviously suggest this exercise, 
 are twofold. 
 
 First, fasting is the natural expression of grief ; and, 
 therefore, the natural accompaniment of godly sorrow. 
 When the mind is afflicted with any overwhelming 
 anxiety, or pain, — when, for example, sore sickness is in 
 the house, and the heart trembles for any of those whom 
 it fondly loves ; or when death has visited the once happy 
 fireside with some bitter bereavement ; at such a time 
 the soul loathes its wonted daily bread, and will not be 
 tempted by delicacies ; yea, rather revolts at the very 
 thought of them. And up to a certain point this is 
 surely right and good. It is a mistaken kindness that 
 presses dainties on the heart, when it has no appetite 
 for aught but its sorrow. Better let it have its fill of 
 grief, — better every way for body and for mind. Nature 
 bids the mourner fast, and for a season it is well ; there- 
 fore press not, with officious kindness, needless food on 
 him who is feeding on his sorrow. And exactly in the 
 same way a profound spiritual grief will express itself 
 in a holy fast. I do not know that such grief is very 
 common among us. Our spiritual emotions are some- 
 what shallow, alas ! and apt to evaporate in wordy excla 
 mations, nowise disturbing fleshly appetite. But days 
 have been when it was far otherwise ; and men have 
 been to whom a spiritual sorrow, or bereavement, was 
 quite as real and intense and agonizing as any natural 
 affliction. And, ah ! if we did but feel aright the ex- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCEEITY. 197 
 
 ceeding sinfulness of sin, and the anguisli of being be- 
 reaved of the light of God's countenance, and the pain 
 of losing the sense of his indwelling grace and help and 
 joy, then would such a sorrow most naturally express 
 itself in fasting as well as prayer, for the bridegroom is 
 gone, and the time is surely come for the children of 
 the bride-chamber to fast and afflict the soul. It would 
 be natural surely to feel under such a grief the indiffer- 
 ence and even loathing, which we have all felt for daily 
 bread when some great sorrow was saddening the 
 heart. And it would nol only be natural, it would 
 also be good. For when we consider how hard it is to 
 feel, as we ought to feel, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, 
 how blunt and dull our conscience is apt to become, and 
 how the comforting of our bodies forms a sort of cushion 
 on which the soul rests and feels at ease, I think we 
 cannot but conclude that it would be a wholesome 
 exercise to fast from food, as well as from sin, for a 
 season, in order to quicken our higher sensibilities. 
 Spiritual sorrow, then, suggests, and is the better of, 
 this exercise of fasting. But 
 
 Second, fasting is also a wise method for keeping 
 down the law of the flesh which is in our members. 
 It is true that no one, no right-thinking Christian, 
 hateth his body, but loveth and cherisheth it, even as 
 the Lord the Church. The ascetic spirit which 
 prompted so many in the early ages of the Church 
 to flee from the habitations of men, thinking that 
 thereby they were forsaking the world, and to live, if 
 life it could be called, in cells and dens, and hermit- 
 
198 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, 
 
 ages and desert places ; squalid, wretched, filthy, deny- 
 ing themselves not the luxuries only, or comforts, but the 
 very necessaries of a cleanly and healthy existence ; 
 that was altogether a false view of Christian fasting, not 
 only unprofitable, but verily pernicious. Many, indeed, 
 of those, especially of the earlier class, who indulged in 
 such practices, were animated by the highest motives, 
 and were truly seeking after Qod ; — far different men 
 from the hypocrites who, in later years, pretended to 
 follow their example. But still they were mistaken 
 men, who looked on the body as properly the seat and 
 origin of sin, — yea, as in itself a wicked thing, tainted 
 with moral poison which could only be purged out of 
 it by extreme mortification of the flesh. And, alas ! 
 they could not escape from sin by any kind of bodily 
 exercise. Laceration and maceration of the flesh still 
 left the carnal man, with some change, perhaps, in the 
 direction of his passions, yet almost as decidedly as ever 
 inclined to all ungodliness. Still, brethren, while that 
 is true, and while we cannot depart from evil by merely 
 mortifying our members, yet there is something to be 
 done also in that way, so that we may not be led into 
 temptation. Fasting is a wholesome accompaniment 
 of prayer ; for a pampered body is apt to make an easy 
 and careless soul. Indulgence strengthens its appetites. 
 Abundance weakens the sense of dependence. Fulness 
 of bread works often leanness of souh There is so close a 
 connexion between body and mind that the state of the 
 one inevitably reacts on the state of the other; and there- 
 fore occasional fasting is good to keep down the impulse 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 199 
 
 of the flesh from warring against the aspiration of the 
 spirit. The poor, who have a perpetual Lent, may not 
 require this so much as those whose table is full ; and 
 therefore it was wise not to lay down rigid and univer- 
 sal rules for it. But rich and poor will be the better of 
 a fast now and then, to mortify the flesh, to weaken the 
 incentives to evil, to subdue in some measure the carnal 
 nature, and give freer play and power to the spiritual 
 man within. For when we pray, ' Lead us not into 
 temptation,' it will be well to remember that our temp- 
 tations often come from a soft and luxurious habit, from 
 a pampered and much-indulged body, which therefore 
 it is fit to mortify, so as to weaken the springs and sug- 
 gestions of evil. So Paul says, ' I keep my body under 
 subjection ;' and so the Lord, when he was led by the 
 Spirit to be tempted, kept his long fast of forty days in 
 the wilderness. 
 
 Such, then, are the circumstances which will naturally 
 call the man of God to this exercise. A profound 
 spiritual sorrow will suggest, or rather constrain a fast, 
 and a practical effort to keep the body under subjection 
 will lead not only to temperance in all things, but also 
 to occasional abstinence altogether from food. But such 
 being the case, — this duty being thus left, without any 
 special legislation on the subject, to the inward impulse 
 and spiritual want of the soul, — any pretence to fast, 
 where there was no real sorrow, and no desire to subdue 
 the flesh, was a most gratuitous mockery of holy things. 
 Ostentatious almsgiving might be worthless enough in 
 the sight of God, yet some of the poor might profit by 
 
200 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 its charities. Ostentatious prayer was hollow and 
 profitless, but at least there was a command that all 
 men should pray ; and to appearance that command 
 was obeyed. But pretentious fasting could advantage no 
 one, and had no excuse of a Divine injunction ; it was 
 simply, and in a most revolting way, a mockery of God 
 in order to win the good opinion of men. This was 
 what the hypocrites did, knowing that popular feeling 
 was ready to ascribe peculiar sanctity to those who 
 gave up fleshly delights and indulgences. They had fre- 
 quent fasts, at least to all outward appearance, — coming 
 before the world with a sad visage, clothed in sackcloth, 
 and scattering ashes on their head, as the custom was 
 in Israel when one was stricken with an overwhelming 
 grief But at heart they had no godly sorrow, no 
 mourning for sin, no longing after God, no desire to 
 keep down the flesh; and in reality they indemnified 
 themselves, for their public discomforts, by a more 
 abundant private indulgence. Their fasting was all a 
 hypocritical pretence, to be seen of men, to get the re- 
 putation of superlative goodness, to be honoured as the 
 chosen and peculiar people. Of course this result 
 they very generally secured, for man judgeth by the 
 outward appearance ; and that was their reward. He 
 that seeth the heart, however, knew their utter insin- 
 cerity ; and as we turn with loathing from any one 
 who affects an exceeding sorrow, when we know that 
 in his very soul he is exulting in the profit which 
 is to accrue to him, so did Jesus revolt from those 
 hypocrites who rent their garments while their hearts 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 201 
 
 were quite whole ; for it hardens the heart, and it 
 sears the conscience, and it deadens all our better 
 nature, thus to traffic in sacred things for very worldly 
 gain. 
 
 In clear and marked opposition to this Pharisaic 
 spirit, then, our Lord counsels his people — 
 
 1. That their fasting must be real, sincere, genuine, a 
 thing to be seen, not of men, but of God. Let me en- 
 treat you, brethren, once more, ere leaving this part of 
 the sermon, to lay this matter of sincerity faithfully to 
 heart. Ah ! we do many things for appearances, and 
 frankly avow it, and even counsel others to do so. Nor 
 do I deny that in things indifferent, concerning which I 
 may claim liberty to myself, it may yet be expedient 
 to have respect to the opinions and even prejudices of 
 the world, and not needlessly to invoke its dislike. But 
 while there is undeniably a limited sphere in which it 
 is well to have a prudent consideration for appearances, 
 yet let us beware how we give place to that feeling, for 
 it is apt to become a snare, and to encroach on those 
 regions of duty where God should be all in all. Nothing 
 more effectually saps and undermines the spirituality of 
 religion, and the heroism of faith, than to be always 
 shaping and modifying our conduct by the opinion of 
 men, and to gain their favourable verdict. There may 
 be no conscious hypocrisy in such conduct. It may 
 arise only from a habitual and not unnatural anxiety to 
 gain their good- will in all things. But it is apt to ex- 
 tend its influence ever more and more, until it become 
 the leading motive of our lives, eating out the truth and 
 
202 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT.. 
 
 sincerity of our hearts, and turning all our conduct into 
 a liollow regard for appearances. The man who would 
 retain the integrity of his heart, brethren, will, as far as 
 possible, put out of view all considerations of that kind, 
 and do all things as in the sight of God, resolved to be 
 found sincere and true in His eyes. For if there is a 
 thing to be dreaded as utterly destructive of all true 
 religion, and all moral worth, and all acceptance with 
 God, it is the spirit of insincerity. Whatever is not 
 real and heartfelt is most abhorrent to the Lord, and as 
 the heart is naturally prone to deceit, we ought to be 
 specially on our guard against every plea, and every 
 custom which tends in any measure to weaken the 
 high-toned earnestness and truth of our lives. Let us 
 take heed, then, how we act for the sake of appearances, 
 or how we virge others to act from that motive, for 
 human nature is always ready enough to fall into that 
 line of conduct, and to yield itself to tlie influence of 
 such arguments, until gradually they gain the complete 
 sway over our actions, and nothing is done honestly for 
 God, but all to win favour of men. And even although 
 a stern sincerity of soul may sometimes look harsh and 
 unconciliating, yet is there infinitely more safety in it, 
 and more nobleness and power in it, than in the feeble 
 compliance in which we are so apt to indulge for the 
 sake of men, and which, alas ! so often leads to utter 
 hypocrisy of heart. See then that ye are true in all 
 things ; and, for that end, do all things not as in the 
 sight of man, but as in the sight of God. And surely 
 when ye fast, ye will not be as the hypocrites, but 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 203 
 
 will exercise yourselves as becomes those who are 
 mourning after a godly sort, or who are striving to keep 
 the body under subjection, and to mortify the law of 
 sin which is in your members. 
 
 2. But further, I apprehend that our Lord means 
 here to say that fasting in the Christian Church should 
 be altogether private, and even secret, not only not in 
 order to be seen of men, but absolutely hidden from 
 them. That this may appear clearly, you will note 
 that no periodic fasts are appointed in the new cove- 
 nant, not even an equivalent for the Jewish day of 
 atonement. The whole matter is left to the personal 
 regulation of individual Christians. We do not even 
 read that the apostles, or the presbyters ever ordained 
 a fast to be kept in the primitive Church. And the 
 duty being thus left to be ordered exclusively by the 
 wants and feelings of each believer, all that our Lord 
 enjoins on the subject, is that, when his people do fast, 
 they are not to wear a sad countenance, but to wash and i 
 anoint themselves as usual, and wear the cheerful ap- 
 pearance of their common life. Thus there is ajDOsitive 
 forbidding of display in this matter; and even a p ositive 
 injunction of the reverse. In prayer, the Christian was 
 told to go into his closet, and to shut the door of it ; but 
 in fasting, he is to go somewhat beyond that unostenta- 
 tious line of conduct, — for it is rather to be carefully con- 
 cealed from men, by the washing and anointing of a 
 cheerful countenance. And the reason of this differ- 
 ence is, I think, that Jesus wants his people to present 
 religion in the light of a happy and joyful life, and not 
 
204 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 to revolt men from it by a harsh and ascetic severity. 
 It is true, indeed, that men wlio wore a sad counte- 
 nance, and denied themselves bodily comforts, living 
 much in squalor and wretchedness, got credit for a 
 peculiar amount of piety. But they did not commend 
 a religious life in that way. People praised them, but 
 would not join them. They were esteemed superlatively 
 religious, but few chose to copy them. Their credit, in 
 short, brought discredit on God's service. Men shrunk 
 from it, while they admired it. Now it is the very 
 reverse of this which Jesus wants to cherish. He 
 would have his people seek no credit for themselves. He 
 would have them also to commend the gospel to others. 
 Hence, while their own spiritual life may, and ought to 
 lead them at times to fasting and bitterness of soul. He 
 bids them practically conceal such exercises, as being 
 indeed profitable for them, but rather injurious to the 
 great cause, by presenting it in a light from which 
 many would naturally shrink. Religion does not con- 
 sist in a sour visage and a morose habit. Nay more, 
 religion is not properly a sorrowful thing. The gospel 
 is not sad tidings, but glad tidings to all mankind. 
 And we are not acting fairly by it, unless we strive so to 
 present it, in all its winning and attractive beauty, that 
 men shall be led to seek after Jesus. And if any one 
 say that this is, in reality, to counsel a kind of quasi- 
 hypocrisy, to bid men affect a happiness which at heart 
 they do not feel, I might reply that there are many cir- 
 custances where such conduct is hot only justifiable, 
 but highly to be commended. Thus, for example, in 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCEKITY. 205 
 
 the midst of danger, he that has charge and responsi- 
 bility in the matter, though quite conscious of the peril, 
 will wear as cheerful an aspect as possible ; for if he 
 give way to despondency, he may cause a panic among 
 the ignorant, which will very greatly increase the evil. 
 His duty clearly is to be as calm and hopeful and 
 cheerful as he may. It is one thing to pretend a sorrow 
 which you do not feel, in order to win the good opinion 
 of men, and a very different thing to put on a cheerful- 
 ness which you hardly feel, in order to save men from 
 greater evil. The one is a selfish hypocrisy ; the other 
 is a mask of love. But though I might thus fairly 
 enough deal with such an objection, I am not shut up 
 to that course. For I assert that, with all its sorrows 
 and with all its trials, and with all its needful fastings, 
 the life of faith is really and absolutely a life of joy un- 
 speakable and full of glory. It is no pretence to wear 
 the cheerful face of him who hath washed and anointed 
 himself; it is no mere amiable hypocrisy to present 
 vital godliness in the light of true happiness ; it is 
 verily true, and verily our duty so to show it, for in 
 the deepest and most real sense of it, it is a happier thing 
 even to suffer affliction with the children of God than 
 to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Christianity 
 has its godly sorrow, has its heart-grief for sin, has its 
 fasting and mortifying of the flesh ; yet we do it utter 
 injustice, unless we also make it appear that it is, taken 
 as a whole, the only true blessedness and peace and joy, 
 the only walk with God which is gladness everlast- 
 ing. Therefore, ' when thou fastest, be not as the 
 
206 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 hypocrites are, who put on a sad countenance.' "Who 
 hath such reason to be joyful as you ? Your sins are 
 forgiven ; your souls are justified ; your offering is 
 accepted ; your life is guided and shielded by the 
 Lord. ' Wash ye and anoint ye, then, with the oil of 
 gladness.' 
 
 ' When ye fast,' the Lord says, not enjoining it, but 
 assuming that ye do it, because ye feel the need of it in 
 your spiritual life. But is that really the case ? Is it 
 not, on the contrary, fallen quite obsolete among us ? 
 We have the name; nay, we have appointed fasts, when 
 nobody does fast ; and I do not care much for the 
 neglect of such, seeing that our Lord and his apostles 
 ordained no such special occasions. But does our inner 
 life from its felt necessities ever prompt us to this exer- 
 cise ? Do our spiritual anxieties ever fill us with such 
 godly sorrow that, as at a time of natural grief, we make 
 no account of wonted luxuries and comforts of the 
 flesh ? Does the sense of sin, still abiding in our mem- 
 bers, ever call us to use this weapon of our warfare, and 
 strive to mortify our members, and to keep the body 
 under subjection? Do we ever really fast, not to be seen 
 of men, not in hypocritical pretence, not in self-righteous 
 affliction of the flesh, but because it is really a portion 
 of the needful and wholesome discipline by which the 
 strength of temptation is in some measure restrained, 
 and the conflict lightened between the flesli and the 
 spirit ? In this view, brethren, I beseech you to look 
 at the matter, and to consider whetlier we have 
 not all of us failed in this duty, and put our souls 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SINCERITY. 207 
 
 in consequence to a disadvantage, whereby the better 
 life is weak and faint and ready to die. When 
 ye fast, then, be not as the hypocrites are, but do the 
 work, in truth, as unto God and not as unto men, 
 because ye are truly sorrowing for sin, and because 
 ye are faithfully striving to keep the body under 
 subjection. 
 
208 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 
 
 ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth 
 and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : 
 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth 
 nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through 
 nor steal : for where your treasure is, there will your heart be 
 a/so.'— Matt. vi. 19-21. 
 
 The third division of this Sermon on the Mount, be- 
 ginning at ver. 1 9 and going on to the end of this chap- 
 ter, has for its object to show that the law of God must 
 be fulfilled by avoiding a worldly spirit, with its cares 
 and fears, and by seeking with our whole heart the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness. It is the 
 heavenly mind with its trust, as opposed to the worldly 
 mind "with its anxiety, that He strives here to inculcate. 
 Obviously, therefore, the idea of Faith lies at the root 
 of this part of the discourse — faith in things spiritual, 
 faith in God's fatherly care, that ' faith which is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 unseen.' And this He enforces under three different 
 views : — First, He exhorts his followers to lay up 
 treasures not in earth, but in heaven ; tliat is to say. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 209 
 
 he would fain have them to believe in, and to set their 
 hearts on, those unseen realities which are so apt to be 
 pushed aside by the things of sense, the perishable 
 riches of this passing world : secondly, He warns them 
 against being ensnared by the temptation of trying to 
 secure both the riches of this world, and those treasures 
 which never fade ; that is to say, He would fain have 
 them give their hearts' undivided faith and allegiance 
 to God, for if they seek to serve both God and mam- 
 mon, they will lose that singleness of eye which is the 
 light of life : thirdly. He entreats them to put away 
 their cares and anxieties, seeing that He who cares for 
 the birds and the lilies would surely provide for them 
 those things which are needful ; that is to say. He 
 would fain have them trust in their heavenly Father 
 who, more than any earthly father, loveth and clierisheth 
 his children. And here I cannot help thinking that the 
 passage beginning with the 7th, and ending with the 
 11th verse of next chapter, has in some way been dis- 
 placed, for it seems very clearly to belong to this part 
 of the sermon. Nothing could be more natural than to 
 follow up the exhortation, ' Take no thought for to- 
 morrow,' with the further concluding advice, ' Ask, and 
 it shall be given to you ;' and to enforce the great lesson 
 of faith by the exquisite parable, ' What man is there 
 among you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give 
 him a stone ? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a ser- 
 pent ?' Thus the third division of the sermon calls us 
 to obey the law by faith in things unseen, and faith 
 towards God as our Father in heaven. 
 
 
 
210 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Let US now look at the first part of this exhortation, 
 ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.' In 
 order to understand precisely the terms used here, it 
 will be well to remember what formed in those Eastern 
 countries the cherished treasures of the people, and how 
 in troubled times they sought eagerly to preserve them. 
 Wlien we speak of treasures, we commonly refer simply 
 to money which is the symbol of all value among us ; 
 and though, of course, it is liable to be stolen, the idea 
 of corrupting moth or rust has no bearing on such pos- 
 sessions. But the treasures of the East consisted, not 
 of gold and silver and jewels only, but of precious gar- 
 ments and garnered corn. Unlike our modern customs, 
 which delight in change, so that raiment, when it is 
 worn but a few times, is cast aside as useless, it is 
 the way in the East to hoard rich and costly apparel, 
 used only on great occasions, and handed down from 
 father to son, not as heirlooms merely, but truly as part 
 of the family estate. Gold and raiment and corn, 
 therefore, all entered into their idea of treasures ; and 
 in such troubled countries, so frequently overrun by 
 incursions of predatory hordes who made war not so 
 much for conquest as for booty, it was a frequent 
 anxiety with the householder to know how best to con- 
 ceal his possessions. Burying them in tlie earth, was 
 therefore a common resource, but, however hidden, they 
 were liable to perish and decay. The thief threatened 
 the gold and silver ; the moth threatened tlie splendid 
 robe ; and the rust threatened the corn ; and if they 
 were safest when buried, they were also of least service ; 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 2 1 1 
 
 for one might almost be as well witlioiit them alto- 
 gether. Hence, the terms of our Lord's exhortation, 
 ' Lay not up treasures on earth, where moth and rust 
 do corrupt, and thieves break through to steal.' 
 
 Our Lord then warns his people against hoarding 
 up the treasures of this world, and under that term he 
 embraces obviously all earthly j)ossessions whatsoever, 
 whether gold or jewels, or lands or garments, or books 
 or pictures, or food, or aught that is esteemed of value 
 among us. There can be no doubt that his words 
 apply to all kinds of property ; and, taken by them- 
 selves, they seem to forbid the accumulation of any sort 
 of possessions, lest our hearts should be entangled in 
 their snares. Hence some have represented the Lord 
 Jesus as one of those simple and high-minded, but 
 ignorant enthusiasts, who, in striving to raise men 
 above the gross and sensual pleasures of life, and to 
 make them better and worthier of their high calling, 
 fall into the opposite and common mistake of regard- 
 ing wealth, and all that wealth can secure of graceful 
 and intellectual enjoyment, as in themselves wrong and 
 wicked and to be carefully avoided. He would reduce, 
 say they, all men to the same level of poverty, so that 
 they might set their affections exclusively on things 
 above. And then they argue that, even if this could 
 secure a greater heavenly-mindedness, which is by no 
 means certain, for the poor are in their own way just as 
 worldly as the rich, yet it would be a gospel at war 
 with the laws of progress, and destructive of the noblest 
 arts and triumphs of civilisation. For, if there ought 
 
2 1 2 THE SEKMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 to be no accumulation of wealth, it is obvious that 
 neither can there be any of those great undertakings 
 which depend almost entirely on a ready command of 
 capital. Our roads and railways, opening up the re- 
 sources of the world for man's behoof; our farms and 
 merchandise, supplying the wants of myriads of human 
 beings ; to say nothing of stately edifice and beautiful 
 picture, so refining and elevating, however perishable, — 
 all of them were impossible, unless there were immense 
 accumulations of wealth. Moreover, it is one of the 
 economic laws of nature, which too are laws of God, 
 that industry will be fruitful, and must gather treasures. 
 Men neither can, nor ought to spend, as fast as they 
 make money; and without trying to hoard it, they 
 cannot help increasing it even more by circulation than 
 they could by saving. And thus they argue themselves 
 into a belief that our Lord's word here is a well-meant, 
 but unwise saying, opposed to natural economic laws, 
 injurious to the progress and well-being of society, and, 
 even if it were practicable, far from certain to secure 
 the object He had in view ; for though all the world 
 were as poor as the poorest now are, they would, in all 
 likelihood, be just as little heavenly-minded as if coffer 
 and barn were full to overflow. 
 
 Now all these objections would be fair and reason- 
 able, if they did not proceed on an entire misunder- 
 standing of our Lord's meaning. And here let me re- 
 mind you tliat Jesus, in order to secure the attention 
 of his hearers, was accustomed often to express his 
 niind in brief and picturesque aphorisms, and even in 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 213 
 
 startling paradoxes, which were not to be taken liter- 
 ally, but in their spirit, and. as explained by the gene- 
 ral drift of his teaching. He was not afraid to speak 
 such things, because he felt that no honest and true 
 mind would really misunderstand his meaning ; and as 
 for those who were false and dishonest, alas ! they mis- 
 interpreted him at every turn, and would have done so, 
 let him be as guarded as he might. Bearing that in mind, 
 let me say that our Lord, while He proclaimed glad tid- 
 ings to the poor, and, on the whole, regarded their snares 
 and difficulties as less dangerous than those that beset 
 the rich, — for which reason He said 'that it was as hard 
 for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as for a 
 camel to pass through the eye of a needle,' — yet, in 
 reality, never denounced wealth, or warred against pro- 
 perty, or required the mass of his followers to enter 
 into voluntary poverty. His apostles, indeed, and the 
 seventy disciples, were required to have neither purse 
 nor scrip ; and there was reason in that, seeing that 
 they had a life before them which inevitably involved 
 severe trials and hardships, which therefore it was best 
 to face at once, and to lessen the sense of hardship by 
 a voluntary renunciation of earthly possessions. But 
 Jesus never demanded of his few rich followers that 
 they should follow this example. Zaccheus was left to 
 do with his ill-got wealth as conscience prompted, 
 Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, and probably 
 therefore a man of substance ; but though he needed to 
 be born again, there is no word of his being required 
 to take vows of poverty. Of the various women who 
 ministered to him, Susannah was wife of Herod's 
 
2 1 4 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 steward, and therefore a person of some rank in the 
 state ; nor was she ever forced to give np her place or 
 possessions. Altogether, it is clear that the sort of 
 levelling theories which are sometimes ascribed to Jesus, 
 had no foundation in fact, and therefore arguments 
 against them fall to the ground. They never were ob- 
 jected to Him in his own day, however ready his ene- 
 mies were to avail themselves of everything to his 
 disadvantage. And indeed they are utterly opposed to 
 the whole idea of his teaching, which was to cure the 
 evils of the world by changing men's hearts, not by mere 
 outward arrangements. His social reforms were all to 
 begin in spiritual regeneration, therefore it was not 
 property he warred against, but the love of it ; it was 
 not capital he opposed, but worldliness. When He said, 
 ' Lay not up treasures on earth,' he did not mean that 
 there was anything wrong in possessing such things ; 
 the wrong was in setting our hearts on obtaining them. 
 It was not wicked in a family to have goodly apparel 
 transmitted from sire to son ; but to make the getting, 
 or keeping of such things our great concern, was to 
 neglect the better part. There was nothing sinful 
 in having a garner full of corn, to supply daily need ; 
 but it was wrong to give themselves to that, as if that 
 were the one great object of existence. As little was 
 there any evil in the natural accumulation of gold ; but 
 He would not have men to regard that as the main end 
 of life ; and when, nevertheless, it did accrue to them, 
 He would have said, with the Psalmist, ' If riches in- 
 crease, set not your hearts upon them.' 
 
 Thus it appears that this word of Christ's, and others 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 215 
 
 of a similar character, whicli He spake on other occa- 
 sions, did not mean literally to forbid the natural accu- 
 mulation of capital and property, which certainly would 
 have placed the gospel in opposition to some of the 
 laws of social progress. And that it did not so mean, 
 is further proved by the fact that, in reality, the civili- 
 sation of the modern world keeps pace with the ad- 
 vance of the Christian faith ; and those countries in 
 which the gospel is upheld in greatest purity, and 
 manifests its greatest living power, are precisely those 
 wliich are most signally known for their successful pro- 
 secution of all honest industry. I am far indeed from 
 saying that in those lands this command of our Lord's 
 is not frequently neglected. Of course it is, as we 
 all know to our shame. There are many among us 
 whose one concern it is to lay up corruptible treasures ; 
 but there are also many who are as earnest to secure 
 the heavenly inheritance, and who do obey the law of 
 the Lord, and yet do also increase in wealth. And this 
 shows that true Christianity is not a system of artifi- 
 cial poverty, but a spiritual unworldliness. that we 
 only, one and all of us, learnt the great lesson, and 
 understood what is the true riches, and set ourselves to 
 secure them. For it is the right direction of the heart 
 that Christ wants to determine, seeing that ' where our 
 treasure is there will our heart be also.' He does not 
 aim at reducing all to a dead-level of poverty ; He does 
 not assert that, if such an object could be secured, 
 men would be so much the more heavenly-minded. 
 What He wants is that we should begin at once to seek 
 
216 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 those things which are above, instead of making it onr 
 great concern to gather gold and silver and apparel. 
 He would have faith in the things that are unseen, for 
 if we start aright in life, believing in tliese, and seeking 
 them, then shall our hearts be where our treasure is. 
 But alas ! instead of that, how common is it to find 
 men, professedly Christian men too, who are only and 
 altogether engrossed with the eager activities of secular 
 aggrandizement, planning, scheming, getting, gaining, 
 with hardly ever a thought for aught above the perish- 
 able treasures of a perishable world. Perhaps they 
 justify this to themselves by saying that, in the crush 
 of passionate and even reckless competition, they would 
 inevitably be driven to the wall, unless they bent their 
 whole energies, and gave their whole minds to the task. 
 Bat that, after all, is only a plausible excuse, for when 
 any other object seems to be desirable, when, for ex- 
 ample, ambition comes to allure them, they easily find 
 time and thought and strength, amid all their avoca- 
 tions, to secure its coveted prizes. Or perliaps they 
 allow that it is wrong to neglect their higher eter- 
 nal interests, but plead in their own minds, at least, for 
 a little while, just to secure a little competency, and 
 freedom from worrying anxieties, after which they pur- 
 pose to give themselves rest, and to deal with these 
 weightier concerns as they deserve to be dealt with. 
 But having given the foremost place to tlie trea- 
 sures of this earth, the more these accumulate the 
 stronger hold they get. Having been careful to gather a 
 little, they become doubly careful now to keep it, or to 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 2 1 7 
 
 increase it. Where their treasures are, there is their 
 heart also. Wealth, with the pleasures it can purchase, 
 and the honours and influence it secures for them, and 
 the refinements and comforts with which it surrounds 
 them, these get firm possession of their minds by count- 
 less threads of feeling, and rivets of habit, not to be ,torn 
 asimder without some terrible wrench ; and any better 
 purposes they may have once cherished, or any sad re- 
 grets they may have once known, are by and by silenced 
 and forgotten as the soul takes its ease in the multi- 
 tude of its possessions. Brethren, all this may appear 
 to you somewhat commonplace moralizing on a worldly 
 spirit. But is it not true, deplorably true ? Is it not a 
 thing familiar to you all, that when men begin life, as 
 many do begin it, having for their great object to gather 
 the treasures of this world, their hearts are thus seized 
 hold of, and absorbed by the passionate craving for 
 much, and for still more, till everything else is practi- 
 cally swept out of view, and God and Christ and eter- 
 nity are lost in the golden mist that envelops and 
 blinds the soul ? And this is unquestionably the 
 special besetting snare of a great commercial city like 
 this, where fortunes are so often rapidly accumulated, 
 and where too there is almost nothing else to compete 
 in interest witli the successful prosecution of gain ; so 
 that here, if anywhere, however familiar and common- 
 place, it is needful to reiterate the earnest word of the 
 Lord, ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, 
 where motli and rust do corrupt, for where your treasure 
 is there shall your heart be also.' 
 
218 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Now, the special reason given here for inculcating 
 this lesson, is that 'moth and rust corrupt them, and 
 thieves break through to steal.' These treasures are 
 precarious at the best, and perishable certainly in the 
 long-run. Brethren, this is not the only reason why 
 we ought not to set our affections on such possessions. 
 Perhaps, in a sense, it is not the highest reason ; but it 
 is one which it was surely fitting for Christ to use along 
 with others. It would be a mistake, it would be alto- 
 gether unfair to the gospel, to represent it as urging men 
 to forsake worldliness, only because of the transitory 
 nature of the world's best treasures. In another place, 
 our Lord reminds us that they are sadly unsatisfactory — 
 broken cisterns that cannot quench the thirst and long- 
 ing of the soul. In the verses immediately succeeding, 
 He tells us that the pursuit of such things makes the 
 eye evil, and the whole body full of darkness; implying 
 doubtless, among other things, that when our hearts are 
 set only or chiefly on the possessions of this world, that 
 will exercise a degrading and deteriorating and, as it 
 were, blinding influence upon us, so that we shall no 
 more walk as children of the light, but verily as 
 children of the darkness. And that would embrace 
 the common argument of philosophers against worldli- 
 ness, viz., that it is not worthy a being so richly gifted, 
 and that it miserably impairs the spiritual nobility of 
 man. Now, these and other arguments are all valid, 
 and should all be laid to heart, and are all scriptural 
 and true. You shall not find real satisfaction in those 
 treasures, but rather in the long-run they will mock you 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 219 
 
 with a too late conviction of their hollowness and 
 vanity. And it is altogether unworthy of a creature, 
 fitted to hold high converse with God and truth and all 
 that is most elevating and divine, to degrade himself 
 to mean pursuits whose highest fruits are a little meat 
 and drink, and mouth-honour and vain display. But 
 allowing the force of these and all similar consi- 
 derations, I would also press on you this further 
 consideration, that ' the moth and rust doth corrupt, 
 and the thief breaks through to steal ' such treasures. 
 Brethren, had the Lord omitted to warn us of the tran- 
 sitory nature of those things. He would not have shown 
 either the kindness, or the wisdom which He did uni- 
 formly display. Were Ave left to go on accumulating 
 riches, and getting our hearts more and more bound up 
 in them, so that our whole hopes and existence really 
 depended on their security, and were we some day to 
 find all the splendid structure of our plans and purposes 
 and enjoyments fallen crash to the earth, overthrown, 
 say, by one of the many vicissitudes of commercial life, 
 or by the base roguery of some dishonest and trusted 
 friend, might we not reasonably complain that we 
 ought to have been warned that such an event was pos- 
 sible, and that it was unkind and unfair to let us go on, 
 gathering and garnering and giving our whole heart to 
 these treasures, without one hint being given to us that 
 we might lose in a moment all the fruits of our labour, 
 and be stript of all on which our happiness did rest ? 
 Such a complaint, in such circumstances, would have 
 been natural and right. But the Lord is too kind and 
 
220 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 good tlius to leave us unprepared. He does not indeed 
 ask us to lay up treasures in heaven, because, on a selfish 
 calculation of profit and loss, that will be found the wisest 
 course, seeing that other treasures are at once precarious 
 and perishing. That is a wrong way of putting the 
 matter, frequently adopted by those who would fain de- 
 preciate the value of every gospel lesson. But knowing 
 that earthly treasures do fade and pass away. He most 
 kindly and mercifully warns us not to lay up for our- 
 selves sure disappointment and regret ; and as I have 
 said, He would not have been the kind and faithful 
 master that he is, if he had not thus put us on our guard. 
 I beseech you therefore, brethren, to lay his good word 
 to heart, and set not your affections on the things which 
 are seen, for the ' things which are seen are temporal.' 
 Eiclies take wings any moment. Honours are but 
 breath, and like breath they dissolve. A sudden collapse 
 in the market may sweep your all away; and what, if 
 your heart and only hope are swept away with it? And 
 even if human affairs were not so precarious as they 
 certainly are, still the things seen are temporal. One day 
 or other, we must part with them all ; one day or other, 
 death, like a nipping winter, shall wither all the glorious 
 beauty of earth, which is but as a fading flower. And 
 what, then, if we have nought else to look to, nought 
 else to lean on, nought else to joy in, nought else to 
 hope for; and the soul, torn from its envied riches, 
 stands beggared for ever before the wealth and the glory 
 of God ? Surely it will be well, now while it is yet 
 time, to give heed to the good word of the Lord, ' Lay 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 221 
 
 not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth 
 and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break through 
 to steal.' 
 
 Now, by the laying up of treasures in heaven I 
 understand the pursuit not of things carnal, but 
 spiritual. It is to set our hearts on obtaining the 
 knowledge and wisdom, the virtues and graces of God's 
 true sons. It is to seek moral worth and truth and 
 love above all possessions and honours of this world. 
 It is to labour to do good rather than to get profit of 
 any kind ; for such good works are kept in God's 
 treasury carefully. Or to sum up all in one word, it 
 is ' to win Christ and be found in him ' and He in us ; 
 for the indwelling of Christ is verily a possession for 
 ever, an inheritance that cannot be taken away. These 
 are imperishable treasures which you may lay up there 
 where moth and rust do not corrupt. There is One who 
 was rich, and for your sakes became poor, that ye through 
 his poverty might be made rich; One who loved you and 
 veiled his glory for you in robes of humiliation and shame ; 
 One who suffered for you and died for you, and now is 
 in heaven for you, the heir and administrator of all, and 
 in the possession of whom all the wealth and fulness of 
 God shall be yours. Get what else you may, your heart 
 wiU still be aching ; drink what else you may, your soul 
 will still be thirsting ; attain what else you may, all of 
 it will soon perish ; for it is all as short-lived as it is 
 unsatisfying. There is a time coming when all the gold 
 in the world will not purchase a breath to the nostrils, 
 or a beat of the pidse, or smooth the hard pillow of 
 
222 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 deatli, wliicL you would gladly give your all to secure. 
 But in that day, and the day after, when all this world 
 is nothing to you, if you have sought Him, the Lord your 
 righteousness, the Lord your life, the Lord the true 
 riches, then when all is lost, truly all is gained by you, 
 for the riches imperishable await you in the Lord. The 
 one grand concern for you, then, should be to get God's 
 unspeakable gift, to be in Christ, to obtain the spirit of 
 Christ, to abound in the grace of Christ, to be wholly 
 conformed to Christ. These are the treasures that 
 never fade. They are not something apart from you, 
 which can be taken away; they belong to character; they 
 pertain to your very innermost being, they are Christ in 
 you the hope of glory. These are the real treasures, 
 and they are eternal ; treasures of knowledge and wis- 
 dom, all hid in Christ ; riches of grace and peace, all 
 found in Christ. Oh to know Him, oh to win Him, oh 
 to be filled with all fulness of God ! Understand, then, 
 that these are the true wealth and glory of man ; and 
 then ' where your treasure is there shall your heart 
 be also.' 
 
 I beseech you, brethren, to give earnest heed to this 
 word of the Lord. I say earnest heed, for it will not 
 do just to hear it, and to allow that it is a good and 
 faithful saying, and then go your way. There is an 
 immense power exercised by the things of sense, a 
 manifold and Avidely-ramified influence of worldliness, 
 which is not to be overcome without most strenuous 
 and persevering effort. The things seen appear to the 
 natural man so real, their advantages so palpable, and 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 223 
 
 their insecurity and uncertainty are so easily cast into 
 shade, that ahnost instinctively, and from the very first 
 dawnings of intelligence, he begins to look to them as 
 the chief object of desire, the main end to be achieved. 
 So the mass and multitude are found rushing and 
 crowding and jostling each other on every avenue of 
 worldly promotion, thinking the great concern is to get 
 on, to increase wealth, and rise in the scale of social 
 estimation, no matter although all the higher nature is 
 deteriorating in the unworthy struggle ; no matter 
 although they find themselves not a bit happier or more 
 contented with their growing aggrandizement; no matter 
 although they know that by and by it will all pass from 
 them, and all the fruits of their labour perish to them for 
 ever. So forward and forcible then are these worldly 
 desires, that nothing but the most earnest effort will 
 really master them ; nothing but a vivid consciousness 
 of the infinite worth of the heavenly treasures will 
 enable us to contend against them. But 'this is the 
 victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.' 
 Let a man truly believe ; let him look to Christ, and 
 see in the glory of his poverty where the true riches lie ; 
 let him learn of Christ the transcendent w^orth of things 
 unseen and eternal ; let him walk and work along with 
 Christ, and by meekness and patience and truth, and 
 mercy to the erring, and love to all men and to God 
 above all, so let him lay up the treasures where moth and 
 lust do not corrupt, and no thief can break through to 
 steal ; so let him live by faith, and verily he should 
 overcome the world. 
 
224 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 
 
 ' The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye he single, 
 thy vjhole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy 
 ivhole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the liijht that is 
 in thee be darkness, hoio great is that darkness! No man 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. Ye 
 cannot serve God and mammon.' — Matt. vi. 22-24. 
 
 You will remember that the fundamental idea 
 of this part of our Lord's sermon is, that God's law 
 can only be fulfilled by faith, — faith in things unseen ; 
 faith, or patient reliance on God's fatherly care. This 
 He enforces, first, by exhorting us not to lay up treasures 
 on earth, but to have faith in the true riches, the things 
 spiritual which alone are eternal. He now goes on to 
 illustrate the same great essential truth, by warning us 
 against that divided allegiance which some try to give, 
 partly to God and partly to mammon, believing a little 
 in things spiritual, and a good deal in things temporal, 
 and striving if possible to secure them both. This, He 
 gives us to understand, is what no man can do ; this is 
 not to live by faith ; these two masters are iucom- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 225 
 
 patible ; this double service no man can achieve. If 
 we woiikl really live by faith, we must seek God only, 
 God wholly, God with all our heart. That is the drift, 
 then, of this part of the sermon. 
 
 But this truth is introduced by a striking and pro- 
 foundly expressive illustration in which, however, it 
 is at first somewhat difficult to trace the precise con- 
 nexion of idea : ' The light of the body is the eye ; but 
 if the eye be evil, the whole body is full of darkness.' 
 Now, what renders this figure rather difficult, is that it 
 appears to have a twofold reference, partly to what 
 precedes, and partly to what follows. The eye may be 
 rendered evil either by looking to the things which are 
 seen only, or by the effort to serve both God and mam- 
 mon. The illustration is equally applicable to the 
 worldly-minded whose treasures are all on earth, or 
 to the double-minded who would fain secure both the 
 spiritual and the temporal riches. It will need there- 
 fore a little explanation so that we may clearly grasp 
 the whole idea. 
 
 The light of the body, Christ says, is the eye ; not of 
 itself indeed, for if it were surrounded by darkness, it 
 would roll its sightless orbs to no purpose. But it is 
 the organ of light, — a window curiously and cunningly 
 fashioned, through which impressions are conveyed to 
 the mind, and out of which the soul looks abroad upon 
 the world. Without it, all the pictured scenery of 
 earth would be to us as if it had no existence ; and the 
 sun would shine in vain around our steps, and the fields 
 would spread their beauties around us all in vain. In 
 
 p 
 
226 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 that sense, the light of the body is the eye ; but not in 
 that sense only. Not merely does the external light 
 find its way to the mind through the eye ; but the 
 mind also, which has a light of its own, sends forth 
 through the eye the light that is in it. I wish you to 
 note this last point, because it is chiefly on this fact 
 that the illustration rests. The light without us passes 
 through the eye ; but the light within us also beams 
 through the same organ. Love kindles there its tender 
 watch-lamp, and wrath also flashes its angry glances 
 there. The pure heart beams forth in its honest look, 
 the base lust also shows there its lewd fire. The clear 
 understanding meets you with a steadfast gaze there, 
 and folly also blinks and glimmers in the eye. In this 
 twofold sense, the light of the body is the eye ; if it be 
 healthy and sound, the forms and colours of the ex- 
 ternal world become, by its means, visible to the mind, 
 and, in like manner, it exhibits the emotions and pas- 
 sions and desires of the innermost soul. 
 
 Now, this inward light mightily influences our vision 
 of that on which we look, and makes the eye good or 
 evil, in proportion as it is true or false. Observe, what 
 we have to do with just now, is not the illustration of 
 a blind eye, or a diseased eye, or a closed eye, all of 
 which no doubt might find some analogy with the 
 spiritual vision of men in certain circumstances. But 
 the specific idea brought before us here is that of an 
 evil eye, — an eye which is not single, and because of 
 which the whole body may be full of darkness, or, what 
 is just as bad, may be deluded by a deceptive, double, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 227 
 
 and dishonest light. And, in order clearly to under- 
 stand the figure, it is necessary, I repeat, to bear in 
 mind that the evil eye is produced by what I have 
 called the light within us. Nature is in general honest 
 and true. It has illusions, but no delusions. The ex- 
 ternal light therefore is faithful, and deceives no one. 
 But the moral or inward light is altogether different, 
 and very often produces a truly evil eye. Thus, to 
 explain what I mean : when the inward light is pure, 
 when our heart is honest and sincere and guileless, 
 when its aim is really to see the truth and to know 
 what is right, then the eye will be single, and the body 
 full of light. But if, on the contrary, the light within 
 us, — our desires and passions and affections,- — be evil, 
 that will affect our vision so that we shall never really 
 see the truth, and our very light, our means of seeing, 
 will minister to the darkness within us. So when Eve, 
 under the guileful persuasion of the serpent, looked on 
 the forbidden tree, she saw that it was fair and good 
 for food, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. 
 The woman looked not with a single eye. The inward 
 desire had altogether changed the character of tliat 
 which she saw without. The light within her was 
 truly darkness. So, in like manner, when we cherish 
 anger, or malice, or suspicion, or unkindness towards 
 each other, the presence of such feelings produces such 
 distorted views that even the most friendly conduct 
 begins to wear a sinister appearance, because it is 
 looked on by an evil eye. The light within us is 
 darkness, consequently we do not see the real truth 
 
228 THE SERMON ON TPIE MOUNT. 
 
 when we look at the conduct of those whom we so 
 distrust or dislike. We gaze through a medium of 
 passion, or prejudice, which distorts their whole beha- 
 viour, and fills us with utterly false impressions of 
 them and of their conduct. It is the same also with 
 those who are not sinqle-minded, but who M'ould fain 
 reconcile opposite and contradictory ends, who feel 
 they ought to do one thing, and yet wish to do the 
 very reverse ; and the effort to accomplish both the 
 duty and the desire destroys, as it were, the proper 
 focus of vision, so that they never see aright, and 
 things never wear to them their proper meaning and 
 proportion. The light which is in them being dark or 
 double, darkens and distorts all they look upon. 
 
 Now, bearing these things in mind, let us see how 
 they fit into and explain the doctrine our Lord is ex- 
 pounding. I have said that the illustration has a two- 
 fold reference. It bears on what went before, and also 
 on what follows. If we lay up treasures on earth, that 
 will produce an evil eye ; if we try to serve God and 
 mammon, that will destroy the single eye. Look at the 
 passage in both these aspects : — 
 
 1st, If the light within you be true, if it be your real 
 heart's desire to see what is right, if your affections 
 are set on those things which are just and pure 
 and lovely, the things heavenly and eternal, then 
 shall your eye be single, and as ye look forth on 
 the world, ye shall be able to estimate its treasures at 
 their proper value, for they will have lost to you the 
 glamour and the fascination which they exercise over 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 229 
 
 others. Their inherent emptiness, their essential vanity, 
 their utter precariousness, their certain brevity, will be 
 all naked and open to the clear vision of faith, which 
 sees them in their true character, and values them at 
 their proper worth. In short, if you get the heart in the 
 right place, and fill it with right thoughts, then shall the 
 spiritual eye pierce right through all the delusions of 
 sense, and ye shall not be led captive by the spirit and 
 power of the world. That is the blessed result of pos- 
 sessing a single eye. But if, on the contrary, the eye be 
 evil — that is to say, if the light within us is darkness ; 
 if we love the world and the tilings of the world ; oh how 
 great shall that darkness be ! For when the worldly 
 man looks oat even on spiritual things, to his gross na- 
 ture they are no longer spiritual, but earthly and carnal. 
 Even the most pure and holy and divinest treasures be- 
 come debased by the evil eye ; for nothing is of value to 
 such a man except what is sensual and gross. He does 
 not want the praise of God ; he does not want the glory of 
 God; he does not want the love of God; he does not want 
 to be like God. Things divine are not what he wishes, 
 and therefore he does not see them. His carnal heart is 
 blinded by the lusts of this world ; and so the light within 
 him is verily darkness. He perceives nothing really de- 
 sirable except the wealth and honour and pleasure of this 
 earth, for liis foolish heart is darkened, and darkens all 
 it sees. It is in this respect with the things of God, 
 just as it falls out \vith human affairs, when we yield 
 ourselves to pride or selfishness, or jealousy or wrath. 
 He who is under the influence of such passions turns 
 
230 THE SERMON ON THE IMOUNT. 
 
 the light into darkness, for he does not really want to 
 see the truth. There is a falsehood in him, and that 
 falsehood glozes all his neighbour's conduct. In like 
 manner, the worldliness and fleshliness of our hearts 
 pervert the whole things and ways of God. There is a 
 bewildering veil on our eyes, through which we cannot 
 penetrate. The natural man, the fleshly, earthly man, 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned. The only things that appear to such a man of 
 any worth whatever, are those treasures which moth 
 and rust do corrupt, and thieves can break through to 
 steal ; for the light within him is darkness, and how 
 great is that darkness, when the soul is utterly blinded 
 to the riches incorruptible and eternal ! But 
 
 2d, Let me draw your attention more particularly to 
 the evil eye, as it is produced by the effort to serve both 
 God and mammon. On the whole, in a Christian com- 
 munity like this, where it is the almost universal cus- 
 tom to make at least some profession of religion, and 
 where at the same time the worship of mammon holds, 
 to say the least of it, no mean or obscure position ; in 
 such a place, by far the most common, and therefore the 
 most dangerous snare, is that which arises from the 
 effort to combine these two opposite and contradictory 
 objects. Very few among us would feel at ease to cast 
 off religion altogether. Very few even could be satis- 
 fied without a considerable amount of proper religious 
 service, such as is generally reckoned acceptable to 
 God. An entire and unmitigated worldliness would 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 231 
 
 not be tolerable to very many among us, who, never- 
 theless, are essentially of the earth, earthy. They 
 could not deny God ; they would not altogether forget 
 God ; they admit that He has claims which it were 
 neither rioht nor safe to overlook altofrether. There- 
 fore they are quite willing to do many things which 
 God would have them to do ; and in fact without doing 
 those things regularly, and as befits their position and 
 character, they would by no means feel at ease in their 
 minds. Up to a certain point there is a homage of ac- 
 knowledged fealty to Him, which conscience will not 
 permit them to neglect, and in which they feel no little 
 comfort and satisfaction. So they pray after a sort, and 
 say truly enough that they could not live without 
 prayer. They give alms to the poor, and do not 
 grudge their charities. They are regular in church- 
 going, and greatly cherish the word of the grace of 
 Christ Jesus. Moreover, as beseems those who hold a 
 position of such religious respectability, they live pure 
 and upright lives, denying those sinful lusts that war 
 against the soul. And in all this religious observance 
 they find not a little comfort and peace and joy. And 
 yet all these things may be only the conditions of an 
 elaborate compromise between godliness and worldliness. 
 They have not given up the world, and they cannot 
 give it up. And when I speak of giving up the world, 
 I repeat what I said formerly, that this does not mean 
 that they should denude themselves of wealth, or 
 turn aside from the ways of prosperous industry, and 
 adopt a life of voluntary and artificial poverty. The 
 
232 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Lord lays down no siicli law. I do indeed assuredly 
 believe that the terrible contrast presented in our 
 modern civilisation between a bloated and overgrown 
 wealth, and the squalor and misery of our extremest 
 poverty, is inconsistent with the true spirit of Chris- 
 tianity; and that when the gospel, the kingdom of God, 
 is fully established among us, it will greatly lessen, or 
 altogether remove, this which is the shame and re- 
 proach of our land. Still, the Lord does not, as I have 
 said, call his followers to any enforced rule of poverty. 
 Their treasures may increase ; their barns may be full; 
 the very blessing of God may be on their basket and 
 their store. But what He does demand, and what the 
 men I am speaking of will by no means grant, is that 
 their hearts should be really his ; that their affections 
 should be supremely set on the things unseen and eter- 
 nal; that the kingdom of God and his righteousness 
 should be the first and foremost object of all their 
 desires and efforts. And it is perfectly compatible 
 with a large amount of appointed religious observance, 
 and with a certain amount of so-called religious anxiety 
 and comfort, to cherish nevertheless a true and even in - 
 veterate and ineradicable worldliness. For at the bottom 
 of their hearts, and in the deepest springs of motive and 
 character, there lies, and if they took any pains, or in- 
 deed honestly desired to ascertain the truth, they might 
 readily know that there lies, a far more intense desire, 
 a more eager hankering for the perishable treasures of 
 this earth, than they ever felt, or can feel for the thiugs 
 unseen and eternal. Let them only pause for a little 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 233 
 
 and search into their own souls, and they will find that 
 the object they are really living for, and grasping with 
 the eagerness and tenacity as of a drowning man, is 
 essentially the world's wealth, the world's good opinion, 
 the world's honours, the vanities and fripperies, the 
 gilding and gewgaws of a world that is soon to pass 
 away from us all ; and if they were at this moment 
 constrained, like the rich young man in the Gospel, to 
 make clear and decisive and unmistakable choice be- 
 tween God and mammon, they might be very sorry, 
 but in their heart of hearts they would rather give up 
 God than the world. For, in point of fact, their reli- 
 gion, in which they will tell you they find so much 
 comfort, is properly quite a superficial matter, a sort of 
 mild anodyne of piety rubbed into the conscience to 
 soothe its irritation ; but the real lord and master of 
 their souls is the world which they love so well. 
 
 Now, the effect of this double and deceitful course ' is 
 to produce an evil eye of the very worst kind. The 
 influence of utter and unmitigated worldliness, when 
 a man gives himself heartily and without scruple or 
 drawback to that, is, as we have seen, to blind his mind 
 altogether to the higher concerns of the spiritual world. 
 Therefore he never troubles himself about them ; can see 
 no need of them, and no value in them. That is a sad 
 state of darkness, but it is a sort of honest darkness, and 
 is consistent with a certain genuineness of character. 
 But the effort to serve both God and mammon pro- 
 duces a kind of self-deception, which is to my mind 
 greatly more pernicious, and worse to overcome than 
 
234 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tlie former. The tlioroiigli worldling knows himself 
 to be so, and his evil eye sees nothing else worth 
 troubling himself about. The other, however, fondly 
 persuades himself that he is not a worldling ; that he is 
 indeed far superior to the worldling : his evil eye sees, 
 in a measure, what is right and good, but only regards 
 it so far as may be necessary to keep his mind easy in 
 its worldliness. Thus the light which is in him serves 
 more effectually the purpose of darkness. It deludes 
 him with the idea that all is well, which, without a 
 little religious observance, he could hardly persuade 
 himself to believe ; so he keeps up the forms of allegiance 
 to God in order to cover the real treason of his heart; 
 and whether consciously or unconsciously, or only with 
 a half-consciousness of the real state of his affairs, the 
 man blinds himself wilfully to the inherent worldliness 
 of his heart. Now this, I take it, is a state of darkness 
 even more difficult to deal with, and more hard to 
 escape from, than that of the man who has frankly and 
 out and out yielded himself to his carnal mind. It is 
 more deceitful ; it has the germ of hypocrisy in it ; it 
 is not merely ignoring good, but it turns the good to 
 evil ends ; and oh how great is that darkness, when the 
 light within you is made chiefly to serve the purpose of 
 concealing and excusing tliat darkness ! Yet this per- 
 haps is of all worldliness the most common among us. 
 The evil eye which has lost its singleness of character, and 
 looks to God a little, only that it may cherish the world 
 more tenaciously and more comfortably, that I fear is 
 far from rare in a Christian community like this ; and 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 235 
 
 the feeling of self-satisfaction which it produces, and 
 the ignorance of one's real condition which it inevitably 
 cherishes, and the hypocrisy which also it fosters, these 
 are even worse to get the better of than the simple and 
 genuine darkness of the worldling. Hence it is, I 
 apprehend with special and emphatic reference to this 
 state of mind, that Jesus follows up his illustration of 
 the evil eye with the solemn intimation, 'Ye cannot 
 serve God and mammon.' 
 
 Let me therefore, in conclusion, urge upon you this 
 earnest and faithful saying. No servant can serve two 
 masters whose interests are opposed, whose ways are 
 different, whose requirements are essentially contradic- 
 tory to each other ; and such are the relations of God 
 and mammon. For God seeks to exalt men; Mammon 
 to debase them. God wants to save us ; mammon to 
 destroy. God sets before us things spiritual and eter- 
 nal ; mammon the things that are seen and temporal. 
 God would have us to love Him with all our hearts ; 
 mammon claims the same thing, and knows that he 
 will secure it, if he can only persuade us that it is 
 quite enough to love God a little. They have obviously 
 competing claims, inconsistent with each other, requir- 
 ing us to choose decisively between them. When two 
 kings are at war with each other, it will not do for the 
 subjects of either to play fast and loose with their alle- 
 giance, giving some tokens of professed subjection to the 
 one sovereign, in order to secure his favour, and at the 
 same time claiming all the advantage of entire loyalty 
 to the other. No more may we do this in relation to 
 
236 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 God and mammon. We must choose the one and reject 
 the other ; we must frankly and heartily take our side in 
 this solemn quarrel. A half-hearted allegiance will not 
 serve our end, will not please our God. Decisive elec- 
 tion has to be made between the one and the other of 
 these masters ; for the one is holy, the other unholy ; 
 the one is heavenly, the other earthly ; the one pure 
 love, the other profoundly selfish ; the one is a deceiver 
 mocking with a show of good, the other is altogether 
 faithful and right and true. Now, a divided service 
 between these two opposing parties, which are also 
 opposing principles, that is clearly and altogether im- 
 possible ; for that were as much as to say that you can 
 be at once spiritual and also carnal, holy and luiholy, 
 loving and selfish, true and false, heavenly- minded and 
 also earthly. Of course, I know that people try it ; and 
 I also know that no man while he is in the flesh is 
 altogether holy and spiritual, perfect in love and in 
 heavenly-mindedness. No doubt, the regenerated nature 
 is, even in its best estate, a very mingled fabric, an 
 image of gold and clay, not wholly conformed to Christ 
 while it is on earth. But it is one thing to have only 
 imperfectly attained what we are seeking with onr 
 whole heart, and it is quite another thing not really to 
 be seeking it with our whole heart. Now this last is 
 what the Lord forbids. He says, and oh ! with what 
 loving tenderness and earnestness he says it, ' My son, 
 give me, only give me thine heart. Choose decisively 
 whether you will belong to me or to mammon ; 
 whether you will have earthly perishable treasures, or 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 237 
 
 the true incorruptible riches ; whether you will serve 
 me, or the world ; whether you will be satisfied in me, 
 or in those things which moth and rust do corrupt.' 
 That is the appeal which God makes to us all. It is 
 essentially a question of the direction of our heart ; 
 whether it is to be set on the attainment of his favour, 
 his life, his joy, which are the true ends of our exist- 
 ence ; or whether it is to be contented with those things 
 which are at once corruptible and corrupting, which 
 perish themselves, and cause us to perish. I beseech 
 you, brethren, to give all earnest heed to this. It is not 
 perhaps what is conventionally called the gospel ; it is 
 rather one of those fundamental questions which under- 
 lie all religion, and without the settlement of which no 
 religion of any kind is possible. By the gospel we 
 understand the way of salvation ; God's holy covenant 
 in Christ ; God's gracious provision for quickening and 
 converting and redeeming our souls through the sacri- 
 fice of his beloved Son. But ere that glad tidings 
 can be of much avail to us, it has, first of all, to 
 be settled whether we really want to be saved, — 
 whether we are at all prepared to face the first steps 
 towards salvation, or whether we only want the world, 
 and at most to soothe our consciences in seeking the 
 world Ijy so much religion as may be necessary to 
 delude them, and keep them quiet. It is therefore of 
 primary importance to understand that any kind of 
 half-hearted worship, however proper and becoming 
 and respectable, is of no value whatever with the Lord. 
 He will have no divided service ; He will have no re- 
 spect to the eye that affects to look upwards to him, 
 
238 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 yet, with all its real eagerness, gazes down on tlie earth 
 and its treasures. Verily and for evermore it is true, 
 we cannot serve God and mammon. And yet is not 
 this precisely what the great mass of men among us 
 are steadfastly trying to do ? They have, of course, some 
 little forms of worship huddled into odd corners of their 
 life; some approved ceremonies of Divine homage, to be 
 got through as quickly as decency wiU permit ; even, 
 it may be, some passing emotions, light bubbles on the 
 surface of existence soon vanishing, but pleasant enough 
 in their way while they last. But meanwhile the real 
 heart of them, the genuine energy and earnestness of 
 their nature, is given to accumulate riches, and to in- 
 dulge in vanities of costly apparel, and sumptuous 
 feastings, and rare wines, and ceiled houses, and all the 
 fantastic rivalries of a life of ostentatious display. That 
 is the patent fact, as any one may see. And yet, be- 
 cause the eye is not single, men can so live year after 
 year, and persuade themselves that they are doing their 
 duty to God and to society and to themselves. And 
 if at any time they are uneasy, and feel that all is not 
 quite right, a little more praying and church-going 
 seems only to entitle them to be a little more worldly, 
 for the light within them is darkness through the 
 miserable effort to serve God and mammon. Brethren, 
 I beseech you to take heed and take warning. God 
 will have your real heart, and will be content with 
 nothing less, and can be served by nothing less ; and 
 therefore ' ye cannot serve two masters.' Ye cannot 
 serve God and mammon. Ye would never dream of 
 such a thing, but that your eye is evil. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 239 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 
 
 ' Therefore I say unto yoib, Take no thought for your life, what 
 ye shall eat, or wliat ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what 
 ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than 
 raiment ? Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do 
 they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feed- 
 eth them. Are ye not much better than theyl Which of you by 
 taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature 1 And why 
 take ye thought for raiment 1 Consider the lilies of the field, how 
 they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto 
 you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, vms not arrayed like one 
 of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
 to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not mtich 
 more clothe you, ye of little faith ? Therefore take no thought, 
 saying, What shall we eat ? or. What shall we drink ? or. Where- 
 withal shall vje be clothed? (for after all these things do the 
 Gentiles seek ;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
 need of cdl these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, 
 and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto 
 you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for the morrow 
 shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day 
 is the evil thereof— Mati. vi. 25-34. 
 
 The remainder of this chapter is occupied with a series 
 of arguments and illustrations, haying for their object 
 to deliver our minds from the cares of this world, and to 
 make us seek the Lord as our chiefest good, and trust in 
 Him as our surest help. Jesus had previously exhorted 
 
240 THE SEKMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tliem to lay up treasure "where moth and rust do not 
 corrupt ; and the reason given was, that if they had not 
 their treasure in heaven, neither could heaven be in 
 their hearts. He then warned them, that if they gave 
 their hearts to the world, or even divided them between 
 God and mammon, that would produce an evil eye, 
 blinded by the lusts of this world, or else rendered 
 double, untrue, and deceitful, which is even worse ; and 
 therefore it behoved them to make decisive choice, 
 giving themselves wholly and heartily to the Lord. 
 And now He goes on to enforce this by showing, on the 
 one hand, how unworthy and how unprofitable are 
 those vexing cares which are the chief portion the 
 world gives to its votaries ; and, on the other hand, 
 by reminding us of our heavenly Father, and of the love 
 He has for his children, and the knowledge he has of 
 their wants, and his mindful care to supply all their 
 need out of his rich abundance. Very manifestly, then, 
 the drift and tenor of this part of the discourse is to 
 urge on us the necessity of exercising faith towards God. 
 If we have faith, that is the victory which overcometh 
 the world, whose cares and troubles can only thus be 
 subdued. That is the doctrine which runs through the 
 whole passage. And underneath it, as the ground on 
 which it all rests, is the other thought, ' We ought to 
 have faith, for God is our heavenly Father, and watches 
 over us, and cares for. us, and has promised that He will 
 withhold no good thing from them that trust in him.' 
 
 And here, before passing on to the detailed considera- 
 tion of the passage, let me ask you to note two things : 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 241 
 
 — 1st, You see here what is the true nature of faith. 
 It is not a mere belief in certain opinions ; the assent 
 of the mind to a certain system of truth. That is no 
 doubt involved in it, for Jesus sets the Lord before us 
 as our Father, and makes that idea the ground of our 
 faith. The scriptural truth concerning God, then, has 
 to be believed in order to the exercise of a real scrip- 
 tural faith. But that is not all. The belief of such 
 doctrines is not enough, unless it leads to a practical 
 reliance on Him who is thus apprehended by our minds. 
 For faith is trust in God ; and that not merely in re- 
 gard to the great concerns of the soul and its eternity, 
 but also in the common affairs and interests of life. If 
 we believe in the Father whom Christ has revealed, then 
 will our faith manifest itself in a certain elevation of 
 soul, which, living in an abiding converse with things 
 spiritual, shall rise above the cares of life, because it has 
 an assured trust in God's common providence, as well as 
 in His infinite compassions. 2d, It is this practical 
 view of faith which Christ generally presents, while His 
 apostles rather deal with it in its properly doctrinal 
 aspect. I ask you to observe this, because it has been 
 sometimes asserted that the teaching of our Lord and 
 that of His apostles do not harmonize well, inasmuch 
 as the one is continually insisting on works, while the 
 others mainly enforce the necessity of faith. Now, 
 there is no doubt that, viewed superficially, there is 
 such a contrast between them. The prominent idea of 
 this sermon, and of all our Lord's words, is that of 
 duty, truth, charity ; and it is equally certain that 
 
242 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the apostles gave a like prominence to the idea of faith. 
 But there is no contradiction between them. They have 
 not a different spirit in them. For faith is at once 
 the belief of certain truths, and also a life practically 
 ordered by these truths ; and all the difference between 
 the two kinds of teaching is that the one says, 'Do this,' 
 but manifestly goes on the assumption that it can only 
 be done by faith ; while the other says, ' Have faith,' 
 but just as manifestly assumes that the faith is to be 
 wrought out in works. In short, it is exactly the same 
 thing with which they deal, only regarded from differ- 
 ent points of view. Christ shows what the Lord re- 
 quires of us, and that faith is necessary for it. The 
 apostles show what that faith is, which is necessary in 
 order to do wdiat the Lord requires of us. The one 
 is the practical view guided by perfect knowledge ; the 
 other is the scientific view leading to perfect accom- 
 plishment ; and without this twofold presentation of it, 
 the truth would not have had the completeness and the 
 power which it now possesses. Well for us then that, 
 at sundry times and in these diverse manners, God hath 
 spoken to us by His Son and His servants. 
 
 Bearing these things in mind, then, you will now 
 observe that in verses 25 and 26 we have an argument 
 against giving place to the cares of this world, on the 
 ground that they are unworthy of an immortal being 
 like man ; and also an illustration pointedly leading to 
 the exercise of faith. Perhaps the line of thought here 
 will become clearer, if you suppose that the Lord is 
 dealing with an imaginary objection to what He has 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 243 
 
 just said. ' Ah !' some one might reply, ' no doubt it 
 would be well for us all to set our affections wholly on 
 things above ; well, to give up our whole hearts to God. 
 But a man must live, and he must live by bread, and 
 he must be clothed too with suitable apparel ; and it is 
 easy to say, Be not careful about these things. But in 
 point of fact, it is not possible. We can't help it. 
 Such anxiety is inevitable. If our hearts were always 
 in heaven, we should soon be bankrupt alike of means 
 and credit on earth.' Thus you can easily imagine 
 some one of His hearers thinking within himself; and 
 He who knew what was in man, virtually replies now 
 to such a thought as this. Observe, then, the precise 
 matter with which our Lord is here dealing. It is not the 
 question whether a man is to work for daily bread, or 
 to sit down in idleness, and trust that God will provide 
 for him. What the Lord giveth, brethren, that we 
 must gather by diligent toil, earning bread ever by the 
 sweat of our brow. There is no question as to the 
 necessity and duty of labour, to provide those things 
 which are needful. It is fully admitted that, while a 
 man lives, he must have food and raiment, and must 
 work to obtain them both. What Christ armies ao-ainst 
 is the thought and engrossing care which are bestowed 
 on these things, the anxiety to get what is requisite, 
 and even to store up more than is required, by rea- 
 son of which we so often forget the high eternal interests 
 of the soul. And here let me say that, in dealing 
 with these worldly cares, while it is true that He would 
 have us, if possible, to cast them away altogether; while 
 
244 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 it is clearly implied that a true and perfect faith will 
 rise superior to them ; yet Jesus does not sharply and un- 
 sympathizingly denounce them, as if in no circumstances 
 there could be any kind of excuse, or at least palliation 
 for them. Ah ! He is very faithful ; hut He is also very 
 tender. His argument goes to show that such cares 
 ought not at any rate to engross our whole minds ; but 
 that is all. It is as if He had said : ' I know how 
 difficult it is to get rid of those anxieties altogetlier. 
 I would not bear hard on the poor man, troubled 
 about daily bread for his household. But if ye have 
 enough, why set your hearts on more ? And in any 
 case, why give your whole thought to worldly anxie- 
 ties ? Is not the life more than meat ? Is not the 
 body more than raiment ? Have you not a mind to be 
 filled with wisdom, a heart to be trained for heaven, a 
 soul to be saved from death, and a body, too, which is 
 not to be pampered and adorned, but to be prepared for 
 an habitation of God ? Why are you always thinking 
 then about food and raiment ? Why is all your care to 
 lay up store of these ? Is it worthy of a being, endowed 
 with such a gift of immortality, to become the slave and 
 the victim of fleshly lusts and worldly cares ? I can 
 understand how hard it is for the poor altogether to 
 shake off the pressing anxieties of this life ; but I can 
 have no excuse for those who are ever anxious to heap 
 up riches, or for those who are only thinking what 
 they shall eat, and wliat they shall drink, and where- 
 withal they shall be clothed. For life is more than 
 meat ; life is the favour of God ; life is the peace of 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY EAITII. 245 
 
 God; life is the fellowsliip of God, walking in the light 
 of things unseen and eternal. And oh what is to be- 
 come of you, if your thought and care are given to these 
 earthly matters only, as if the great duty of life was to 
 get abundance of bread and variety of raiment ? ' "What 
 a poor mean life that is, brethren, and yet how com- 
 mon ! a life full of cares, weary and burdened with cares, 
 and yet all its thoughts are about food and clothing, or 
 the means of getting them in needless abundance and 
 superfluity. Think of an immortal being, meant to 
 have felloAvship with God, giving himself up to the pur- 
 suit of such things, anxious only to secure them, and 
 fretting himself about them, as if the great end of his 
 existence were to eat and drink and array himself in 
 sumptuous apparel ! Surely it was fitting that Christ 
 should say, ' Life is more than meat, and the body is 
 more than raiment.' 
 
 Very beautiful now is the illustration with which this 
 argument is followed up, and which rises from the 
 negative to the positive, from the putting away of cares 
 to a quiet trust in God. ' Look,' he says, ' and consider 
 the fowls of the air. They sow not, neither do they 
 reap ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye 
 not much better, of more value to Him, than they ? ' 
 Again let me remind you that the question before the 
 Lord was not whether we should be as idle as the birds, 
 but only whether we should like them cast off care, and 
 trust our heavenly Father. Toil is man's lot. He 
 must sow and reap. We cannot expect the daily manna, 
 unless we go and gather it. The argument is not 
 
246 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 against labour, but against worldly care ; and this is 
 tlie purport of it : — God cares for the little birds ; He 
 provides their food in due season ; and they, instead 
 of burdensome anxiety, in their unconscious gratitude 
 are ever hymning his praise. Now this God is your 
 Father ; ye are the children of the Highest ; and if He 
 provides for the very birds, how much more will a 
 Father's love and watchfulness care for each of you ! 
 Trust Him, then ; trust Him in all things, even in these 
 little matters, for a father is not above caring for the 
 common every-day wants of his children. Your son is 
 not careful about his food, for he knows you will see 
 to that, and see to it all the more that he is mindful of 
 higher concerns, as ye would have him to be. So let it 
 be with you ; for He who asks you to seek those things 
 that are above, knoweth also that ye have need of these 
 earthly things. Only trust Him, therefore, and all 
 shall be well. 
 
 But further, dealing still with the same essential idea 
 of worldly cares — cares for the body, — Jesus now goes 
 on to urge another argument against them, and to en- 
 force it with another illustration. The former plea was 
 to this effect : — ' Ye are careful about meat ; but the 
 body is more than meat, and it is not worthy of an im- 
 mortal being to be engrossed only with such matters ; 
 and at any rate your Father will provide what is need- 
 ful.' This new reasoning (from verse 28) is rather to 
 this purpose : — ' Ye vex yourselves about clothing, and 
 yet all your vexing thoughts are really to no purpose ; 
 there is no profit in them, for you cannot with all your 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 247 
 
 thinking add one cubit to your stature ; and at any rate, 
 if ye would but trust in God, you should find that He 
 who clothes the lilies will also clothe you.' With the 
 exception of one single point, there is very little differ- 
 ence in the line of thought here from what went before, 
 so that it will not require very lengthened exposition. 
 The one point of distinction is, that whereas in the 
 former case Christ would have us to regard such cares 
 as unworthy of an immortal being, in the present in- 
 stance he rather puts forward their utter uselessness. 
 People say, We cannot help these anxieties ; Christ says, 
 They do you no earthly good. We work for daily food 
 and raiment, and our work will ordinarily secure them. 
 But when we add care to work, there is no additional 
 profit arising from the care. In fact, it has no result, 
 except to turn our hearts away from God. I know, my 
 friends, how hard it is to persuade ourselves that this is 
 literally the case ; and how hard it is, even when we 
 are so persuaded, to act on the conviction. Yet I do en- 
 treat you to consider the word of the Lord here. Which 
 of you by thinking can add one cubit to his stature ? 
 Will all your anxiety multiply a grain of corn, or clothe 
 you with another raiment? And if it is really unavailing, 
 why fret and vex your soul ? why eat your heart day 
 after day ? why not strive at least to cast your burden 
 on the Lord ? Consider the lilies of the field. They toil 
 not, neither do they spin ; they have no care about 
 their clothing and adornments ; yet Solomon in all his 
 glory was not arrayed like one of these. It is not 
 care that adorns them ; it is God. Care, if they could 
 
248 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 feel it, would only fret and spoil their beauty. Yet, 
 little precious as they are, springing and blooming to- 
 day, to-morrow dry and withered and only fit for fuel 
 to the fire, see how the Lord arrays them with splen- 
 dour that kings cannot rival ! Now, ye are the children 
 of the Highest, immortal and beloved; and what ye 
 need, and what is good for you, surely the Lord will 
 give. For you He gave up the Son of love ; for you 
 He planned in the counsels of eternity wondrous schemes 
 of grace and truth. Shall He not with Christ also freely 
 give you all things ? Why fret, then, with unavailing 
 cares ? why vex your souls with improfitable anxieties ? 
 why not turn away from such useless thoughts, to grasp 
 and to realize an assured confidence in God who giveth 
 us all things richly to enjoy ? Verily your heavenly 
 Father knoweth ye have need of these things ; and what 
 is good the Lord will give ; for the lion's young may be 
 hungry and lack food, but they that trust in the Lord 
 shall not lack any good thing. 
 
 The Lord exhorts us to seek, first, the kingdom of 
 God and his righteousness. This is the pith and kernel 
 of the whole matter. I had ahnost omitted one allu- 
 sion ; that, namely, to the Gentile spirit. Let me just 
 note it here in passing. Having warned us against the 
 worldly anxieties which, alas ! are so froward and en- 
 grossing, Jesus adds, ' after all these things do the 
 Gentiles seek.' What He means, is that they did not 
 know the Father in heaven,— did not know of His 
 bountiful kindness and plenteous care ; and therefore 
 it was not strange that they set their hearts on such 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 249 
 
 perishable treasures, and filled their hearts with such 
 unworthy and unprofitable cares. But those who had 
 received the gospel of the kingdom ought to show a 
 different spirit. It was not for them to be as the poor 
 Gentiles who knew not the Father ; it was for them, 
 with a due estimate of the importance of higher 
 concerns, to seek with all their hearts, and before all 
 other things, the kingdom of God and his right- 
 eousness ; and it was for them to trust with a tranquil 
 assurance that all other things needful should be added 
 therewith. This then, as I have said, is the heart and 
 kernel of the whole matter. Let us see what precisely 
 it means. 
 
 Our Lord speaks of Himself as a king; and the realm 
 over which He was to reign, He calls the kingdom of 
 God; and He said to Pilate that this kingdom was not of 
 this world. The Sovereign of that kingdom then stood 
 quite apart and aloof from the princes of the Gentiles ; 
 He had different objects to accomplish, and diverse 
 means for accomplishing them ; and the establishment 
 of his royal power left to them the free and unimpeded 
 exercise of all their legitimate authority. In general, 
 therefore, when Christ speaks of the kingdom of God, it is 
 to this that He refers, the Church visible and invisible, 
 the spiritual redeemed flock, and the society organized 
 for their edification. But in the particular case now 
 before us, it appears to me that the phrase is used in a 
 somewhat more limited sense. So also with regard to 
 the term 'the righteousness of God.' That is com- 
 monly applied, at least by the apostles, to the imputed 
 
250 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 righteousness of Christ, in virtue of which the believer 
 is justified, and accepted of God. But though it is our 
 duty surely to seek that with our whole lieart, and to 
 make it our foremost concern to win Christ, and be 
 found in Him, not having our own righteousness, but 
 the righteousness of God which is by faith unto and 
 upon all them that believe ; yet I am persuaded that is 
 not the precise idea which our Lord means here to 
 convey. This is not a question of doctrine, but of in- 
 terpretation. The kingdom of God, and the righteous- 
 ness of God have in other passages of Scripture the 
 meaning already ascribed to them; but their exact 
 purport in this particular text must be gathered from 
 the general drift and bearing of the discourse. 
 
 Now our Lord has been entreating His followers to 
 lay up for themselves spiritual treasures, — treasures in 
 heaven. He has also been warning them against the 
 cares of this world, — cares about meat and drink and 
 raiment. And He has finally been telling them that 
 their heavenly Father knows all their state, and provides 
 for all their need, so that they have sure grounds for 
 trusting implicitly in His mindfulness and faithfulness. 
 It is in these sayings then that we must seek the key 
 to the concluding word, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of 
 God and his righteousness.' What He means is that 
 they are not to set their hearts on the kingdom, the 
 possessions of this world, its riches and honours, and 
 pampering indulgences and vain displays ; neither are 
 they to vex their hearts with cares concerning these, as 
 the Gentiles do, sinking thereby into a like degradation 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 251 
 
 with them ; but they are to make it their foremost ob- 
 ject to obtain spiritual treasures, meekness, temperance, 
 patience, faith, love, and all things just and true and 
 honest and pure and lovely, which are the true riches 
 and real honours of man, — the only dignities acknow- 
 ledged in the kingdom of God. Now the way to obtain 
 these is through faith in God and his Christ. Their great 
 effort therefore should be to believe that God reigns, 
 and to trust in Him with a most loyal and unswerving 
 devotion. This is obviously what is here meant by 
 seeking the kingdom of God. The idea is limited by 
 the context to this, that instead of seeking the world's 
 possessions and relying on its powers, we should above 
 all strive to realize that God reigns, and that it is our 
 great concern to become the subjects of his kingdom, 
 doing his will, and trusting in his fatherly care. And 
 so also the righteousness of God referred to here is 
 restricted in the very same way. It is the righteous- 
 ness of his government, his all-holy and wise adminis- 
 tration, which we are to cherish with a steadfast faith. 
 Virtually, the Lord says, ' Seek ye the things of the 
 Divine kingdom, and trust in the provision of the Divine 
 king; and hold fast your confidence in his righteous- 
 ness and truth.' If He ask you thus to trust in him, 
 and to be careful for nothing, be sure that He is faithful 
 and just, and ye shall not be the losers by so doing. 
 Trust in his righteousness. True, his ways are not 
 as our ways. That righteousness is not to be measured 
 by our standard. It is not man's righteousness, but 
 God's ; yet for that reason, though it may at times 
 
252 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 appear strange, it is only strange because of its un- 
 searchable perfection and glory. Therefore, rest assured 
 of it, all other things which are needful for you and 
 would be good for you, will be added, will be thrown 
 as it were into the bargain, provided ye are thus seeking 
 with earnest faith to rely on God's kingdom and right- 
 eousness. Brethren, that seems to me obviously the 
 drift of the argument here ; and assuming that it is 
 so, consider now what a noble career Christ calls you 
 to enter on. Ah ! how poor and mean life is when it 
 is penetrated by a mere worldly spirit, — to spend the 
 riches and strength of our souls, gathering up a biggish 
 heap of gold, or stuffing sweet morsels into an over- 
 loaded belly, or muddling the thoughtful brain with 
 the fumes of superfluous wine, or adorning our bodies, 
 like children, with vanities of gay apparel, or strutting 
 in the poor dignities and honours which are but empty 
 breath ; to do that, nay, not only to do it, but to yield 
 our hearts to a weary servitude of care and anxiety and 
 fear and trouble for no other purpose than to get such 
 things, and to find that all our better nature is degraded 
 by the process and sinking to so mean a level that we 
 cannot help despising ourselves as the pitiful victims of 
 poor and sordid desires ; ah ! brethren, surely that is a 
 true word of the Lord's which calls this no better than 
 a Gentile, heathenish life, wholly unworthy the children 
 of the kingdom. Contrast this, now, with the career to 
 wliich He calls you, and in which His grace will sustain 
 you. The subjects of His kingdom are to seek, and 
 they shall verily get knowledge and wisdom in Christ 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 253 
 
 whereby their minds are exalted unto a high converse 
 with God ; and grace and truth in Christ, whereby 
 their hearts are purified and rejoice in tlie fellowship of 
 God ; and mercy and peace in Christ, whereby their 
 conscience is delivered from the trouble and terror of 
 its guilty apprehension ; and love and hope in Christ, 
 whereby their souls are gladdened with fountains of 
 living water flowing into everlasting life ; and instead 
 of fear and care and brooding anxiety, through trust in 
 their heavenly Father they are kept like the stars 
 around His throne, wheeling in a path of clear and 
 stately serenity above the storms of life ; for though 
 they have their tribulations, they can rejoice in the 
 midst of them, knowing that all things work together 
 for their good, and feeling that there is a growth of 
 nobleness and purity and Christ-likeness in them, 
 whose exceeding weight of glory and blessedness far 
 more than compensates for their light afflictions which 
 are but for a day. Oh brethren, I beseech you, weigh 
 well the life of worldliness, and the life of faith, — the 
 kingdom and possessions of men against the kingdom 
 and righteousness of God ; and as ye consider the mean, 
 poor, perishable, weary, and disappointing results of the 
 one, whose end is at once self-contempt and despair, 
 bethink you of the Divine sweetness and purity and 
 dignity and peace of the other, with its crown of glory 
 and joy at last ; and hearken to the faithful voice that 
 crieth to you, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
 his righteousness, and all other things shall be added 
 unto you.' 
 
254 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Then shall ye be able to comprehend the concluding 
 words, ' Why take ye thought for to-morrow V I need 
 hardly, after all I have already said, remind you that 
 there is nothing in this opposed to the making of a 
 reasonable provision for one's old age, or for one's chil- 
 dren, such as common prudence suggests. People 
 sometimes use, at any rate they once used, this text, to 
 oppose all such arrangements as are provided by insur- 
 ance companies, in the event of death or infirmity, to 
 lessen the evils of life. Of course, they might as v/ell 
 say that it is wrong to lay by anything for the future, 
 and that a man ought ib spend, day by day, what he 
 earns day by day, which were alike unwise and wicked. 
 What is here forbidden is, not the prudence which 
 makes reasonable provision for the future, but the care 
 which embitters the present with anxieties about the 
 future. And this is forbidden because a true faith in 
 God implies that, alike for present and future, we 
 should trust Him to provide what is needful, while 
 we look to the things unseen. Ah ! this anxiety about 
 the future, this takiug thought for to-morrow, operates 
 as an immense deadweight against the power of the 
 gospel. It is just as if we thought there might be no 
 God to-morrow to look after us, and therefore we must 
 lay up store to do without Him. How different from 
 the spirit of that petition, ' Give us this day our daily 
 bread.' I beseech you, brethren, to be on your guard 
 against it. It belongs essentially to the kingdom of this 
 world, not to the kingdom of God. Let it be your 
 great object then to seek, first and foremost, and above 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 255 
 
 all things, faith in God, faith in His fatherly care, 
 faith in His righteousness and truth ; and take no 
 thought for to-morrow, for He who provides for to-day 
 will be mindful of your returning wants, and will 
 supply all your need out of His riches, and do for you 
 exceeding abundantly above all that ye could ask or 
 think. 
 
256 THE SEKMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XVI. • 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY FAiTH. 
 
 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knoek, 
 and it shall he opened unto you : for every one that asketh, re- 
 ceiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh, 
 it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son 
 ask bread, will he give him a stone ? Or if he ask a fish, will lie 
 give him a serpent ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which 
 is in heaven give good things to them that ask him ? ' — Matt. 
 VII. 7-11. 
 
 If I have riglitly traced the mam lines of thought 
 running through this great Sermon, then there must 
 have been some displacement of the passage we have 
 read for lecture to-day. For obviously it has little 
 or no affinity with the injunctions that immediately 
 precede it, ' Judge not, that ye be not judged,' * Give 
 not that which is holy unto dogs.' There is no com- 
 mon principle that will harmonize it with these say- 
 ings, so as to produce the impression of natural con- 
 sequent speech. But if we transpose these verses so 
 as to connect tliem with the close of chapter vi., they 
 fall most naturally into the train of thought there. 
 Indeed, there is so close an organic relationship that 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 257 
 
 the exhortation to trust our heavenly Father would 
 be incomplete without this subsequent exhortation to 
 prayer. We are to believe, but we are also to ask ; 
 and we are to ask, just because we believe. It is true 
 that the Father knows what things we have need of, 
 before we ask them. He does not need to be informed 
 of our wants, or reminded to supply them. But it is 
 part of the confidence which a child reposes in a parent, 
 tliat it shall go to him with all its desires. To conceal 
 them, would be to distrust him. Prayer therefore is the 
 natural outcome of faith ; and the man who ' takes 
 no thought for the morrow' is just the man who gets 
 his daily bread by daily prayer to the Father. 
 
 In order to persuade us then to this confiding inter- 
 course, our Lord assures us here that if we ask, we shall 
 receive ; if we seek, we shall find ; if we knock, it shall 
 be opened unto us. He asserts, in short, the real effi- 
 cacy of prayer, in the most clear and decisive terms. 
 And that we may steadfastly believe this. He institutes 
 a comparison between our earthly fathers and our 
 heavenly Father, not only taking that relationship for 
 granted, but assuming that our parents according to the 
 flesh are in reality but a faint emblem of the still 
 more perfect Fatherhood of God. Hence He reasons 
 that, by how much our heavenly Father transcends 
 them in the excellence of His Divine nature, by so 
 much He also surpasses them in the affluence of His 
 paternal benignity. They do not close their ears to 
 the cry of their children ; and still less will He. They 
 would not willingly disappoint our desires ; and still 
 
 K 
 
258 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 less will He. They know what gifts are good to bestow, 
 and rejoice to bestow them ; and still more does He. 
 They would not give a stone for an egg, or a serpent for 
 a fish ; and still less will He. He is infinitely higher 
 than they are ; but His are infinite moral perfections of 
 the very same kind. Such is the drift of our Lord's 
 argument here, which with this simple, yet profound 
 analogy sheds a clear light down into the depths and 
 mysteries of prayer, where the mere reasoning intellect 
 would vainly go sounding and sounding, and finding no 
 bottom to its thoughts. 
 
 1. Our Lord enjoins us here to pray, and He as- 
 sures us that we shall not pray in vain : 'Ask, and ye 
 shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it 
 shall be opened unto you.' Clearly it is implied that 
 prayer is effectual in bringing about the accomplish- 
 ment of our desires. It does not indeed follow that 
 God will grant any and every thing that we may choose 
 to ask ; for there are some things which, without ir- 
 reverence, we may truly say it is impossible for Him to 
 bestow. But our Lord's words do involve that prayer 
 is not merely effectual in producing a devout frame of 
 mind, but also in securing, to some extent, the object 
 of our requests. Now I could not hope, in a single 
 paragraph, to do anything like justice to the many nice 
 and difficult questions that gather around this subject. 
 Neither is it right to treat them slightingly, as if those 
 who profess to be perplexed by them were only shallow 
 triflers, to be pooh-poohed as unworthy of serious refu- 
 tation. For thoughtful and earnest men are feeling 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 259 
 
 the pressure of these difficulties, and it is our business 
 to meet them, not with denunciations, but with light, 
 if any light we have to shed upon the matter. I can- 
 not then do at present all that I should like to do ; but 
 neither can I altogether pass those questions by. They 
 are not new, though they have received somewhat new 
 forms and new force from the progress of scientific 
 thought in these years. Long ages ago, the theologian 
 and the philosopher had to deal with the very same 
 perplexing inquiries, only with this difference, that then 
 the difficulty was suggested by the absolute decrees of 
 a personal God, whereas now it arises rather from the 
 fixed, unalterable character of natural law. Formerly 
 the question was put in this shape : If God has fore- 
 ordained whatsoever comes to pass, which accords with 
 the doctrine of Scripture, and also with the idea of His 
 absolute Being, what profit can there be in prayer, for 
 nothing can alter the purpose of His will ? At present 
 it rather assumes this form : Everything is the result of 
 law, and no entreaties of ours can arrest the operation 
 of such law, or anywise change the effect which an 
 infinite series of causes have conspired to produce. 
 Both agree that prayer is therefore ineffectual to ac- 
 complish the object desired ; though both might also 
 allow that, as a devout exercise, it was not without a 
 wholesome influence on the mind. 
 
 Now, allow me to say that, in maintaining what I 
 hold to be the essential truth on this subject, people 
 have sometimes undervalued this spiritual effect which, 
 on any theoiy, prayer is still allowed to possess. I am 
 
260 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 not sure, indeed, that it would long continue to wield its 
 hallowed influence over the soul, if men generally adopted 
 either of those views I have mentioned. Nay, I ques- 
 tion if they would pray at all, when they had learned 
 that they must ask without any hope of obtaining their 
 requests. Still I am ready to admit that the inward 
 spiritual result of prayer may be of more value than the 
 granting of many things which we are fain to ask. It 
 is not in vain, therefore, so long as it solemnizes the 
 mind, and helps us to trust in God, and to submit to 
 His will. Yet I cannot think that that is all the re- 
 sult of it. I grant at once that it were idle to ask 
 the Lord to alter His determined purpose ; for He is 
 without variableness or shadow of turning. I grant 
 also that there are some things which men might be 
 foolish enough to ask, but which God cannot possibly 
 bestow. The child cries for the moon, but the moon 
 could not be given to it. Even omnipotence is unable 
 to work absurdities ; and grown men, ignorant as 
 children of much that lies beyond the province of their 
 thought and observation, may seek perchance as un- 
 wisely as the witless child. I grant also, moreover, 
 that we have no right to pray for the arrest or reversal 
 of any of the laws of nature. All that may be freely 
 allowed ; and yet there remains a province in which 
 prayer shall not be in vain. For surely there is a re- 
 gion in which the laws of nature and the purposes of 
 God are manifestly conditioned by the activities of men. 
 The sun shines, and the rain falls, but the effect they will 
 produce on the earth depends on the human industry 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 261 
 
 that ploughs the glebe, and sows the corn. And if such 
 relations exist between the operations of natural law 
 and the free activities of man, I cannot see, on any 
 grounds of reason, why there should not be a field, and 
 a very wide one too, in which events are, as it were, 
 held in solution, waiting, in like manner, for the inter- 
 vention of prayer, in order to precipitate the desired 
 result. If room is left for human w^ork to be necessary 
 and effectual, there seems no greater difficulty in leav- 
 ing a similar opportunity for human prayer. And in 
 accordance with this, it is to be remembered that the 
 Christian does not in reality ask that God would be 
 pleased to change His purposes, or to arrest His laws. 
 The foundation of om- prayers is the Divine promises. 
 The Lord has issued, if we may so speak, a series of 
 voluntary engagements, which it is presumed He would 
 not send into circulation, unless He knew that He could 
 implement them when they were presented. Now, it 
 seems to be an element of His plan that these promises 
 should not ordinarily be fulfilled until they are thus 
 pleaded. We do not therefore ask Him to alter His 
 pui-poses, but only to fulfil His promises, which is quite 
 a different thing. The one is wholly incompatible with 
 His character, and the other is just as entirely essential 
 to it. It is possible, of course, that men may ask what 
 He has never promised ; and though I do not say that 
 even some such requests may not be grateful to Him, 
 as proofs of their faith, yet neither do I say that they 
 will be granted. But of all those things which God 
 has promised to His believing people, it seems but 
 
262 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 reasonable, as well as scriptural, to say that ' every one 
 that asketh, receiveth them ; and he that seeketh, 
 findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.' 
 So ' the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man 
 availeth much/ But — 
 
 2. For the perfect assurance of our minds on this 
 subject, it is to be remembered that this whole question 
 rests on the Fatherhood of God; and unless we hold 
 fast by that, the grace and truth of our Lord's saying 
 here will soon vanish from our minds. In former 
 times, theology sometimes represented the most high 
 God as little else than a kind of awful Fate, fettered 
 by His own fore-ordained decrees, able indeed to hear, 
 but scarcely, at least in no very clear way, able to help 
 His people. In these years, now, science is fain to 
 ofiFer us a God still more impotent in His omnipotence ; 
 a mere cold abstraction, a blind force, working without 
 conscious plan or moral emotion, and of course as deaf 
 to prayer as the sea to the drowning cry of its victims. 
 Now, it is quite true that God is the author of that 
 wondrous order which pervades all the universe, and 
 that the entire procession of events was fixed in Eternal 
 wisdom, and also that everything is brought about by 
 the action of natural law, which last is as much a part 
 of the Divine plan as any purpose that His Avisdom hath 
 ordained. You cannot be wrong in believing these 
 things ; but you may be wrong in thinking that you 
 can so understand, and apply them as to be able to say 
 what is consistent with His nature, and what is not. 
 These are truths, no doubt ; but morally they are 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 263 
 
 somewhat barren truths. They are at any rate infinite 
 quantities, with which our reason vainly strives to deal. 
 And to my mind, I confess, it has often been a matter 
 of no little wonder to understand how it is that men 
 are ever found so ready to turn away from the thought 
 of a gracious Father, full of tender sympathy for His 
 children, in order to expatiate in those regions of peril- 
 ous and mysterious inquiry, where the human heart 
 finds no kindred heart responsive to its longings, but 
 only an omnipotent will, or a cold abstraction, and the 
 impotent logic of inscrutable ideas. I can understand 
 how the lofty mountain, whose lower slopes are covered 
 with fields and vineyards and happy homes, where 
 children play and old men bask in the sun, should rise 
 into bleak regions of sterile grandeur, wliere there is no 
 hum or trace of living creature. But though it may be 
 well for the curious inquirer to visit those lofty sum- 
 mits once in a way, I cannot comprehend how any one 
 should forsake the happy homes and human sym- 
 pathies and fruitful fields, and seek a dwelling for him- 
 self amid the cold and the silence and the deathliness 
 of those awful peaks and ci'ags. So also the great 
 Divine idea rises, no doubt, if rising it can properly be 
 called, from the homelike and familiar thought of our 
 Father, into lofty and misty conceptions of law and 
 order and purpose, fixed from of old in eternity. But 
 though it be well to hold this for truth, and even occa- 
 sionally to journey into those regions of inscrutable 
 thought, yet surely it is not wise to forsake the joyful 
 and fruitful revelation of our heavenly Father, and to 
 
264 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 think that we get a truer conception of God in those 
 chill abstractions and changeless laws which neither 
 feel our calamities, nor hear our prayers. 
 
 For after all is said that can be said, the fountain of 
 all sound theology, of all true religion, of all effectual 
 prayer, is the Fatherhood of God. If I want a simple, 
 yet most profound, system of divinity, I turn to the 
 story of the prodigal son. If I would know what true 
 piety is, I go to that good word of promise, ' Because ye 
 are sons, God hatli sent forth the Spirit of his Son into 
 your hearts, crying Abba, Father,' And if I would 
 know how to pray, T turn to that perfect model which 
 our Lord himself has here bequeathed unto us, and 
 which ye teach your children to pray with folded 
 hands and bended knee, — for the simple piety of child- 
 hood clothes itself fitly and beautifully in its hallowed 
 words — but which the ripe and hoary believer, standing 
 at heaven's gate, is also glad to use, for he finds no 
 fitter prayer, so long as prayer is needed, than those 
 simple petitions in which his childish spirit held its 
 first communings with the Lord. For though it is a 
 child's prayer, it is not one which we can ever outgrow. 
 It deepens with our deepening thoughts ; and therefore 
 soft lisping voices mingle now, as they have for long 
 centuries mingled, with the richest and deepest expe- 
 riences of Christian faith, as the whole family of the 
 redeemed cry, ' Our Father which art in heaven.' Now, 
 in that model of all prayer we ask that the Father's name 
 may be hallowed, that the Father's kingdom may come, 
 that the Father's will may be done, that the Father 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 265 
 
 would give His children their daily bread, their daily 
 pardon, their daily guidance, — for the x^ower and the 
 glory are His. Brethren, this most blessed truth lies at 
 the root of all real prayer. It is all the cry of children to 
 the Father. Therefore Christ came to reveal to us, not 
 a blind force working in an unconscious universe, not 
 even a supreme and arbitrary will, a ^:)crso?i on whose 
 personality, however, there was nothing to which we 
 could attach any cords of love ; but a Father caring for 
 the wants, forgiving the sins, leading the steps of His 
 erring offspring ; and no prayer is possible except on 
 this foundation, for there is no loving faith without the 
 Fatherhood of God. Oh take not this thought from me, 
 *for then shall I be tongue-tied, and my heart's foun- 
 tains dried up, and all your frigid theologies will only 
 harden me into stone ! True, it is only revealed in 
 Christ, and in Christ only realized ; but for this very 
 end He came into the world, that He might proclaim our 
 kindred with the Highest, and our born right to be- 
 come the sons of God. Therefore it is, brethren, because 
 of this real fatherly disposition of God, that the voice 
 of our human want shall not be unheard, and the cry 
 of our human sorrow shall not be unheeded. There is 
 a chord of most tender sympathy in the Father's heart, 
 to which we may appeal with even more assured con- 
 fidence than to any earthly parents. They may be 
 ignorant, but He knows all our need ; they may be in- 
 different, but He is compassionate and loving ; they 
 may be selfish, but He seeks only our good ; they may 
 turn their hearts away, but He never changes. A 
 
200 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 mother may forget her sucking child. Mothers there 
 liave been who slept through the long night-watches, 
 and heard not tlie wailing babe that was dying on their 
 bosom ; but He slumbereth not nor sleepeth, and the 
 faintest moan of a childlike heart will find an ever- 
 loving sympathy responsive to its cry. He is not in- 
 different to our wants. If you ask for bread, He will 
 not mock you with a stone ; if you ask for a fish, He 
 will not cheat you with a serpent ; if you ask for an 
 egg, he will not hurt you with a scorpion. He will not 
 reply to the prayers of His children either with mock- 
 eries, or delusions, or gifts of harmful import. Only let 
 us take care that our prayer be real ; for verily the 
 answer will be as real as the prayer. But alas ! we say 
 * Our Father' with no feeling of children, and no faith in 
 Him. We make duty prayers, because it is right ; formal 
 prayers, because it is customary ; word prayers, because 
 they are elegant ; — mockeries all of them ! and no won- 
 der that they return to our own bosom. For unless we 
 come in the faith and love of children to their Father, we 
 might as well be dumb, like the prayerless atheist who 
 holds the throne of heaven to be vacant and impotent, as 
 indeed it virtually is if there be not a Father there to 
 hear us. 
 
 3. "VVliile prayer is thus effectual because it is made 
 to a Father who feels with us and is willing to help us, 
 we are not to suppose that everything we ask of Him 
 shall be given to us, neither should we murmur when 
 our requests are refused. It is well to ask of Him, but 
 not to dictate to Him. He will withhold no good thing 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 267 
 
 from tliem that fear Him, but tlien He knows better 
 than we do what it is good to give ; and sometimes the 
 best answer to our requests is in reality to deny them. 
 We ask and receive not, because we ask amiss. Your 
 child seeks somewhat which it were not meet for you 
 to give, nor fit for it to get ; and perhaps it falls into 
 a passion of grief at being refused. Yet you will not 
 yield to its unwise desire. You are sorry at its disap- 
 pointment ; you remonstrate with its folly ; but you 
 know it would be greater folly in you to yield to it. 
 So a witless babe may be eager to lay hold of the shin- 
 ing serpent in the grass, not knowing its venom ; but it 
 would not be like a father to let it have its way. You 
 would never give a serpent for a fish, though you might 
 be ready enough to give the fish in room of the serpent. 
 A hungry child may cry for bread, and you would never 
 give it a stone instead ; but if it clamour for the precious 
 stone on your finger, you may try to content it with a 
 bit of bread, but you will not grant its wish ; for to you 
 the stone is a jewel of price, and to the babe it were 
 but a toy, to please for a moment and be lost. It is 
 the child's part, then, to submit to a father's better 
 wisdom, and be thankful if it gets the egg when it 
 seeks the scorpion. Now, we are but as children here, 
 ignorant of the real qualities of many things, taken with 
 the glitter of others, and like enough to ask for a boon 
 what would be far from a blessing. Therefore it be- 
 hoves us ever to school our hearts to say, 'Not as we will, 
 but as Thou wilt.' For does not your own experience 
 bear me out when I say, that if you had gotten all you 
 
268 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 ever asked, if things were wliolly controlled, not by the 
 Father's better wisdom, but by our desires and prayers, 
 life would have presented even a worse and sadder 
 story than it does ? In youth you longed for a speedy 
 and triumphant success in life. As you look back now 
 on the past, do you think it would have been well 
 for you if that prayer had been granted, and if you had 
 grown old without the wisdom of trial, and the discipline 
 of trouble and sorrow ? In health, you have prayed 
 against the coming of sickness. Yet bethink you now, 
 would it have been good for you, had you never had to 
 lie, and commune with your own heart on a sick-bed 
 before the Lord? Very shallow has that man's life 
 been, and fruitful of little wisdom, who has not learnt 
 that God's dealings with him have been wiser and 
 better than his own plans would have been. Prayer 
 is effectual, but happily it is not always effectual in 
 obtaining our requests. Sometimes, indeed, God grants 
 our desires, and sends leanness into our souls. So 
 Israel hungered for flesh in the desert, and got it to 
 their sorrow. In such a case, prayer is answered rather 
 by judgment than mercy ; but that is God's strange 
 work ; and more commonly, if we ask amiss, wise love 
 only refuses the request, and wraps up its kindness in 
 the grief or trouble which we are fain to put away from 
 us. And if we only rested with more confidence on the 
 Father's love, and learnt to be more submissive to His 
 better wisdom, I am assured we should oftener discern 
 the answer of prayer than we now do, though it might 
 be sometimes by spiritual gifts when we craved only 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 269 
 
 for temporal, sometimes by bread when we looked for 
 a stone ; but always far more abundantly than we had 
 asked or thought. The Father is willing to give what 
 is good, far more willing than we are to ask. Not 
 as we will, then, but as He wills. Amen, so let 
 it be. 
 
 4. In order to be effectual, our prayers must be real ; 
 but, for the highest efficacy, they must be both real and 
 also spiritual. In St. Matthew's version of this saying, 
 our Lord does not allude to high matters of grace and 
 truth as forming the subject of our requests to God ; 
 but only to common things — eggs and bread and 
 fishes, and the like, which some might suppose to 
 be rather out of place in such a sacred business as 
 prayer. Jesus, however, did not so regard the matter. 
 He speaks in a homely vein ; but there is meaning, and 
 no meanness, in these homely words. He knew that 
 the heavenly Father cares for a sparrow, though it be 
 not worth a farthing, and provides for the raven, though 
 it be worth even less. A parent may feel a special in- 
 terest in the higher culture and spiritual wellbeing of 
 his child ; but he will also care for its common food and 
 raiment. If your sick child cry to you for a cup of cold 
 water, that cry will touch your heart, for it is the ex- 
 pression of a real want, and a felt dependence on your 
 care. And so, too, the heavenly Father is not above 
 listening to our lowliest necessities ; nor should we be 
 above asking that which He is willing to grant. I draw 
 your attention to this, because I cannot help thinking 
 that a deal of our praying is fruitless, because it is not 
 
270 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 real. How comes it, for instance, that whenever a 
 man betakes himself to this exercise, straightway all 
 individuality of character seems to disappear, and every 
 one asks for the same evangelical blessings in the same 
 evangelical phrases ? Are all alike heavenly-minded ? 
 Are all equally longing for God, the living God ? Does 
 not this universal appearance of spirituality suggest 
 some suspicion of the reality of such prayers ? What, 
 if we have formed to ourselves a fixed idea of what 
 proper prayer should be, of the spiritual subjects it 
 should deal with, and the scriptural phrases it should 
 be expressed in, so that we are less anxious to be real 
 in point of fact than evangelical in point of form, and 
 our supplications tell more of our theological opinions 
 than they do of the actual wants of our souls ? Do not 
 suppose that we would w4sh men to be less spiritual in 
 their desires. God forbid. Sad it is to think how our 
 souls cleave to the dust ; how earthly we still are ; how 
 little we hunger for the bread of life. But just because 
 there is in reality so little true spiritual desire among 
 us, I deprecate the fostering of a delusive appearance 
 of it, and would far rather hear men pleading for bread 
 and eggs and fishes, and such commonplace matters, 
 the want of which they do feel, than to be palming 
 vipon themselves a counterfeit and smiulated spiri- 
 tuality for which, in the bottom of their hearts, they 
 have no care at all. Brethren, the very first requisite 
 of prayer is that it be real, the feeling of a real want, 
 and the faith of a real dependence upon God. That is 
 the prime essential quality of it, without which it is 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH- 271 
 
 idle as the passing wind. If the heart be smitten with a 
 lofty desire, then, lofty as its nature is, let it speak in a 
 kindred strain, and surely the Father will rejoice to hear 
 it. But if humbler in its thoughts, and coarser in its 
 grain, then let its cry be according to its homelier feelings, 
 — like the young bird in the nest, opening its mouth as 
 yet not for music, but only for crumbs. The Father 
 will hear the real cry of His children however lowly 
 their wants, and He may answer it in a way that shall 
 lead on to better things ; but that which rises not truly 
 out of our felt need is a very mockery, however high 
 and sacred its apparent longing after God. Have a 
 care then, brethren, and when ye go to a throne of 
 grace say to your souls, Here, if anywhere, I must be 
 honest and true. Better to pray honestly for the eggs 
 and bread and hshes which I do need, and feel that I 
 need, than pretend to ask that which at heart I do not 
 desire. Henceforth, whatever else I be, I will be honest 
 before the Lord ; for when I have learnt to pray faith- 
 fully, ' Give us this day our daily bread,' I may learn 
 also to say sincerely, ' Thy kingdom come.' 
 
 So far we gather from the record of St, Matthew a 
 wholesome lesson as to the reality of prayer, being 
 assured that however humble our requests, yet if they 
 be sincere they shall not be unheeded. St. Luke, how- 
 ever, in his version, introduces another element, and 
 one about which we can speak with greater decision 
 and confidence : ' If your earthly fathers know to give 
 good gifts unto their children ; how much more shall the 
 heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 
272 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Him V Now, as to all the former subjects of prayer, to 
 wbicli we have alluded, we have been compelled to 
 admit that our requests might be granted, or they might 
 not ; but that the refusal ought not to shake our confi- 
 dence in the efficacy of prayer. A foolish child may ask 
 for that which a wise parent is bound to deny. A sickly 
 appetite may crave for that which a faithful physician 
 will nowise allow. Yet it would be strange reasoning to 
 conclude that therefore all requests were vain when 
 made to parents and physicians. The truest answer to 
 some prayers is, to deny their petition ; yet the faith 
 that may be in them shall bear fruit some way or other, 
 for all that. It is different, however, when we enter 
 into the region of things spiritual ; and, therefore, while 
 I have urged you to be, in the first place, real, I must 
 also remind you that the thoroughly effectual prayer is 
 that which is at once real, and also spiritual. God will 
 give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. He will 
 not give you something else in reply to that petition ; 
 for that is a boon which can never be amiss. A true 
 father, who is mindful to provide for all the common 
 wants of his children, hath a special care to train them 
 for a wise, dutiful, and noble life. He will grudge 
 nothing that may help in securing that. He will not 
 stint the means that may be necessary for enlarging the 
 mind, for purifying the heart, for strengthening the 
 character, and for elevating the soul to high and gene- 
 rous pursuits. And if it be thus with our earthly 
 fathers, how much more shall the heavenly Father give 
 the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? This is the 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 273 
 
 most precious boon which God could bestow, but it is also 
 the one which He is ever most ready to bestow. We 
 have to seek it indeed ; but not as if there was any re- 
 luctance on His part to grant this most excellent gift, 
 which is the pledge of all other blessings. As I read 
 the gospel, on the contrary, all the unwillingness lies 
 in us ; in our ungodliness, in our love of sin, in our 
 worldhness, in our unwillingness to be conformed to 
 the likeness of Christ. Willingly, therefore, is the Holy 
 Spirit given to them who really desire Him ; and our 
 asking is just the manifestation of that desire. I do not, 
 indeed, say that He is only sent to those who pray for 
 His coming. Happily no. Oftentimes the Lord pre- 
 vents us with blessing ; giving what we need, though 
 we do not feel our need. At any rate, our requests for 
 this most precious boon are not designed to propitiate 
 any Divine opposition, or to overcome any Divine re- 
 luctance ; for the Father already yearns with a most 
 tender paternal solicitude to bestow on His children 
 everything that will really go to prepare them for His 
 fellowship and glory. For this very end Christ came 
 in the flesh and died upon the cross, even to reveal to 
 us the Father by the teaching of His Spirit ; to set us 
 at liberty, by the law of the Spirit ; to cleanse us from 
 sin, by the baptism of the Spirit ; and to make us an 
 habitation of God by His Spirit dweUing in us. The 
 humiliation, the suffering, the entire work of Jesus, had 
 for their great object to assure to every soul, that would 
 accept of His aid, the enlightening, and quickening, 
 and edifying, and comforting agency of the Holy 
 
 S 
 
274 TtlE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Ghost ; and therefore if He is not sent to us, the 
 only reason for His absence is that we do not want to 
 part with sin, do not want to crucify the flesh, do not 
 want to be conformed unto Christ, but are quite content 
 to slave on in the base drudgery of an ungodly world. 
 Brethren, this is verily the good news of God, even that 
 He does not stand aloof in offended dignity, coldly leav- 
 ing His erring children to eat the fruit of their own 
 doings, but casts abroad, on all hands, cords of love 
 whereby He may draw us up to Himself, seeking to 
 win our confidence, to melt our hearts, to persuade our 
 minds, to quicken our souls ; and lavishing every Divine 
 help, that we may be trained for glory, honour, and im- 
 ■ mortal life. It is the very joy of the Divine nature, not 
 selfishly to gather up all unto itself, but freely to com- 
 municate all blessing to all that are willing to be 
 blessed. Therefore, if our earthly fathers know to give 
 good gifts unto their children, how much more shall the 
 heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 Him? 
 
 Ask, then, and ye shall receive. It is a proof of faith 
 that ye seek from God those things that ye have need 
 of, as a child goes to its father with all its wants, fully 
 believing that he is able and willing to give what is 
 good. It is a proof of faith also not to murmur when 
 some of our requests are refused ; for we in our ignorance 
 often ask amiss, and the Father knoweth best what is 
 meet for Him to give, and good for us to get. It is a 
 special proof of i'aith that we ask the greatest of all 
 boons, even the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY FAITH. 275 
 
 who convinceth of sin, of righteousness, and of judg- 
 ment, and who worketh in us unto all well-pleasing. 
 For though one may request a trifle from a passing 
 acquaintance, one shrinks from coming under a lifelong 
 obligation except to a friend, of whose absolute good- 
 will he has the most convincing assurance. So let us 
 trust the heavenly Father ; and while telling him all 
 our wants, and confiding to him aU our troubles, and 
 submitting to him in all our disappointments, let us ever 
 remember that in no way can we show a faith that will 
 be so grateful to him as by entreating for that Holy 
 Spirit, who teacheth, and traineth, and purifieth, and 
 perfecteth his redeemed ones for entering into his fel- 
 lowship, and finally partaking of his glory. 
 
276 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 
 
 'Judge not, that ye he not judged. For with what judgment ye 
 judge, ye shall be jitdged : and with what measure ye mete, it 
 shall he measured to you again. And why heholdest thou the mote 
 that is in thy hrother's eye, hut considerest not the beam that is in 
 thine oivn eye 1 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull 
 out the mote out of thine eye ; and, behold, a beam is in thine own 
 eye ? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; 
 and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy 
 brother s eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither 
 cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their 
 feet, and turn again and rend you.^ — Matt. vii. 1-6. 
 
 We come now to the fourth great division of this 
 Sermon, which is contained in the first twelve verses of 
 this chapter, omitting the passage from verse seven to 
 verse eleven inclusive, which, for the reasons formerly 
 stated, appears to belong to the previous head. The re- 
 mainder of the chapter, from verse thirteen to the end, 
 I regard as a general peroration, or winding up of the 
 whole subject, with a solemn warning as to the respon- 
 sibility of those who were privileged to receive such 
 instruction from the Lord. 
 
 This fourth division, then, rests upon the idea of 
 moral sympathy. It requires us to imagine ourselves 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 277 
 
 ill the position of those whom we are al30ut to judge, or 
 in any other way to injure, or to profit ; and from that 
 point of view, it demands that we should regulate our 
 conduct to them, doing what we should like them to do 
 to us, and refraining from what we should not wish to 
 be done to ourselves. And here, in order once more to 
 have clearly before us the whole drift and bearing of this 
 discourse, let me remind you that the great fundamental 
 idea of the Sermon is to show in what way Christ came 
 not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. In illustrating 
 that idea. He lays down four guiding principles, by keep- 
 ing which carefully in mind the whole scope of the 
 Sermon will be easily remembered. First, there is the 
 Christian spirit of love, which is to embrace all men 
 without restriction or limitation, as laid down in the 
 44th verse of chapter v. : ' Love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, 
 and pray for them that despitefully use you, and perse- 
 cute you.' God's law is not fulfilled if we come short 
 of that true Christ-like spirit of love. Second, there 
 is the great principle of unostentatious sincerity, laid 
 down in chapter vi. verse 3 : ' Let not thy left hand 
 know what thy right hand doeth.' God's law is not 
 fulfilled by any kind of hypocrisy or formalism, but 
 only by single-minded simplicity and truth, doing all 
 things as unto God, and not as unto men. Thirdly, 
 there is the high law of faith, which alone overcometh 
 the world, as laid down in the saying, chapter vi. verse 
 33 : ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness, and all other things shall be added unto you.' 
 
278 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 God's law is only fulfilled when we thus learn to trust 
 our heavenly Father, and to set our affections on things 
 above. Fourthly, there is the fine principle of moral 
 sympathy, expressed in the 12th verse of this 7th chap- 
 ter, ' Wliatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, 
 do ye even so nnto them : for this is the law and the 
 prophets.' God's law is not fulfilled unless we are thus 
 guided in all our dealings witli our neighbours. Let 
 these four principles be borne in mind, and you will 
 have the essence of this sermon in compact form easily 
 carried about with you, and, allowing for inevitable in- 
 firmities and shortcomings, easily applied in all prac- 
 tical emergencies. You and I are bound as men, — we 
 are doubly bound as Christian men, who have been re- 
 deemed unto God by the blood of Jesus, — to illustrate 
 that love, that sincerity, that faith, that moral sympathy, 
 by which alone the law of God can be fulfilled. Those 
 four texts, then, may be called the four lamps of a true 
 Christian life, shedding a divine and glorious light on as 
 many different spheres of duty, and surely guiding iis 
 on a path by which we may adorn the gospel of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 In illustrating the last of these principles, viz., that 
 ' whatsoever things ye would that men should do 
 unto you, ye sliould do even so to them,' the Lord 
 selects for His first example the practice of uncharitable 
 judgment of our neighbours, which is unhappily so pre- 
 valent. And here let me say in the outset, before in- 
 vestigating the precise meaning of those words, that it 
 is not without reason that this warning is introduced 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 279 
 
 just wliere it is. The Lord has been exhorting men to 
 a spiritual, not a worldly life, — a life of faith in God, not 
 of earthly care. Now, it consists with all our experi- 
 ence that, if there is any snare to which those who adopt 
 that higher life are more liable than another, it is just 
 this tendency to pronounce uncharitable judgment. 
 How this should be the case I can hardly pretend to 
 explain. Perhaps it is that being, by their own free 
 choice, cut off from the more gross and carnal kind of 
 sins, being debarred from indulgences in which others 
 freely participate, their very superiority to the world in 
 these respects engenders a kind of spiritual complacency, 
 which, though forgetful enough of its own shortcomings, 
 is always ready to see, and to point at the blemishes and 
 imperfections of a neighbour. So it is, at any rate, that 
 some who would not for worlds gratify the baser lusts of 
 the flesh, and who could not profane their lips with foul 
 or ribald words, and who really are turning their hearts 
 away from the allurements of this world, and seeking to 
 lay up treasures in heaven, will frequently be found 
 practising the mean vice of the backbiter, ready to spy 
 holes and spots in a neighbour's character, and prone to 
 ascribe the worst meaning and the worst motives to 
 everything he does. One might say this is specially 
 the besetting sin of religious people. They are not 
 greatly tempted to commit those evils which are more 
 grossly and glaringly opposed to their profession of god- 
 liness. The more carnal appetites and passions are kept 
 under restraint with comparative ease. But they have 
 a keen eye for discovering other people's faults. They 
 
280 THE SEK]\ION ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 have a great readiness to condemn other people's errors. 
 They do not care to fling the cloak of charity over a neigh- 
 bour's shortcomings ; somehow or other their consciences 
 are strangely blunted to those meaner vices of evil- 
 speaking and bitterness, though they be indeed a root 
 of mischief as deep-seated and dangerous as the worst 
 vices of the world. It is very sad to have to say this. 
 It is the dark side of the Christian shield, the worm at 
 the root of its glorious beauty. And because the heart 
 of man is'always the same, always showing the same 
 weaknesses, and liable to the same temptations, Jesus, 
 who knew what was in it, follows up His exhortation to 
 the life of faith and spiritual desire, by this warning, 
 fit now as it was then, to the more religious class of 
 people, ' Judge not, that ye be not judged. Why be- 
 holdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, 
 and considerest not the beam that is in thine own?' 
 Ah ! brethren, let us receive in all meekness this good 
 word of the Lord. Let those of you who are seeking 
 the kingdom of God and His righteousness, watch 
 specially against this snare, lest it entangle your souls. 
 How base it is ! how far from the true spirit of love ! 
 what reproach it brings on the gospel ! how dishonour- 
 inff to our Christian name ! And if we continue to in- 
 dulge it, what ruin it works both on him who does it, 
 and on those who suffer by it, — eating as doth a canker 
 into all that is good and lovely and of good report ! I 
 think, then, this word is specially addressed to those who 
 are religious, — those who can forgive their enemies, 
 those who are sincere in their devotion, those who are 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 281 
 
 laying up treasure in heaven ; and knowing their weak 
 point, Jesus says to them, ' Judge not, that ye be not 
 judged.' But this word, of Christ's implies — 
 
 1. That we shall not be eager to spy out our neigh- 
 bour's faults. 
 
 2. That we shall not be in haste to speak of his 
 faults. 
 
 3. That we shall not be willing to ascribe the worst 
 motives to him. And 
 
 4. That in such matters we shall be regulated by the 
 great law of sympathy, 'Wliatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' Let me 
 draw your attention to these points in detail. And, 
 
 1. 'Judge not, that ye be not judged ;' that is to say, 
 be not eager to spy out your neighbour's faults, for that 
 is not worthy, not Christian, not fulfilling the law of 
 God. In illustrating this idea, our Lord uses a very 
 beautiful and expressive figure. He says that people 
 who do this are like a man who can see a mote — a little, 
 the very least particle — in the eye of a neighbour, and 
 who is lamentably blind to the beam — the far greater 
 evil — that is in his own ; and He adds that if the man 
 would cast the beam out of his own eye, he would see 
 far more clearly to cast the mote out of his neighbour's. 
 This will require a little more detailed exposition. Let 
 me therefore say that our Lord does not here absolutely 
 forbid us to form any judgment whatever of our neigh- 
 bour, and his conduct. That is quite impossible, and 
 would not be for good even if it were possible. We 
 cannot help having our opinion of other men, nor 
 
282 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 can we, nor sliould we, altogether shut our eyes to their 
 faults. Moral judgments of what is going on around us, 
 and of those who transact it, we must needs form, so 
 long as we have a conscience, a moral sense within us ; 
 nor were it good for us, or for the world, if we failed to 
 do so. We must form opinions on others, and to be 
 true, they must be condemnatory of the wicked; and 
 what is more, we should deserve the just rebuke of the 
 Lord, if we were so to confound the eternal distinctions 
 of right or wrong as to withhold in all cases the word of 
 honest reprobation from the evil-doer. Jesus therefore 
 does not mean that we are never, in any circumstances, 
 to judge our neighbour, or to condemn him for the thing 
 he has done. What He forbids here, is the exceeding 
 readmess we often betray to discover the shortcoming 
 of others, and that more especially as it is frequently 
 accompanied with a most wilful blindness to our own 
 errors. Tor if we dealt more faithfully by ourselves, 
 and were more resolutely determined to get rid of our 
 own sins, we should see more clearly how to deal with 
 our brother's, for we should have more brotherly sym- 
 pathy with him ; and that would help us to understand 
 his difficulties, and to appreciate his character aright, 
 and to transact as a brother with a brother's frailties. 
 Therefore, let us not be in haste to judge others, but 
 rather let us judge our own selves. To understand 
 aright the infirmities of our own character and tlie guilt 
 of our own lives, will either make us chary of sitting in 
 judgment on others, or will at least prepare us for form- 
 ing righteous and just opinions by which we shall be 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 283 
 
 helpful to them in their temptations. Let us, then, 
 avoid the cruel liabit of sitting in judgment on others, 
 searching out their flaws, picking holes in their char- 
 acters, finding motes in their eye. It is a poor work 
 at the best, — ■ poor, mean, and ignoble ; and mean- 
 while, as we watch the springing weeds in a neighbour's 
 field, we forget how they are flowering and seeding in 
 the garden of our own souls, Avhich runs all to neglect- 
 ful waste, barren and unfruitful of the true knowledge 
 of Christ. Brethren, it is the very curse of this un- 
 charitable spirit of judgment that evermore its eyes are 
 abroad about the ends of the earth ; anywhere rather 
 than where they should be, searching out our own sins 
 and shortcomings ; and so it comes to pass that evils 
 grow like great beams in our own eye, while we are 
 searching out the small mote in our neighbour's. The 
 more vigilant we are over him, the more careless we are 
 of ourselves. The less we spare his faults, the more 
 tender we grow of our own. The more vividly we see 
 his smallest errors, the more blind we are to those which 
 disfigure our own lives. And so, in very truth, the men 
 who are most censorious, are just the very men who 
 are themselves the least faultless, the most indul- 
 gent to their own cherished sins. A sad and unhappy, 
 yet most natural result. They have no sympathy, not 
 because they are faultless, but because they are faithless. 
 They have no consideration, not because they are sternly 
 righteous, but just because they make it their business to 
 judge others, and not themselves. They see the mote 
 in another's eye, but they cannot help him to cast it 
 
284 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 out, because iu reality tliey have never cast the beam 
 from their own. And thus this readiness to judge is 
 at once the cause of growing evil in themselves, and 
 of their helpless inability to aid their brother. Their 
 business has been not to cleanse out motes, but only to 
 find them out. Their business has been not to see their 
 own sins, but their neighbour's. And so they are alike 
 neglectful of their own errors, and helpless as to those 
 of others. Verily and in every light unprofitable ser- 
 vants! Surely, then, it becomes us to lay that good word 
 to heart, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' 
 
 2. This implies that neither are we to speak hastily 
 of the sins of our neighbours. 
 
 A readiness to spy out faults is one thing ; it is 
 another thing to be eager to speak of them, and point 
 them out to others. I could imagine a person so con- 
 stituted as to be always seeing the motes in his neigh- 
 bour's eye, who yet managed to refrain from unkindly 
 speech about them. Such an individual is at least pos- 
 sible, though in point of fact the two things are gener- 
 ally combined. And this is indeed the mischief of that 
 kind of character, that it seldom if ever refrains from 
 proclaiming the faults which it is so prone to discover, 
 reckless of the pain or the injury which it may thus 
 inflict. Were it otherwise, the evil resulting from such 
 a habit would be mainly limited to the man himself 
 who indulged in it. If any one, giving himself up to 
 an envious and detracting spirit, got into the habit of 
 seeing only or chiefly the faults, the errors, the short- 
 comings of his brethren, yet managed to restrain his 
 
THE LAW KEl^T BY SYMPATHY. 285 
 
 lips from uttering to others what he thus saw, or thought 
 he saw, I should he sorry for that man ; I should know 
 for certain that his own sins were being neglected, as he 
 busied himself in discovering those of other men; I 
 should also feel assured that he would inevitably form 
 so low an estimate of human nature that all faith in its 
 higher powers and heroisms and noblenesses would die 
 quite out of him, and with their death he himself would 
 be incapable of anything great or generous or high ; I 
 should be exceeding sorry for such a man, though I do 
 not know that his conduct could do much harm, except 
 to himself That which makes this spirit of unkindly 
 judging peculiarly mischievous, is that it is almost uni- 
 formly accompanied with a great readiness to proclaim 
 its opinions; not only to see faults, but to point them out 
 also. Moreover, even that might do no great harm, but 
 rather good, if it were done in the right quarter. If I 
 tell his errors to my neighbour himself, it is possible I 
 might have been better occupied in dealing with my 
 own ; it is possible I may exhibit no very creditable or 
 brotherly spirit in what I do ; but still, if the matter 
 goes no further, I do no great harm, perhaps may even 
 do him a service. The eager fault-finder indeed de- 
 serves small thanks for pointing out the mote in his 
 brother's eye ; but were that all, neither should we care 
 to blame him very much. That, however, is rarely the 
 true state of the case. Such men are not often content 
 with forming judgments which they keep to themselves, 
 nor are they satisfied with communicating their opinion 
 to the party specially concerned ; but having seen what 
 
286 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 they think wrong, they are in haste to say it, anywhere, 
 everywhere, judging and condemning their neighbour. 
 No matter though the knowledge can profit no single 
 soul. No matter though it may be fraught with most dis- 
 astrous results to him whose good name is thus assailed. 
 No matter though he has no opportunity given him to 
 vindicate himself, and is going on in the most perfect 
 unconsciousness that he is being robbed of his charac- 
 ter. The backbiting, censorious spirit goes about its 
 base work with growing heart and relish, reckless that 
 ' life and death are in the power of the tongue.' And it 
 is characteristic at once of him who is thus ready to 
 judge, and also of those who listen to his words, that 
 neither of them take any pains to ascertam the real 
 truth of the matter. The fault-finder, looking ever 
 through the prejudiced medium of his own unkindly 
 thoughts, and piecing this and that together, draws his 
 conclusion, and then is ready to assert for a fact what 
 may be only the fancy of his own ungenerous mind ; 
 and those who listen to him, having commonly itching 
 ears for all ignoble gossip, receive his words into a con- 
 genial soil which takes kindly to any unkindly judg- 
 ment, asking no questions for conscience' sake ; and so 
 many an unjust and wicked sentence is formed and pro- 
 pagated, and infinite mischief done, without any oppor- 
 tunity to discover, and refute its malice. And what 
 makes this sin peculiarly pernicious is, that even when 
 the falsity is detected and exposed, the conscience both 
 of the backbiter and of those who listen to him is 
 strangely blinded, and rarely feels any proper shame, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 287 
 
 but is fain to speak of its own wicked and pernicious con- 
 duct as only a mistake, an unfortunate mistake, for which 
 in fact he is almost as much to be pitied as blamed. 
 Ah ! brethren, it is mournful to think how much of this 
 evil spirit exists in the Church, how little is done to 
 arrest its ravages, how few feel any conscience about 
 it. Wherefore, putting away all malice, hatred, evil- 
 speaking, and uncharitableness, see that ye judge not, 
 that ye be not judged. 
 
 3. This implies also that we are to watch against 
 that uncharitable spirit which is ever ready to ascribe 
 the worst meanings, and the worst motives to our neigh- 
 bour's conduct. This, in fact, leads directly to the root 
 of the whole evil which we have been speaking of ; and 
 it is to me almost inexplicable how it can still retain 
 the place it does among so many professedly reli- 
 gious people. For if there is any moral duty which, 
 more tlian another, stands out as the very badge and 
 symbol of Christianity, it is charity. Paul, who in the 
 torrent of his earnest and vehement argument, seldom 
 turns aside to indulge in bursts of passionate rhetoric, 
 yet cannot help yielding to the sweet fascination of his 
 theme when he comes to speak of the charity that 
 covereth a multitude of sins, and hopeth all things and 
 thinketh no evil ; and as it rises up before his mind 
 with all its tender and considerate grace, he gives way 
 to one of the most glowing outbreaks of divine elo- 
 quence that ever thrilled the heart of man. Thus 
 enshrined in the heart of the gospel, and exalted by the 
 noblest utterances of inspiration, one might surely have 
 
288 THE, SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 expected that, if there w^as one Christian grace which 
 would be coveted, and cherished, and esteemed in the 
 Church, it would have been this ' more excellent way,' 
 this crowning glory and beauty of the Christian faith. 
 But alas ! instead of this, how often do we find a mean 
 and envious spirit which, because it is itself incapable 
 of acting from high and generous motives, cannot 
 apparently give any one credit for liigher principles 
 than its own, and so with base detraction selects ever 
 the worst possible motive for a brother's conduct, and 
 ascribes ever the worst possible meaning to it. There 
 may not be even a shadow of reason for such judgment. 
 The whole spirit and character of those whom he is 
 condemning may be utterly opposed to the \dew he 
 takes. But instead of thinking no evil, he seems to 
 think nothing but evil. Instead of covering a multi- 
 tude of sins, he would conceal and blacken the most 
 shining virtues. Incapable of imderstanding what is 
 noble, or of sympathizing with it, he regards it ever 
 with a sinister and detracting eye ; and if it is at all 
 possible to explain the conduct of another man by 
 mean and unworthy reasons, he is sure to find them 
 out, and ascribe it all to them. And yet such a man 
 will call himself a Christian ; will profess to repudiate, 
 and keep aloof from the world ; will talk of laying up 
 treasures in heaven ; will greatly relish what he calls 
 religious fellowship, in which the fellowship mamly 
 consists of an ample interchange of such uncharitable 
 judgments. Alas ! what strange anomalies we are ! 
 Is it any wonder that generous-minded worldlings are 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 289 
 
 not attracted by a piety of this stamp, so envious, so 
 pitiless, so much given to think evil of every one, to 
 find motes in every eye, and to make them where they 
 are not; blind in the meanwhile to the beam in its 
 own ? Take heed, brethren, lest ye in this way dis- 
 honour the gospel, and turn men's hearts from Jesus. 
 ' Judge not, that ye be not judged.' 
 
 4. Let me remind you, in conclusion, that in all such 
 matters we must be regulated by the great law of moral 
 sympathy, ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 to you, do ye even so to them.' 
 
 At first sight, the words ' Judge not that ye be not 
 judged,' might appear to be a mere appeal to our selfish- 
 ness. There are various expressions of our Lord, which, 
 on a superficial glance at them, seem to be of this charac- 
 ter, so that one might conclude that He enjoined us to 
 do what is right, not for its own sake, but for the reward 
 which it brmgs. But whenever we look narrowly into 
 the matter, this aspect of selfishness speedily vanishes, 
 as- it does, for example, in the case before us. You 
 might conclude that Jesus counselled His followers 
 to avoid uncharitable judgments, fault-findings, back- 
 biting, and all the other forms of this sin, only be- 
 cause, if they indulged in such things, they would be 
 tolerably certain themselves to meet with similar treat- 
 ment. As a matter of fact, that is likely enough. If one 
 were disposed to draw satirical pictures, one might 
 easily show that the frequent groups of wicked gossips, 
 whether worldly or religious, who assemble together for 
 the purpose of tearing a neighbour's character to tatters, 
 
 T 
 
290 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 are, each individual of them, just as bitterly uncharit- 
 able to every other member of the group ; that they do 
 not spare each other more than those whom they agree 
 to defame ; and what is more, they know it too, and do 
 not trust each other. That is a very miserable and 
 melancholy account to give of them ; but it is true, and 
 it only shows that if our Lord meant to forbid uncharit- 
 able judgments merely because we might ourselves 
 become in turn the victims of them. He really gave us 
 no effectual motive for refraining from them, and be- 
 trayed a strange ignorance of the human heart ; for 
 people do such things, and go on doing them, though 
 all the while they know perfectly well that they 
 are themselves the victims of the same malicious 
 device. But in point of fact, that is not the Lord's 
 meaning. To get at that, you must place these words, 
 ' Judge not that ye be not judged,' in the light of 
 that great principle, 'Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' Then 
 its meaning becomes plain. It is simply this : ' Judge 
 not your neighbour in a way in which you would not 
 like him to judge you.' Do not spy out his faults 
 in a fashion which you would consider unkind and 
 ungenerous, if done to yourself; do not talk of his 
 errors as you would feel it unfair to have your own 
 discussed and babbled about ; do not ascribe base 
 motives and wicked meanings to him, which you would 
 hold to be unjust if ascribed to you. You would like 
 your own conduct to be scanned with a kindly eye, to 
 be spoken of with tender consideration, to be explained 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 291 
 
 as by one who liopeth all things and thinketh no evil. 
 Well, so do ye to others 'whatsoever ye would that 
 they shoiQd do to you,' Let that be your guide in all 
 such matters. It is not a rule of selfishness, but of sym- 
 pathy. It is to put yourself in the room of those whom 
 your conduct may injure, and to deal with them as ten- 
 derly as ye would like to be dealt with yourself. And if 
 ye do this for Christ's sake, because He hath enjoined it, 
 and because He also so faithfully practised it, and because 
 love only is the fulfilling of the law, then shall ye walk 
 worthy of your high calling, and ' the calves of your lips' 
 shall be a sweet sacrifice unto God. So may He grant 
 you grace to illustrate that holy and sympathizing 
 charity which is the bond of perfection; and to His 
 name be praise. 
 
292 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 
 
 ' Give not that ivhich is holy tmto the dogs, neither cast ye your 
 peurls be/ore swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and 
 turn again and rend you. Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
 vmuld that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this 
 is the law and the prophets.^ — Matt. vu. 6, 12. 
 
 These expressions were, most likely, common pro- 
 verbs, familiar to the people of Israel ; or if not so 
 previously, they would at once obtain currency among 
 those brief and pithy sayings which concentrate the 
 wisdom and experience of a nation. With regard to 
 the first of them, ' Give not that which is holy unto 
 dogs,' it must be remembered that in the East the dog 
 is not, as with us, esteemed for his sagacity and faith- 
 fulness as man's chosen friend among all the brute 
 creation. On the contrary, he is despised and neglected, 
 held to be one of the unclean animals, and abhorred 
 nearly as much as the swine ; and in consequence he 
 remains very much in his natural wild state, roving the 
 streets with the jackal, and preying on the garbage, and 
 snarling at the passer-by, with no man to be his master, 
 still less his friend. Now, if any animal were offered 
 
TIIE LATV KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 293 
 
 in sacrifice to God, it became by that consecration a 
 holy thing ; for though only certain appointed parts of 
 it might be used for the direct service of the altar, it 
 was all hallowed, because it had been devoted to the 
 Lord, Therefore, the offerer of the sacrifice would have 
 been revolted by the idea that any portion of the sacred 
 victim had been flung to the unclean dogs : it might be 
 used by the priests ; or it might be burnt in the fire ; 
 but to give it to the dogs, would have seemed a desecra- 
 tion of that which was holy. Some people might call 
 these feelings over-refined. They might say that if the 
 appointed sacrifice was offered to the Lord, it did not 
 matter what became of the rest ; and surely it was 
 better to feed the hungry animals with it than to waste 
 and bum it. But here, as in many other respects, we 
 find God's law recognising the legitimacy of those deK- 
 cate sensibilities which coarse natures are prone to 
 despise as unreasonable. So, for example, it was writ- 
 ten, * Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk ;' 
 for such an act, besides being probably a heathenish 
 sacrifice with a special symbolic meaning, revolts those 
 tender feelings as with a kind of wanton outrage. So 
 also here the Lord says, ' Give not that which is holy 
 unto dogs,' for the more tender sensibilities of the de- 
 vout worshipper would be pained by the thought that 
 his ofi^'ering had been di\'ided, as it were, between God 
 and an unclean beast. The other proverb requires no 
 explanation. It is as much as to say. Give acorns to 
 the swine, which they can value, not pearls, which may 
 only irritate, and enrage them ; for that which is precious 
 
294 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 to you may be wortliless to them, and in their ignorance 
 they may trample it under foot, and dishonour it. 
 
 The general truth embodied in these proverbs, then, is 
 that Christians must learn wisdom as well as charity, 
 and that, while it is their duty to bear witness for God, 
 there is also a measure of reserve and thoughtful reti- 
 cence, which is equally incumbent, for their own sakes, 
 and for the sake of the truth, and also for the sake of 
 those who might otherwise be led to outrage and dis- 
 honour the truth. But while that is the general idea, 
 there seems to me to be a shade of difference between 
 the two sayings which is worth a passing notice. 
 Tilings holy are not to be thrown to dogs ; things pre- 
 cious are not to be cast to swine ; and I cannot help 
 thinking these two words indicate two classes of sub- 
 jects which are to be dealt with in tlie same spirit of 
 wise reserve. Further, it is necessary to find some 
 guiding principle by which to regulate this law of reti- 
 cence, which has been often falsely and perniciously 
 applied ; and that regulating principle seems to be 
 given in the words, ' "Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' Therefore 
 my remarks now will divide themselves under these 
 three divisions, namely — 
 
 1. The reserve which will not give things holy to 
 dogs; 
 
 2. The reserve which will not cast pearls to swine; 
 and 
 
 3. The principle which is mainly to regulate such 
 reserve. 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 295 
 
 1. Tliere is a Avise Christian reserve wliicli will not 
 give that which is holy to dogs. The dog, as I have 
 said, was reckoned, with the swine, among the unclean 
 animals. They were both of them types of the grossly 
 sensual kind of sinners, given over to mere brute appe- 
 tite, and insensible to any higher life. Hence it was 
 a common saying, ' without, are dogs,' to indicate the 
 general carnality of the Gentile world. So Christians 
 are bidden ' beware of dogs,' — to be on their guard 
 against the coarse, fleshly world that revelled in its 
 gross animalism, and turned ever loathsomely, ' like the 
 dog to his vomit.' In general, then, those who are 
 alluded to here under the figure of dogs, are the gross, 
 sensual type of men, who have no respect for spiritual 
 things, but rebel, and contradict, and as it were snarl 
 at them, dragging them in the mire of their own filthy 
 ways, and rending them asunder. To such then we 
 are not to give things that are holy, — not, at least, until 
 they are, in some measure, prepared to deal with them. 
 For things holy belong to the holy, or at any rate to 
 those who recognise them to be holy, and will treat 
 them, therefore, with the reverence which is their due. 
 We are bound to act so that these sacred things shall 
 not be despised, and that our good shall not be evil 
 spoken of, and that we shall not needlessly arouse the 
 opposition and hatred to spiritual concerns, which these 
 carnal minds are so ready to indulge in. Now, in re- 
 gard to the things holy about Avhich we are to exercise 
 this cautious resei've, let me say it is not possible pre- 
 cisely to mark the limits and boundaries of this field, 
 
296 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, 
 
 but thcat it must be left, in a great measure, to the 
 spiritual discernment and sensibility of each believer. 
 A single illustration, however, will perhaps indicate, 
 witli sufficient distinctness, the kind of province occu- 
 pied by things holy. In domestic intercourse there are 
 many matters with which a stranger may not inter- 
 meddle, more especially one who has no sympathy with 
 its sweet interchange of fellowship and love. To lay 
 bare all its privacies to the general world would be to 
 desecrate some of the purest joys of life, and to subject 
 them to the unfeeling ridicule, or coarse abuse of those 
 who comprehend them not. No refined or right-hearted 
 man could be guilty of such conduct wantonly; and 
 even when some imperious necessity appears to over- 
 bear these sensibilities, and to demand that the veil of 
 inner privacy should be lifted from his home, he shrinks 
 from it with an instinctive shuddering, and only can do 
 it partially, and with an utter repugnance. Now, in like 
 manner, there is an intimate spiritual life, — a close and 
 fond and frank-hearted religious experience which is, 
 as it were, the home-life of the family of God ; a thing 
 infinitely delightful to the soul ; and in the interchange 
 of whose loving joys and sweet sorrows and wondrous 
 hopes lies not a little of the blessed fellowship of the 
 saints. Of all holy things, then, that beautiful and sacred 
 experience is the one which will least bear coarse and 
 rude handling ; and there is nothing more painful to 
 the man of God than to see it treated with the snarling 
 of the unbeliever, or the ridicule of the worldly, or the 
 hatred of the carnal- minded. Some will call this feel- 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 297 
 
 ing a matter of mere sentiment. It is the custom with 
 certain people to sneer at all delicate and high-minded 
 refinement of feeling as pure sentimentality. They are 
 ready to say that, if the religious experience be true, it 
 suffers notliing by the snarling of the dogs, who only 
 bring down condemnation on themselves by their scorn 
 of that which they cannot rightly appreciate. Be it so. 
 Yet as we shall see by and by, it is not our duty need- 
 lessly to bring such condemnation upon them. It is 
 not om- duty to provoke them to do evil. It is not our 
 duty to put stumbling-blocks in their way that they 
 may fall. And even if it were otherwise, I say that 
 God recognises the claims and the legitimacy of those 
 sacred feelings which revolt from the idea of giving 
 things holy to dogs. It is not right, it is not Christian, 
 to subject those hallowed experiences to the mockery of 
 the coarse-minded. The unused portions of the sacrifice 
 were not to be cast to unclean beasts. The delicate 
 bloom of pious or natural sensibility was not to be 
 outraged when it could be helped ; for God put His seal 
 on those feelings, the effect of which is to refine and to 
 elevate the soul ; and he who would allow a hard and 
 meagre rationalism to brush away these finer spiritual 
 sensibilities little knows the exquisite, yet healthy, 
 tenderness of God's holy law. We are bound therefore, 
 for the sake of that spiritual refinement, which is one 
 of the best safeguards against sensuality, and one of 
 the surest helps to a high Divine fellowship, to be 
 careful that those sacred experiences of tlie soul shall 
 not be needlessly subjected to the mockery of profane 
 
298 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 persons. Hence also it is probable that the Lord's 
 Supper was originally a mystery, or secret service, from 
 which those without the pale, — the dogs, — were ex- 
 cluded ; because its simple and pathetic memorial of 
 Christ's death, and the kiss of love with which it con- 
 cluded, would be likely only to awaken the ridicule, or 
 still worse feelings, of those who were not of the house- 
 hold of God, and who therefore could not enter into its 
 deep and pure spirit. Thus the inner life of the soul, 
 and along with it the peculiar symbol by which the 
 Lamb's bride expressed her loving devotion to Him, 
 and probably other things of a similar type, would be 
 reckoned specially things holy, which were not to be 
 given to dogs. They belonged, as it were, to the secret 
 family intercourse of the Lord's redeemed ones, and 
 were not to be desecrated by the gaze and the com- 
 ments of the profane. And though it is no longer 
 necessary to apply this rule to the Lord's Supper, yet 
 there is stiU room for Christian wisdom to exercise a 
 cautious reserve about such matters, and to remember 
 the word of the Lord, ' Give not that which is holy to 
 dogs.' 
 
 2. There is also a similar reserve with regard to 
 things precious: ' Neither cast your pearls before swine.' 
 The tilings precious, indicated by pearls, may be also, 
 no doubt, very sacred ; but they do not belong to what 
 I have called the holy privacies of religious life. On 
 the contrary, they are meant for use and free circulation, 
 — for by the pearls I understand chiefly the truths of the 
 gospel. The kmgdom of heaven is likened to a pearl of 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 299 
 
 great price, because of the beauty, the purity, the un- 
 speakable vahie of the truth. But this pearl, though it 
 becomes ours by faith in Christ Jesus, is not ours to be 
 hoarded and hidden, or kept only for personal ornament 
 and pleasure. No man is entitled to retain the glorious 
 truths of the gospel to himself for his own delectation 
 only ; for they are given to him not more for his own 
 salvation than for general good and blessing to the 
 world. They are in this respect like gold, which, when 
 it is hoarded up and treasured, is of comparatively little 
 profit to the owner of it ; and the world suffers loss by 
 the withdrawal of so much wealth from circulation, 
 which if it were rightly employed would benefit ofliers 
 by increasing the general resources. Just so the truths 
 of the gospel, if they are cherished as a mere private 
 treasure, fail to bring all the fulness of their blessing 
 to him who loves them, and lives on them ; for it is 
 only when they are communicated and circulated that 
 we obtain the whole fruit of their gracious increase, 
 and know the full preciousness of the pearl we have 
 obtained. There is tliis difference then between them 
 and the things holy previously alluded to. The holy 
 things are strictly private, or belong only to the house- 
 hold of faith ; the pearls are really intended to be given 
 to others, only they must not be cast before sw^ine. 
 ' I apprehend, therefore, that this second proverb im- 
 plies that even in the performance of the great Christian 
 duty of preaching the gospel, there is still left room for 
 some discretion and reserve, lest by unwise speech we 
 bring dishonour on the truth and needless persecution 
 
300 THE SERMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 on ourselves. It is indeed onr duty to proclaim the 
 whole counsel of God, keeping nothing back. It is not 
 our province to conceal anything which He has been 
 pleased to reveal. We must not take upon ourselves 
 to determine what it was proper for Him to express, and 
 what it would have been better to have been silent about. 
 That would be certainly an impertinent presumption. 
 Yet, on the other hand, there is a time for everything ; 
 and 'a wise man's heart discerneth both time and 
 judgment.' ' Eeprove not a scorn er lest he hate thee,' 
 Solomon says, ' and he tliat reproveth a scorner getteth 
 himself shame.' If a man is blind and mad with in- 
 toxicating drink, it surely were not wise to urge on him, 
 at such a moment, the awful truths or gracious promises 
 of the gospel, for it is only too likely that he would ' 
 trample your pearls under foot. Nor is it only in such 
 cases that it is proper to exhibit this reticence. Your 
 child, whose mind is yet unformed, and incapable of 
 comprehending the deeper mysteries of grace, it would 
 be unkind to instruct in some matters even of deepest 
 moment, for that would be to lay on it a burden which 
 God has not fitted it to bear. And besides children, 
 there are grown people in the very same predicament, 
 as our Lord himself allowed when He told the disciples, 
 ' I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot 
 bear them now.' There are some trutlis, unspeakably 
 precious to those who are able to receive them, for 
 which the common mind requires a measure of prepara- 
 tion and training, for if they are forced on it without 
 such preparation, they may be put to great disadvantage, 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 301 
 
 and arouse a most unnecessary opposition and hatred. 
 Light must break on a man gradually. If you drag 
 him at once out of familiar darkness into the broad 
 blaze of noon, you may chance to blind him utterly, 
 and you will certainly awaken a painful shrinking from 
 the glare which he is not able to endure. Hence God 
 trained His ancient Israel by long centuries of a dim 
 and imperfect dispensation, before sending the True 
 Light ; and even after all, alas ! how few were able to 
 receive His report. Thus, brethren, at certain stages of 
 life it is proper to exercise reserve, lest the young and 
 giddy mind should bring sorrow to itself by a light and 
 frivolous treatment of awful mysteries which, in God's 
 providence, it was not prepared to deal with. And a 
 like reserve must be shown to men who may have put 
 themselves by passion, or inebriety, or otherwise, into 
 such a state that they are incapable either of reasoning 
 clearly, or feeling rightly. And still further, a similar 
 reserve must be shown towards those who are gross and 
 earthly, at least until we have done what we can to lift 
 them above the state of the dog or the swine, and to 
 prepare them for handling with reverence the deep 
 things of God. And the reason given for such reticence 
 is that, if we do otherwise, we may at once bring dis- 
 honour on the truth, and also danger on ourselves. 
 And these two things must combine ere we shall be 
 justified in keeping silence. It will not do to hold 
 back any truth of God merely because, if we proclaim 
 it, the carnal world may turn again, and rend us. It is 
 only when the truth also may suffer wrong, that we are 
 
302 THE SERMON ox THE MOUNT. 
 
 entitled to pause, and consider how much men are able 
 to receive. Nay, even when both of these results are 
 to be apprehended, it may still be our duty to speak 
 out, as our Lord himself also did when He proclaimed 
 himself King, although He well knew that His royal 
 character would be subjected to mockery, and His royal 
 person to shame and death. The wise and cautious 
 reserve, then, Avhich He counsels here is not of that 
 kind which would destroy all the fearless heroism of 
 the Christian character, by allowing a man to be silent 
 in those cases when to speak might possibly brmg dis- 
 honour on the truth, and peril to himself. Eather it is 
 limited, and refers chiefly to the time and manner in 
 which the truth is to be spoken. We are not to cast 
 about our pearls in such a way as to lead the swine to 
 trample on them. And we are not to do this needlessly 
 at such a time as will be likely to provoke wrath and 
 hatred and persecution. As far as we honourably may, 
 and with a good conscience, it is our duty to avoid 
 bringing any reproach on the gospel, and also to avoid 
 rousing the opposition of the fleshly world. Therefore 
 there is room left for Christian discretion and thought- 
 ful wisdom, but not for unchristian timidity or faith- 
 lessness, in this word of the Lord's. But 
 
 3. For our practical guidance in such matters it seems 
 to me we must always read these words in the light of 
 the great principle, ' AVhatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' Christian 
 men are often led to utter truths which they find that 
 people are nowise prepared to receive. Christ himself 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 303 
 
 did so ; for when He told tlie multitude that they must 
 eat his flesh, and drink his blood, they were offended at 
 him, and fell away from him. Christian men have also 
 often to utter truths which arouse hatred, and bring 
 bitter persecutions on their heads ; and if they did not, 
 if they held their peace lest the swine should turn 
 again and rend them, all the glory of Christian heroism 
 would die out of the Church of God. Christian men 
 have even to utter truths which, alas ! they find men 
 ready to trample in the mire, and cover with shame and 
 dishonour. The history of the Church of Jesus affords 
 ample illustrations of all these, and even instances in 
 which the holiest things have been inevitably subjected 
 to scorn and reproach. But we must not therefore 
 conclude that those who may have been the occasion 
 of such evils, were in all cases guilty, and failed in the 
 wisdom which the Lord requires of us. For if we act 
 upon a right principle, we are not responsible for the 
 results of our conduct, however painful they be. We 
 cannot always foresee the storm that our words may 
 raise ; and even though we could, we may still be bound 
 to go on, provided always we are animated by a right 
 motive, and guided by a just rule of conduct. It is 
 therefore of the highest moment to ascertain what is 
 the law, if any law there be, which regulates when to 
 speak and when to be silent, what to say and what not 
 to say. 
 
 And here let me say that at various times in the 
 history of the Church, men have arisen who, on the 
 gTound of our text, and of the several other passages to 
 
304 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 which I have referred, have held that Christianity sanc- 
 tions a custom which prevailed among the ancient 
 philosophers, and according to wliicli there existed what 
 was called an esoteric, and also an exoteric, doctrine. 
 Forgive me for using these words, which are only 
 familiar to the learned ; but the thing that tliey mean 
 is not confined to the learned. And this is wliat they 
 mean : — The old Greek philosophers held that truth 
 absolutely, as they saw it, should be taught only in the 
 schools, only to the limited few who by mental aptitude 
 and culture were fitted to understand, and receive it. 
 These and these only might range over the whole broad 
 field of philosophical inquiry and speculation ; but as 
 to the people in general, it was thought that they were 
 not able to discuss, and duly weigh such matters, and 
 therefore they were to be left to indulge in their ignor- 
 ant superstitions, or at best, only so much was to be 
 communicated to them as their wise teachers thought 
 proper to give. Moreover, these same teachers deemed 
 themselves, at the same time, quite entitled publicly to 
 conform to the customs and opinions of the people 
 whom they despised ; and thus there grew up a system 
 of daring and licentious thought in private, under a 
 hypocritical conformity to the usages and ideas of the 
 ignorant who meanwhile were left either in total dark- 
 ness, or at any rate with a very partial knowledge of the 
 secret wisdom of the schools. These two sets of ideas, 
 then,- those which belonjred to the special school of 
 philosophy, and those which prevaQed and were allowed 
 to prevail among the people, were called severally the 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY, 305 
 
 esoteric and exoteric doctrine of wisdom ; and as a 
 natural result, the favoured few prided themselves on 
 their superior knowledge, and despised those who were 
 left without in their ignorance. Now, in like manner, 
 the doctrine of Christian reserve has been sometimes 
 held to authorize a similar haughty reticence on the 
 part of the educated and cultivated religious people, 
 wliile the masses of the poor were to be left to their 
 traditions and customary notions and old usages, as if 
 they were quite unfit for anything better, and would 
 only suffer harm by an attempt to disclose to them the 
 deeper mysteries of faith. Let me say then, in regard to 
 this idea, that our Lord sanctions no such view; it finds 
 no support either in the words, or in the life of Jesus. 
 For while it is true that He unfolded His doctrine more 
 fully to the little company of His chosen apostles whom 
 He was training to do His work, than He did to the 
 general multitude who crowded to hear Him, yet His 
 special teachings to the apostles were meant to be by 
 them communicated in due season to all the world. It 
 was not His principle to give His immediate disciples 
 an exclusive wisdom, and to constitute a kind of religious 
 freemasonry, from whose secret mysteries the general 
 world was excluded. All He aimed at, was only to 
 train a certain body to be the medium of teaching all 
 men the truth which was to be the richest inheritance 
 and blessing of the world. Put out of your mind then 
 the whole idea of one doctrine for the learned, and 
 another for the ignorant, — a Christian system fitted for 
 the wise and prudent, and another Christian system for 
 
 u 
 
30G THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the common people. The reserve which He enjoins 
 has no affinity whatever with such a practice. Chris- 
 tianity even in its deepest mysteries is meant for all, 
 and is fit for all the world. 
 
 And the great guiding principle which can alone 
 direct us as to the time and manner in which any of its 
 truths is either to be spoken, or to be kept in reserve, is 
 this, ' Whatsoever things ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them.' That is to say, it is 
 our duty in certain cases to consider how we ourselves 
 would like it, if the truth were forced on our attention 
 at such a time, or in such a way, as to provoke our 
 opposition to it, and lead us into sinful rejection of its 
 claims. Take, for example, a man who is intoxicated, 
 and who is in consequence incapable either of looking 
 rightly at spiritual things, or of dealing rightly with 
 them. If now at such a time you press them on his 
 notice, you lead him into the additional sin of trampling 
 the pearls under foot. Therefore the Christian prin- 
 ciple is this : Put yourself in imagination into his 
 position. Would you like, in such circumstances, that 
 any one sliould lead you to commit sin? Ought 
 you not to do to him as, in the same circumstances, 
 you would like him to do to you ? Ought you not to 
 avoid provoking him to do evil, and for that purpose 
 to withhold, as far as you may, the temptation to do so ? 
 You would not like to have sacred things thrust upon 
 you in such a way as that you might be led to treat 
 them after a fashion which in your calmer moments 
 you would bitterly regret. You miglit allow that 
 
THE LAW KEPT BY SYMPATHY. 307 
 
 nothing could justify you in so dealing with them; that 
 you had done wrong and sinned against the Lord ; but 
 still you would feel that with a little more wisdom, and 
 kindly consideration on the part of others, you might 
 have been saved from committing this evil. Now, as 
 you would that others should do unto you, do ye even 
 so to them. Do not give things holy to dogs, nor yet 
 cast your pearls before swine, for you may provoke 
 them to evil from which it is your business to save 
 them, and which might be avoided by a little careful 
 preparation, or by selecting a more suitable time. Let 
 the spirit of Christian love and sympathy guide you 
 therefore when to speak and when to be silent, and thus 
 you shall best save the truth from dishonour, and your 
 brethren from sin. 
 
308 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 CONCLTJSION — THE STRAIT GATE. 
 
 ' Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the gate, and broad 
 is the way, that leadeth to destruction,' and many there he vjhich 
 go in thereat : because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, 
 which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.'— Matt. 
 VII. 13, 14. 
 
 We have now finished what may be properly called 
 the body of the sermon, and to-day we enter on the 
 peroration, or concluding practical and hortatory re- 
 marks. The whole discourse indeed is intensely prac- 
 tical. It contains no metaphysical subtleties, no abs- 
 tract speculations, no curious and over nice distinctions, 
 in elaborating which the mind might be turned aside 
 from the clear path of duty ; but from beginning to end 
 it is made to bear most directly on the actual business 
 of moral and spiritual life. Still there is also, as I have 
 tried to show you, a distinct expository purpose in all 
 the former part of the sermon. It is interpretive of the 
 great principle, ' I am not come to destroy the law, but 
 to fulfil it.' That is the theme of the discourse, and 
 that theme Jesus illustrates with most clear and effec- 
 tive elucidation of its meaning, never indeed launching 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STRAIT GATE. 309 
 
 forth into vague theories on the subject, but always 
 keeping close to practical fact and reality. This expo- 
 sition, however, appears to conclude with the 12th 
 verse of this chapter ; and the remainder of the dis- 
 course is occupied with a few exhortations and warnings 
 naturally arising from what has been already said. It 
 is just as if the Lord had paused, after summing up all 
 our duty in those weighty and precious words, ' There- 
 fore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do unto you, do ye even so to them ;' and then, ere he 
 ceased altogether to speak, had added something to this 
 effect : ' I have now set before you the great laws of the 
 kingdom of God. Will ye enter into that kingdom by 
 the strait gate which leadeth unto life ? or will ye go 
 with the multitude along the broad road that leadeth 
 to destruction ? Other teachers, other prophets, may 
 speak to you in a different strain— -may tell you that 
 there is no need to pass through a strait gate, 
 and they may look very innocent and comfortable 
 guides. But be who they may, they are wolves in 
 sheep's' clothing, and so you shall find them when you 
 try them by their fruits. Take heed of such men, 
 therefore, and listen not to their charming, charm they 
 never so sweetly. Moreover, it is not enough that ye 
 hear me, and refuse to hear them. The kingdom of 
 heaven demands action, as well as attention. To call 
 me Lord, Lord, will not profit unless ye also do the will 
 of my Father ; for except ye both hear my sayings and 
 do them, your house is built upon the sand, and in the 
 day of trial it shall fall, and great shall be the fall of 
 
310 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 it.' That seems to me the drift of this last part of 
 the sermon ; and now let ns look more particularly at 
 the words, ' Enter ye in at the strait gate.' 
 
 What is the strait gate which we are exhorted to 
 enter ? And why is it called strait ? And, in short, 
 what does this exhortation mean ? 
 
 In another place our Lord says, ' I am the door, by 
 me if any man enter in, he shall be saved ;' and that 
 great truth, no doubt, lies at the root of these words, 
 ' Enter ye in at the strait gate.' The succeeding warn- 
 ing, ' Beware of false prophets,' appears to indicate 
 clearly enough that they shall be entering the strait 
 gate if they give heed to the true teacher, — if they hear 
 Him, the Lord from heaven. The expression, ' I am the 
 door,' forms therefore a connecting link between the 
 exhortation of verse 13 and the warning of verse 15, 
 and shows tlie line of thought which might otherwise 
 seem rather obscure. It is as much as to say, ' Enter 
 in at the strait gate ; believe me, and obey me, for I am 
 the door that leadeth unto life ; but beware of false 
 prophets, for whatever their appearances, and whatever 
 their profession, they will take you to the broad road 
 which leadeth to destruction.' And thus, although it 
 is not so formally expressed as in other parts of the 
 word, yet the great fundamental idea of the gospel, that 
 Christ personally is ' the way, the truth, and the life,' 
 and that faith in Him is the one essential requisite for 
 our salvation, has a place in this sermon just as really, 
 though not so obviously, as in other parts of Scrip- 
 ture. The call to enter in at the strait gate, connected 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STRAIT GATE. 311 
 
 as it is with the warning to beware of false prophets, 
 appears manifestly to involve that belief in the True 
 Prophet is the one door of entrance into the narrow 
 way that leadeth unto life. And I ask you to observe 
 this, both that you may be led ever to keep in mind the 
 great fundamental truth of the gospel, and not to go 
 seeking for other doors and knocking at them ; and also 
 because it is well to note how, from the very beginning 
 of His mmistry, we find, on careful study, the germs 
 and roots of all His doctrine which He afterwards more 
 fully revealed. For there is a perfect harmony pervad- 
 ing all the teachings of Jesus, and if we fail to see that 
 harmony, it is only because we are ready to dwell on 
 the superficial contrasts which they also present, and 
 do not take pains to search out the profound unity which 
 really characterizes them all. People speak of the Christ 
 who has been depicted by the tender loving insight of 
 John, as something altogether different from the Christ 
 who preached the Sermon on the Mount. And of 
 course, to the superficial glance, there is a very remark- 
 able difference between the clear moral teacher who 
 speaks here, and the strange, apparently egotistical 
 prophet whose spiritual enigmas John delights to set 
 forth. Yet, when we look narrowly into the matter, 
 we find that one of these perplexing words of John's 
 Gospel is in reality the only key to part of this ser- 
 mon, which must appear unconnected and confused, 
 unless we remember that Jesus is the door — the strait 
 gate — and that false prophets lead unto the way of 
 death. 
 
312 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 But accepting this as tli& real expository key to this 
 whole passage, there remains a considerable difficulty 
 to be explained, which, at first sight, this appears rather 
 to increase than to diminish. Why should this gate be 
 called strait ? Is it that God's mercy is straitened ? Is 
 Christ unwilling to let us in ? Is there anything in the 
 gospel which would justify us in regarding it as narrow 
 and intended only for a few ? Assuredly not. We 
 may at once set aside all and any explanations of this 
 saying, which go on the assumption that God's mercy 
 is in any sense straitened. Whosoever will, may take 
 of the water of life freely. There is a most absolute 
 and unrestricted offer of salvation ; and we are bound 
 to believe that that offer is honestly made, and can be 
 really accepted by every man to whom it is made. In 
 order to understand the language of our Lord, then, let 
 me recall to your recollection the four great laws of the 
 kingdom ; and when you have laid them to heart, it 
 will not be difficult to understand why this gate should 
 be called strait. 
 
 You will remember, then, that in illustrating the 
 doctrine that He came not to destroy the law, but to 
 fulfil it, Jesus laid down four great guiding principles, 
 by means of which only that law could be fulfilled. 
 He did not go into details and particulars, and en- 
 tangle himself in the endless casuistry of smaller 
 moralists. But he kindled four lamps of duty, by 
 attending to which the whole path of life should be- 
 come clear to all men — and these were love, sincerity, 
 faith, and moral sympathy ; and if you will give heed to 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STRAIT GATE. 313 
 
 these, it will be easy to see why the gate is called strait. 
 For 
 
 Is^, He enjoins ns 'to love our enemies.' He does 
 not merely forbid us to revenge our injuries by demand- 
 ing ' an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' Nor 
 does He only enjoin us to do good to them that hate us, 
 for there might be a subtle refinement of vengeance 
 that could assent to that, and when an enemy hungered 
 would give him food, and yet might retain all its hatred, 
 and even use the apparent kindness as a means to 
 gratify itself. But what the Lord requires is, that we 
 should actually love them. Now, if you consider what 
 that means, you cannot but feel that such a gate is a 
 very strait one, and hard indeed to enter in at. ' What, 
 must I give up my natural resentment for injury I have 
 received ? Do I not well to be angry ? Nay, must I 
 not only forgive mine enemy, and even do him a good 
 turn, or perhaps pray for him ; but is it necessary actu- 
 ally to love him ? Love the man who has wronged me, 
 who has robbed my good name, and ruined my fortune, 
 and blighted my whole life ! That is a hard thing, 
 who can bear it V Certainly, brethren, few can bear it ; 
 and yet it is essential, if we would enter in at the strait 
 gate. The spirit of wrath and hate and revenge hath 
 no place in Christ who loved those that most wronged 
 Him ; and without a similar spirit we cannot enter in 
 by ' the door ' and be saved. 
 
 2d, Moreover, the Lord also laid down a principle of 
 unostentatious sincerity, which forms a very strait gate 
 to all manner of hypocrites and formalists. Let not 
 
314 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tliy left band kuoAV what thy right hand doeth/ is for 
 many men an extremely stringent law. ' What/ they 
 might say, ' must we do our alms, and nobody bear of 
 it ? and fast, and afflict ourselves, and get no credit for 
 it ? and pray in our closets so that people may even 
 think we neglect our devotions ? Is our religious life, 
 our spiritual business, to be so conducted that, while we 
 are strenuously practising every good work, we may be, 
 at the same time, actually set down by all the world as 
 examples of the very reverse ? Are our prayers only to 
 be heard in heaven, and our charities only to be seen in 
 the good they do, and our fastings hidden behind a 
 smiling face, and under the oil of gladness?' And 
 although in tlieir inner hearts people cannot but allow 
 that that is a high and noble ideal of religion, yet they 
 also rebel against the thought that they are to get no 
 credit among men for their piety. It seems hard ; it 
 is a strait gate ; nay, they even persuade themselves 
 that it must be wrong, since it would deprive the world 
 of the benefit of the good example they are showing ; 
 and so the deceitful heart is mightily reluctant to enter 
 in at that door. It seems a tremendous piece of self- 
 denial to do aU things as unto God, and not unto men. 
 But 3d, Even aU this — this difficult love of one's 
 enemies, and this utter sincerity and repudiation of 
 self-interest — even this fails to express all the strait- 
 ness of the gate. For Jesus goes on yet further to say, 
 ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
 ness, and all other things shall be added therewith.' 
 And no sooner is this principle stated than immediately 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STRAIT GATE. 3 1 5 
 
 a host of seemingly most reasonable and quite insuper- 
 able difficulties arise. How can a man cast off all 
 worldly care, and be as easy as the birds and the lilies ? 
 It is not possible to take no thought for to-morrow ; 
 and what is more, if it were possible, it would be wrong; 
 for prudence, and a just consideration of all the mani- 
 fold uncertainties of life, require us to make some pro- 
 vision for old age, and for the future of those who are 
 depending on our labour. All which is true enough, 
 no doubt ; only it is not to the purpose. For what our 
 Lord is contending against is the absorbing care which 
 practically usurps the place that is due to God, and 
 leads us to seek with our whole heart the corruptible 
 treasures, and to neglect those which moth and rust do 
 not corrupt. And the carnal, worldly mind finds it a 
 very hard thing, — a very strait gate indeed, — to set its 
 affections on things above, and trust God for all else 
 that may be needed. This childlike faith in the 
 Father's care, which is the essential matter involved 
 here, is strongly repugnant to our natural character. 
 The evil heart of unbelief frets at it mightily, and 
 will liardly be persuaded to try it at all. And yet we 
 cannot enter in at the strait gate unless we take no 
 thought for the morrow ; but seek first the kingdom 
 of God, and trust Him to provide the rest. 
 
 Ath, And now add to all these difficult requirements 
 the further demand made on us, ' that we should do to 
 others as we would that they should do to us.' Ob- 
 serve, it is not said merely that we are to refrain from 
 doing to them what we would not like them to do to 
 
316 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 US. The JeM^s had a negative rule to that effect, which 
 was so far good ; but such a negation does not by any 
 means come up to the full meaning of our Lord's word. 
 People are very apt to be satisfied with themselves if 
 they have harmed no one ; if they have kept their hands 
 from working mischief, and their tongues from speaking 
 guile, even though they never have done one really 
 kind, one good, one merciful or loving deed all their 
 lives. But that will by no means satisfy the Lord's re- 
 quirement here. Our neighbour must be to us even as 
 ourselves. We must look to his interest as we would 
 to our own. We must plead excuses for him as readily, 
 and show kindness to him as actively, and have con- 
 sideration for him as tenderly, as we would like to be 
 done to ourselves ; and therefore it will not do merely 
 to refrain from injuring him. It is necessary so to 
 sympathize with him, so to enter into his case, with its 
 difficulties and troubles and necessities, as if it were our 
 own, and to regulate our conduct as in similar circum- 
 stances we would desire him to act toward us. Now 
 here again is an extremely strait gate. It implies that 
 we should never judge hastily, but take pains, and be at 
 some trouble to imderstand his case, and to feel what 
 he may be expected to feel, and to follow up our sym- 
 pathy with active help and kindness. And it is hard 
 for the selfishness of our hearts to take the same interest 
 in another, as we do in our own affairs. Yet we cannot 
 really enter in at the strait gate, unless we are prepared 
 to bear each other's burdens in this spirit, and so fulfil 
 the law of Christ. 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STEAIT GATE. 317 
 
 Taking now these four great principles of duty along 
 ■with us, it is not difficult to understand liow this door, 
 which is in one view so free and so large, being open to 
 every sinner, and rejoicing to welcome him within its 
 eate, should at the same time be called strait. For, in 
 order to enter it, we must deny ourselves, and crucify 
 some of the most cherished instincts of our sinful 
 nature. True it is, that He, who is himself the door by 
 which we enter into the kingdom, will help us to accom- 
 plish this great work which never will be done without 
 such help. It is not to be supposed that, previous to 
 our coming to Christ, we shall have perfectly achieved 
 this great task for ourselves. That is not the aim of 
 my remarks at all, and indeed you will have at once 
 mistaken my meaning, and also misunderstood the 
 Lord's doctrine, which is of far greater consequence, if 
 you think for a moment that the great duties I have 
 been setting before you are to be regarded as prelimin- 
 ary conditions, by the performance of which you shall 
 be entitled to enter in at the strait gate, and to have an 
 interest in Christ, and a place in the kingdom of God. 
 What I mean is, not that these things must be done in 
 order to win Christ, but that by accepting of Him you 
 agree to these principles, and consent that they shall be 
 the law of your life, God helping you by his Spirit 
 faithfully to observe them. To enter in at the strait 
 gate implies that those great laws of love and sincerity 
 and faith and sympathy, which were the regulating 
 principles of Christ's life, shall be in like manner the 
 animating spirit of our conduct, and its controlling 
 
3 1 8 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 power ; and when you calmly consider them, you 
 cannot but see that they are, severally and altogether, 
 of such a kmd as to demand an immense amount of 
 self-denial on our part. Peo23le often look at the gos- 
 pel in only one of its aspects, as a revelation of God's 
 love to his sinful creatures, and the discovery of a 
 scheme of salvation admirably adapted to secure the 
 highest ends of justice, while it also brings forgiveness 
 to the guilty. And regarding it in that light, they 
 seem to think that their chief, or indeed only business 
 with it, is just to get some clear understanding of its 
 various wise and careful provisions for adjusting the 
 claims of His righteousness and our need of mercy ; 
 which being clearly understood, and honestly believed, 
 they seem to think that now all is well, and that they 
 are in a fair way to reap all the blessings of the ever- 
 lasting covenant. I do not wonder that men who take 
 that view find it difficult to understand what is meant 
 by the strait gate ; for in fact such a Christianity is 
 quite an easy matter, consisting of mere opinions about 
 God, and God's way of dealing with men. But now 
 place alongside of that the great truths I have been 
 trying so long to expound and enforce from this sermon 
 of Christ's. Eemember that the gospel is not merely a 
 revelation of what the Lord has done for us, but also a 
 revelation of what He would have us to be, and is 
 anxious to make us. Bring together its divine doctrine 
 and its human duty ; and let it be clearly understood 
 that, in addition to our intelligent belief in the scheme of 
 salvation, we must, in order to be the children of God's 
 
CONCLUSION— THE STRAIT GATE. 3 1 9 
 
 kingdom, yield a heartfelt consent to the four great laws 
 of that kingdom which Christ here lays down. We must 
 put away wrath, anger, malice, and love our very enemies, 
 even as Christ loved us while we were still enmity 
 against Him ; we must have done with hypocrisy, 
 formalism, and ostentatious display to be seen of men, 
 and to get praise of them, and do all things as unto 
 God in an utter simplicity and sincerity of heart ; we 
 must crush the uprising of worldly cares and cravings, 
 and learn to trust in the heavenly Father's care, seek- 
 ing first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 
 and relying on God's faithfulness to provide all else 
 that may be needed ; and finally, we must learn to 
 enter with loving sympathy into our brother's trials 
 and difficulties, and to judge him tenderly, and deal 
 with him kindly, doing to him as we would like him to 
 do to us. Now, to do all that, is no easy task. It is 
 hard, it is mortifying, to consent to such a life ; it is a 
 very strait gate for sinful man to enter in at ; yet it is 
 the only one that leadeth unto life. He only can be a 
 child of the kingdom, who is wilHng to accept of Christ 
 in this spirit, taking up the cross to follow Him ; and the 
 man who has not done so verily has not entered in at 
 the strait gate ; but rather like a thief or a robber seeks 
 to take the kingdom of heaven by force. You can un- 
 derstand now how it is that Jesus adds, ' few there be 
 that find' the narrow road ; for alas ! there are few who 
 will consent to go along it. Not that it is difficult to 
 find ; not that it is obscure and hard to be distinguished 
 from other roads. It is easy enough to discover ; but 
 
320 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 it is not easy for human nature to deny itself, and con- 
 sent to this loving, sincere, faithful, and sympathizing 
 life. Ah ! bethink you, brethren, whether ye have 
 really entered this strait gate. You have called your- 
 selves Christians. Eemember that, without the spirit 
 of the Son, there can be no fellowship Avith the Father ; 
 and this is that spirit of life, which now we have 
 clearly set before you. 
 
 For alas ! brethren, the wide gate and the broad road 
 are that which alone many find in our day, as well as in 
 that of Jesus. After having so largely explained the 
 nature of the strait gate, it will not be necessary to 
 dwell at much length on the other. It is broad and 
 easy, just because it demands no self-denial, no sacrifice, 
 no bearing of a cross ; it may, or it may not, be also 
 vicious ; it may be even highly respectable. Nay, it 
 may call itself Christian, and entertain clear and sound 
 views of many of the great truths of the gospel, and 
 rtgoice to hear them faithfully proclaimed. But it is 
 the broad road for all that, and it leadeth to destruction. 
 It does not require a man to love his enemies, but 
 leaves him free to cherish resentment and hatred ; it 
 encourages, instead of rebuking, the formalism and 
 Pharisaism which does its alms and prayers and fast- 
 ings so as to get credit of men ; it is busy with the 
 treasures which moth and rust do corrupt, and with the 
 cares of this life ; and it finds no fault with our little 
 faith in God's fatherly care : and it forbids no one to 
 pronounce harsh judgments, or to do many things to 
 his neighbour which he would by no means like to be 
 
CONCLUSION — THE STKAIT GATE. 321 
 
 done to himself. In short, the broad road is one of 
 self-seeking, self-righteousness, self-reliance, and self- 
 love ; pleasant, flowery, easy ; never without plenty of 
 good company, all neighbourly enough so long as you 
 do well for yourself ; only leading at length to destruc- 
 tion. Do not misunderstand the nature of it ; do not 
 suppose that the broad road is only that -which heinous 
 sinners are journeying along,— the road occupied by 
 thieves, drunkards, unclean, profane, and such like. 
 There are many highly respectable people going along 
 it, who pray much, and give alms largely, and fast in 
 sackcloth and ashes, and are greatly esteemed for their 
 piety. The essential characteristic of this road is not 
 its viciousness, but only its selfishness ; not its irreli- 
 giousness, but only that its religion is not love of God, 
 but always love of self. It may talk about the cross, 
 but it never carries it ; it may glory in Christ's sacrifice, 
 but it never sacrifices self; it rejoices in being for- 
 given, but has no heart to forgive ; and such religion, 
 with its readiness to judge uncharitable judgments, its 
 intense worldly-mindedness and respect for mere 
 wealth, its hard and pitiless severity, its readiness to 
 make loud and clamorous display of its abundant good 
 works, often even usurps to itself the exclusive name of 
 evangelical, the special title to be the very gospel faith, 
 in the face of its glaring outrage of one and all the 
 fundamental laws of God's kingdom. This is one of 
 the most painful aspects of professedly religious life, to 
 my mind,— that men can, to a large extent, separate 
 religious doctrine from moral duty, and while keenly 
 
 X 
 
322 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 sensitive about the former, can go on outraging the great 
 moralities of the gospel, and all the while proclaiming, 
 ' The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.' 
 There is need, therefore, of a close searching of our 
 hearts, lest it should turn out that we may be on the 
 broad road without knowing it ; and the w^ay to carry 
 on that search effectually is not to apply this or the 
 other doctrinal test, and ascertain how far it commends 
 itself to the approval of your understanding, but to take 
 np those four laws of the kingdom of God, and inquire 
 how far your soul and life are under their control. Am 
 I loving mine enemies as Christ loved me ? Am I 
 walking in single-hearted sincerity, doing all things as 
 unto God, and not as unto men ? Am I seeking the 
 spiritual riches, and trusting in my Father's care ? Am 
 I doing to my neighbour as I would like him to do to 
 me ? If there lias been any true reception of Christ as 
 the way, the truth, and the life for our souls, then verily 
 we must have turned away from the broad road of self- 
 seeking and self-indulgence, and through the strait 
 uate of sacrifice have entered on a new life. Bethink 
 ye, then, whether ye have really taken up your cross to 
 follow Him, crucifying wrath, revenge, hypocrisy, for- 
 malism, covetousness, unbelief, uncharitableness, and 
 all unkindness. ' Strait is the gate and narrow is the 
 way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that 
 find it.' 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 323 
 
 XX. 
 
 CONCLUSION — FALSE PEOPHETS. 
 
 ' Beioare of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, 
 hut inwardly they are ravening tcolves. Ye shall know them hy 
 their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles i 
 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; hut a corrupt 
 tree hringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil 
 fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every 
 tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn doivn, and cast into 
 the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.'— Mait. 
 VII. 15-20. 
 
 In the previous lecture I tried to show you what our 
 Lord means by the strait gate, and why it is called strait, 
 and how we enter in at it, and how it is that there are 
 few, alas ! who find it. We then saw that Christ is 
 Himself the door by which we enter into life ; and that 
 this door is strait, not from any proper limitations of 
 God's grace, for his Spirit is not straitened, but because 
 human nature rebels against the self-denial which is 
 implied in our really accepting the yoke of Christ. It 
 is a strait gate, because it requires us to love our 
 enemies, to do all things as to God and not as unto 
 men, to set our affections on things above, trusting the 
 Father's care to provide for our other wants, and to do 
 
324 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 to others as we would they should do unto us ; all 
 which appear to our sinful flesh exceeding hard condi- 
 tions, and therefore we are slow to enter in at that 
 door. So Jesus complamed, ' Ye will not come unto 
 me that ye might have life.' 
 
 And now, in the passage which falls to be considered 
 to-day, He turns naturally from the strait gate which is 
 Himself, to the wide gate which is the way of false 
 prophets, whom therefore we are to beware of. We are 
 exhorted to enter into Christ, and we can only enter 
 into Him by accepting the great laws of the kingdom, 
 which he has just laid down. He is the true prophet : 
 he does not destroy God's law, but fulfils it by love, by 
 sincerity, by faith, by brotherly sympathy ; Him there- 
 fore we are to believe, and obey. But there are false 
 prophets of various kinds, — false Christs assuming the 
 title of Messiah, false teachers coming in the name, but 
 not in the spirit, of the Lord ; and they are the wide 
 gate, and the broad road that leadeth unto destruction. 
 Of whom now, and of their character, real and apparent, 
 and also of the test by which we may discern them, and 
 the end that awaits them, it behoves us to say some- 
 what this morning. 
 
 1. Clnist warns us here to 'beware of false prophets, 
 which come to you in sheep's clothing.' There is allusion 
 here, no doubt, to the symbolical garments of the pro- 
 phets, with which His hearers would be so far familiar, 
 having in their minds John the Baptist's girdle of 
 camel's hair. It is like enough that ' sheep's clothing ' 
 was even more frequently used by them than camel's 
 
CONCLUSION— FALSE PROPHETS. 325 
 
 hair, being symbolical at once of their shepherd char- 
 acter, and also of innocence and guileless simplicity. 
 For the shepherd naturally dressed himself in the skins 
 of his flock ; and so we read in Hebrews xi. that 
 God's faithful saints ' wandered in sheepskins and goat- 
 skins/ — emblematic of their guileless character and pas- 
 toral office. Now, Christ gives us to understand here 
 that others will come, wearing the prophetic robes 
 which are easily put on ; but not being true shepherds 
 of the sheep, being rather like ravening wolves who care 
 not, save to rend and to kill and to destroy. But of 
 course this reference to the prophetic robes is compara- 
 tively superficial. It accounts so far for the striking 
 and picturesque language in which the warning is con- 
 veyed. It is as much as to say, ' Not all who come to 
 you in the garb of the prophets are to be received as 
 prophets. The shepherd wears the sheepskin ; but 
 men who are no better than wolves may wear it too.' 
 But it implies a great deal more than that. For he is 
 a poor pretender, and will not long deceive any one, 
 who has no deeper disguise than a piece of raiment. 
 What our Lord means therefore, is that the wolf may 
 cuimingly enact the part of the lamb, — may look alto- 
 gether as innocent, may speak apparently as good and 
 kindly words, may falsely put on a manner, and affect a 
 character, which are alien to his real nature, so that 
 men may be deceived by him unto their own destruc- 
 tion. The sheep's clothing here is not a matter of dress 
 only, but of religious profession and moral bearing; 
 for without some plausible semblance of godliness the 
 
326 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 false prophet would be easily detected, and would soon 
 lose his errand. It behoves us therefore to inquire 
 somewhat more narrowly into the special characteristics 
 of those false prophets of whom we are warned to 
 beware. And here you will note that they come, 
 they are not sent ; they come on their own errands, 
 they are not sent on their mission by God. I do 
 not like to attach too much meaning to mere inci- 
 dental expressions. But I cannot help thinking that 
 our Lord intended us to understand thus much, when 
 He said that these false prophets come to us. And 
 I am all the more persuaded of this, because I find 
 in Deuteroiaomy xviii. that God denounced those 
 prophets who presumed to speak a word in His name, 
 which He had not commanded them to speak : for the 
 ambassador must receive his commission from the king, 
 and has no right to take up the task at his own 
 hand. Of course, when I speak thus, I do not refer to 
 a mere ecclesiastical sanction, as if that were equivalent 
 to a Divine authority. It is a good thing, and in ordi- 
 nary circumstances a necessary thing, that the Church 
 of Christ should stamp with its approval those who are 
 to be pastors and teachers of His flock. But one may 
 get that sanction, and yet in reality may be going at 
 his own will, and on his own errand. The commission 
 of the Church is not a sufficient guarantee of the 
 character of the prophet. Our call and qualification 
 and mission must be from God ; and this is, at least, 
 one essential feature of the man whom God sends, that 
 he does not seek his own things, but Christ's, does not 
 
CONCLUSION— FALSE PROPHETS. 327 
 
 come on his own business, but to do tlie will of liis 
 Father. Therefore he who assumes this office for a 
 piece of bread, or because it secures him in a certain 
 social standing and consideration, or because he may 
 hope thereby to obtain influence and glory by the exer- 
 cise of his gifts, his talents, the usury of which belongs 
 not to himself, but to God, or who in any other way, 
 and with any apparent sanction, takes this business on 
 himself, not for God's high ends, but for his own pur- 
 poses, that man comes without being sent, and when 
 ye discern the true nature of him, I say to you. Beware 
 of him. He may have sheep's clothing, but the wolf 
 is in his heart. 
 
 Observe further that these false prophets make a 
 wide gate and a broad road for us ; and that is perhaps 
 the essential idea of their sheep's clothing. The True 
 Prophet is himself the strait gate, as we have seen; 
 and we have also seen in what respects it is justly 
 called strait. Now the false prophet, whether he come 
 avowedly in his own name to rival and oppose the Lord, 
 or whether he assume the character of one of Christ's 
 followers, always seeks to make the path of life easier 
 than Jesus made it. He would fain do away with the 
 cross; or at any rate make it lighter to carry; or, at the 
 very least, he would change its nature, and give us 
 another cross than Christ calls us to bear. He does 
 not indeed always appear to make the gate wider. On 
 the contrary, he seems at times to straiten it. But 
 always you shall find that it is very much easier for a 
 man to enter in at his gate than at the true gate of God. 
 
328 THE SEK:\roN on the mount. 
 
 Thus, on the one hand, the false prophet may call upon 
 you to undertake a severe course of discipline, in the 
 shape of voluntary humiliation and mortifying of the 
 flesh, by means of fastings and scourgings and other 
 bodily exercises, endured not by the will of God, but at 
 our own hand : and it seems, at first sight, an exceed- 
 ingly strait gate to have to enter in by such sharp 
 and bitter courses. Yet when we look more narrowly, 
 we shall find that it is far easier for human nature to 
 submit to such demands than to accept of the terms 
 which Jesus offers. It is much easier to fast often than 
 to love your enemies. It is greatly more practicable 
 to scourge the flesh than to do all things as to God, and 
 not as to men. It is not nearly so difficult to practise 
 the severest bodily exercises as it is to have no thought 
 what we shall eat, and what we shall drink. The gate 
 of the false prophet looks strait and hard, straiter even 
 than the Lord's ; yet when we look more narrowly, we 
 find it in truth a wide gate ; for that kind of bodily 
 self-denial does not go down into the depths of our 
 nature, and seek to root out its deepest sinful instincts ; 
 consequently its cross is far more easily borne than the 
 true cross of Jesus. It is the very same with those who 
 represent the gate as being strait in virtue of some kind of 
 limitation of Divine grace, wherel:)y it is only open to a 
 few chosen favourites ; for while they too make it far 
 narrower than Christ has made it in one sense, yet in 
 another aspect it is more agreeable to human nature to 
 accept of such a doctrine than to close with the high de- 
 mands of self-renunciation which form, as we have seen. 
 
CONCLUSION — FALSE PROPHETS. 329 
 
 the great laws of the kingdom of God. And in like man- 
 ner we might show that every apparent straitening of that 
 gate, beyond the Lord's own word, is in reality a widening 
 of it, and a lowering of the only terms on which we can 
 enter into hfe. On the other hand, the false prophet fre- 
 quently comes avowedly to proclaim an easier method 
 of salvation. He does not perhaps say expressly that 
 we are not bound to love our enemies, and to walk by 
 faith, relying on the care of our heavenly Father. 
 Eather, these deeper and more spiritual aspects of reli- 
 gion are quietly cast into the background ; and people 
 are led to believe that, if they fast and pray, and give 
 alms, and keep times and seasons, and otherwise practise 
 all the customary routine of piety, and believe all the 
 customary doctrines of religion, then all shall be well 
 with them, for that is the way of life. They may hate 
 their enemies. They may do many things to be seen 
 of men. They may be setting their whole hearts on the 
 treasures that corrupt and perish. They may be bit- 
 terly uncharitable in their judgments. And yet the 
 false prophet hath nothing but good words of comfort 
 for them ; for his is a wide gate, and his way is broad 
 and easy ; it is just the way of the Pharisees, and many 
 there be that find it. 
 
 And herein, as we have said, lies essentially what 
 our Lord means by his sheep's clothing. There may, 
 indeed, be a reference in that phrase to personal 
 character ; for there are, no doubt, some who put on a 
 hypocritical show of religion, and affect a great holiness 
 of life, great love for souls, great desire to serve and 
 
330 THE SERMOX ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 glorify God, and who, under covert of tliat, are in reality 
 wolves heartless, selfish, and cruel. And there are 
 others who, witliout any such conscious hypocrisy, and 
 without any such loathsome contrast between their out- 
 \vard profession and their real character, are neverthe- 
 less essentially seeking their own ends, and not the good 
 of the sheep, or only seek their good as far as that may 
 consist with their own profit and comfort. And these 
 are all manifestly false prophets, whose apparent piety 
 and devotion are truly but a sheep's clothing, concealing 
 the wolf, or at any rate the hireling. Still I cannot 
 help thinking that our Lord's words here find their 
 truest and deepest meaning, not so much in the charac- 
 ter of the men as in the character of their teaching. 
 The false prophet comes in sheep's clothing, that is to 
 say, he comes with a message which looks very inno- 
 cent, and is certainly far more easy and agreeable to our 
 nature than the message of Christ. Oh, but he has 
 pleasant tilings to say ! His God is not a hard master ; 
 only he allows his servants to be hard. And so, with 
 fine, smooth, peaceable words of seeming benevolence, 
 he goes about in his sheep's clothing, with a gospel of 
 salvation made easy, and men see not, nor does he him- 
 self see, that the wolf is in the heart of it, and destruc- 
 tion near at hand. Brethren, beware of the false 
 prophet ; he comes on his own errand ; he is not sent 
 on God's business ; he makes a wide gate, for he turns 
 aside from the gate of God ; he wears sheep's clothing 
 and speaks smooth words, but inwardly he is a ravening 
 wolf, not perhaps seeking your destruction, but not the 
 
CONCLUSION— FALSE PROPHETS. 331 
 
 less certainly effecting it for all tliat ; for lie leads you 
 to think that salvation may be had, not by entering 
 into Christ, not by accepting the law of the new life 
 which is in Jesus, but in some other way which is 
 not the way of life. Beware of the false prophet, then, 
 and trust ye only in the Lord. But 
 
 2. Christ gives us a test by which he may be tried. 
 ' By their fruits,' he says, ' ye shall know them.' He 
 does not say, ' Ye shall know them by their doctrines.' 
 I would not, indeed, have you to think that these are of 
 little moment, or that ye are not to try the spirits by 
 the standards of truth which the Lord has been pleased 
 to reveal. In Deut. xiii. Israel was warned that, if a 
 prophet gave them a sign or a wonder which came to 
 pass, but the object of which was to turn them aside 
 after other gods, they were not to hearken to the words 
 of that prophet, nor give heed to the sign, for if the 
 Lord permitted such a thing, he did so only to prove 
 their hearts, whether they loved the Lord with all their 
 souls. Thus the test of truth obtained a supremacy 
 above even the proof of miracles. He who had received 
 the knowledge of God was not to be turned aside from 
 that by the signs and wonders of a supernatural power. 
 The false prophet, therefore, is unquestionably to be 
 tested by the word of the truth of the Lord. In what 
 way this test is to be applied I wiU show you imme- 
 diately. Meanwhile, let me say that, when Jesus tells us, 
 ' By their fruits ye shall know them,' he would by no 
 means have us to sit loose to the doctrine of His grace, 
 as if that were a secondary matter compared with prac- 
 
332 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 tical good conduct. For error is never safe, and it is 
 always perilous to believe a lie ; and the higher the 
 subject is, the more danger is there in our mistake or 
 falsehood. Thus, for example, in astronomy, a very 
 small miscalculation in our measurement of the angle 
 made to some distant star, will produce a mistake pro- 
 portioned to the vast space between us and it; for as the 
 lines are protracted, the distance between them becomes 
 greater and greater. Practically there may be no great 
 evil in this, because our lives are not much dependent 
 on the exact measurement of such far-away objects; but 
 the error is greater than any mere terrestrial miscalcu- 
 lation could be. Now, in like manner, if any error creep 
 into the truth of God, it becomes serious, just in pro- 
 portion to the exalted nature of the subject. The angle 
 of our aberration, as it were, though apparently small 
 in itself, becomes vast by reason of the infinite elevation 
 of the matter with which we are dealing. And as the 
 truth of God exercises so mighty an influence over our 
 practical everyday life, it is impossible to calculate the 
 mischief that may be wrought even by apparently slight 
 departures from the very truth of the Lord. It behoves 
 us, therefore, to exercise all care and diligence and 
 faithfulness, and to keep the eye single, and the instru- 
 ment right, and the mind true to its task, rectifying 
 and removing, as far as we may, every source of mis- 
 take, so that we may obtain the pure and sincere word 
 whereby we live and grow. 
 
 Still it is not specially the truth which is to be the 
 test of the false prophet, but his fruits, or rather, it is 
 
CONCLUSION — FALSE PROPHETS. 333 
 
 the trutli, not in its mere intellectual aspect, but in its 
 practical results. There has been in former times, and 
 indeed there is still, a strong tendency to set up an 
 elaborate standard of dogmatic opinion, carefully guarded 
 and balanced and adjusted, so as to exclude all possi- 
 bility of error, and this is made to be a kind of sieve to 
 search out God's true prophets. Whatever it retains is 
 treated as genuine, and all whom it cannot keep are re- 
 garded as spurious. Those who can accept its various 
 propositions, honestly or dishonestly, intelligently or 
 blindly, are to be accepted as well- accredited messengers 
 of the Lord, and the brotherhood and communion of the 
 servants of Jesus are made to depend on this doctrinal 
 test, which is no proof that God sent them, no proof 
 that their hearts are right, no proof that they have 
 entered in at the strait gate which leadeth unto life. 
 ^N'ow, I venture to say that our Lord, who knew what 
 is in the heart of man, who knew all its doubles and 
 deceits and evasions and snares, who knew, therefore, 
 how utterly unfit any mere intellectual test was to dis- 
 criminate who are His true prophets, and who are wolves 
 in sheep's clothing, laid down here a rule for our guid- 
 ance, which intentionally sets aside all tests of tliat kind, 
 and told His apostles, and tells us, to remember that it 
 is not by their opinions we shall know them, but by 
 their fruits. Not that their opinions are undervalued ; 
 not that their doctrine is made light of ; not that Jesus 
 gives any countenance to the cold indifference which 
 is careless of truth. Far otherwise. But what He 
 would have us to understand is, that the test of a true 
 
334 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 prophet, as of a real disciple, is not merely truth in 
 its intellectual perception, but truth in its practical 
 results; not by their ideas ye shall know them, but by 
 their fruits. 
 
 ' Men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from 
 thistles;' He says, in his usual pithy and picturesque 
 language : ' A good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; a 
 corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit ; and by their 
 fruits ye shall know them.' That is just as much as 
 to say, that we are not to expect grace to flow from 
 ungracious lips, or truth to come from false hearts, or 
 godly teaching from ungodly men ; and the proof of a 
 man's grace and truth and godliness is to be sought in 
 two w^ays. It may be seen first and chiefly in himself. 
 He who calls on us to enter in at the strait gate, must 
 show some tokens that he has himself entered in. Does 
 he love liis enemies ? Does he forgive those who hate 
 him? Does he avoid all religious ostentation, living in 
 his privacy a secret life with God ? Does he labour for 
 the bread which perisheth, or trust in the Father's care? 
 Is he sympathizing and considerate, doing to others as 
 he would that they should do unto him ? We must not 
 inquire merely what are his views, but what practical 
 illustration does he give of those views in his life ; for 
 if there is no indication that he has been grafted into 
 Christ, how shall I hope to gather grapes of thorns, or 
 good fruit from a corrupt tree ? Nor is that the only 
 way of applying this test. The fruit may be seen in 
 others too ; the effect of his teaching may be witnessed 
 in those who hear him. I will not, indeed, make the 
 
CONCLUSION — FALSE PROPHETS. 335 
 
 teacher responsible for all the bad conduct of his flock, 
 nor yet give him entire credit for all the good they may 
 do ; he is but a weak instrument, and sometimes he 
 may labour apparently in vain, and sometimes God 
 may give a blessing to his labour seemingly dispropor- 
 tioned to its power. But still it is legitimate and right 
 to ask, What are the fruits of his prophesying ? Is he 
 leading others to deny themselves, and take up the 
 cross ? Is he seeing mercy spring up as the fruit of his 
 gospel of mercy ? Is he overthrowing the strongholds of 
 Pharisaic ostentation, and uprooting the deep-seated love 
 of the world, and teaching men that charity which is the 
 bond of perfection ? By their fruits ye shall know them. 
 The true shepherd goes before his flock, and they follow 
 him ; and if they are all on the narrow road, surely this 
 will be more or less apparent, both in him and in them. 
 And if not, if the teacher and his hearers are all given 
 up still to wrath and display and worldliness and un- 
 belief and uncharitableness, then, no matter what his 
 views are, his sound doctrines, his estimation and honour 
 in the Church, I say to you, in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus, Beware of false prophets. I beseech you, 
 brethren, to hold fast by this good word of the Lord. 
 Fruits, not mere opinions, are the test of his faithful 
 servants. Yet how often have we seen this overlooked 
 and set at nought in the most dejolorable way ! How 
 often have we witnessed, in the course of the history of 
 the Church, men filled with the spirit of Jesus, mani- 
 festing in a most holy walk and conversation their love 
 of Christ and their love of souls, a mercy and a sincerity. 
 
336 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and a faitlifulness, and a heavenly-miudedness, and a 
 sympathy wliich rebuked the general Church ; and not 
 only themselves doing this, but owned and honoured of 
 God to bring many unto a like mind, so that the Father 
 truly bore witness of them that He was with them and 
 had sent them ; and yet, in spite of all that manifest 
 and holy fruit, the Church hath again and again dis- 
 owned and rejected such men, only for some trivial 
 divergence of opinion, casting out of her fold some of 
 her truest and noblest shepherds, and retaining many a 
 dumb dog, who, for his own self-interest, would either 
 hold his peace, or utter any shibboleth he might be 
 required to utter. Brethren, it is mournful to think 
 how little we lay the words of Jesus to heart, and this 
 word among many has been miserably neglected, ' By 
 their fruits ye shall know them.' 
 
 Finally, be it remembered, that every tree that bear- 
 eth not good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 
 There is no doubt that this test of fruit-bearing applies 
 to the disciple as well as to the teacher ; and that, con- 
 sequently, this warning is given to the one as much as 
 to the other. I have not dwelt on that, however, be- 
 cause logically the drift of our Lord's words here appears 
 limited to the false prophets, and because the larger 
 application of the idea comes before us in the succeed- 
 ing verses. I would therefore, in conclusion, only take 
 to myself, and to all in a like position, those solemn 
 words, * Every tree that beareth not good fruit is hewn 
 down.' The prophet who is not faithful and true, who 
 turns from the strait gate, and would widen it for the 
 
CONCLUSION — FALSE PROPHETS. 337 
 
 sin and selfishness of men, and who is not himself illus- 
 trating the high and holy law of the new life in Christ 
 Jesus, alas ! for him, the unprofitable, dangerous ser- 
 vant, who yields no fruit unto God ! He may do 
 many things. He may teach sound doctrines ; he may 
 look harmless in his self-indulgence; but he is a wolf 
 in sheep's clothing, and one day he and his work shall 
 perish together. 
 
338 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 CONCLUSION —THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDERS. 
 
 * Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven. Many vnll say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
 have we not prophesied in thy name 1 and in thy name have cast 
 out devils 1 and in thy name done many wonderful works ? and 
 then %oill I profess unto them, I never kneio you : depart from 
 me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore, whosoever heareth these 
 sayings of mine, and doeth them, I loill liken him unto a wise man, 
 which built his house upon a rock ; and the rain descended, and 
 the floods came, and the winds hleio, and beat upon that house; 
 and it fell not : for it was founded upon a rock. And every one 
 that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be 
 likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand ; 
 and the rain descended, and the floods came, arid the winds blew, 
 and beat upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall 
 of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, 
 the yeople loere astonished at his doctrine : for he taught them as 
 one having authority, and not as the scribes.' — Matt. vii. 21-29. 
 
 This mighty Sermon now draws to its close with pointed 
 application of its thoughtful teachings, and in words of 
 singular majesty and solemnity and power. Picturing 
 His thoughts still as He goes, the great Teacher crowds 
 into these last sayings a number of striking images, 
 each of them carrying its weighty lesson of instruction 
 or reproof or warning, in such a form as to seize upon 
 the imagination with a distinctness and impressiveness 
 
CONCLUSION— THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDERS. 339 
 
 that can never be effaced. We may not catch the 
 whole meaning of them at first. Nay, the longer we 
 look at them, the more we see in them. Their meaning 
 deepens with our deeper vision. But some meaning at 
 least is at once conveyed to the mind by each of those 
 vivid pictures, and that in a way which can never be 
 forgotten, for they cling to us with a most singular 
 power and fascination. The strait gate and narrow way 
 leading up to life ; the wide gate and broad road going 
 down to death; the wolves in sheep's clothing; the 
 good tree with its good fruit;— all these physical em- 
 blems have become inseparably one with the spiritual 
 truths which they so fitly express. For Jesus, the true 
 prophet, is ever the strait gate ; and false prophets who 
 make a broad road for us are wolves in sheep's clothing ; 
 and true disciples are good trees yielding fruit in their 
 season, for they do not merely cry, 'Lord, Lord,' but 
 they do the will of the Father which is in heaven. 
 
 In considering now the verses we have read to-day, 
 let me say that the repetition of the words, ' By their 
 fruits ye shall know them,' while it forms an appro- 
 priate conclusion to the description of the false prophet, 
 which was the subject of the previous paragraph, is 
 also a fitting introduction to the description of the true 
 disciple, which is the special theme of His concluding 
 words. In my last lecture, you will remember I con- 
 fined myself to the one point which was properly then 
 before us, namely, the character of those described as 
 wolves in sheep's clothing, and the test by which we 
 were to ascertain that character. That test was fruit 
 
340 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 Men do not gather grapes from thistles ; and no more 
 could a false prophet yield good fruit. To that single 
 point, it seemed to me, we were then limited by the 
 logic of the passage. But this test of fruit applies as 
 much to the disciple as to the teacher. All that the 
 Lord said on that subject therefore may be carried for- 
 ward, being equally related to the verses which follow 
 as to those that precede. In fact, the disciple, as well 
 as the prophet, may be a wolf in sheep's clothing ; and 
 him also we can know only by his fruit. The barren 
 hearer with his fine professions is just as little worth 
 as the barren teacher with his good words. Beware of 
 both. Christ knows them not. Their house is built upon 
 sand, and the day of their desolation is not far away. 
 
 In verse 21, then, our Lord describes the false and 
 the true disciple; and in 22 and 23 He introduces us 
 to a scene where both false prophets and false disciples 
 vainly plead with the Judge ; after which He concludes 
 with that solemn parable in which the solid and the 
 unreal hopes of all men are shown to be put to the 
 proof, as by assault of a terrible storm, wherein the one 
 edifice is swept away, while the other stands erect and 
 calm amid the surges of the eternal waters. Let us 
 look, then, at these verses in detail. And 
 
 1. The Lord describes the false disciples as men 
 who cry ' Lord, Lord ' to Him, but who bear no fruit. 
 This language clearly implies that there are some who 
 profess to be Christians, who acknowledge Jesus to be 
 the Lord, and pray to Him as Lord, and praise Him as 
 the Lord, who nevertheless have no part in Him. I do 
 
CONCLUSION — THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDEES. 341 
 
 not think that the description is limited to those people 
 who yield Him only lip-honour and mouth-worship ; 
 hypocritical pretenders who, like the mixed multitude 
 that hung upon the skirts of the true Israel, will always 
 1)6 found more or less loosely connecting themselves 
 with the Church of God. Of course, it does embrace 
 all these, but we should fail to catch the whole pro- 
 found truth if we confined its application to them ; and 
 what is of more importance, we should not only fail to 
 grasp His idea in its completeness, but we should pro- 
 bably lose its chief point and practical bearing on our- 
 selves. For it is very likely that many of us to whom 
 nevertheless these words are strictly applicable, could 
 quite sincerely and honestly admit that all hypocritical 
 pretenders who put on a mere cloak of religion do not 
 really belong to the kingdom, and cannot enter into it. 
 By restricting Christ's words in that way, we may easily 
 put them past ourselves, and so lose all the benefit and 
 blessing they are fitted to convey. Let me therefore 
 say that this confession of ' Lord, Lord,' is symbolic 
 of a sound creed, as well as a religious profession. It is 
 as much as to say that there are many who believe, and 
 are fully persuaded in their minds that Jesus is Lord 
 and Saviour, many who entertain no doubt on that 
 head whatever, having been well instructed in all the 
 sound tradition of the Fathers, or having even diligently 
 inquired into the matter for themselves, so that they 
 have a most unhesitating belief in the doctrine of grace 
 and of God, but who nevertheless are not true disciples 
 of Jesus. Moreover, it is also implied that, in addition 
 
342 THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 to this sound and honestly accepted creed, they may 
 also practise many consequent religious duties. They 
 may pray to Him as Lord ; they may praise Him as 
 their Lord. And this also they may do in no con- 
 sciously false, hypocritical spirit, but quite sincerely, 
 just as sincerely as any other act of their lives, which 
 they consider it is right and proper to perform. Thus 
 they may believe the truth in a perfectly sound form, 
 and they may do religious works in a true and honest 
 spirit enough ; and yet for all that they shall not enter 
 the kingdom, either now or in the world to come. They 
 may put forth abundant leaves and a glorious blossom ; 
 but the tree yields no fruit unto God. For any mere 
 intellectual processes by which we obtain right convic- 
 tions of the truth, may still leave the will in its natural 
 alienation and rebellion, working only the unfruitful 
 works of darkness. And any recognition of God and 
 his Christ, in the shape of prayers and praises, may 
 still leave the heart to serve its fleshly lusts and plea- 
 sures. It is found, alas ! quite possible to interrupt 
 the connexion between the mind that perceives the 
 truth and the soul that consents to its power, and thus 
 to put the machinery of life, as it were, out of gear, so 
 that the force which ought to move it unto the high 
 service of God is really spent and wasted, or only yields 
 a vain cry of * Lord, Lord,' and nothing more. Now 
 those who are thus barren and unfruitful in their know- 
 ledge of the Lord Jesus cannot enter tlie kingdom of 
 heaven. They may be outwardly in the membership 
 of the Church, honoured by it, pillars of it, and, alas ! 
 
CONCLUSION— THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDERS. 343 
 
 even themselves persuaded that tliey are its ornament 
 and pride. And yet they are not of it ; they do not 
 understand its spirit ; they are ignorant of its sacred 
 joy; they are really strangers and aliens, and not fellow- 
 citizens with the saints, nor of the household of God. 
 It is not merely that they shall not enter into the future 
 heritage of blessing ; but they are really now outside 
 the strait gate, and they cannot enter in while they are 
 of this spirit. 
 
 And now, further, the Lord gives us to understand 
 that the true disciple is one who not only cries ' Lord, 
 Lord,' but also doeth the will of his Father which is in 
 heaven. It seems to me quite necessary here, as in the 
 concluding words, to bear in mind that the man of whom 
 the Lord here speaks, is one who both 'heareth his 
 sayings, and also doeth them.' People are extremely 
 apt to think that, as it is not enough to cry ' Lord, Lord,' 
 without doing the works, therefore if we do these, it is 
 quite unnecessary to cry ' Lord, Lord.' That is to say, 
 they are still fain to separate faith and obedience. One 
 says, I believe, and do not care to obey ; the other says, 
 I obey, and do not care to believe. Now, I have no 
 hesitation in allowing that those who obey, even though 
 they do not believe, are more acceptable to God than 
 the opposite ; and I am bold to say this, just because 
 Jesus puts it broadly in one of His parables, in which 
 he tells us of a father who had two sons, the one of 
 whom said, ' I go,' and went not ; while the other re- 
 fused to go, yet afterwards repented and went ; and He 
 ■unhesitatingly affirms that it was the last who really 
 
344 THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 and only did the will of liis father. But while I have 
 no manner of hesitation in saying that obedience with- 
 oirb faith is better than faith without obedience, I am 
 quite as certain that what is really required of us, and 
 what alone is really well-pleasing to God, is that we 
 should both cry ' Lord, Lord,' and also do the will of our 
 Father who is in heaven. For service without belief 
 is really to obey, and to call God a liar ; and belief 
 without service is to believe, and make ourselves liars. 
 Neither alternative, surely, is desirable ; neither is right ; 
 neither is that which the Lord requireth of us. The true 
 principle is to combine both : to call upon the Lord, and 
 to do the works of the Father ; to blend in one the char- 
 acters of the two sons in the parable, both promising 
 obedience and performing our promise, assenting and 
 consenting to the will of God. This is the true disciple ; 
 we do not know him merely by his words, but by his 
 fruits too. We do not know him only by his fruits, but 
 by his faith too. He is not a sheep in woK's clothing ; 
 still less is he a wolf in sheep's clothing ; but he is one 
 of the true sheep of the good shepherd, who both hear- 
 eth his voice, and goeth after hun. Those only who 
 bear this character are in the kingdom now, or shall 
 enter the kingdom hereafter. The leaf is nothing, and 
 the blossom is nothing, unless the tree come to fruit ; 
 but leaf and blossom are much when they yield their 
 liarvest in due season. Profession is nothing, and belief 
 is nothing, and prayer is nothing, when they go no 
 further ; but they are all of infinite moment Avhen they 
 lead to our doing the will of the Father. For then they 
 
CONCLUSION — THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDERS. 345 
 
 are clear and undeniable proof that the true life is in 
 us, the faith which worketh by love, the grace that is 
 manifest in godliness. I beseech you, brethren, to lay 
 this earnestly to heart. Be not hearers of the word 
 only, but doers of it also. Be not doers of the word 
 only, but hearers of it too. True discipleship is alike 
 faithful to the truth, and obedient to the law; and they 
 are but wolves in sheep's clothing who cry ' Lord, Lord,' 
 and yet do not the will of our Father who is in heaven. 
 The whole scheme of salvation, the work of Christ, the 
 gift of the Spirit, the revelation of the truth, — all are 
 meant for this end, to turn us from our wayward and 
 rebellious courses, and to establish the kingdom of God 
 so that His will may be done on earth even as it is in 
 heaven. And we are miserably deceiving ourselves if 
 we go on crvi'-ig ' Lord, Lord,' and yet remain barren 
 and unfruitful in the .knowledge of Jesus. Wherefore 
 give diligence to add to your faith virtue, and to virtue 
 knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to tem- 
 perance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, 
 and to brotherly kindness charity. And remember that 
 a disobedient belief and an luibelieving obedience are 
 equally unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 2, Having thus described the false and true disciples, 
 the Lord goes on to remind us that there is a day com- 
 ing when their characters shall be discovered and their 
 judgment settled. The line of thought, if I may ven- 
 ture to paraphrase it, would seem to be somewhat to 
 this effect : ' False prophets will come, and may de- 
 ceive many with their fair speeches ; false disciples 
 
34 G THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 will join you, and they too with their " Lord, Lord," may 
 persuade many that they are the real children of your 
 Father. Nay, and not only so, but because the heart 
 is deceitful, they may even convince themselves that, 
 barren as they are, and disobedient as they are, yet in 
 virtue of their sound creeds and religious professions 
 and prayers to me, it is all well with them. Thus they 
 may, all their life long, walk in the delusion of their 
 own hearts, not knowing what manner of men they are, 
 till they appear before me in the judgment. Yea, even 
 there, they may begin to say unto me, " Lord, Lord, have 
 we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name have 
 cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful 
 works ? " But in vain. These are not the works of my 
 Father. These are not the proofs of the true prophet, 
 or true disciple. Then will I profess unto them, I know 
 you not ; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,' 
 
 In calling your attention to this passage, let me ask 
 you to note that here as elsewhere the Lord calmly 
 assumes to Himself the powers and attributes which 
 belong only to God. Even throughout this Sermon, 
 which has been supposed to be essentially different 
 from some of his later teachings, the solemn 'I am He' 
 crops up again and again, and compels us to feel that 
 the difference between this discourse and those others is 
 quite superficial, and that all which was afterwards dis- 
 covered is here quietly assumed. When He spoke of 
 the strait gate, we found that the only satisfactory 
 explanation of the phrase was his own words in John, 
 ' I am the door ; by me if any man enter in he shall 
 
CONCLUSION — THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDERS. 347 
 
 have life.' Again, when He describes the false dis- 
 ciples, He tells us that they will say to Him ' Lord, 
 Lord,' — offering to Him the adoration due only unto 
 God, which He does not blame in itself, but only 
 because it is not, in their case, accompanied with good 
 works and fruits. And now, finally, though God is said 
 to be the judge of all the earth. He, this man of sorrows, 
 this meek and lowly One, calmly seats Himself as it 
 were on the throne, and describes those people as com - 
 ing in the great day to plead their cause before Him, 
 and to receive their sentence from His lips. For even 
 so it is, brethren. ' The Father judgeth no man, but hath 
 committed all judgment unto the Son.' ' He hath ap- 
 pointed a day wherein He will judge the world by that 
 man whom He hath ordained.' It is not God merely 
 who judgeth, but God in Christ. Men will receive sen- 
 tence from the Son of man. The lips that proclaimed 
 Divine mercy shall also assert the Divine righteousness. 
 And now, further, you will observe the principle Avhich 
 is to regulate the decisions of that judgment. In the 
 13th chapter of Luke we have another and very similar 
 description of that solemn transaction, the idea in both 
 being precisely the same. Here Jesus tells us that many 
 shall tlien say ' Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied 
 in thy name ?' There He says, 'They shall begin to say, 
 "We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou 
 hast taught in our streets.' And in both cases His 
 reply shall be, ' I know you not.' For it is not the 
 possession of such gifts, or the performance of such 
 works, or the enjoyment of such privileges, which will 
 then anywise avail us. One may have prophesied in 
 
348 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 the name of Jesus, preacliing the gospel to others, and 
 yet he himself may be a castaway ; one may have 
 received gifts of miracles, and yet while his hand gave 
 life to others, his own heart may have been cold and 
 dead as a stone ; one may have sat at the Lord's table, 
 yet never eaten of the bread of life; one may have 
 heard the grace and truth that flowed from His lips, 
 and yet only heard unto his own condemnation. These 
 are not witnesses that will avail us in the great day of 
 the Lord. It is idle to summon them there ; idle to 
 trust in them now. It is only the works which the 
 Father doeth, that will then testify of us that we are 
 His children. The works which bear witness of a pure 
 lieart, a true heart, a holy and spiritual character, and a 
 merciful and loving spirit, these only shall profit us in 
 that day. Justified by faith, we shall yet be judged 
 by works ; for the fruits of the Spirit in us must justify 
 the grace of God towards us. And if not, if we are 
 evil trees bearing evil fruit, or barren trees bearing no 
 fruit, if our religion lies only in opmions and pri\d- 
 leges and gifts, but not in works of faith and labours of 
 love ; then shall the Lord, the righteous Judge, on that 
 day profess unto us, ' I know you not.' Men may have 
 reckoned us His followers, but we have not walked in 
 His footsteps. ' The Lord knoweth them that are his ; ' 
 but He will disown us, if we have not done the wiU of 
 his Father. He knows our sin, our hypocrisy, our 
 disobedience, and in that sense He has known us all 
 along, and knew we were none of his. Ah ! but these 
 are dread words : ' I know you not. I will no longer 
 have my name associated with yours ; for ye have not 
 
CONCLUSION — THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDEES. 349 
 
 known me. Ye know not my grace and holiness, and 
 truth and love. Depart from me, for ye are none of 
 mine. Ye had high opportunities, and yet remained 
 workers of iniquity ; ye had holy privileges, and yet re- 
 mained workers of iniquity ; ye obtained precious gifts, 
 and yet remained workers of iniquity. Depart from 
 me ; I disown you for ever ; for ye have not done the 
 will of my Father which is in heaven.' 
 
 3. The Lord now concludes the whole Sermon with 
 one of those exquisite parables whose pictorial beauty 
 and spiritual insight, always remarkable, are in this 
 case elevated into a strain of solemn grandeur and 
 awful impressiveness. Of course that parable rises 
 most naturally from the immediately preceding warning 
 in reference to the day of judgment. But equally of 
 course, it stands in close relation also to the whole 
 discourse which it so fitly concludes. You may say, 
 the foolish builder is the man who heareth the words 
 of the Lord and doeth them not, and who persuades 
 himself that all is well because he crieth, ' Lord, Lord,' 
 or because he prophesieth and doth many wonderful 
 works in the name of Christ ; whom nevertheless Christ 
 will one day utterly disown, so that his house shall fall 
 about him in a great and sorrowful ruin. Or, on the 
 other hand, you may gather up the whole teaching of 
 the Sermon, — its introductory beatitudes, its profouud 
 laws of love, truth, faith, and sympathy, and say that the 
 foolish builder is the man who has not entered into the 
 strait gate, thus clearly described, and asserted to be 
 the only way of life, the only sure foundation on which 
 
350 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 our hopes can rest. It matters not which view you 
 take ; the parable which quite naturally follows up the 
 account of the judgment, also most fitly winds up the 
 whole of this Sermon, 
 
 Let it be remembered that in tropical climates, the 
 sudden tempest or tornado sweeps often with most 
 destructive and desolating effect over a country, in a 
 way of which we have no examples in these more tem- 
 perate regions. Our storms are more frequent, and less 
 severe, the force, as it were, being spread over a larger 
 space of time. Theirs, on the contrary, are rare. 
 Months pass without a breath of wind or a drop of 
 rain. But when the quiet is disturbed, it is as if all 
 the storms spread over our year were concentrated into a 
 few hours. The wind tears up the stately cedars. The 
 rain swells the brooks into desolating floods. And tlie 
 slightly built houses of a people accustomed ordinarily 
 to calm weather, are often swept utterly away, and 
 whole villages and towns levelled with the ground. 
 Such a storm David describes in Psalm xxix. saying, 
 ' The voice of the Lord is upon the waters : the God of 
 glory thundereth; the Lord is upon many waters. The 
 voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars ; yea. He breaketh 
 the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip 
 as a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. 
 The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The 
 voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord 
 sitteth upon the flood.' In the parable, then, such a 
 tempest is represented as coming on the houses of the 
 wise and foolish builders ; and that which is built upon 
 
CONCLUSION — THE WISE AND FOOLISH BUILDEES. 351 
 
 the rock endures the trial, while the other, which was 
 founded on the sand, fell, and great was the fall of it. 
 
 The apostle Paul, in the third chapter of First Corin- 
 thians, uses a similar illustration, but indicates that 
 every man's house shall be tried as with fire. He speaks 
 of the one sure foundation, which is Christ, and warns 
 us to take care, not only what we build, but how we 
 build thereon. For the foundation is not everything ; 
 the structure also is of some moment. If a man build 
 on the rock, gold, silver, precious stones, they shall 
 abide the trial ; but if he mingle them with wood, hay, 
 stubble, that shall be burned, and he shall suffer loss, 
 though he himself shall be saved. One may be a true 
 Christian, and yet one may cherish wrong notions, de- 
 lusive hopes, foolish expectations; stubble and hay 
 which shall be tried with fire, and burnt. Still through 
 the fire the true Christian shall pass, not without loss, 
 yet not seriously injured. Eather, his loss will be gain, 
 for the rubbish shall be removed, that the gold and 
 silver only may remain. And in our Lord's parable 
 we are quite entitled to find a similar lesson. The 
 great idea of it indeed is, that we must build on a sure 
 foundation. We are not to be hearers of the word only, 
 but doers of it also. What we preach, and what we be- 
 lieve, that we must also be. And if you ask what that 
 is, I can only refer you to all the previous part of this 
 Sermon on the Mount. We must enter in at the strait 
 gate, denying ourselves and taking up the cross, that 
 we may obtain the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness. Then our hopes, resting on the Lord, shall be 
 
352 THE SERMON OX THE MOUNT. 
 
 founded on the rock ; but if not, alas ! they are built 
 upon sand, and their ruin soon shall come. At the 
 same time, we must also build the right kind of 
 house on this foundation, otherwise when the storm 
 comes, we are like to suffer loss. The stubble and hay- 
 will be washed away by the floods, as they would be 
 burned away by the fire. Now, the right kind of house 
 is indicated in the introductory beatitudes. Let a man 
 be poor in spirit, mourning for sin, meek, hungering for 
 righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, 
 faithful and steadfast amidst persecutions and other 
 trials, and his house, resting on the rock, shall be all of 
 gold, silver, and precious stones, whose stability the 
 day will manifest. In this way the introductory beati- 
 tudes blend with the concluding parable, being linked 
 together by the fine similitude of Paul. See then to it, 
 that ye are both hearers of the word, and doers of it 
 also. See that ye build on the right foundation ; see 
 also that ye build the right kind of house upon it. For 
 the day of trial shall come. And in that day he that 
 heareth Christ's words, and doeth them, is like ' unto a 
 wdse man, which bu.ilt his house upon a rock ; and the 
 rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
 blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for it 
 was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth 
 these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be 
 likened unto a foolish man, which built his house 
 upon the sand ; and the rain descended, and the floods 
 came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; 
 and it fell : and great was tlie fall of it.' 
 
APPEl^DIX. 
 
 No. I 
 
 I PRINT here the part of Lecture iv. which was omitted 
 from the text, because the subject had been more 
 satisfactorily treated in a subsequent discourse of the 
 series : — 
 
 For, just consider a moment what the Lord proceeds 
 to do after this large and decisive statement regardino- 
 the law and the prophets. It will be utterly impos- 
 sible to get any clear understanding of the matter unless 
 you pause here, and observe that Jesus, knowing what 
 people thought, knowing how sharply suspicious they 
 would be of any proposal to alter the minutest point of 
 the law, and clearly anxious to remove any such dis- 
 trust, and to produce a distinct conviction that He 
 meant really to fulfil and establish all the law and the 
 prophets, yet when He goes on to illustrate this posi- 
 tion, does m point of fact directly abrogate some com- 
 mandments, and so interpret others that the people 
 could scarcely have recognised the old law in its new 
 light. I might at this point, assuming the entire unity 
 and equal authority of the teachings of our Lord and 
 •His apostles, remind you that very many of the most 
 
 z 
 
354 APPENDIX. 
 
 cherished ordinances of Scripture — that is, of the law 
 and the prophets — were abolished by Him, that is, in 
 His name and by His Spirit, a few years after. Paul, 
 for example, cast off the bondage of circumcision. The 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews swept away the 
 whole Aaronic priesthood and their sacred rites. Un- 
 questionably, many and very serious changes were 
 made in the law and the prophets by those who had 
 the mind of Christ, and who were specially anointed by 
 the Holy Ghost to reveal all the fulness of His gospel. 
 But at present I pass these by, and will confine myself 
 to wliat our Lord expressly says in illustration of the 
 principle that He came not to destroy, but to fulfil 
 them. And omitting just now any reference to the 
 exposition of the sixth, seventh, and ninth command- 
 ments, strangely as they must have sounded in a 
 Hebrew ear, I ask you to note what He says in refer- 
 ence to the law, ' an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth.' For the present, I confine our inquiry to that 
 one point, — not because the same line of argument 
 would not bear on some of the other illustrations, but 
 because it is here perhaps most markedly, and signifi- 
 cantly, and unmistakably apparent. For you will note 
 that this saying, ' An eye for an eye,' is no Pharisaical 
 interpretation of the law, but is distinctly, and even 
 elaborately, enjoined in Exod. xxi. 24. Almost imme- 
 diately after the utterance of the Decalogue comes this 
 stern principle of exacting for every offence an equiva- 
 lent penalty ; and it is so clearly expressed that no 
 interpretation could well make it more severe. More- 
 over, this same law cannot in any way be regarded as 
 ceremonial or peculiarly Jewish. Indeed, it is rather 
 noticeable that in all these illustrations which Jesus 
 gives of His purpose with regard to the law, not one 
 
APPENDIX. 355 
 
 will be found belonging to the ceremonial part of the 
 covenant. This particular law, then, though not con- 
 tained in the Ten Commandments, is certainly and 
 essentially moral. The question whether we are to 
 forgive those who do us wrong, or to exact the full 
 penalty of their oftences, is assuredly a part of the 
 moral law, if anything is. Here then, brethren, is an 
 unmistakable ordinance of Moses, not a false interpre- 
 tation ; here also is a moral principle — most clearly 
 moral, not ceremonial; and yet He that said, ' I am not 
 come to destroy the law and the prophets,' actually 
 illustrated His principle, that He meant to fulfil the 
 Scriptures, by asserting that we are not to demand an 
 eye for an eye, but that whoever shall smite us on the 
 right cheek, to him we should turn the other also. At 
 this stage of our argument I am not going to do more 
 than simply to ask you honestly, and in all fairness, to 
 the great Teacher, to try and believe this much — that 
 He knew whereof He spoke — that the seeming contra- 
 diction must have been quite reconcilable with His 
 real position, and that He did not utter a confused 
 babble which has to be put right by more exact and 
 systematic divines. Alas for the exact and systematic 
 divines ! who have to set Christ right, and to keep 
 Him in the right way ! May I entreat you to beheve 
 that the Lord Jesus Christ knew quite well, knew 
 better than we do, whereof He spoke when He selected 
 an unquestionable law of Moses, an unquestionable 
 moral principle of that law, and said that He was not 
 destroying, but fulfilling the Scriptures, when He en- 
 joined us not to demand a tooth for a tooth, but to 
 overcome evil with good ? Up to this point of the 
 argument I ask no more than this. How the difficulty 
 is to be explained is not the matter before us just now. 
 
356 APPENDIX. 
 
 That will have to be looked at by and b}^ But surely 
 I am entitled to demand of all Christian men, that 
 when Jesus said He was come to fulfil the law, and 
 when, in illustration of that fulfilment. He actually set 
 aside one of its most clearly moral rules, He knew what 
 He was about, and was not blindly floundering in a mess 
 of contradictions, trying to reconcile his position with 
 his convictions. I think, my friends, there must be 
 some point at which we can see the harmony and con- 
 sistency of Christ with Himself; and it is of more 
 importance for us to obtain that position than it is to 
 see how any man, or any class of men, or any set of 
 opinions, can be harmonized with each other. Let 
 Christ be true and every man a liar. And if ever we are 
 to see the truth of His word here, we must keep these 
 facts steadily before our minds — viz. First, That when 
 He speaks of the law and the prophets. He means the 
 entire Old Testament Scriptures ; second, That an 
 opinion had gone abroad to the effect that He intended 
 to abolish these, which opinion He was anxious to re- 
 pudiate ; and tliird, That nevertheless, in the very act 
 of repudiating it. He does in point of fact abrogate at 
 least one of the IMosaic laws, and substitutes the very 
 opposite moral principle in its room. These three 
 things being clearly apprehended, we shall now be in a 
 position to inquire what, then, is the precise bearing of 
 this passage, ' Think not that I am come to destroy the 
 law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to 
 fulfil.' 
 
APPENDIX. 357 
 
 No. 11. 
 
 Stier, commenting on Matt. v. 1 7, says : ' " The law 
 and the prophets," taken together, are the name of the 
 old covenant, yet not merely in the sense of the current 
 manner of speech, . . . but with reference to those two 
 aspects of the old covenant, upon which such a division 
 was based, viz., commandment and promise. These two 
 fundamental elements, however, so thoroughly inter- 
 penetrate one another, that the whole, the legal as well 
 as the prophetic word, the legal as well as the pro- 
 phetic institution, may be regarded as comprising both ; 
 the one element commanding the fulfilment of the 
 fore- announced will of God, and the other pointing in 
 prophecy to the future, which alone will bring this 
 fulfilment. He who does not thus understand the Old 
 Testament has not yet even begun to understand it ; 
 its double name is its only right name. It is a law 
 which has not yet found its corresponding obedience, 
 and which yet must and shall be done ; it is a promise 
 which yet waits its fulfilment. When this has come, it 
 becomes an old testament, and gives place to the neio. 
 But this new testament, again, is no other than the 
 truth and reality of the old, its fulfilment, which can 
 alone bring it, as old and precursory, to an end. Oh 
 that our critics of the present day would understand 
 this ; whose entire but idle toil is expended upon the 
 vain endeavour to rend asunder the two testaments of 
 God, to unbend the law and the prophets, and then to 
 regard Christ as one who has come, but who fulfils 
 nothing and nothing brings,' — Stier, Words of Christ, 
 vol. i. p. 131. 
 
358 APPENDIX. 
 
 Again : ' "What is the Imo, of which our Lord here 
 speaks ? Assuredly not merely the unaptly so-called 
 moral law of the Ten Commandments ; for Israel had 
 learned nothing in Scripture of any such improper divi- 
 sion of that one entire law, which the Lord had given 
 them in various commandments and moral precepts and 
 statutes. To that same law belongs, in inseparable 
 unity with it, wdiat we term the ritual and civil law ; 
 all is together but one will of God, which is to be esta- 
 blished in the obedience of His holy people.' — Ihid. 
 131-2. 
 
 Again : ' The actual fulfilment of the Old Scripture 
 was at the same time, to some extent, an abolishing ful- 
 filment, inasmuch as that which was preparatory ceases 
 through its completion, the shadow retires before the 
 substance, and the shell, which enclosed and concealed 
 the kernel, drops from it.' — Ihid. p. 137-8. 
 
 Olshausen observes, on the same passage : — ' The laiu 
 and the prophets is a general denomination for the en- 
 tire writings of the Old Testament. . . . The Old Testa- 
 ment is the foundation on which the building of the 
 New Testament is to be placed, in order to complete it. 
 In this comparison the Old Testament contains the 
 outline (/xo/d^wo-is, Eom. ii. 20), and the New its filling 
 up ; the two are in organic connexion, like bud and 
 blossom. The fulfilment is therefore to be regarded as a 
 comprehensive one ; Christ fulfils not only the pro- 
 phecies and types of the Old Testament, but the moral 
 law also He fulfils perfectly in Himself and His people.' 
 — Olshausen, Com. vol. i. p. 200. 
 
 The following remarkable passage in Dr. Martensen's 
 (Jliristian Dogmatics has come to my knowledge since 
 these Lectures were delivered. Dr. Martensen is, I 
 
APPENDIX. 359 
 
 understand, a bishop in the Danish Lutheran Church ; 
 clearly also a man of ability and ample learning, and, 
 allowing for sacramental theories, altogether evangeli- 
 cal. He says,^ ' For Christians the Old Testament 
 is sanctioned only by the New ; and no canonical 
 authority can belong to it, except what belongs to the 
 preparatory testament, after that of the fulfilment has 
 come. On account of its profound organic connexion 
 with the New Testament, it is of importance, not only 
 as an exegetical auxiliary in the study of the New Tes- 
 tament, but as the delineation of the way in which God 
 led and trained His chosen people. As the chosen in- 
 strument of the law and of prophecy, — as the type and 
 foreshadowing of the eternal treasures, it will always be 
 profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in 
 righteousness. Hence we reject the Gnostic view of the 
 Old Testament, that it is of no account to the Christian 
 Church ; but no less do we reject the Jewish view, 
 which would retain in the Christian Church the Old 
 Testament as an independent canon by the side of the 
 New Testament. For the Old Testament is not ISias 
 IttiAvo-cws (of private interpretation), but if it is to 
 serve for Christians as present truth, it must first be 
 interpreted TrvevfiaTiKm, — i.e., from the stand-point of 
 the New Testament, as we see it done especially by the 
 apostle Paul. This is true even of the Psalms and 
 Prophets, the most evangelical portions of the Old 
 Testament. For, rich and exhaustless as are the trea- 
 sures therein contained for the illumination and edifi- 
 cation of the Church, yet the contents cannot be 
 received by the Christian mind as present truths, with- 
 out being regenerated by the new spirit of Christianity, 
 and in various respects reconstructed.' 
 
 * Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, pp. 53-4 — Clarks' Foreign Series. 
 
360 APPENDIX. 
 
 In Dr. John Owen's Commentary on the Hebrews, I 
 find the following note on chap. vii. 18, 19 : — ' It is not 
 the peculiar command for the institution of the legal 
 priesthood that is intended, but the whole system of 
 Mosaic institutions. For the apostle, having already 
 proved that the priesthood was abolished, he proceeds 
 on that ground, and from thence, to prove that the 
 whole law was also, and in like manner, abolished and 
 removed. . . . Nor is it the whole ceremonial law that 
 is intended by " the command " in this place, but the 
 moral also, so far as it was compacted with the other 
 into one body of precepts for the same end.' — Owen on 
 Hehrevjs, vol. iii. pp. 544-5. 
 
 Still more clearly, Dr. Knapp, one of the evangelical 
 party in Germany during last century, writes : — ' The 
 laws of Moses are of different kinds, and many of the 
 older theologians maintained that Christ abolished only 
 the ceremonial and civil law of the Israelites, and not 
 the moral law, especially that contained in the Deca- 
 logue. But in the passages of the New Testament which 
 treat of the abolition of law, there is no allusion to this 
 threefold distinction. Paul includes the whole under 
 vo/xos, — Eom. vi. 14 ; Gal. iii. 19, 25. Besides, many of 
 the laws of Moses which are truly moral, are expressed 
 and stated in such a way as to show plainly that they 
 were designed, m that form, only for the circumstances 
 and wants of the Israelites at the time being.' Dr. 
 Knapp then goes on to show that moral laws are in 
 their nature universally obligatory and unalterable, but 
 that they are not binding on us Christians, because they 
 are found in the Mosaic code, but because they are 
 founded in the constitution which God has given us, 
 and ' because Christ has commanded us to obey them'^ 
 
 ' Knapp's Christian Theology, p. 365, translated by Woods of Andover. 
 
APPENDIX. 361 
 
 I add here a number of theses on the subject, by Pro- 
 fessor Delitzsch, which I am permitted to print. I may 
 explain that, while the Presbytery was proceeding in 
 the matter, a friend of mine who was then at Erlangen, 
 unknown to me, brought the question under Dr. De- 
 litzsch's notice. The result was the production of these 
 theses, which were forwarded to me at the time, though 
 I did not then feel at liberty to use them, except by a 
 passing reference to a single expression in No. viii. of 
 the series. In now allowing me to publish the whole, 
 Dr. Delitzsch writes to my friend that while he has no 
 objection to their being printed, he begs to observe that 
 ' they were hastily conceived, in a friendly conversation, 
 as basis of discussion ; and that, though not deducing 
 the duty of the ceremonial observance of the Sunday 
 directly from the Mosaic law, he does not ignore the 
 blessings of a Church-and-State protected celebration of 
 the Lord's day for a Christian people ; and that the 
 theses are not to be understood in an antinomian sense.' 
 He adds also a hope that ' this delicate question may 
 be so treated that libertinism will draw no false conclu- 
 sion from it.' As I had not in any way referred to the 
 Sabbath question, I was at one time minded to omit 
 that portion, being reluctant to open up any new 
 matter. But that would have been to take a liberty 
 with Dr. Delitzsch's theses which I did not feel myself 
 entitled to take. I have therefore printed it entire, 
 Avith his own explanation of his meaning, in which I 
 heartily concur :— 
 
362 APPENDIX. 
 
 RELATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I. The Mosaic law is not a law for man as man, but for a people ; 
 and, therefore, it is not the pure and perfect expression of the holy- 
 will of God. 
 
 II. It follows from the national character of the law, that the 
 Mosaic law justifies war, that it makes partial (unfair) differences 
 between fellow-countrymen and foreigners, that it admits polygamy, 
 that it does not prohibit divorce, and so forth, because it accommo- 
 dates itself to their crK\ripoKap5ia, 
 
 III. It is manifest that the Mosaic law accommodates itself to the 
 stage of culture (of the people), and to the relation (condition) of 
 the land, and to the political and religious i)osition of this people 
 among the surrounding peoples. 
 
 IV. In short, the Mosaic law is the expression of the Divine will 
 within national {i.e., temporal and local) limits, binding where 
 the true will of God permits, and allowing where the true will of 
 God prohibits; — e.g., binding in respect of eating and drinking, 
 and allowing in resjiect of polygamy, of hostility, of usury. 
 
 V. Jesus Christ has abrogated this law, as only the limited, and, 
 as it were, prismatically broken, revelation of the Divine wiU, and 
 has substituted the perfect and universal revelation of the Divine 
 win, not depending on any time or place, relating to man as man, 
 without national distinction. 
 
 VI. The God of the two dispensations is the same. The Mosaic 
 law has a pedagogical tendency (character), compared with that 
 revelation which the Sermon on the Mount, and in genenil the New 
 Testament, introduces ; it is to be considered from the jjoint of 
 view of the education of a people, still in a state of minority. 
 
 VII. Even the Decalogue shares in this character of the whole. 
 The prohibitions, as they read, are directed only against external sins, 
 not against the inner affections ; and they are so fashioned in the 
 two last prohibitions [viz., our tenth commandment, divided by the 
 Lutherans into two], as the relations of the iieoj)le demand it. Even 
 the fourth commandment [Lutheran tliird] belongs to this class, 
 
APPENDIX. 363 
 
 becaiise in the celebration of the Sabbath, the command is given to 
 the people of Israel as a people. The Sabbath is in itself a holy- 
 day, as the day of the Divine rest after creation ; but its cere- 
 monial celebration was commanded only to Israel. 
 
 VIII. There must be a distinction in the Mosaic law between 
 what is temporal and what is eternal : and the touchstone of the 
 eternal is the legislation of Christ, which has distinguished between 
 kernel and shell, essence and accident, substance and shadow, spirit 
 and letter, and has brought in the perfect instead of the elements 
 of the world, liberty instead of slavery, majority instead of mino- 
 rity (pupiUage), humanity instead of nationality, universality instead 
 of state-particularity, general love instead of partiality, and has re- 
 vealed the face of the Holy Love without the veil of Moses. 
 
 IX. The law was given by Moses, a human mediator ; but the 
 New Testament revelation is given by a Mediator who is God and 
 man in one person ; and, therefore, the law is Divine revelation 
 radio rejlexo, the New Testament is Divine revelation radio directo. 
 
 EDINBURGH : T. CONSTABLE, 
 rniNTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
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