LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. Copyright No.. 
 
 Shelf. 
 
 ...S-4- 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE MAGNA CHARTA OF 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 PLAIN STUDIES IN 
 OUR LORD'S SERMON 
 ON THE MOUNT # # 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE F. GENUNG, D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Bmerican JSaptlet IPubllcatton Society 
 
 I goo 
 
TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 
 
 Library of COftgr««% 
 Office of tilt 
 
 MAY 2 6 1900 
 
 Register of Copyrtgktii 
 
 SECOND COPY, 
 
 62G17 
 
 Copyright igoo by the 
 American Baptist Publication Society 
 
 iFrom tbe Society's own ipress 
 
vo:t».: >3f • • **•' : 
 
 
 For men begin to pass their nature^ s bound, 
 ^nd find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
 Their proper joys and griefs ; and outgrow all 
 The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
 'Before the unmeasured thirst for good ; while peace 
 T^ises within them ever more and more. 
 
 — 'Browning 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is universally agreed that the Sermon on the 
 Mount is an utterance of cardinal significance in 
 its relation to that divine kingdom which Christ 
 came to set up in the hearts of men. What that 
 relation is, however, is a question that has received 
 various answers. The title here chosen may per- 
 haps suggest, as well as a single phrase could, the 
 idea to which the present study of that discourse 
 has led. The Sermon on the Mount is not a code 
 or digest of specific commands, nor is it, though 
 indeed in imperative form, a manifesto, summariz- 
 ing those intentions of the King which mere extra- 
 neous authority is adequate to enforce. It proposes 
 a kind and degree of obedience which only the free 
 and loving impulse of the regenerate heart can 
 make good. Meeting us on the threshold of the 
 kingdom of God, it determines for us our status^ 
 where we stand, as free and loyal subjects, in the 
 sight of God and in the presence of our true life. 
 We may, therefore, borrow Dr. Augustus Nean- 
 der's phrase and call it the *^ Magna Charta of the 
 Kingdom of God," our great charter, not, like that 
 old document at Runnymede, extorted by angry 
 subjects from a reluctant king, but graciously 
 originated by the King himself, who is also our 
 representative, and laying down a divine law such 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 as no subject could or would have devised, yet 
 expressing the subject's willing allegiance as no 
 contrivance of his could ever do. 
 
 The following chapters are called plain studies, 
 because they aim to set forth in direct and simple 
 terms, without rhetoric and without theological 
 technicalities, the main lines of truth followed in 
 the great discourse, as they should be viewed, not 
 by scholars only, but by ordinary thinking men. 
 The standards of interpretation here sought are 
 just the standards of a devout common sense. No 
 elaborate exposition is attempted, and many of the 
 momentous truths and implications of the discourse 
 are merely suggested, not followed out in detail. 
 This way seemed best, however, in working out 
 the writer's main intention, which is to indicate 
 the underlying unity that binds its precepts to- 
 gether and the fundamental relation of its teaching 
 to all Christian ethics. And the reader who shall 
 catch the spirit which is recognized as the central 
 spring of this discourse and of all true Christian 
 obedience will, it is hoped, find this attempt com- 
 mended to his Christian consciousness as substan- 
 tial truth. 
 
 That the book may do good by promoting a 
 clearer understanding of the New Testament ethi- 
 cal standpoint is the earnest prayer of the author. 
 
 Richmond, January, 1900 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Teacher and his Authority i 
 
 II. The Morality which is the World's Savor and 
 
 Light 23 
 
 III. Relation of the Morality of Enthusiasm to 
 
 Law 47 
 
 IV. Righteousness whose Reward is of the Earth 71 
 V. The Heavenly Treasure . 99 
 
 VI. Correctives of Egoism 121 
 
 VII. The Susceptibility of Obedience 143 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 
 
Matt, 7 : 2g 
 
He taught them as one having authority. 
 
 Imagine a mountain region and a bright, clear, 
 summer morning. A great crowd of people is 
 coming together from every part of Palestine, all 
 with expectant faces and with eager, inquiring at- 
 titudes and words. As the sun rises higher in 
 the heavens the throng steadily increases. We 
 hear the low hum of conversation as men every- 
 where engage in inquiry or discussion. Here is a 
 group of men with malignant faces watching nar- 
 rowly every movement of the crowd, and appar- 
 ently ill able to brook the state of feeling which 
 draws so great an assemblage to this remote place. 
 Here we come across a group listening in open- 
 eyed wonder to one of their number who is nar- 
 rating the story of some marvelous cure. At 
 every few steps we see a litter with a groaning 
 sufferer upon it ; for people have brought their 
 sick with the hope of having them healed. Now 
 and then we catch a glimpse of some poor, emaci- 
 ated invalid making his laborious way through the 
 crowd, seeking for a sight of the healer w^hom he 
 has come here to meet. So all is stir and expecta- 
 tion. The great crowd grows gradually more com- 
 pact in a level plain at the base of a considerable 
 elevation from whose rugged summit they are evi- 
 dently expecting somebody to descend. 
 
 3 
 
4 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Presently there is a stir in the crowd as their 
 eyes catch sight of people approaching on the 
 sides of the mountain. A young man with a 
 heavenly calmness and dignity of manner comes 
 toward the plain. Men are instinctively reverent 
 in his presence; and yet, as he approaches nearer, 
 his aspect reveals nothing to fear. In his eye is 
 the light of an indescribable love. The most sin- 
 ful seem drawn toward him ; and there radiates 
 from him an ineffable influence which is felt to be 
 universally healing in its nature. 
 
 He is accompanied by twelve plain men, his 
 disciples. After a night spent in prayer on the 
 mountain, he has just chosen, from the large 
 number of those who would attach themselves to 
 him, these twelve as his apostles. Their number 
 suggests a new and spiritual twelve tribes of 
 Israel ; and this act of setting them apart is but 
 one interesting movement suggestive of founda- 
 tion-laying in what seems to the people a mar- 
 velous era of new beginnings. All through 
 northern Syria there is the stir of expectant life ; 
 a great multitude has come together as his avowed 
 disciples, while many more are eager to hear his 
 words and to be healed of their diseases. On his 
 approach there is almost a stampede in the crowd 
 as they press forward to touch him. 
 
 After he has passed through the people and 
 healed their sick, he takes his seat on a rise of 
 ground with the listening multitude at his feet. 
 He begins to speak and they hang spellbound 
 upon his words. The text cited at the beginning 
 chronicles the impression which his discourse pro- 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 5 
 
 duces upon them. It excites wonder, for they 
 find it in great contrast to the teaching of the 
 scribes. Jesus comes to them as a living teacher, 
 fresh from personal contact with eternal truth ; 
 not retailing musty traditions, and afraid to assert 
 anything except as it is authorized by the learning 
 of some rabbi. It is a great change from their 
 accustomed experience with the scribes to hear 
 one speak who has an eye that can see truth, and 
 a courage that is not afraid to utter it. 
 
 ''He taught them as one having authority ^ The 
 authority meant is the authority of a lawgiver or 
 commander. The teacher impressed his audience 
 as one who was conscious of a moral kingship and 
 a right to be obeyed. He stood, as it were, at 
 the very source from which obligation proceeds. 
 He does not speak as if his authority to command 
 were derived from any outside source ; he does 
 not refer his auditors to the means for authenti- 
 cating his utterances. It is as if the words which 
 he spoke were finally true and compelling. 
 
 Let us observe the method of the divine teacher. 
 At the outset we must endeavor to divest our- 
 selves of the prepossessions which we have inher- 
 ited from centuries of religious history and wor- 
 ship, and assume in imagination the attitude of 
 this audience on the slopes of the mountain to- 
 ward the wonderful Galilean. To us a word from 
 the Master is the end of controversy, because we 
 accept him as divine. His heavenly rank is taken 
 without question as authenticating his truth. But 
 to the people who listened to his words this pre- 
 supposition is not present. They have, it is true. 
 
6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 heard of his wonderful works, and many reverence 
 him as a prophet ; but there is no such putting 
 forward of divine claims as to make the burden of 
 authority rest on the person or rank of the teacher. 
 In fact, we note an absence of personal assertion. 
 He has no occasion to begin by explaining who he 
 is. While he contrasts himself and so makes him- 
 self of equal rank with the teachers of old time by 
 his majestic *^But I say unto you,'' he is never- 
 theless not calling upon his hearers to believe be- 
 cause he says it, but because his message is true. 
 
 And this is the true way to teach moral doc- 
 trine, even when it is proclaimed as by authority. 
 People must gain an ownership of the truth, 
 rather than be silenced by awe of the promulgator. 
 When Elihu, with his arrogant confidence in his 
 own knowledge, professed to be the truth-revealing 
 daysman for whom. Job wished in his perplexity, 
 he said: 
 
 Behold my terror shall not make thee afraid, 
 Neither shall my pressure be heavy upon thee. 
 
 So likewise Jesus, the eternal Daysman, does not 
 begin by making his personal pressure heavy upon 
 men. There is no making prominent just now of 
 fulfillments of prophecy; there is no resting on 
 the endorsement of those who decide on the claims 
 of new prophets. In this discourse Jesus does 
 not even appeal to his mighty works. There will 
 no doubt be occasion for all these means of main- 
 taining his standing when other exigencies are to 
 be met. But here he simply opens his mouth and 
 teaches. To the multitude he is nothing more 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY / 
 
 nor less than a new teacher; and the power of 
 his teaching to rule them is to be established by 
 its own worthiness of acceptation. His words 
 shall stand by the strength of their own inherent 
 truthfulness. For the present purpose it matters 
 not who the speaker is ; let the truth appear with 
 no terror of his to make men afraid. The final 
 test of its authority is in itself. 
 
 Truth which thus stands in its own strength is 
 not careful to borrow cogency from logic. Indeed, 
 its authority is not made stronger by any process 
 of reasoning. As we consider this fact we are 
 prepared to understand another characteristic of 
 the Master's method. He does not argue; he 
 proclaims. He does not prove; he asserts. He 
 deals in truth rather than in what is called thought. 
 It is truth which he sees, and which every soul to 
 whom it comes will see as soon as that soul is 
 honest with itself. 
 
 Facts or principles that can be made common 
 by reasoning are not the highest kind of truth. 
 There are truths which come to light only in the 
 ' direct converse of the soul with eternal reality. 
 The obedient heart sees them directly ; and the 
 only thing it can do to establish them is to commit 
 itself to them and transmute them into living ex- 
 perience. Of this character are the distinctive 
 truths of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The 
 main thing we have to do in order to enable men 
 to receive them, is to awaken their spirits. The 
 mists to be cleared away are not the obscurities of 
 imperfect logic, but the fumes of unsanctified 
 affection and selfish will. Sinful men are indeed 
 
5 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 blinded to the truths of the kingdom, but this is 
 not because they are such poor reasoners; it is 
 because sin blinds their eyes. The prophets of 
 God are not occupied with proving divine truths ; 
 they are set to proclaim them in the strength of 
 the Lord God, and to bring men into obedience to 
 their commands. When men's hearts are in the 
 right attitude toward God they will see, and not 
 till then. 
 
 The truth to which Jesus brings our conscience 
 here in this discourse is truth such as we have 
 enough kinship with him to recognize when it is 
 pointed out to us. In proportion as we enter into 
 the relation of obedient sons to God we may see 
 it. We are not to acknowledge without seeing, 
 and merely because he is in authority and has said 
 it ; we may see and know for ourselves when it is 
 once pointed out to us. This is the kind of au- 
 thority by which he speaks. It is authority pro- 
 ceeding from God, but it has the endorsement of 
 all that is most like God in ourselves. The ulti- 
 mate edicts of our Infinite King, when they are 
 discovered, are not found to be arbitrary and out- 
 side of us, but intimately blended with our own 
 nature, the very law of our being. He who com- 
 mands most truly, therefore, is he who testifies 
 most clearly of the nature of true humanity; he is 
 really a witness to the facts of our highest selves. 
 It is, therefore, as a witness that Jesus speaks, even 
 when uttering the words of a lawgiver. 
 
 But it should be noticed that he is a peculiar 
 kind of witness. He is a witness who derives 
 confirmation from our assent. A common eye- 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 9 
 
 witness to a simple matter of fact is ultimate au- 
 thority, because he testifies to matters beyond our 
 observation, and which we have no means of veri- 
 fying or disputing. But Christ speaks as witness 
 to an inward truth which our conscience can and 
 must verify when we attain to the point of view 
 for it. He does not reason, but he offers us the 
 means of attaining to that spiritual elevation where 
 we may see for ourselves. The method which has 
 sometimes been adopted of figuring out the nature 
 of Christ's claims to be the world's teacher, is 
 somewhat beside the mark. He has been treated 
 purely as a witness to an outside fact. The method 
 has been to examine his credibility apart from the 
 contents of his testimony ; that is, to establish his 
 character as supernatural by means of his miracles, 
 and then to rest the truth of his message on his 
 competence, thus ascertained, to speak of things 
 beyond our sphere. But in fact we are to take 
 him and his message together; we are to judge by 
 independent, sanctified judgment of the worthiness 
 of his doctrine to be received as divine truth. We 
 must see not simply that he is supernatural, and 
 therefore speaks the truth, but that he is the truth ; 
 is the very Word of God made flesh. He is a wit- 
 ness, but he is a witness to that which belongs to 
 the highest human nature, to all spiritual existence 
 which is one ; and we may become so elevated and 
 normal in our perceptions that we shall be of that 
 higher spirit, and all that is within us shall rise up 
 and endorse his doctrine. 
 
 If we are of God, as Jesus elsewhere expresses 
 it, we hear God's words. To believe in Christ, in 
 
lO MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 its highest sense, is to be in that state of obedience 
 to God in which we shall see that he is the truth. 
 We do not imply doubt or irreverence when we in- 
 sist on seeing it for ourselves. We honor the truth 
 in this way; for until we have seen it, we have not 
 given it a sway over our hearts. 
 
 Yet it is as one having authority that Jesus 
 teaches, — not an arbitrary authority, as we have 
 seen, but a natural authority, an authority which 
 manifests its reality by compelling assent. Let it 
 be observed that such deriving of power from the 
 assent of the hearer is still authority. To insist 
 on seeing and knowing the truth for ourselves is 
 not to say that there is no such thing as authority, 
 and that we ourselves are the final deciders of the 
 truth. It is not to say that the Lord's authorita- 
 tive utterance was not necessary, that we should 
 have found it all out ourselves if we had been left 
 alone. Blunted as are our spiritual perceptions, 
 we could not have originated that revelation of 
 God's will, even though we can and must give it 
 practical validity by recognizing it when it comes. 
 The one who originally sees and utters it for us is 
 an authority to whose word we must defer by find- 
 ing its reasonableness. 
 
 It is by authority that the highest kind of truth 
 is propagated. There is always a place for re- 
 ligious authority in the world, however intelligent 
 and rational the human race may become. The 
 nature of the highest truth is such that only the 
 purest, most inspired souls perceive it originally, 
 and these not by dialectic skill, but by insight and 
 singleness of heart. These become prophets and 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY I I 
 
 proclaim that truth for others, who in turn see 
 it as they become spiritually raised to its level. 
 It is truth which belongs to the higher man 
 created within us by the Spirit, truth which be- 
 comes truth to us only as that higher man comes 
 into existence. It is not surprising that mere ex- 
 perience on the world's level should not find it 
 out. He who by inspiration of the Spirit lives the 
 life of that higher man, proclaims it; he who 
 catches a glimpse of that higher self by obedience 
 of heart, assents to it. The Saviour who is the 
 inspirer, who is that higher man in complete one- 
 ness with the eternal truth, is the perfect ex- 
 ponent of truth, the Word of God. Because that 
 truth belongs to the humanity that is coming to 
 be, rather than to that which is, therefore the 
 foresharers of that spiritual humanity are the au- 
 thorities for the world. 
 
 Religious or ethical knowledge concerns itself 
 with what ought to be, or is coming to be, in our 
 higher selves. It is the science of that which 
 does not exist, or at least exists only in germ, ex- 
 cept as humanity creates or develops it by sonship 
 to God. The circle of truth thus created consti- 
 tutes the laws of a new humanity. Yet these 
 laws are not arbitrary, nor out of harmony with 
 the laws of our common life. The new man is 
 the realization of all manhood in its true meaning, 
 and his laws are laws to which we all owe alle- 
 giance. Thus, while this truth has power to com- 
 pel assent from the candid and obedient every- 
 where, the original possession and custody of it 
 remains with those who have become new men in 
 
12 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 the Spirit. It must therefore always be propa- 
 gated by authority. Jesus Christ and those in- 
 spired men who derive truth from his Spirit will 
 always remain the center of the world's light. 
 
 Of all the teachings of the New Testament the 
 sayings of this Sermon on the Mount have per- 
 haps carried the most universal conviction with 
 them. All that is best in man rises up to confirm 
 their truth. Not only to the crowd assembled on 
 the slope of Kurn Hattin, but to the whole world 
 which comes to read, Jesus speaks as one having 
 authority. Some of the master-minds of the world 
 have said the Sermon on the Mount was a reve- 
 lation to which their whole being bowed in hom- 
 age. The sincere heart must yield to such teach- 
 ing. It leads our better nature captive. It tells 
 us what the man must be to be a perfect man, 
 and no candid mind can deny the rightness of the 
 delineation. Jesus speaks as one havmg authority. 
 The world cannot get rid of his words. 
 
 This self-commending authority is seen in greater 
 degree in the Sermon on the Mount than in some 
 other parts of Scripture, not because it is the 
 highest truth of all, but because it is truth in such 
 a form as to speak to the moral imagination. It 
 does not entangle the reasoning powers in specu- 
 lation, but enlists the heart in the wish for its de- 
 fined excellence. It is practical, or ethical. As 
 ethical it appeals to our sense for values and for 
 conduct; it describes types of excellence which 
 we can imagine mankind as realizing, with the 
 glowing thought, how good it would be if it were 
 so. Hence many a man who has no serious pur- 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1 3 
 
 pose of adopting its precepts in their full extent 
 for the guidance of his own life, nevertheless ad- 
 mires that unique discourse as a glorious picture, 
 a masterpiece of moral delineation. It is of such 
 character as to commend itself to a candid mind 
 as to an artistic sense, even where the admirer is 
 not a doer as well as a hearer of the word. For 
 this reason, among all the teachings of the Bible 
 there are none that command a greater unanimity 
 of formal assent than this wonderful discourse. 
 
 But when, on the other hand, men acknowledge 
 that they are to do more than admire, and seriously 
 contemplate the thought of forming their lives to 
 a perfect model, there are sometimes heard objec- 
 tions to these exalted precepts. We have seen 
 that the teacher's authority derives its strength 
 from the assent of the higher man in us. But it 
 is not strange that the lower man should now and 
 then utter his voice of dissent, for not all the 
 morality of this sermon is within his reach, and he 
 would gladly rid himself of its condemning require- 
 ments. Sometimes our baser self thinks of its 
 normal liberty as consisting in the right to abjure 
 the control of the higher man, and thus to remain 
 base and refractory. But in thus objecting to the 
 precepts of Christ the transgressor is by no means 
 disproving their real authority over him ; he is 
 only acting like those heathen in the second Psalm 
 who rage, and in their vain imaginings plan to 
 break asunder the Lord's firmly knit bands, and 
 cast away his cords from them. 
 
 These objections are founded on that view of 
 the divine authority which regards it as proceeding 
 
14 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 from a will entirely outside of us. This perfect 
 standard of excellence is called an inordinate re- 
 quirement. Moral perfection is not conceived of 
 as the law of our being, but as the fiat of an arbi- 
 trary ruler. With such a conception this Sermon 
 on the Mount becomes little other than an instru- 
 ment of condemnation, and for God to require 
 such perfection of weak and erring mortals, stand- 
 ing ready the while to condemn them to perdition 
 for failure, seems to be harsh and tyrannical. In 
 such an objection it is the lower man that speaks. 
 He is in the position of that slothful servant who, 
 because he had no enthusiasm to improve his 
 opportunities for good, said, ^* Lord, I knew thee, 
 that thou art a hard man." 
 
 This objection conceives of righteousness not 
 as a goal, but as a price. It grudges the effort for 
 it, with the feeling that God ought to let us have 
 eternal life at a cheaper rate. It understands the 
 morality here taught as the condition of salvation, 
 and it is dissatisfied because the condition is so 
 lofty and severe. But this is by no means the 
 way the great discourse is to be taken. When the 
 Saviour says, *'Be ye perfect," he is not stating 
 the lowest terms on which salvation may be se- 
 cured ; he is rather setting before us what we 
 should aim at. This perfection is our goal; we 
 shall never be satisfied with anything short of it. 
 The sermon teaches, not the morality of those 
 who are purchasing salvation and weighing with 
 scant balance the price, but the morality of those 
 who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Sal- 
 vation, instead of being a reward placed in the 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1 5 
 
 future and to be secured, is the starting-point and 
 spring from which the longing to be righteous 
 proceeds. Being ** saved" is a process which in- 
 volves trusting God for all the future outcome of 
 righteousness without thought of merit, and be- 
 cause of his grace; it is a taking of all the Re- 
 deemer's worthiness into the heart, so that this is 
 our fervent wish, our undivided purpose, which 
 nothing can satisfy short of perfect attainment. 
 The man who is saved has all this in his heart to 
 be and do, before he has actually realized it in his 
 conduct. He is not thinking of what shall be 
 sufficient to earn heaven ; and yet in the truest 
 sense heaven is just what he is seeking, for heaven 
 itself is but the perfect ideal attainment on which 
 his heart is set. 
 
 One would hardly expect it otherwise than that 
 those who take this proclamation of moral princi- 
 ples as an arbitrary sovereign's basis for the con- 
 demnation of his subjects should be disturbed at 
 its severe requirements. But there are those who 
 also regard this law as primarily a condemning 
 agency, and yet their extreme ideas concerning 
 faith lead them with singular infatuation to exult 
 over that law as if it were a fallen foe. They say 
 that all it was intended for was to show us the 
 hopelessness of our attaining perfection, or keeping 
 the law, and therefore to warn us to abandon all 
 thought of it and trust only to the merits of Christ. 
 Good people sometimes even thank God because we 
 are ''free from the law," in the sense that it entails 
 no obligation on us, since Christ has obeyed it in 
 our stead. But such an idea is surely a misunder- 
 
1 6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 standing. Could the loyal heart ever be thankful 
 to have no obligation laid upon it to be conformed 
 to the divine image? Could the man who loves 
 righteousness exult in having the majesty of right- 
 eousness done away? Let us not misunderstand 
 Jesus so. He is giving us a glimpse of the per- 
 fect morality not for us to abandon all thought of 
 it, but for us to accept it as our end and purpose. 
 He would have us trust him for salvation, it is 
 true ; this is the only way of eternal life. But we 
 are to trust him and, because he is in our hearts by 
 faith, seek to be perfect, not trust him and discard 
 the thought. Christ taught in order to be obeyed, 
 not in order to alienate men from all purpose of 
 obedience by means of impracticable requirements. 
 He ministers, not despair of attainment, but 
 strength for effort. The triumph of faith, in this 
 sordid world which so depresses our ideals, is to 
 keep believing that the measure of the perfect 
 man is in our reach, and ever striving to realize 
 that which we grasp by faith. 
 
 But not only the right of these teachings to 
 place themselves as our condemning standard, but 
 their power to rule our ordinary life is questioned 
 on the ground that, though beautiful as an ideal 
 picture, they are nevertheless impracticable and 
 visionary. This criticism, like the other, proceeds 
 from the basis of our ordinary self, and is domi- 
 nated by the feeling of the divine requirements as 
 merely external. It thinks of the ordinary earthly 
 humanity as if it were to be placed by law in the 
 kingdom of heaven as in an external regime ; and 
 it foresees a failure in the practical working of its 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 1/ 
 
 mild precepts among those people whose disposi- 
 tion is to evade them. Suppose, for instance, the 
 civil oath were abolished in literal obedience to 
 the precept, ** Swear not at all," or all opportu- 
 nity for divorce were denied, despite the hardness 
 of men's hearts which still obtains as in Moses* 
 time, would such a forcible setting up of ideal 
 practices be beneficial all around ? In short, is 
 the morality of the great discourse practicable? 
 The very church of God which professes to take 
 this sermon as its fundamental law is unfaithful to 
 it. And when an earnest and original man like 
 Tolstoy undertakes to make it the actual model 
 for his life, many are ready to call him a mis- 
 guided fanatic. This is held to show that its 
 teaching, while ideally beautiful, is impracticable. 
 
 Now it must be acknowledged that, conceived of 
 as imposed by an outside power upon ordinary hu- 
 man society, much of this morality is impracticable. 
 Like all consummate moral law, the great discourse 
 outlines conduct for the spiritually quickened man 
 to propose to himself, not conduct for a central 
 power to enforce upon the unwilling. And, in the 
 present stage of human advancement, to take 
 these precepts against the oath, against resistance, 
 against divorce, as absolute prohibitions rather 
 than as pictures of that consummate state of society 
 where these imperfect customs shall have dropped 
 away of themselves, is to leave society unguarded, 
 or to expose the exceptionally conscientious indi- 
 vidual to imposition and wrong. But it is as con- 
 summate, or ideal truth, that the Sermon on the 
 Mount is to be taken. Ideal truth, even truth 
 
 B 
 
1 8 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 that is to the unregenerate man impracticable, is 
 still compelling truth ; it is none the less strong be- 
 cause it is unrealized in general society. If per- 
 fection, indeed, were an easily attained goal, it 
 would lose all its power as an incentive. The pur- 
 suit of it would have no zest ; the enjoyment 
 of it would become wearisome. There stands 
 the high truth. *' P^orever, O Lord, thy word is 
 settled in heaven." We sorrowfully acknowledge 
 how often we are unfaithful to it ; but we will by 
 no means throw it aside as our ideal. We still say 
 there can be no perfect humanity without it. 
 Once having been granted a view of the morality 
 of God's kingdom, the true sons of God will never 
 cease to believe and love and pursue this as the 
 very end of their being. 
 
 But it may well be asked how an ideal scheme 
 of duty, confessedly impracticable for ordinary so- 
 ciety, is expected to relate itself to the human 
 conscience. For the unregenerate society, which 
 cannot at present realize the final morality, reacts 
 upon those who are committed to an ideal obedi- 
 ence, interposing conditions hostile to the free ex- 
 ercise of their cherished virtues. It seems clear 
 that some virtues can flourish in their perfection 
 only in their own atmosphere; as long therefore 
 as that congenial condition for their development 
 does not exist, with how much of self-reproach 
 shall the disciple regard his consequent lack of 
 perfection ? How shall the spiritual man make 
 progress toward planting his ideal on the earth ? 
 And how shall the perfect, impracticable morality 
 exert its influence on the collective conscience 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY IQ 
 
 SO as to bring to pass its progressive actualiza- 
 tion ? 
 
 Moral law in its consummate form, as already 
 seen, is for the spiritually quickened man to pro- 
 pose to himself as duty. When the conscience of 
 the few is brought to recognize its claim, these by 
 their conversation in the world become the salt of 
 the earth, the salutary influence for the preserva- 
 tion of society. And it is everywhere taught in 
 the Sermon on the Mount that these must be ex- 
 pected to sacrifice themselves in a certain way to 
 the welfare of humanity. If they are persecuted 
 for righteousness' sake, it is a sign that they are 
 of the kingdom of heaven. But in order to bring 
 the saving influence of their conduct to bear upon 
 society it is not necessary that they should form 
 separate communities, with special civil laws, realiz- 
 ing by dead lift the ideal system of duty. Such 
 separation from the ordinary life entails a loss of 
 leavening power. Nor is it necessary that disci- 
 ples should live in * a state of rebellion against 
 those civil institutions which fafl to enforce ideal 
 conduct, nor in a state of insurgent compact to 
 bring those institutions to their ideal standard by 
 the omnipotent ballot. It is a question whether 
 civil enactment can ever aim at the same mark as 
 moral law, the primal purpose of the one being 
 to afford guidance to the good, of the other to 
 restrain the bad. Living then with immediate 
 reference to the will of Christ, and yet in ordinary 
 civil relations and with sinful people, the disciple 
 may recognize the necessity of conforming out- 
 wardly to a lower standard, — in taking the oath. 
 
20 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 for example, or in defending himself, — not as a 
 lapse from imperative duty, but as the deprivation 
 of an ideal privilege. He may enter into his civil 
 relations without condemnation, and yet with re- 
 gret at his earthly limitations. For the Saviour's 
 doctrine abolishing the oath and the privilege of 
 self-defense is not an absolute prohibition, but a 
 prohibition so far as practicable, and above all a 
 picture in imperative form of that state of society 
 where these fall away of themselves. And he 
 who seeks the perfect kingdom of heaven in the 
 spirit of hunger and thirst after righteousness is 
 not driven by fear of guilt but by longing for un- 
 attained blessings. In one way or another the 
 ideal truth, lifted up as an entrancing vision, will 
 produce unrest in the humanity whose eyes are 
 opened to it, until its altitude is finally reached, 
 and its heavenly treasure possessed. 
 
 We see then the authority with which the divine 
 teacher spake. That authority depends on no his- 
 torical research of ours ; the truth of his utter- 
 ances is not vitally involved in the question 
 whether Christ wrought miracles or not, not in 
 the question what he is in relation to prophecy or 
 to the Trinity. Once uttered, that truth com- 
 mends itself to the inner perception of every 
 candid man. We know that the things which he 
 commands are ideally and eternally right. And if 
 our lower self, clamoring for the right to remain 
 unsubdued and earthly, calls the eternal claims in- 
 ordinate, or feels an ideal world to be impractica- 
 ble, such stopping of the spiritual ear by no 
 means silences the voice of God. It is none the 
 
THE TEACHER AND HIS AUTHORITY 21 
 
 less ours, on pain of alienation from God, to make 
 this eternal standard of duty our striving. In the 
 spirit that is awakened to God's voice there can be 
 no rest short of this altitude of perfection. The 
 moral world will always be in unsatisfied move- 
 ment until it reaches that goal. Bring your heart 
 therefore into harmony with it. Make it your 
 cherished ideal. This is salvation — when the law 
 of God is our dearest purpose, instead of our con- 
 demning censor. With this high striving in our 
 heart we have the evidence that we are united to 
 Him who perfectly fulfilled this law. And with 
 this in our heart we are allied to that which is of 
 eternal significance and power. ** Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
 away.'' 
 
II 
 
 THE MORALITY WHICH IS THE 
 WORLD'S SAVOR AND LIGHT 
 
Matt. .5 .• 2-16 
 
II 
 
 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 
 
 Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted. 
 
 Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth. 
 
 Blessed are they that 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 sons of 
 God. 
 
 Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when 
 men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner 
 of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceed- 
 ing glad : for great is your rew^ard in heaven : for so persecuted 
 they the prophets which were before you. 
 
 Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost its savour, 
 wherewith shall it be salted ? It is henceforth good for nothing, 
 but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye are the 
 light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither 
 do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the stand ; 
 and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your 
 light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and 
 glorify your Father which is in heaven. 
 
 The idea that was in the air was, " the kingdom 
 of heaven.'' People were looking for this kingdom, 
 and expecting great blessings to come to the 
 chosen nation on account of it. John had for 
 months been preparing for it by bis preaching in 
 the wilderness. His message had 
 been, *' Repent, for the kingdom of Matt. 3 : 2 
 heaven is at hand." After Jesus 
 
 25 
 
26 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 had been baptized he himself took 
 Matt. 4 : 17 up the Same message, ''The king- 
 dom of heaven is at hand." There 
 was the general feeling that some great and desir- 
 able development in the world's history was about 
 to take place. Enthusiasm was smouldering and 
 ready to burst into flame at any moment. Patri- 
 otic pride, sense of the disgrace of the chosen na- 
 tion being subject to heathen Rome, religious en- 
 thusiasm, as well as a deeper spiritual hunger 
 hardly understood, all wrought to produce a pres- 
 sure of expectation that could hardly be held back. 
 Jesus described this state of feeling 
 Matt. II : 12 when he said, ''From the days of 
 John the Baptist until now, the 
 kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of 
 violence take it by force," It was the kingdom of 
 heaven on w^hich the eager common people of Gal- 
 ilee were fixing their hopes. Any mention of that 
 kingdom was sufficient to set expectation all aglow. 
 Only give them an idea what it was to enter that 
 kingdom and be in a position to share its benefits, 
 and they were ready to press into it. 
 
 This Sermon on the Mount has been called the 
 fundamental law of the kingdom of heaven. And 
 for those who understand what is meant by the 
 kingdom of heaven this is a most appropriate de- 
 scription of it. But Jesus could not so designate 
 it at this stage of affairs by name. To use the 
 name which was thus on everybody's lips would 
 be to awaken that whole accumulation of enthusi- 
 asm and set it ablaze. But to make such an en- 
 thusiasm too intense at this stao-e of thino:s would 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 2/ 
 
 be unfortunate, for it was mainly an unspiritual 
 enthusiasm. People did not understand what the 
 kingdom of heaven was. It was a greater idea 
 than they had grasped. It meant briefly that 
 state of things in the individual heart in which the 
 person is ruled by God himself. This meant his 
 trusting God, his seeing God with the spiritual 
 eye, his obeying God of his own glad choice. But 
 for the bulk of the people the kingdom meant 
 some visible organization, some commonwealth, 
 some pomp of external power and glory. Even if 
 the setting up of the kingdom was not under- 
 stood to mean the overthrow of the Roman power, 
 and the universal dominion of the Jewish nation, 
 it could hardly help being understood as some 
 outward organization, for spiritual purposes at 
 least. Now to name this sermon at the outset 
 the law of the kingdom, would be to call together 
 a band of unspiritual adherents at once. They 
 would inevitably and immediately fasten upon 
 some earthly idea of that kingdom and proceed to 
 carry it out. 
 
 In spiritual matters it is often necessary to de- 
 scribe a thing before we can venture to use its 
 commonly received name. This is especially true 
 of anything which calls out people's enthusiasm. 
 The things of God's kingdom are greater than any 
 of us have fully understood. They are heavenly 
 things which, though they stand on the earth, 
 tower up to an infinity of meaning toward heaven, 
 in proportion as the spirit can comprehend them. 
 But these things receive their common names, and 
 those names inevitably acquire a conventional sig- 
 
28 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 nificance. People are fired by the name, when 
 often it is desirable that they should not blaze up, 
 as it were, too soon, but should hold still and learn 
 more deeply the precious meaning involved in the 
 name. When a man is acting on an idea he is no 
 longer listening for that idea. It is often neces- 
 sary that our over-eager followers be held still to 
 complete the act of getting instructions, before 
 they run on the errand of doing their master's 
 bidding. 
 
 In the formation of opinions especially, mere in- 
 dolence of thought leads people often to conjure 
 with names as if they were the ultimate realities 
 concerned. There is a power in conventional 
 terms to arrest the process of thought, especially 
 when those terms arouse partisan feeling. People 
 catch the cry and run with it before they have 
 caught it aright. This was especially likely to 
 happen with those to whom the Saviour was 
 speaking at this time. Just as we have to talk 
 about the various isms under which people range 
 themselves, or against which they have strong 
 prejudices, without naming them, as we have to 
 take pains sometimes that our hearers shall not 
 know what is the conventional thing we are talk- 
 ing about until they have had time to catch our 
 meaning, so Jesus had to be careful that this idea 
 of the kingdom of heaven, which was all ready, 
 should not be advanced prematurely. The eager 
 people must learn its nature without knowing what 
 conventional thing it was whose nature they were 
 learning. By and by its name could be revealed, 
 but not until they had gotten the thing. 
 
THE WORLD S SAVOR AND LIGHT 29 
 
 So Jesus in this Sermon on the Mount sets forth 
 the fundamental law of the new kingdom ; but it 
 is not formally a law, nor is the mention of the 
 kingdom made prominent. He simply goes on to 
 describe the ideally good man. He points out 
 who are blessed. He describes, if we may so say 
 it, the best thing in character, what kind of peo- 
 ple they are who are nearest to the center of the 
 world's spiritual life, who are fitted to impart good- 
 ness to the world rather than receive goodness 
 from the world, who are the very salt of the earth, 
 giving it a savor, the light of the world shining in 
 its darkness and revealing the God who is their 
 own indwelling light. 
 
 It is touching men's spiritual nature by awaken- 
 ing them to the desire for an ideal goodness. 
 Righteousness is here presented of a high enough 
 intensity to be inspiring. Men are saved by ap- 
 preciating. It is thus that Christ saves men : 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ " means simply, 
 appreciate Christ, Righteousness at the ordinary 
 level would be hardly of high enough potency to 
 be inspiring ; but when the righteousness of those 
 who are blessed ia being like Christ in the world 
 is so presented as to awaken men's sense of its 
 worth and enlist in its cause all the active powers, 
 it becomes a mighty saving influence in the heart 
 of the appreciative. 
 
 Jesus first describes a certain morality, and then 
 specifies what kind of people this will make of 
 those who practise it. They shall be the salt of 
 the earth and the light of the world, the positive 
 leavening power in society. The relation of his 
 
30 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 kingdom to the world is here indicated. It is not 
 the whole of society, but its leaven. The morality 
 he describes is a certain concentrated form of 
 goodness, the only perfect and consummate kind ; 
 and yet always the leaven rather than the leavened 
 lump. It is a morality which could not be en- 
 forced by power, even by an infinitely autocratic 
 sovereign. He pictures the saving or savoring 
 element in society, rather than society itself, which 
 element is always small in bulk, perhaps we may 
 say too concentrated to be the whole of the world ; 
 even when the whole lump is leavened it will be 
 something different from this, something with 
 passive, inert elements which constitute the main 
 body of society, on which the positive elements 
 act. And these act not by any forcing of their 
 influence, or seeking to wield the power of organiza- 
 tion for that special end, but simply by being what 
 they are, by letting their light shine. The shining 
 light is the impelling power. 
 
 We might easily spend a long time on each one 
 of these Beatitudes and yet fail to point out all 
 their richness of meaning. I must content my- 
 self, however, with merely summarizing them. 
 Considered as traits of character to aim at, these 
 descriptions of goodness are a wonderful inspira- 
 tion. But they do not describe the traits that the 
 world would agree to adopt as conditions of suc- 
 cess. They are not such moral qualities as one 
 would selfishly covet. And yet he who sincerely 
 wishes to be ruled by the will of God may recog- 
 nize in them just the qualities calculated to give 
 God's will an ascendency in his heart. 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 3 I 
 
 First of all, our Lord sa3^s the poor 
 in spirit are blessed. Have we not ji^^^^ 5 . 3 
 here at the very start a teaching so 
 unexpected and unique as to bear the stamp of 
 divinity ? We should thoughtlessly consider him 
 fortunate who has the sense of a wealth of spiritual 
 gifts and power. He who feels -as if he abounded 
 in good things, who has much to congratulate 
 himself upon in the way of spiritual possessions 
 — he is the one whose good fortune the most 
 godly of us would like to share. The thing we 
 aim at is self-satisfaction in regard to the things 
 of God ; and we often consider it a great mark of 
 our backwardness because we are so discontented 
 with our poor attainment. We feel poor and lean ; 
 there surely must be something wrong. And yet 
 the Saviour fixes upon this very feeling of spiritual 
 poverty as the sign of one's belonging to the king- 
 dom of heaven. And his divine insight is right. 
 For if the kingdom of heaven is likeness to God, 
 then it is something infinite, something that we 
 shall never exhaust by our finite attainments. 
 He who feels rich, so that he has no disposition 
 to seek anything farther, is self-convicted of having 
 lost all sense of the infinite. He is full ; he has 
 stopped his progress toward the goodness of God. 
 But a man feels poor in spirit because he has the 
 sense of how much there is to rise through before 
 he shall be perfect. He feels poor just in propor- 
 tion as he has that communication with God by 
 which his soul may grow rich. 
 
 *^ ^ Blessed are the poor m spirit! . . There is 
 nothing in all ethical teaching more radical than 
 
32 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 this same sweet beatitude. It requires thorough 
 work of any man who would receive it. . . One 
 of the first things we shall have to do will be to 
 heap up all our pride and pretense, and then to 
 kindle in our souls a hot fire of wrath, and to burn 
 up those shams and delusions which we love. 
 Throw it all in, — our pride of ancestry, of position, 
 of attainment, of money, of talent, of social posi- 
 tion, — every branch and fruit of our pretense ; burn 
 it all up : and then over the ashes of our pride we 
 must pray for a new heart, simple enough and sin- 
 cere like Christ's, to own a brother in the humblest 
 man we meet, and to receive a word of the Lord 
 in the least duty which any moment may bring to 
 us from the will of the Father. Become poor in 
 spirit — my soul but another human emptiness to 
 be filled, maybe, from some divine fullness ! My 
 life but as the lowly banks through which some 
 renewing grace may flow like a stream ! " ^ 
 
 Akin to this is the principle that 
 Ver. 4 they who mourn are blessed, because 
 they shall be comforted. The mourn- 
 ing, rather than the rejoicing, is the unsatisfied state 
 which tends to something better. It is not a 
 mourning over an evil done, but for a good un- 
 attained. It is worthy of note that in these Be- 
 atitudes the Saviour locates the blessedness just 
 on the hither side of satisfaction ; the blessed state 
 has the prospect of better before it. Blessedness 
 is dynamic rather than static ; it is force and move- 
 ment toward a higher state. There is a tenderly 
 
 ^ Newman Smyth, "Personal Creeds," p. 39. 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 33 
 
 chastening and elevating power in 
 
 sadness which the Saviour fully rec- Ecd. 7 : 2 
 
 ognizes. ** It is better to go to the 
 
 house of mourning, than to go to the house of 
 
 feasting," said the Preacher long before. 
 
 But again, the Saviour says the 
 meek are blessed because they shall Yej.^ 5 
 inherit the earth ; and here also 
 we find teaching quite unlike the practical belief 
 of this world. It is a truth, how- 
 ever, which was discovered by the Ps. 37 : 11 
 psalmist. But the strong, grasp- 
 ing, pushing world does not believe it ; and 
 when we see the apparent conditions of success 
 in this world we are often tempted to doubt 
 the truth ourselves. The meek are those who 
 do not take pains to assert themselves, nor to 
 push their way. They are inclined to yield ; they 
 will give up personal preference rather than be 
 offensively forward. Now such are just the ones 
 whom we expect to see pushed to the wall. That 
 they should succeed and gain a supremacy is just 
 in antagonism to the law which the evolutionary 
 theory has formulated in regard to lower things, 
 namely, that the species of animals, and human in- 
 stitutions even, have progressed because only the 
 strongest, or the fittest, have survived ; while the 
 weaker races have been crowded out in the 
 struggle for existence. We sometimes deny the 
 Saviour's truth when we say, sagaciously as we 
 think : ** I tell you, if a man is to get along in this 
 world he must put himself forward a little. If he 
 doesn't blow his own trumpet, nobody else will 
 
 c 
 
34 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 blow it for him. He will get crowded and starved 
 out unless he is on hand for his share." So it 
 seems when we look at it from the level of mere 
 worldly sagacity. But from the platform of the 
 kingdom of God, how different. The meek, says 
 the Saviour, shall inherit the earth. He does not 
 even postpone their reward to the heavenly world ; 
 as if, after enough of jostling and suffering here, 
 they shall be recompensed in a different and 
 higher realm. He promises that they shall inherit 
 this scene of the survival of the fittest. I suppose 
 he means, what many a meek soul has found true, 
 that the quiet and unselfish have a more real 
 ownership in the earth — get more of the real good 
 of it, find it ministering far more to their highest 
 enjoyment — than the greatest of those who, with 
 their grasping and pushing, can say they own vast 
 tracts of it, and yet are subject to the pangs of 
 insatiable avarice, slighted vanity, and disappointed 
 ambition. To inherit or own the earth, in its real 
 sense, is to make it minister to our happiness and 
 highest welfare. But many who are called rich in 
 the possession of it make it their master to over- 
 bear all their spiritual excellence and destroy their 
 souls. Of this ownership, which consists in real 
 enjoyment and mastership, the meek may easily 
 be seen to have the lion's share, even though they 
 have to work hard and subject themselves to a 
 constant round of small economies to get on in life. 
 But Jesus goes on to show how 
 Ver. 6 personal righteousness stands re- 
 lated to our blessedness. He does 
 not say, Blessed are the righteous ; for if this 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 35 
 
 were the extent of the promise many a man who 
 is poor in spirit might feel himself excluded from 
 it. But he says, Blessed are those who want 
 righteousness, who hunger and thirst after it, 
 for they shall be filled. Here again he describes 
 righteousness as something of infinite reach, some- 
 thing that no one has exhaustively attained. Those 
 who count themselves fully righteous are those 
 who have lost sight of the infinite 
 reach of true goodness. '' None is Mark lo : i8 
 good save one, even God," said our 
 Lord. These self-approving people have got to a 
 certain point in goodness, and stop there satisfied, 
 like the Pharisees, Such righteousness is only 
 conventional ; it is simply what men agree to call 
 righteousness. We talk about character as the 
 important thing ; but while character is an excel- 
 lent thing to value and long for, it is apt to be an 
 unfortunate subject for self-consciousness or pride. 
 He who professes absolute righteousness is a 
 Pharisee. So Jesus pronounces no blessing on 
 the full-grown righteous, for only the deceived 
 would call themselves of that class. He congrat- 
 ulates those who hunger and thirst after right- 
 eousness, who will not rest in any attainment short 
 of conformity to the infinite goodness. Such shall 
 evermore rejoice in fruition; the desire for right- 
 eousness is a desire that heaven itself exists in 
 order to fill. 
 
 Then the merciful are pronounced 
 blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. Y^r. 7 
 It is within a man's own choice 
 whether he shall be forbearingly and mercifully 
 
36 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 dealt with by his fellow-men or not. If he is him- 
 self exacting and harsh, he but invites exacting 
 
 treatment from others. ''They that 
 Matt. 26 : 52 take the sword shall perish with the 
 
 sword." But if the person treats 
 his fellow-men with consideration and forbearance, 
 he is most likely to meet with mercy when he is 
 himself in trouble. 
 
 It is only to the merciful that the first access to 
 the mercy of God is possible. There is accept- 
 ance only for the forgiving spirit. We rejoice in 
 the doctrine of grace, that is, the principle that 
 salvation comes not by our works or our merit, but 
 by the favor of a pardoning God. Now the at- 
 tainment of that favor is possible only for the one 
 
 who is merciful himself. Jesus em- 
 Matt. 6 : 12 phasizes this over and over again. 
 
 He encourages us in the Model 
 Prayer to ask for forgiveness only to this extent — 
 as we forgive our debtors. This particular peti- 
 tion is the only one on which he makes a comment 
 
 at the end of the prayer. He says, 
 Mau. 6 : 15 '^ If ye forgive not men their tres- 
 passes, neither will your Father for- 
 give your trespasses.'' Then in another place, 
 when promising the fullest blessings in answer to 
 
 prayer, he adds, '' And whensoever 
 Mark II : 25 yc Stand praying, forgive, if ye have 
 
 aught against any one ; that your 
 Father also which is in heaven may forgive you 
 your trespasses." Not simply boundless aspira- 
 tion after perfection, but boundless toleration and 
 mercy toward others' imperfection, belongs to the 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 37 
 
 truly blessed. The two do not always exist to- 
 gether. Often the most zealous and aspiring are 
 the most intolerant. The Pharisees, who held the 
 common people accursed, were the idealists among 
 the Jews. Jesus alone was perfectly an inhabitant 
 of heaven and an inhabitant of earth, — consumed 
 with zeal for God's house, and yet a friend of 
 publicans and sinners, — -but he teaches his fol- 
 lowers to seek their blessedness along this same 
 line of God-manhood. Hunger for righteousness ; 
 make the highest heaven your home; but be 
 merciful and forgiving to those who do not desire 
 righteousness, and who may even wrong you. 
 
 *' This forgiving spirit is itself many virtues in 
 one. The man who can truly and effectually for- 
 give, the man who can be a reconciling power in a 
 community, is no weak man, or man of a single 
 virtue, or mere instance of good nature. He 
 must also be a just man — a man who sees what is 
 right as clear as the day, a man who wants always 
 to get the right thing done ; a man who will not 
 cover up evil, or hide iniquity, or say peace when 
 there is no peace. It requires a high and even 
 rare combination of virtues to be peacemaker — not 
 a peaceable soul, but a maker of peace ; and to ex- 
 ercise the spirit of forgiveness in any genuine and 
 fruitful way is no child's play at life." ^ 
 
 Then the most glorious of all the 
 promises is given to the pure in Yqy, 8 
 heart — they shall see God. We 
 come toward heaven in this world only as we see 
 
 ^ Newman Smyth, *' Personal Creeds, " p. 115. 
 
38 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 God, that is, only as his will reveals itself to us as 
 our end. It is not by watching how others do, or 
 by conforming to rules, that we learn the true way 
 of life. It is not simply by experience. It is by 
 intuition of the righteousness that reaches to an 
 infinite height — by looking at God in fact — that 
 any true goodness is comprehended. But such 
 comprehension comes by loving, by having the 
 whole heart enlisted in the thing. The heart be- 
 comes an eye to see, and it will not see unless it 
 be single. It must be pure in its love, that is, un- 
 mixed with anything baser. A love that is mixed 
 with selfish considerations, trying to hold on to the 
 good-will of the world while it seeks the favor of 
 
 God, never can see God. The Jews 
 Matt. 21 : 25-27 who mingled their convictions of 
 
 truth with fear of the people could 
 not even tell whether John's baptism was earthly 
 
 or heavenly in its origin. The 
 Isa. 29 : 13, 14 prophet said of the old Testament 
 
 Jews, that because their fear of the 
 Lord was a commandment of men that had been 
 learned by rote, even though the Lord proceeded 
 to do a marvelous work and a wonder, the wisdom 
 of their wise men should perish, and the under- 
 standing of their prudent men should be hid. 
 With a mere memorized religion they could not 
 see anything spiritual. Only by the heart, and by 
 a pure heart, do men see the infinite goodness. 
 
 Then the peacemakers are blessed 
 Yqt, 9 ii^ being called sons of God. It 
 
 seems as if Jesus took pains to 
 group a trait which despises the earth and looks 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 39 
 
 to heaven by the side of one which concihates 
 men and promotes peace on the earth. The aspir- 
 ing are placed by the side of the merciful ; the 
 single of heart who dwell in the very sight of God 
 are placed next to those who labor for peace among 
 men. The zealous and those who care not for 
 the opinions of men may be son^ of God ; but it is 
 the peacemakers who get the reputation of being 
 sons of God. And it is worth while to have that 
 reputation. Do not think that it counts for noth- 
 ing to have men regard you as one in whom God 
 himself dwells and works. It is not well for even 
 our good to be evil spoken of. So Jesus wisely 
 balances one trait of character, and guards against 
 its fanatical excess, by pointing out the comple- 
 mentary trait. It is consistent with the most 
 rigid adherence to principle, and the most aspiring 
 unworldiness, to be merciful and conciliatory even 
 among imperfect and wicked men. And it is the 
 peaceful and conciliatory side of the character, 
 after all, that gets for any one the reputation of 
 being a seeker after heavenly attainments. 
 
 Finally, Jesus pronounces those 
 blessed who are persecuted for right- Ygt, 10-12 
 eousness' sake. These get their idea 
 of righteousness from their insight into eternal 
 truth. They always seem out of joint with the 
 formal righteousness of the unspiritual. Their 
 righteousness has an unexpected look, like that of 
 Christ, of whom it was prophesied, 
 **He hath no form nor comeliness ; isa. 53 : 2, 3 
 and when we see him, there is no 
 beauty that we should desire him. . . As one 
 
40 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 from whom men hide their face he was despised, 
 and we esteemed him not." The superficial and 
 conventional do not look for the roots of right- 
 eousness ; they only judge by its exterior, and 
 commend simply what men generally expect of a 
 righteous man. And when a man has his springs 
 in God he is too near the heart of things, too orig- 
 inal and first-handed, for the inattentive world to 
 understand him. He is essentially on the ground 
 that the prophets occupied — those who saw God's 
 will and goodness for themselves and spoke just 
 as his Spirit prompted. They were persecuted, as 
 will be many a sincere and original Christian who 
 derives his righteousness directly from the primal 
 source. So the fact that men are persecuted for 
 righteousness' sake will be a sign of their blessed- 
 ness. It shows them to be of the kingdom of 
 heaven. And if this persecution should befall 
 Christ's hearers themselves, let them rejoice ; for 
 they but experience the treatment which the 
 prophets themselves experienced. 
 
 This is a very brief indication of the riches of 
 truth contained in these Beatitudes. The blessed 
 man, the ideal man here portrayed, is at once in 
 nearest, freshest contact with heaven and eternal 
 realities, and in truest sympathy with whatever 
 makes for mercy and peace on the earth. He 
 really inherits the earth in his meekness, while he 
 is even persecuted for his faithfulness to inward 
 light. 
 
 Now observe how accessible Jesus makes this 
 blessedness. We certainly cannot say that this 
 part of the Sermon on the Mount is set forth sim- 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 4 1 
 
 ply as a formidable law which is meant to do noth- 
 ing but produce a knowledge of sin. 
 We say doctrinally that the law is Rom. 3 -. 20 
 given to show us how sinful we are, 
 and thus cause us to fly to Christ. This is some- 
 times taken to mean that the law is meant to show 
 how high and impossible are the attainments of 
 righteousness, so that we may despair of it and 
 seek grace. But do these Beatitudes labor to 
 make righteousness appear unattainable ^ They 
 certainly set forth a righteousness far more inward 
 and spiritual than any righteousness of law. But 
 are not the traits described the most directly at- 
 tainable of all by the penitent and humble heart ? 
 The characteristics of those who are poor in spirit, 
 who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst, 
 who are merciful, who make peace, who are sin- 
 cere of heart, who are disliked for their righteous- 
 ness — -cannot any humble heart hope for a share 
 in such virtues.'^ If Jesus had said, ** Blessed are 
 the brave," he would have been pointing to a trait 
 which only those of a certain natural disposition 
 could hope to have. If he had said, ' Blessed are 
 the respectable," he would have been pointing to 
 something dependent on social conditions. If he 
 had said, '' Blessed are the faultless," he would 
 have been promoting the self-deception of prig- 
 gishness, or abandoning people to despair. Many 
 things in which we count men fortunate are possi- 
 ble only to those who begin with certain advan- 
 tages of nurture, heredity, education, leisure, or 
 opulence. They are the righteousness of a class. 
 But Jesus makes blessedness accessible to all. 
 
42 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 The virtues here described are virtues which any 
 one may begin to have, as it were, on small capi- 
 tal. He need not be fortunately born, educated, 
 or endowed, nor have a command of his time. He 
 need only be poor in spirit, unsatisfied, ardent for 
 righteousness, merciful. Any one can be that by 
 penitence and humility. The only gate to such 
 blessedness is the strait and narrow one of repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Again, these are virtues which a man may pro- 
 fess without presumption or vanity. It does a man 
 no harm to think of himself as poor in spirit, as 
 sad, as a-hungered for righteousness, or even as 
 meek and merciful. There is no danger of conceit 
 in making a profession of such goodness. On the 
 other hand, when a person professes himself fault- 
 less, see what a ridiculous figure he cuts and how 
 much harm he does himself. He who says, ** I 
 have not sinned for so many months," is deplora- 
 bly blind as to what true righteousness is. In the 
 same way, when a man professes to have attained 
 the holiness of perfect quiescent trust and passive 
 will-lessness, he is very apt to do his soul, and 
 especially his influence, a harm thereby. Even 
 when one professes the special presence and favor- 
 itism of God, men are inclined to look at his hands 
 and see whether they are clean. There are virtues 
 which one may strive after and yet which one may 
 not safely profess to have attained. The conscious 
 possession of them brings with it only conceit, or 
 the cessation of progress and usefulness. 
 
 And yet Christianity is a profession. We are 
 expected to profess to have something which the 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 43 
 
 sinful world has not. Is there any good thing we 
 can profess to have without harming ourselves ? 
 Is there any excellence we can persuade ourselves 
 that we possess without conceit ? Do we not find 
 it here in the Beatitudes ? Here is something 
 which the humble soul may know it has, and in 
 which it may rejoice with exceeding joy, and yet 
 continue humble. A man may, without harm to 
 his spirit, say, **I know that I am poor, that I 
 mourn for better things, that I shrink from push- 
 ing myself in comparison with others, that I for- 
 give everybody from my heart." And the Saviour 
 seems to say, -'Very well; know it, rejoice in it, 
 and be blessed! " 
 
 So the Saviour knows that he is 
 ministering to no self-conceit when Yev. 13 
 he goes on to say to such ones, ** Ve 
 are tJie salt of the earths By the '* ye " he does 
 not mean simply the disciples who have been des- 
 ignated by name, but those who have taken these 
 Beatitudes home to their hearts and can say, *^ It 
 is my purpose to be that; I am that by God's 
 grace." To say to a man, *' You are the very salt 
 of the earth, you are the hght of the world," would 
 make him insufferably conceited if such a compli- 
 ment referred to such virtues as faultlessness, 
 courage, or dignity. But to his blessed ones Jesus 
 can unqualifiedly say, " Ye are the salt of the 
 earth," and know that their very consciousness of 
 the possession will minister to their humility. 
 The more they take that kind of excellence home 
 to themselves, the more humble and careful they 
 will be. 
 
44 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Such are the very source of acceptable savor in 
 society. Where do we go to get saltness? To 
 the salt itself. We do not have to take pains to 
 salt our salt first ; it is essentially salt, its saltness 
 is its very nature. Take away its saltness and it 
 is good for nothing. Now the kind of blessed 
 men that Jesus has described, who get their im- 
 pulse to good from heaven itself, do not derive 
 their quality of goodness from the world; they 
 give of their quaUty to the world. The man 
 whose salt has to be salted from the world is of 
 no good at all. Jesus means to say, ^' Whatever 
 exists in society to give it taste and palatableness 
 comes from you. You dwell nearest the center of 
 saving power. Whatever exists in society to give 
 it light comes from you. From you the rays 
 stream out. You are not illumined by the world ; 
 you illumine the world. Think of yourselves then 
 as those on whom the world depends for savor and 
 light. Let it give you a sense of your responsi- 
 bility. If you do not give light, where shall they 
 get it ? If your salt have no taste, how shall it be 
 salted } " Upon us, my brethren of the Beati- 
 tudes, rests the duty of saving and enlightening 
 the world. 
 
 Finally, the blessed man is con- 
 Ver. 14-16 spicuous. He cannot have even 
 these humble qualities which Jesus 
 describes and nobody know it. People do not put 
 a lamp under a bushel. An extinguisher is a poor 
 instrument by which to promote illumination. A 
 city set on a hill cannot be hid. And these quali- 
 ties which a man may safely profess he may sav- 
 
THE world's savor AND LIGHT 45 
 
 ingly display. As there is no conceit in the con- 
 scious possession of them, so there is no ostenta- 
 tion in the determined exhibition of them. In 
 fact, such blessedness does its good in the world 
 by being observed. It becomes an inspiration ; 
 men are attracted by it; they are led, not to praise 
 the human possessors, but to glorify the Father 
 in heaven. So if we let our light shine in this 
 way, not forcing it nor displacing the normal ac- 
 cents of our example for the sake of display, but 
 simply being naturally our blessed selves, it will 
 hide us in the glory of the God who shines around 
 us ; it will win the souls of men to the infinite sav- 
 ing Love. So let your light shine. 
 
 Jesus thus awakens men's spirits by way of their 
 blessedness. He sets them to looking forward to 
 what their value is ideally. His law is not the 
 prescribing of rules, but the opening of heaven to 
 our sight. He sets men to aspiring and reaching 
 upward. He describes a blessedness that men 
 may at once persuade themselves that they have. 
 He does not try to make men condemn themselves 
 for not having it, but makes it so accessible that 
 the self-condemnation is swallowed up in joyous 
 sense of possession. And yet such possession is 
 open only to penitence. The message, '' Repent, 
 for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," comes be- 
 fore the Beatitudes in all Christian experience. 
 The making of the kingdom accessible is no 
 cheapening of the terms of salvation. It calls in 
 the humble and penitent, though he be a publican, 
 and excludes the Pharisee. Blessed is the man 
 who is thus won to goodness. 
 
46 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 How wonderful is this way of setting forth the 
 law of the kingdom of God ! Who but a divine 
 being would thus have known how to win men to 
 their own salvation ? May the Spirit of God write 
 these Beatitudes on our heart. 
 
Ill 
 
 RELATION OF THE MORALITY OF 
 ENTHUSIASM TO LAW 
 
Matt 5 : 17-48 
 
Ill 
 
 Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets : I 
 came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till 
 heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
 pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whoso- 
 ever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and 
 shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven : 
 but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great 
 in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your 
 righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and 
 Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time. Thou shalt 
 not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judge- 
 ment : but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his 
 brother shall be in danger of the judgement ; and whosoever shall 
 say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; and 
 whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of 
 fire. If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there 
 rememberest 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. Agree with thine ad- 
 versary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way ; lest haply 
 the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee 
 to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto 
 thee. Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid 
 the last farthing. 
 
 Ye have heard that it was said. Thou shalt not commit adul- 
 tery : but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman 
 to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his 
 heart. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, 
 and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy 
 members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. 
 And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast 
 it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
 should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell. It was said 
 also. Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing 
 of divorcement : but I say unto you, that every one that putteth 
 away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an 
 
 D 49 
 
50 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 adulteress : and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away 
 committeth adultery. 
 
 Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine 
 oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at all ; neither by the 
 heaven, for it is the throne of God : nor by the earth, for it is the 
 footstool of his feet ; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the 
 great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst 
 not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea, 
 yea ; Nay, nay : and w^hatsoever is more than these is of the evil 
 one. 
 
 Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
 for a tooth : but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil : but 
 whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
 also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away 
 thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall com- 
 pel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to him that 
 asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not 
 thou away. 
 
 Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
 and hate thine enemy : but I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
 and pray for them that persecute you ; that ye may be the sons of 
 your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on 
 the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. 
 For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? do not 
 even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren 
 only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the Gentiles the 
 same ? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is 
 perfect. 
 
 The hasty inference was sure to be drawn that 
 Jesus, in proclaiming the kingdom of God, was 
 about to institute a general overturning. He 
 would be expected by some to begin at the very 
 beginning of things, first sweeping the ground 
 clear of all laws and institutions already in exist- 
 ence, and making his followers free from any obli- 
 gations except those which he laid upon them. 
 He is careful to inform them that such is not the 
 fact. 
 
 And yet such an inference was not so prepos- 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 5 I 
 
 terous as one might think. Jesus had come, as 
 we see from the first part of this chapter, pro- 
 claiming a kind of goodness that is higher than 
 obedience to law. When we for our part start out 
 to make men orderly and well-behaved, we take 
 pains to make them very scrupulous, very consci- 
 entious ; we give them a moral law to obey. But 
 Jesus seems, in the beginning of his sermon, to 
 pass over the consideration of conformity to moral 
 rules. He takes pains rather to make men very 
 aspiring. He sets before them their blessedness 
 as the goal of their wishes. He makes that bless- 
 edness to consist in such things as poverty of 
 spirit, eagerness to be righteous, singleness of 
 heart, faithfulness to inward light. He teaches a 
 kind of goodness which one may have by embrac- 
 ing it, wishing for it, persuading himself that he 
 possesses it. This is quite distinct from the kind 
 of goodness which consists in obeying moral laws. 
 It is a kind of ardor or enthusiasm for high things 
 rather than a mechanical committing to memory 
 of rules. It is a kind of law-making power in the 
 heart rather than slavish conformity to a set of 
 positive precepts. Jesus undertakes to get hold 
 of men from another side than that from which 
 legislators and teachers of morals do. They try 
 to make men scrupulous, he seeks to make them 
 enthusiastic ; they govern by caution, he by inspi- 
 ration ; they aim at correctness, he at life and 
 movement. Jesus knows that to get the man's 
 spirit alive and seeking after harmony with God's 
 will, as well as after the peace and welfare of his 
 fellow-men, is to set a power at work in that man 
 
52 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 which will make him good. He knows too, that a 
 goodness which is only a keeping of laws, without 
 any inspiration by which the spirit of those laws 
 becomes a part of the man's nature, is no real 
 goodness at all ; it is only restraint which runs 
 wild as soon as the pressure of the law is with- 
 drawn. 
 
 Thus it is seen that Jesus is dealing not with 
 laws but with the spirit that supersedes laws. If 
 a man has all that is expressed in the Beatitudes, 
 he needs no laws. He becomes a law unto him- 
 self. Now, of course, the hasty inference from 
 this would be : ''Then for us, the salt of the earth, 
 Moses no longer has authority. We are on a 
 higher level. The Ten Commandments and all 
 the teachings of the ancients are henceforth obso- 
 lete. Jesus our Master has come to set up a new 
 kingdom, and he begins by destroying the law and 
 the prophets. He is a new Moses, entirely super- 
 seding the old." So Jesus finds it necessary, as 
 soon as he has defined the blessedness which his 
 followers are to seek, to assure them that this 
 higher blessedness is no repudiation of the humble 
 goodness of law. 
 
 His caution was necessary. It is necessary to- 
 day. For it is only guarding against the incon- 
 sistency which we see constantly reappearing in 
 men's lives, the inconsistency of those who are 
 religious without being moral. The figure of the 
 man who prays and exhorts and gets into an 
 ecstasy of benevolent enthusiasm, and then, on 
 the other hand, has to be watched in his dealing 
 to guard against his cheating, is a familiar one. 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 53 
 
 We have had him held up before us until we cer- 
 tainly ought to recognize him. He forms the sta- 
 ple of the unbeliever's taunt, and points many a 
 turn of fine wit as well as coarse. 
 We loathe him when he appears as an Rev. 2 : 15 
 antinomian, whom John denounces 
 under the name of Nicolaitan, as hated of God ; 
 we laugh at him when he turns up in the story of 
 the colored revivalist, who was afraid to say any- 
 thing in his conventicle, where the Holy Spirit was 
 so powerfully present, about the impropriety of 
 chicken stealing, for fear it would throw a coldness 
 on the meeting. The inconsistent religious man 
 is simply the one who has the Beatitudes without 
 having the law. He has the goodness that he 
 may embrace and rejoice in mentally and spiritu- 
 ally, while he has not held fast to the humbler 
 possession of uprightness of life. 
 
 Now take note that Jesus begins with the good- 
 ness that the irreligious despise, the goodness of 
 enthusiasm, of religion. He did not make a mis- 
 take in doing this. But he carefully shows us that 
 this, to be genuine, must include the lower or legal 
 and moral form of goodness which the world in- 
 sists upon. Religion and morality are not the 
 same, but religion must include morality. Re- 
 ligion may be had by embracing it, believing and 
 rejoicing in it ; but no amount of believing and 
 rejoicing will straighten up one's accounts when 
 they are false. Yet believing, trusting God, seek- 
 ing him with all the heart, furnishes just the inspi- 
 ration needed to make the man keep his accounts 
 straight as well as do far more. Now the Saviour 
 
54 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KIxNGDOM OF GOD 
 
 says : *^ Let him not presume to get his blessed- 
 ness in the higher realm of volition and action 
 when this part of his life is culpably wanting. 
 The kingdom of heaven destroys not the law and 
 the prophets." 
 
 I. This then is the first principle 
 Ver. 17-20 enunciated in this part of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount : The kingdom 
 of heaven preserves the law. That law is eternal ; 
 it is the mind of God. He who discovered it dis- 
 covered a principle of conduct which shall never 
 cease to be true. Till heaven and earth pass, one 
 jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law 
 till all be fulfilled. 
 
 And yet the man who loves God and has his 
 kingdom set up in his heart does not think much 
 about this law. He does not have to be restrained 
 by main strength, as it were, by the law which 
 says, '' Thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; 
 thou shalt not bear false witness." These re- 
 straints are hardly ever present to his mind : he is 
 conscious of no compulsion from them. He sim- 
 ply has no disposition to transgress these com- 
 mands ; they become no more necessary to him 
 than would a law saying, '^ Thou shalt not walk 
 into the fire." He is living in a 
 I Tim. I : 9 higher sphere of things. Such pro- 
 hibitions are for those who are vi- 
 cious and unruly in disposition, not for those who 
 have a new heart which is conformed to the will 
 of God. 
 
 That law, however, is by no means destroyed in 
 becoming thus invisible. It ceases to compel the 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 55 
 
 conduct of the man because it is fulfilled. He 
 obeyed it before he had time to hear its command. 
 I sometimes liken that moral law of prohibitions 
 to the bony skeleton in our bodies. We have 
 them there, but we do not see them. They give 
 us strength ; they are the means by which our 
 frame performs its movements. These skeletons 
 are not a pleasant thing to contemplate when 
 brought out to view. They are covered by the 
 beauty and gracefulness of flesh and muscle, so 
 that they are hidden from sight, but they are 
 operative all the same. So with that strong, bony 
 framework of law and morality inside of our re- 
 ligion. Those warm desires, fervent aspirations 
 after union with God, sweet hopes and rejoicings 
 of faith — these are far more pleasant to engage 
 the consciousness of the Christian than the mere 
 restraints of law. These are to be his life in 
 which he takes delight and in which he finds his 
 blessedness. But these experiences are like the 
 beauty of flesh and blood which covers the bony 
 frame. Inside of them is strong, conscientious 
 heed of God's prohibitions. The love of God in 
 which we delight has as its framework the fear of 
 God. This law, saying, ^' Thou shalt not," is what 
 gives strength and firmness to our character. It 
 is not repealed but fulfilled in the sweeter expe- 
 rience of the religious life, just as the bony frame- 
 work is fulfilled in the muscles and flesh which 
 hide it from view. We do not think of the law, 
 *^Thou shalt not steal," as actuating our conduct 
 so as to make it any different from what it would 
 otherwise be, but its strength is all wrought up 
 
56 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 into that sweeter religious experience which is our 
 blessedness. 
 
 But Jesus seems to recognize a law-making 
 power in the heart of the one who is of the king- 
 dom of heaven. There are in that heart the en- 
 lightenment and disposition which make need- 
 ful such moral laws as these. He is a law unto 
 himself. Thus his morality has all the freshness 
 and zest of a perpetual discovery of new principles. 
 With his regenerate faithfulness to the inner light 
 of the divine Spirit, he is his own Moses, to whom 
 God's will as clearly reveals itself as it did to the 
 lawgiver on the height of Sinai. 
 
 Now I am aware that this doctrine of inner illu- 
 mination may be perverted. I know that only the 
 very highest and truest of those who see God's 
 will can be trusted to walk solely by their intui- 
 tions. The man who is acting from personal in- 
 ward revelations is generally regarded as an erratic 
 man. Quakers, Anabaptists, Quietists, whatever 
 the name, those who profess a daily guidance from 
 inward illumination, are distrusted as fanatics. We 
 say, '' If their inward illumination is their only 
 guide, what is to prevent them from taking a no- 
 tion some day to go contrary to all sober rules of 
 conduct and all right and morality.^ What is to 
 prevent them at least from getting astride of a 
 very tall hobby and riding it to destruction ? " 
 
 The Saviour answers this by implying that the 
 true Spirit of God may be trusted to guide men 
 more safely than all that. The inward light is in 
 entire harmony with the light which revealed to 
 Moses his law. It is the same Spirit, and he will 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 5/ 
 
 lead to the same truth. Jesus recognizes the fact 
 that the subjects of his kingdom will teach as they 
 are inspired to teach by the indwelling Spirit of God. 
 Those old principles will become so much alive to 
 them that they shall proclaim them from their own 
 blessed insight of their truth. ''But 
 now," he says, '' if any one in the ex- y^j.^ iq 
 ercise of the gift of the Spirit teaches 
 things contrary to the least of these command- 
 ments, he may be of the kingdom, but he shall be 
 dwarfed to insignificant usefulness and influence 
 in that kingdom." It is conceivable that a man 
 with a really divine impulse may so misunderstand 
 the guidance of God that he shall pronounce some 
 of the old enactments obsolete; but sooner or 
 later he will find himself becoming one of the 
 least in the kingdom of heaven. Those who be- 
 come great in usefulness — and Jesus recognizes 
 no other greatness — will always have promptings 
 of spirit which are in harmony with the old law. 
 The Spirit will not contradict himself. The old 
 truth and the new will never conflict. He who is 
 so progressive as to deny the old truth will have 
 his reward in a speedy relapse into insignificance. 
 While the voice is novel it may attract a few fol- 
 lowers ; but its freshness soon wears off, and then 
 the actual outcome is seen to be of small account. 
 The teacher may have been enthusiastic and zeal- 
 ous for his new teaching; but he is doomed to the 
 worst of disappointments for the zealous teacher, 
 uselessness. It is love's labor lost. Except in so 
 far as the new teaching preserved the spirit of the 
 old, it has failed to achieve permanent good. 
 
58 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 It will be seen that such a restriction of the 
 fresh-surging impulse of the kingdom to harmony 
 with the past is not making disciples the slaves of 
 a book, afraid to be guided by the spirit within 
 them, conservative and only conservative, lifeless 
 like the scribes. On the contrary, the spirit in us, 
 through Christ, is greater than the spirit of con- 
 formity. Our religion is more than a commentary 
 religion — it is fresh every day. It gives us daily 
 inward light. But inward light includes faithful- 
 ness to the wisdom of the past. Even if there is 
 something more of us than carefulness to preserve 
 the old ways, that something will be useful and 
 permanent in its effects only as the wisdom of the 
 past is imbedded in it and fulfilling its own spirit 
 by it. Let him who follows the 
 I Cor. 9 : 27 Spirit of God in his teaching be- 
 ware lest, having preached to others, 
 he himself should become a castaway, that is, 
 should be laid on the shelf, as we say — should with 
 all his fervor of enthusiasm cease to have signifi- 
 cance in the development of true religion. 
 
 The kingdom, then, preserves the law : the New 
 Testament fulfills the Old. 
 
 2. Let us now see how much more 
 
 Ver. 20-48 f^^Hy ^^^ according to its spirit the 
 
 law is kept in the kingdom of 
 
 heaven. Not only does the kingdom preserve the 
 
 law, but it is the only way of acquiring the power 
 
 to keep the law in its spirit. 
 
 We shall see as we look at the Saviour's de- 
 tailed examples, how much different a thing it is 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW S9 
 
 to keep the law in the spirit from what it is to 
 keep it in the letter. It is the spirit of the law 
 which is to constitute the higher righteousness, 
 the righteousness which is to exceed that of the 
 scribes and Pharisees. '* Except 
 your righteousness," says Jesus, y^r. 20 
 ** exceed the righteousness of the 
 scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven." '* You are to keep 
 the law according to its spirit : these only aim to 
 preserve its letter, and in so doing they often deny 
 its spirit." 
 
 The first example is the law 
 against murder. ''Thou shalt not y^r. 21-26 
 kill," is the plain precept. But this 
 law may be kept in the mere letter, though a per- 
 son have a heart ever so full of murderous im- 
 pulses, provided only he stop short of the actual 
 shedding of blood. Now the Saviour says the 
 spirit of the law is against all which leads to mur- 
 der. Anger against our brother is the root of mur- 
 der. If we cherish that, we are in danger of the 
 criminal court ; we have only to give it clear sway 
 and we shall end there. If we have the true spirit 
 which originated that law we shall begin with our 
 feelings toward our brother, rather than simply 
 with our overt acts. " Whosoever 
 hateth his brother is a murderer," i John 3 : 15 
 says John. We are to guard then, 
 against all alienation from our brother. When we 
 have come to that point where we call him " fool " 
 we are on our way to the Gehenna of fire just as 
 truly as if we have struck him a fatal blow. We 
 
6o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 have not got quite so far along on the path, but 
 the murderous impulse will surely take us there 
 unless something entirely opposite to it restrain 
 our hand. 
 
 The Saviour then goes on to in- 
 Ver. 23 24 culcate still another duty by way of 
 guarding against the growth of an- 
 ger. It is the same old duty of taking care not 
 to let our worship or our religion be separated 
 from the moral law in the case. We might think 
 of a man cherishing anger against his fellow-man, 
 and then going and praying to God as if he had 
 no concern with it. Indeed, men often do so. 
 You shall see men who are looked up to in the 
 church carrymg a grudge against others for years, 
 so that they will not speak to them in the street. 
 They make their prayers before God, and persuade 
 themselves that they are enjoying religion, when 
 there is all the while that alienation in the heart 
 which keeps them from having any intercourse 
 with their brother. This is precisely that having 
 religion without morality against which Jesus so 
 carefully guards in this part of his sermon. 
 
 Jesus says in effect, ** You have no business to 
 pray so long as you are unreconciled with your 
 brother. You have no business with religion and 
 the enjoyments of the kingdom of heaven as long 
 as there is evil in your relations to your fellow- 
 men." He speaks of our religion as a bringing of 
 our gift to the altar. But prayer is our offering, 
 and the rule applies to our praying as well as to 
 our bringing of meat- offerings, as the Jews did in 
 the time of Christ. When you get down to pray. 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 6 1 
 
 then, and remember that your brother has some- 
 thing against you, go your way ; first be recon- 
 ciled to your brother, and then come and seek 
 communion with God. The communion with God 
 that cherishes hatred is a spurious communion. 
 
 All this is in accordance with the spirit of the 
 law against murder. Not only are we not to kill, 
 but we are not to cherish hatred ; nay, we are to 
 do all we can to keep our brother from hating us. 
 We may not always be able to effect a reconcilia- 
 tion when a difference has arisen between us ; but 
 we can do our part. We can divest ourselves of 
 all but the kindest spirit toward him. We may so 
 bring it about that our highest wish is to be rec- 
 onciled and to do him good. '* If it be possible, 
 as much as in yoii lieth, be at peace 
 with all men," says the apostle. Rom. 12 : 18 
 Until our heart is at peace with 
 every man, we have no right to pretend to enjoy 
 religion. It will only make hypocrites of us. 
 Those who have been wise in winning souls can 
 tell you many a story of anxious hearts mourning 
 for peace with God, and yet unable to find it until 
 they have gone and sought forgiveness, or granted 
 it, in some feud of long standing. How often, in 
 conversion, the hardest thing to do has been to 
 forgive somebody to whom we had resolved never 
 to yield ! God does not forgive those who have 
 hatred in their hearts. Any pretense of religion 
 with that unsubdued is hypocrisy. 
 
 As if to picture in strongest colors the unloveli- 
 ness of that state of society where hatred, or even 
 bare justice, determines men's reciprocal action, 
 
62 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Jesus advises the transgressor or the delinquent 
 to seize with all eagerness that little shred of 
 grace which may be secured between the detection 
 of the fault and the turning over of the case to the 
 dispensers of justice. Agree with thine adversary 
 quickly while there is room for the play of friend- 
 ship and mutual agreement. Avoid as far as pos- 
 sible having your welfare depend on strict justice 
 and nothing else. Keep open all the chance that 
 you can for mercy and accommodation. Steer 
 clear of the law. Live in the region of grace and 
 friendship. Once let the law have its course, and 
 there is no stopping short of its full penalty. 
 
 Jesus then goes on to make a 
 Ver. 27-32 similar application of the law against 
 
 adultery. It is not simply the act 
 of which the latter takes cognizance that is to be 
 avoided ; it is the impurity of heart which leads to 
 it. He counsels the utmost solicitude in remov- 
 ing every cause of offense or stumbling in this re- 
 gard, even though it is like cutting off the hand, 
 or putting out the eye. This is pre-eminently a 
 law whose transgression is to be guarded against 
 by the banishing of evil thoughts. Impurity of 
 heart feasts itself and grows fat on evil thoughts : 
 the imagination, fired by the sight of the eyes, 
 takes flame and sets the whole body and mind 
 
 ablaze with sinful passion. Job 
 Job 31 : 12 says: ** It is a fire; unto Abaddon 
 
 it devoureth." Men often give 
 place to these lascivious emotions until they are 
 past resisting them, and their whole being becomes 
 brutalized and deo^raded. Cicero no doubt saw 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 63 
 
 such men in his day to call forth his advice : '' Sis 
 a venereis amoribtts aversus ; qtnbits si tu desid- 
 erisj non allied quldquam possls co git are quam lllud 
 quod dlllgls'' — ^'Hold off from sensuality, for if 
 you have given yourself up to it, you will find 
 yourself unable to think of anything else." How 
 many there are who are disgustingly adulterous in 
 spirit, and yet who are outwardly ranked high in 
 respectable society. The utmost fortitude in ban- 
 ishing and shunning the first suggestions of evil is 
 the only safeguard against adultery of the heart. 
 Most wisely did the Saviour recognize and rebuke 
 that too common transgression of the seventh 
 commandment which consists in lecherous emo- 
 tions and an impure imagination. 
 
 In immediate connection with this 
 Jesus speaks of the Mosaic permis- Yer. 31 32 
 sion of and rule for divorce. He 
 elsewhere calls this permission a Matt. 19 : 8 
 legislation adapted to men's hard- 
 ness of heart. But all mere legislation intended 
 to be enforced by external power must be in a 
 measure adapted to men's hardness of heart. In 
 civil affairs the law must give a permission in the 
 matter which evil men may abuse if they choose. 
 If the law does not do this, worse evils will be in- 
 troduced. But the kingdom of heaven teaches a 
 faithfulness to the marriage vow which desires no 
 such permission. It teaches a consideration for 
 the woman which will not allow the man to put 
 her away, however incompatible her disposition, 
 and thus subject her to the temptation to seek 
 support by alliance with some one else. The 
 
64 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 kingdom of heaven considers the commandment 
 broken by making others commit adultery, as well 
 as by doing so ourselves. Thus the spirit of the 
 law not only guards against transgression, but re- 
 moves from others the temptation to transgress. 
 
 Then in the matter of oaths, Jesus 
 Ver. 33-37 contrasts the higher teaching of the 
 kingdom with the teaching of those 
 of old time. Of old they used to say: ''Keep 
 your oaths. Perform them as unto 
 Exod. 20 : 7 the Lord." The definite precept of 
 the Decalogue which comes nearest 
 to this is, '' Thou shalt not take the name of the 
 Lord thy God in vain." That is, thou shalt not 
 invoke his name as a witness of thy faithfulness, 
 and then repudiate that oath. Now on this plane 
 of things this teaching is as important now as it 
 ever was. If we have made an oath or a vow w^e 
 are to keep it. A good part of ancient religion 
 consisted in its vows, that is, things which men 
 solemnly promised to do unto the Lord. The vow 
 was a freewill affair ; no one was obliged to take 
 it. But when it was once taken, it 
 Lev. 19 : 12 was dishonoring the name of the 
 Lord to fail in the performance of 
 Num. 30 : 2 it. The calling of God to witness 
 in the matter was a solemn proce- 
 dure, and it was an awful thing to break the oath 
 of God, thus making him a party to a lie. 
 
 This applied to all oaths. When once men had 
 named the name of God they felt themselves 
 bound ; and often they allowed themselves free- 
 dom to break their word when they were not oath- 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 65 
 
 bound. So it came to pass that men could believe 
 them only under oath. Now, how does the higher 
 teaching apply to this ? The Saviour says : Let 
 your communication be so straightforward that 
 you do not need to take an oath. Let your word 
 be as good as your bond. So live that men shall 
 believe your ungarnished, unemphasized assertion. 
 That is the ideal state of things. He who does 
 the most calling of God to witness is the one 
 whose veracity needs the most bolstering. Swear 
 not at all. Let your communication be ''Yea, 
 yea, Nay, nay." All this habit of using assevera- 
 tions has come of a laxness in veracity which was 
 evil. 
 
 I do not suppose that in thus teaching Jesus 
 meant to set forth the principle that henceforth 
 oaths shall no longer be used in civil affairs. In 
 fact, the oath is still necessary in legal proceedings. 
 Those proceedings have to do with many who can 
 be bound only by an oath. Jesus does not abolish 
 the law; he seeks rather to get men above the 
 necessity of it. Meanwhile the law must stand 
 for those who are not above its level. In truth, 
 civil courts are not of the kingdom of heaven ; 
 they are of this world. They must of necessity 
 be at the level of men's "hardness of heart." But 
 in the kingdom of heaven, just in so far as it is 
 realized in practical life, the oath is not necessary. 
 People believe you just as implicitly without. 
 And the way for those who are of the kingdom of 
 heaven to make progress toward abolishing the 
 oath in the world is not to refuse to take the oath 
 when required, but so to live that people shall de- 
 
 E 
 
66 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 cline to administer it to them. There have been 
 a few eminent citizens of our own country who 
 have been spontaneously treated in this way in the 
 courts of law. Their unsupported word was all- 
 sufficient. So the kingdom when it comes will 
 naturally do away with oaths and vows. But it 
 does away the law by fulfilling it. The truthful- 
 ness which the oath sought to insure is brought 
 about in a higher way. The very spirit of truth- 
 fulness has obviated the necessity of an enforced 
 truthfulness. People tell the truth naturally, and 
 the oath is out of place. 
 
 A further illustration of the influ- 
 Ver. 38-42 ^nce of the kingdom of heaven upon 
 
 law is seen in the transformation of 
 that old rule of criminal procedure that the one 
 who has done a wrong shall suffer the kind of 
 
 wrong which he has done: '*Eye 
 Lev. 24 : 17-23 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for 
 
 hand, burning for burning." It 
 was the strict infliction of like for like as a pen- 
 alty for crime. Now this is as just a rule as 
 can be devised, if we are going to set out to 
 repay any one for wrong-doing at all. The mere 
 natural sense of justice would say such retribution 
 is just what the wrong-doer deserves. Our Lord 
 does not repudiate this law, any more than he does 
 any of the rest. But he addresses himself solely 
 to the one who has suffered the wrong; and he 
 says, ''Do not insist on satisfaction. Mere justice 
 would allow you an equal retaliation ; but the 
 kingdom of heaven in you will lead you to submit 
 to evil rather than resist." In fact the verv book 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 6/ 
 
 that publishes our rule of retributory 
 procedure, when addressing the ag- Lev. 19 : 18 
 grieved party commands forbearance 
 and love. The higher love removes all resent- 
 ment from the heart. The Christlike man feels 
 only compassion for his brother — he is willing to 
 undergo any personal despite rather than injure 
 him. The injunction, ^* Whosoever smiteth thee 
 on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," 
 has always seemed a hard command to keep. It 
 requires peculiar saintliness to be capable of such 
 forbearance. But we can easily see that the 
 tendency of the kingdom of heaven — that is, of 
 the love of God in the heart — is toward just such 
 compassion and dignity of yielding. Jesus is not 
 teaching us to be pusillanimous ; he is only teach- 
 ing us a higher love, which never loses sight of our 
 neighbor's welfare. Mere personal resentment 
 shall yield to this love. We shall at least count it 
 an infirmity if we let our anger betray us into 
 anything that shall injure even the man who 
 treats us with violence. High and wonderful for- 
 bearance this, for human nature to attain ; but we 
 cannot say it is an unnatural thing to set before 
 us as our goal. 
 
 Finally, the Saviour sums up with 
 the law of love. The ancient law Yq^,^ 43-48 
 was, '*Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself." Contenting themselves Lev. 19 : 18 
 with the mere letter, men restricted 
 that saying exclusively to those who could be 
 called neighbors in the narrower sense. So they 
 mentally added to the law the converse, ''and hate 
 
68 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 thine enemy." But Jesus gives the law a much 
 wider application than this. ''Love your enemies 
 — this is the duty of the kingdom. If you love 
 only your neighbors you do no better than the 
 publicans and the heathen. Let your pattern in 
 this be God himself, who in his providence sends 
 the rain on the just and on the unjust, and causes 
 his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. Aim 
 indeed to be perfect in love as he is. Your Father 
 which is in heaven is the only worthy goal of your 
 striving." 
 
 This law of love is the principle which under- 
 lies all Jesus' treatment of the old law. It is the 
 spirit which makes our obedience as members of 
 the kingdom of heaven different from that of 
 those who only keep the letter of the law. It 
 modifies our obedience to the law against murder, 
 against adultery, against false swearing. It works 
 the abolition of retaliation by raising us above ex- 
 acting it. Mere law seeks equal justice between 
 men ; the kingdom of God seeks salvation, the 
 triumph of love. The merely just man will not 
 kill ; he who loves will use all means to be recon- 
 ciled. The upright man will avoid adultery; he 
 who loves will so act that no temptation to impu- 
 rity shall be put in any one's w^ay. Justice will be 
 faithful to oaths, so that no one can tax the juror 
 with falsity; love will so guard against falsifying 
 the word that no oath shall be called for. Faith- 
 fulness to men's rights will never exact more than 
 the ''pound of flesh" when one has done a wrong, 
 but it will have the satisfaction which the law 
 allows. But love will forego all such satisfaction. 
 
MORALITY OF ENTHUSIASM RELATED TO LAW 69 
 
 It does not want it. It wants to see the violent 
 and unjust man reclaimed. It ever seeks, in true 
 compassion for his lost and wronged-hearted con- 
 dition, to commend to him a higher forbearance, 
 that he may be won to a nobler life. 
 
 Thus love, which is the nature of God, under- 
 lies the obedience of the kingdom. Love trans- 
 figures the law and fulfills it. Love makes the 
 man do the same things, and far more, from higher 
 motives ; so that the law is no longer law for him, 
 but the nature of God to which his soul aspires. 
 Perfection of love is the least that will satisfy the 
 aspiring member of God's kingdom. He recog- 
 nizes as his Father — the supreme one to whom his 
 whole being conforms itself — none other than the 
 infinite God, who is the infinite love. 
 
 Thus upon the old law, cited by means of a few 
 vital examples, Jesus puts a new stamp which 
 makes an altogether new thing of it. It is no 
 longer a mere law ; for it no longer compels an 
 unwilling subject seeking by all dialectic ingenuity 
 to evade its requirements. It finds the aspiring 
 heart so ready to obey that its voice of command 
 needs no longer to make itself heard. The exter- 
 nal edict is superseded by the internal disposition. 
 The letter is swallowed up by the spirit. The 
 legal enactment is annihilated by a trend of life 
 far above it. Thus, though no longer dreaded, it 
 is still more efficiently kept. Truer and more obe- 
 dient to it than the most pharisaical of Jewish for- 
 malists is the one who has no longer any thought 
 of its precepts, but lives in the aspiring desire to 
 love all men as himself. This is not destroying 
 
70 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 the law, nor again is it re-enacting the law; it is 
 fulfilling it. The stamp of perpetuity — nay, of 
 resurrection to newness of life — put on the old law 
 is the sublime word of Jesus, ''Ye therefore shall 
 be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." 
 
IV 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD 
 IS OF THE EARTH 
 
Matt 6 : 1-18 
 
IV 
 
 Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be 
 seen of them : else ye have no reward with your Father which is 
 in heaven. 
 
 AVhen therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, 
 as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they 
 may have glory of men. ^^erily I say unto you. They have received 
 their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand 
 know what thy right hand doeth : that thine alms may be in se- 
 cret : and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. 
 
 And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites : for they 
 love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of 
 the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto 
 you. They have received their rew^ard. But thou, when thou 
 prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy 
 door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father 
 which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying 
 use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do : for they think that 
 they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore 
 like unto them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have 
 need of before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye : 
 Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy 
 kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. 
 Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as 
 we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temp- 
 tation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if ye forgive men 
 their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 
 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
 Father forgive your trespasses. 
 
 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad 
 countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen 
 of men to fast. Verily I say unto you. They have received their 
 reward. But thou, w^hen thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash 
 thy face ; that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy 
 Father which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, 
 shall recompense thee. 
 
 The general truth which sums up this passage 
 is found in the first verse. This is a statement of 
 
 73 
 
74 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 the subject of the whole, and the rest is of the 
 nature of illustration and particular application. 
 In that verse we are admonished to be careful and 
 not to do our righteousness before men, to be 
 seen of them. Then, going on from that verse, 
 three kinds of righteousness are specified, alms, 
 prayer, and fasting. In doing alms we are to 
 guard against temptation by *' letting not our left 
 hand know what our right hand doeth." In 
 prayer, we are to enter into our inner chamber 
 and shut the door, so that our request may be 
 made with a single heart to the Father who sees 
 in secret. In fasting, we are to perform our 
 usual toilet, and let ourselves look as well-kept as 
 ever, that we may not appear unto men to fast. 
 These items of righteousness, as religious observ- 
 ances, are matters between ourselves and God. 
 They cannot sincerely be done for the sake of 
 human rewards. If we take pains to have men 
 see them and approve, we have no reward of our 
 Father who is in heaven. In other words, such 
 selfish conduct gains no acknowledgment from 
 infinite love. 
 
 Now in the first verse we find a statement of 
 truth which foreshadows and opens the way for 
 all that follows. To begin with, observe the 
 words, ^'Take heed." These words as used by 
 our Lord generally introduce a prohibition of 
 some insidious and hurtful propensity or habit of 
 mind. When the Saviour says, '* Take heed," he 
 goes on to refer to something that we are to be 
 very careful against. It is not simply some ex- 
 actly recognizable act that we can leave off at a 
 
 I 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 75 
 
 word and done with it, but something which we 
 must keep as far from as possible, or we shall be 
 doing it before we know it. We are to guard 
 against it by going as far as we can the other 
 way. We are to conform ourselves to such per- 
 sonal habits that the entrance of the temptation 
 shall be impossible. Thus the Saviour bids the 
 disciples ^^take heed," or ''beware" 
 of the leaven of the Pharisees Luke 12 : i 
 which is hypocrisy. The thing 
 thus warned against is an insidious habit of mind, 
 the habit of hollowness or insincerity. It is one 
 of those sins which grow until they have imper- 
 ceptibly gained entire possession of the man. It 
 is one of those things which the person does not 
 see clearly enough to avoid in its first approach, 
 and can only guard against, as it were, blindly, by 
 leaning very strongly to the opposite side. And 
 you remember the sin of covetousness, which is a 
 sin from which our Lord tells us to 
 take heed and guard ourselves, was Luke 12 : 15 
 of a nature to take such a hold on 
 the rich young man that he could Luke 18 : 22 
 be guaranteed a cure only on condi- 
 tion of selling all his goods and giving to the poor. 
 Now this doing of our righteousness to be seen 
 of men is a habit that is to be guarded against in 
 the same way. It is not so much a crime as a 
 blighting condition of things that is insidious in 
 its approach, like hypocrisy. In fact it is largely 
 of the same nature. Our Saviour cannot simply 
 say, '* Do not do so," for a person might easily 
 think he was not doing it, when in reality his 
 
76 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 whole nature might be permeated with its virus. 
 The Lord must rather say, ** Beware of doing it : 
 be wary, or on your guard against doing it," — for 
 this word ^'take heed" and '^ beware " are the 
 same word. And by way of guarding against a 
 temptation so insidious in its nature, he suggests 
 what we might call disciplinary measures. He 
 advises us to let our righteousness take pains to 
 be sedulously removed from the possibility of 
 ostentation. He enjoins an almost fussy and un- 
 natural effort of concealment. Let the alms be 
 rigidly hidden from view. Let the prayer be in 
 the secret chamber. Let the fasting take pains 
 to cover up its own effects on the person. Thus 
 we shall lean as far as possible away from the 
 temptation to be ostentatious of our religious 
 merits. We shall beware of doing our righteous- 
 ness before men to be seen of them, by hiding it 
 of set purpose from men. For the temptation to 
 ostentatious goodness is a temptation which gains 
 possession of a man and, before he knows it, 
 makes him incapable of living in eternal truth, 
 and for an eternal rew^ard. 
 
 Perhaps we do not appreciate this temptation as 
 we might do if we lived in such times as those of 
 Christ, and among Oriental worshipers. And 
 perhaps we flatter ourselves that here is a teach- 
 ing of the Lord w^hich applies only to a peculiar 
 age of the world, or to a peculiar kind of people. 
 We do not feel guilty of displaying our religious 
 observances. We have the impulse to hide them 
 rather. We are often afraid to let men know that 
 we are pious. We seem more in need of having 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH "JJ 
 
 Daniel's example set before us, as he did his 
 praying in Babylon, when praying was prohibited 
 by law. He opened his windows and exhibited 
 his devotions three times a day. We seem more 
 in need of being exhorted to '' dare to be a Dan- 
 iel,'' than of being advised to do our praying and 
 our other religious duties in secret. The truth of 
 the preceding chapter of this sermon, that the 
 member of God's kingdom is to let his light shine 
 before men, so that they shall see his good works, 
 seems to be the truth more especially needed for 
 our Western and Protestant ideas of religion. 
 The hiding of our piety will take care of itself. 
 We do not need to be exhorted to this. There is 
 not much danger of the average modern Christian 
 standing on the street corner and praying in order 
 that men may see him. Our ideas and customs 
 are all so far the other way that when, for instance, 
 the Salvation Army has the resoluteness to hold 
 street prayer meetings, we are inclined to regard 
 the action as unnatural and out of place in modern 
 civilization. 
 
 But there is something more constant and uni- 
 versal than mere ostentation in this sin of which 
 the Saviour tell us to beware. That is the state 
 of the heart which led the Jew to attribute efficacy 
 and value to his outward piety. It is indicated in 
 the last clause of this first verse, "• Otherwise ye 
 have no reward of your Father which is in 
 heaven." It is also indicated in that sad refrain 
 which the Saviour brings in after every example 
 of hypocritical ostentation, ''Verily I say unto 
 you, They have received their reward." That of 
 
J^ MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 which we are to beware, then, is the acting, in 
 spiritual things, for an immediate and an earthly 
 reward; the letting our righteousness be meas- 
 ured simply by what men think, and letting its suf- 
 ficient compensation be that approval which men, 
 looking merely on the outside, can give. When 
 we work solely for human approval we lose the 
 faculty for appreciating the approval of the 
 heavenly Father. When an immediate and finite 
 reward is all we seek, we lose the power to strive 
 for the infinite reward. So it is true that he 
 whose righteousness is simply done according to 
 the measure of men's standards, and only for 
 their approval, is one who has no reward of the 
 Father which is in heaven. The reward which 
 comes from the infinite Love is a thing that would 
 be no reward to him. He is getting his reward 
 every day as he displays his goodness before men. 
 It is a scanty enough reward, it is true, but he 
 looks for nothing better, and this he can have im- 
 mediately. Working for such a reward, he will 
 naturally be tempted, when the customs of society 
 admit of it, to be a sanctimonious displayer of his 
 piety on the streets. But if piety is not so much 
 the fashion in the world with which he mingles, 
 he will nevertheless have the same leaven of 
 regard for the praise of men working in him ; and 
 it will make his reUgion and his righteousness of 
 the superficial kind, even if it does not stand 
 literally on the street corners to display itself. 
 
 But those who display their religion in order to 
 be seen and approved of men do so only because 
 religion is, as it were, fashionable. In the time of 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 79 
 
 the Pharisees it was an advantage of a most sub- 
 stantial kind to have the reputation of being a 
 holy man. Men were greatly impressed when 
 they saw a dignified religious man so careful and 
 particular about his hours of devotion that when 
 the minute arrived he would drop everything and 
 stand and pray with great unction in the streets. 
 It showed extraordinary scrupulosity about the 
 forms of religion. And seeing it impressed peo- 
 ple, the thrifty religious man could easily arrange 
 it so that he should happen to be in a particularly 
 public and conspicuous place when the hour for 
 praying came around. Or he might manage it 
 without apparent design so that his almsgiving 
 should be made very conspicuous ; and his fasting 
 could be allowed to show its effects on his person 
 with great distinctness. But all this was because 
 to be thus religious was good form. The same 
 regard for the praise of men would lead a man to 
 be irreligious when irreligion was fashionable. If 
 freethinking were fashionable, such a person would 
 be a freethinker. The same spirit and habit causes 
 a man to be religious in religious times, and irre- 
 ligious in irreligious times. 
 
 The root of the sin is the following of the meas- 
 ure of men's opinions — the taking of one's shape 
 from his surroundings. It is the finding of his 
 reward in the approval of the crowd. It is the 
 looking around for the warrant of his conduct, 
 rather than within or above. Sad indeed is the 
 judgment which the Saviour pronounces upon 
 such action: '< Verily I say unto you. They have 
 received their reward." All that is to come of 
 
8o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 such religion comes immediately, and then there is 
 nothing left. The only inspiration of such right- 
 eousness is the inspiration of popularity ; its only 
 warrant and justification is what is commonly 
 deemed success. If a person has all his reward in 
 hand, there is nothing to look forward to. It is 
 sad indeed to have our possibilities of good and of 
 increase exhausted every day. It is but laying up 
 for ourselves the sentence that was pronounced on 
 the rich man in Hades : '^ Thou in thy lifetime re- 
 ceivedst thy good things . . . now 
 Luke i6 : 25 thou art tormented." 
 
 This passage, then, is not simply a 
 warning against ostentation in religion, but it is a 
 warning against habits of action into which relig- 
 ious, and irreligious as well, are in danger of falling. 
 It is a warning against living only to please men. 
 It is a warning against getting final satisfaction 
 from human opinion. ** If I were still pleasing 
 men," says Paul, *^ I should not be 
 Gal. I : 10 a servant of Christ." The admoni- 
 tion, ^' Take heed that ye do not your 
 righteousness before men, to be seen of them," 
 is moreover perfectly consistent with the converse 
 exhortation, ^^ Even so let your light shine before 
 men, that they may see your good 
 Matt. 5 : 16 works, and glorify your Father which 
 is in heaven." In the one case we 
 rejoice to have men won to God by our true living; 
 in the other case we are careful not to narrow our 
 true living to what we presume men will approve. 
 In the one case, we are to serve God with an in- 
 trepid allegiance for men's sake, even though per- 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 8 I 
 
 secution and all hardship should labor to quench 
 our light ; in the other case, we are to see to it 
 that it is God whom we serve, and God's reward 
 which we gain, whether men are likely to approve 
 or not. 
 
 In our earthly condition we need some exhilara- 
 tion, some stimulus, some sense of approval, as our 
 incentive to righteousness. I know that ideally 
 holiness is just the acting out of a holy nature ; 
 that any course of right action which is engaged in 
 for a reward or inducement is short of the perfect 
 righteousness. He who is truly holy, we say, is so 
 because it is his nature to be so ; he does not need 
 to be induced to be holy. Any dependence on in- 
 ducements is looked upon as more or less selfish 
 and sordid. Any holding out of inducements may 
 be argued to be a corruption of the person who is 
 thus led into a right choice. Yet as a matter of 
 fact we are mostly too imperfect to be entirely 
 capable of such unselfish goodness. The most of 
 us are unable to work independently of any re- 
 ward, or any sense of approval. Something must 
 strengthen us in the sense that we are right ; 
 something must hold our languid faith and alle- 
 giance true to its aim. So the talk about entirely 
 disinterested and unrewarded goodness is some- 
 what impracticable. It is adapted to an ideal 
 world, rather than to the world of average men 
 and women as we find them. We should, indeed, 
 hold up such goodness as our ideal to be striven 
 after. The man cannot be counted perfect who 
 works consciously for a reward. Nor can the man 
 be counted perfectly holy who has to strive and 
 
82 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 incite himself to goodness. Such goodness is vir- 
 tue rather than holiness. Virtue is that goodness 
 which a man achieves, even though some part of 
 his nature wars against it and has to be put down ; 
 holiness, on the other hand, is that goodness which 
 is purely spontaneous and according to the renewed 
 spiritual nature. A man cannot be counted holy 
 until it is his nature to be good. And such holi- 
 ness we should indeed hold up as our standard. It 
 is the mark of our power to appreciate the glory of 
 a higher world than ours that we are not content 
 to accept anything short of this as perfect. Yet 
 to recommend striving after that goal is quite a 
 different thing from denying to men any incentive 
 to goodness if they need it. If men need incentive, 
 stimulus, exhilarating sense of approval, as indeed 
 we all do, let them have the highest incentives. 
 Do not put them, as it were, in a vacuum, and say, 
 *' You shall labor without reward or not at all. 
 Because to be entirely disinterested is the only 
 final perfection, you are corrupting yourself by 
 looking-for any inducement." Such a course would 
 cut off almost everybody from right living. The 
 fact is, this sluggish human nature needs some 
 stimulus in spiritual things. There is a reward to 
 be held before the faithful one, and it does not in- 
 terfere with a very hopeful degree of goodness to 
 be encouraged by the prospects and foregleaming 
 joys of a heavenly world. 
 
 So Jesus is not impracticable enough to divest 
 righteousness of all hope of reward. He holds up 
 the highest rewards as our goal. Those rewards 
 are of such a nature that as the man rises in the 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 83 
 
 spiritual life and comes to appreciate them, they 
 mean for him higher and more unselfish things ; 
 and the following after them becomes less and less 
 a subserviency to inducements. The person finds 
 at last that his heavenly reward is the possession 
 itself of that holiness which cannot perfect itself 
 as mere rewarded conduct. The looking for a high 
 reward is a stimulation for the time being which 
 presently strengthens the person to get on without 
 stimulation. It is the saving feature in Christi-^ 
 anity, that it reaches down to people as they are ; 
 it wins them as they can be won. It does not 
 stand coldly at one side and propose an impracti- 
 cable scheme of righteousness which sinful and 
 sluggish human nature cannot embrace. It re- 
 wards because we need the help of rewards. It 
 not only points out a high goal, but it helps ordi- 
 nary men to enter the race for it. 
 
 Those who would improve on Christianity by 
 teaching mankind something less selfish have been 
 in fault just here. They have for their own part 
 proposed a morality which was ideally pure, but 
 too elevated and rarefied for the earthly man to 
 possess. The flaws which they seemed to discover 
 in Christianity were just those features which made 
 Christianity saving. They themselves have sub- 
 limed righteousness until it appeared faultless in 
 theory, but this was at the expense of winning and 
 saving power. The average man is left entirely 
 unreached and unhelped. 
 
 It is true, then, that we need some reward, some 
 sense of approval, to keep us in courses of right 
 action. Few of us would enter on lives of self- 
 
84 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 denial and renunciation of pleasure if there were 
 nothing at all to be gained by it. Hardship is not 
 endured for its own sake. Discipline of the un- 
 ruly animal powers is not resorted to just for the 
 sake of making life's pleasures less. There is, in 
 the mind of the person, something to be gained by 
 a virtuous course, if it is nothing more than the 
 satisfaction of having overcome himself. And this 
 very sense of overcoming himself is valueless for 
 him unless there is the feeling that to overcome 
 himself makes him better, more worthy, more fit 
 for his own approval, more in the way of some 
 great reward. Whatever the far-off ideal of good- 
 ness may be, the only attainable human goodness 
 is stimulated and induced by some sense of ap- 
 proval, some kind of reward. 
 
 Now there is a kind of reward that a person may 
 have immediately, and that is earthly reputation. 
 I do not say that the simple, humble traits which 
 the Saviour recommended as bringing blessedness 
 will always give it. He who is .poor in spirit, w^ho 
 mourns, who hungers after righteousness, who is 
 pure and single of heart, may not always find an 
 immediate human appreciation. He at least does 
 not work for it, for those traits do not admit of 
 such a thing. But he who is liberal in alms, as- 
 siduous in public prayer, unsparing of self in his 
 fasting and aflfliction of soul, may easily get a repu- 
 tation for sanctity. Such virtues admit of ostenta- 
 tion ; they may easily flourish on a false motive. 
 Now to have the feeling that men regard you as 
 righteous is a reward. It furnishes a stimulus to 
 action. It exhilarates the person, and makes him 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 85 
 
 feel good. But the opinion of men often makes 
 him feel good when he does not consider whether 
 he deserves it. He does not look into his own 
 heart; he believes himself good just because other 
 people believe him good. They have awarded him 
 the palm of goodness until he is cheated into 
 making that a sufficient reward. What they have 
 seen on the outside is all he counts into his good- 
 ness. This very felicitating one's self on men's 
 opinions thus makes the person incapable of an 
 eternal reward. He does not look deep enough 
 for it. 
 
 But how flat and tame such a human reward is ! 
 What inspiration is there in it.? What is there in it 
 that can fire a man's soul ? When a certain type of 
 virtue is in vogue, be that. When another fashion 
 comes around, be up in that. Look around you 
 and keep the run of things ; observe narrowly the 
 drift of opinion so as to trim your sails to it, for in 
 popularity is your only reward. Adopt as your 
 motto, *' Nothing succeeds like success." Wor- 
 ship success ; she will give you a kind of reward. 
 Never ask whether God will approve, or whether 
 your deepest inward self is satisfied ; simply regu- 
 late all by the question. Will it succeed.'^ There 
 is a reward in store for you, and you may have it 
 at once, even while you are standing on the street- 
 corner. It is a reward that may satisfy for a time. 
 But it is a reward that in the time of trial will 
 utterly fail. Can you wonder then at the infinite 
 sadness of the Saviour's tone when he says of such 
 seekers : '' Verily I say unto you, They have re- 
 ceived their reward." 
 
86 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 In regard to almsgiving and fast- 
 1 6 1 8 ' ^^^ Jesus simply cautions against 
 
 making a show of them ; and the 
 disciplinary antidote is to make them as secret as 
 
 possible. But in regard to prayer 
 Ver. 5-8 there is another false reward which 
 
 people sometimes seek. The one 
 to which the Saviour has already referred is the 
 mistake, or worse, of praying for men to see ; as 
 if asking something from God were a meritorious 
 action worthy of a reward, and fitted to give one a 
 reputation for sanctity. What an entire denial of 
 the nature of prayer ! To think that the asking 
 for something, the desiring of something from the 
 heavenly Father, is an action for which to arrogate 
 to one's self merit. So thought of it indeed ceases 
 to be prayer to God. It becomes not a sincere 
 asking for something but a displaying of some- 
 thing. It has its reward ; it is seen. That is all 
 it wants. 
 
 But the other false reward of 
 Ver. 7, 8 which the Saviour speaks comes of 
 
 making such a hardship of prayer 
 that the person persuades himself by his own weari- 
 ness that he has merited an answer. There is a 
 sort of reward or self-approval in having done so 
 much praying — being able to foot up such and 
 such a sum of petitions of which one may keep 
 tally. It is the idea of worship whose outward 
 mark is the rosary. Surely God must be nearer 
 to answering if the person has said it over fifty 
 times than if he has said it only once. He must 
 be admiringly sensible how persevering a service 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 8/ 
 
 we are making of it. Our much speaking cer- 
 tainly must merit some consideration. Here again 
 is a false reward which one may have immediately. 
 It consists in the knowledge that we have prayed 
 so many times, and to get that, one only needs to 
 pray that many times and keep account. His 
 rosary is his spiritual measure. 
 
 All this indicates a false ideal of prayer which 
 makes it necessary that the Saviour should pro- 
 pose the true model. One makes prayer a thing 
 which so glorifies the offerer that it may be dis- 
 played and get him a reputation. Another makes 
 it a thing which can gain consideration by its 
 laboriousness. And all the time the God who 
 sees in secret answers the real wish of the heart, 
 and in truth knows what things we have need of 
 before we ask him. Indeed, our praying is not 
 bringing things to his consideration which he had 
 not thought of before. Prayer deals with a God 
 who is unchangeable hoHness and love. Its truest 
 object is attained when we are brought up nearer 
 to him. It would not be for our interest that his 
 infinite goodness should be modified to conform to 
 our wishes. But it is altogether for our interest that 
 we should be brought to conform to his nature. 
 This is the consummation of all human excellence 
 to which we should most fervently look forward. 
 We show ourselves children of the heavenly Father 
 by wishing that his goodness may be all in all. 
 
 And so that inimitable model of 
 prayer which our Lord gives strikes Ver. 9-15 
 this true keynote, and corrects the 
 false conceptions of prayer. It is simply a picture 
 
55 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 of how the child of God should aspire. 
 Ver. 9, 10 Its first wish is that God's name may 
 be glorified, hallowed, felt to be holy, 
 and that his kingdom may come, and his will be 
 done in earth as it is in heaven. This is the 
 heavenward aspiration of the child 
 Ver. 11 of God. Then in one brief peti- 
 tion the legitimate earthly needs of 
 God*s children are laid before him. It is no ex- 
 travagant demand, no longing for miraculous suc- 
 cors, or for any command of abnormal resources 
 for the life. It is simply, '' Give us 
 Ver. 12, 13 what we need for to-day." Then 
 comes the thought of those things 
 in ourselves which hinder God's will from a com- 
 plete ascendency in us, our sins and our liability 
 to temptation. We pray that our sins may be for- 
 given, and that temptation may be averted and we 
 delivered from the power of the evil one. So the 
 prayer simply divides itself into this three-fold 
 form — our goal or final wish, our earthly condition 
 as we seek that goal, our hindrances in the striv- 
 ing. All sums itself up in the wish that God 
 may be supreme in us, that our wish may prevail, 
 not as distinctively ours, but as taken up into union 
 with his will. The prayer is not a striving for the 
 victory of ourselves, but for the victory of God in 
 us. Thus offered it does not admit of ostentation, 
 of merit by repetition, of anything that exalts the 
 self. It is the pure aspiration of that soul which 
 wants God to rule it. 
 
 In all the foregoing discussion of the principles 
 which govern the act of worship we have been 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 89 
 
 contemplating the worshiper as an individual and 
 his sinful debasing of the performance as a per- 
 sonal act of ostentation or merit-seeking before 
 men or God. It remains for us to note the appli- 
 cation of our Lord's words to sincerity in public 
 worship. Absolute sincerity in public worship is 
 so difficult a thing to keep from degeneration that 
 it must continually be labored for and repeatedly 
 regained. It seems difficult to make it stay in 
 position. A recurrence to the fundamental prin- 
 ciple which underlies all supplication will reveal 
 the secret of this unstable equilibrium and indicate 
 the definite feeling which is essential to a sincere 
 collective approaching of the throne of grace. 
 
 The act of worship is so simple in its nature, 
 and so exclusively single in its aim, that any ad- 
 mixture of other acts and motives necessarily 
 debases it. It is essentially a transaction between 
 the soul and God alone. It is simply the act of 
 wishful homage to the infinite Father. Jesus indi- 
 cated its essentially private nature when he recom- 
 mended the worshiper to enter into his inner 
 chamber and shut the door, so as to exclude all 
 external influences and distractions. We have 
 seen that while he describes some phases or activi- 
 ties of Christian character as intended to be pur- 
 posely exhibited for the sake of their influence, he 
 places almsgiving and fasting and prayer in an 
 entirely different category. He seems to counsel 
 even a painstaking concealment of these acts from 
 men, lest the consciousness of spectators should 
 debase their motive and so destroy their value. 
 
 The difficulty of keeping public worship from 
 
90 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 degeneration arises from the antagonism between 
 the attribute of publicity and the nature of worship 
 itself. At first sight, the words of Christ seem to 
 deny the possibility of a public performance of real 
 devotion. If the soul is transacting business with 
 God alone, any additional reference to the specta- 
 tor but divides its allegiance, and so destroys the 
 singleness of the act. Just as almsgiving is simply 
 and solely in order to relieve distress, and cannot 
 be sincere when it introduces the motive of ex- 
 hibiting itself, so prayer directs the whole energy 
 of the requesting soul toward God and loses its 
 sincerity when it adds to its aim any purpose of 
 display. 
 
 If, then, publicity necessarily introduced a double 
 reference of the act, — toward God and toward the 
 spectator, — it would inevitably have a debasing 
 influence on the worship which it is intended to 
 broaden. And though, on the other hand, such 
 double reference is not necessary, yet nevertheless 
 the nice adjustment of the divergent ideas of pub- 
 licity and supplication may well be expected to 
 maintain itself precariously, and so render sincerity 
 in public worship a subject for ever-renewed re- 
 forms and reinstatements. 
 
 The collective participation by which worship is 
 made a public act may be secured in two ways, and 
 each causes its peculiar dangers to sincerity. In the 
 one method the leader and the participants stand in 
 the relation of speaker and audience. The leader 
 utters, or, if he is a chorister, sings the words of 
 prayer, and the worshipers participate by listening. 
 This method is necessary when the worship is ex- 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 9 1 
 
 temporaneous in its form, or when, as in the case of 
 ornate musical worship, the performance is too 
 highly artistic to be conducted collectively by the 
 general audience. The danger to sincerity accom- 
 panying this method is obviously that of making the 
 audience the object of the act and the dispenser of 
 its reward. The worshipers have degenerated into 
 enjoy ers or critics, and the leader is satisfied if he 
 has made a good impression ; or with more praise- 
 worthy but not less perverted aims, he has made 
 them the object of didactic effort and the sole indi- 
 cators of his success. The publicity has entirely 
 swamped the supplication. It is no longer an act 
 of worship, it is a performance before spectators. 
 In its motive it comes squarely under the con- 
 demnation of the Saviour, who said : '^ And when 
 ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites : for they 
 love to stand and pray, . . that they may be 
 seen of men." 
 
 In the case of extemporaneous prayer, the con- 
 sciousness of God and of the spectator, carried 
 together in the mind, may destroy sincerity by 
 intruding motives which are praiseworthy in their 
 place, but destructive to singleness of aim. Not 
 all adulteration is so bad as that vanity of sanctity 
 with which the Pharisees debased their worship ; 
 but, nevertheless, much public prayer which escapes 
 the charge of hypocrisy may be insincere and per- 
 verted in its purpose. The didactic spirit often 
 enters in to divide the earnest mind, and the leader 
 is found praying to his audience instead of to God. 
 Revival prayers are sometimes palpably intended, 
 not to be heard by God, but to be overheard by 
 
92 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 sinners. Such practice is often called praying '*at" 
 people. Its perverted character is made amusingly 
 distinct in that anecdote of the good Christian 
 brother in whom the spirit of exhortation wrought 
 so strongly as to make him frequently tedious, and 
 who, on being headed off at the point of rising to 
 exhort by the pastor's request to lead in prayer, 
 replied : '' I was about to make a few remarks, but 
 perhaps I can throw them into the form of a 
 prayer." Prayer which is in its form a talking to 
 God, but in its spirit a talking to men, may be of 
 some value as exhortation, but it is not sincere 
 worship. 
 
 The oratorical feeling too often enters into the 
 heart of the leader, and constitutes a debasement 
 some shades less excusable than the impulse to 
 teach. Here even the benevolent intention of 
 benefiting the hearer by the proclamation of truth 
 is absent, and the praying becomes purely a dis- 
 play of talent or a fine art. The secular reporter 
 who characterized such an effort, on one occasion, 
 as the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Bos- 
 ton audience, blundered, in his pagan appreciative- 
 ness, upon the probable truth, that the act was in 
 its spirit directed to spectators, rather than to the 
 Hearer of prayer. 
 
 As to concerted worship offered by trained mu- 
 sicians, it needs hardly to be said that when the 
 motive on their part is simply to please the ear, 
 and that of the audience only to be entertained, 
 the performance is in no sense worship, but simply 
 a refined amusement whose proper place is the 
 concert room. Nothing is here urged as to the 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 93 
 
 sin of such a performance except its obvious in- 
 sincerity and hypocrisy in pretending to be the 
 worship of God. It may be innocent, and even 
 beneficial, in its place. But the verdict to be pro- 
 nounced on such worshipers, as well as on the 
 man who makes his praying an oratorical display, 
 is only the sorrowful sentence which the Saviour 
 gave to the hypocrites: ^^ They have received their 
 reward." 
 
 Such are the perils to sincerity when the leader 
 and the participants are related as speaker and au- 
 dience. But these evils are by no means inevitable. 
 There may be just as sincere worship v/here one 
 man does all the speaking, or even where partici- 
 pation is by listening to the most artistic musical 
 performance, as where all are joining in a concerted 
 utterance. But the relation of leader and partici- 
 pants must be rightly apprehended. He is not 
 addressing them ; he, along with them, is address- 
 ing God. There is a symbolical appropriateness in 
 the attitude of the priest, in Romish and Episcopal 
 churches, who turns his back to the audience to 
 pray. In the intent of his act he does not face his 
 flock ; he faces the same way, only ahead of them 
 as their leader. 
 
 Indeed, the term *^ public worship" is not the 
 most exact possible ; the true act is rather social 
 worship. All are together in one mind and one 
 religious desire. For those who formulate their 
 wishes with difficulty the praying becomes even 
 more spontaneous and uplifting by being conducted 
 in their hearing and for their assent, and it is pos- 
 sible so to sweep along the spirit of the audience 
 
94 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 by the powerful winged words of a divinely indited 
 prayer that all shall be sincere participants in one 
 unison of holy desire before the throne of grace; 
 and thus are fulfilled the conditions of the Saviour's 
 promise that where the two parties are agreed as 
 touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
 done for them by the Father in heaven. Nor is 
 such a conception of concerted worship a contra- 
 diction of the principle that sincere supplication is 
 in its nature a private act, since leader and led are 
 so at unity, and so isolated is each worshiper from 
 all thought of extraneous observation, that their act 
 is the act of one collective person, and thus, if we 
 may so say, collectively secret. Offered in public 
 the act may essentially be as if the doer were alone. 
 
 The second way of securing collective participa- 
 tion in worship is by a conventional form in which 
 all may audibly take part ; and the danger besetting 
 its sincerity is such as arises from the idolatry of 
 form. A ritual or ceremonial feeling may some- 
 times intrude itself, and the naive sincerity of the 
 worship may be debased by the motive of perform- 
 ing the sacred mystery as a meritorious thing in 
 itself. Such worship transgresses the Saviour's 
 second caution with regard to prayer : ^' Use not 
 vain repetitions as the Gentiles do : for they think 
 that they shall be heard for their much speaking." 
 The worshiper is no longer directing a sincere de- 
 sire to the God who seeth in secret, but rather is 
 aiming to please the infinite Father by an orderly 
 performance of external ceremonies. 
 
 Public worship had fallen under this blight when 
 the Saviour uttered the words : '' God is a Spirit : 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 95 
 
 and they that worship him must 
 worship in spirit and truth," or John 4 : 24 
 sincerity. Tlie woman of Samaria 
 seemed to have Httle interest in the coming Mes- 
 siah except that he might answer for her the ques- 
 tion, whether men ought to worship in that mount- 
 ain or at Jerusalem. Jesus rescued public worship, 
 not only from all restriction to sacred places, but 
 also from all necessary connection with sacred 
 forms, by his divine watchword, ^^ Neither in this 
 mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, but in spirit and 
 truth." 
 
 If sincere worship is possible by means of mu- 
 sical concert of action, it is also possible with a 
 prescribed form of prayer. The rescue of imper- 
 iled sincerity from the lifelessness of form is not 
 necessarily by formlessness, nor by an extempora- 
 neous shaping of the prayer at the moment of de- 
 livery. There is no more virtue in a prayer com- 
 posed on the spot, and participated in by listeners, 
 than in a time-honored written form of supplica- 
 tion. Jesus Christ himself gave a form of prayer; 
 and this inimitable epitome of godly aspiration, as 
 also indeed many of the hymns of the church, may 
 often carry the soul to God as efficiently as even 
 secret prayer burdened with the effort of outward 
 expression. It is only when the form becomes so 
 exacting as to be itself an object to the worshiper, 
 claiming allegiance to itself alongside of God, that 
 it destroys the singleness and value of the act of 
 worship. 
 
 The sole and sufficient safeguard for the sin- 
 cerity of collective worship is that in its motive it 
 
96 iMAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 shall be only secret worship enlarged ; so that 
 whether listening in the great congregation to the 
 voice of an inspiring leader, and participating in his 
 holy fervor, or joining audibly in some form of ex- 
 pression which is prescribed in order to facilitate 
 concert of utterance, the worshiper shall in spirit 
 enter into his closet, and, having shut the door, 
 pray to his Father who is in secret, that the 
 Father who seeth in secret may be his sole re- 
 warder. 
 
 In all this discussion we are made to see what a 
 contrast there is between earthly rewards and the 
 reward which comes from the heavenly Father. 
 The mere earthly rew^ard may be accorded to ap- 
 pearances ; the divine reward can come only from 
 the knowledge of what we really are before infinite 
 purity. The righteousness which seeks an earthly 
 reward may be paraded ; that which thirsts after 
 God's approval makes no bid for human praise. 
 One is the righteousness of observance ; the other 
 is the righteousness of perfection. One is suffi- 
 ciently rewarded when it has transacted itself ac- 
 cording to a finite standard, and been observed. It 
 may be judged by men ; it may be computed and 
 summed up. It has merited so much reputation 
 for sanctity; it has been done over so many times 
 and calls for proportionate consideration from God. 
 The other is the righteousness which labors after 
 the infinite. ''Be ye therefore perfect," is its goal 
 and constant inspiration. The man never fully 
 possesses his desire on the earth ; he hungers and 
 thirsts after it. He never thinks of displaying his 
 righteousness, for there is so much remaining to 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHOSE REWARD IS OF EARTH 9/ 
 
 complete his ideal that he has no disposition to 
 boast. He looks forward with infinite longing and 
 discontent to fill up the sum of goodness, rather 
 than backward to keep a careful tally of his mer- 
 itorious deeds. Thus the true man gets his ap- 
 proval from the heavenly Father, the infinite Love. 
 His reward is laid up in heaven. 
 
V 
 
 THE HEAVENLY TREASURE 
 
 L. •rc 
 
Matt. 6 : 19-34 
 
V 
 
 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where 
 moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through 
 and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
 neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not 
 break through nor steal : for where thy treasure is, there will thy 
 heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye : if therefore thine 
 eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine 
 eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore 
 the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness ! 
 No man can serve two masters : for either he will hate the one, 
 and love the other ; or else he will hold to one, and despise the 
 other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say 
 unto you. Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what 
 ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is 
 not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment ? 
 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they 
 reap, nor gather into barns ; and your heavenly Father feedeth 
 them. Are ye not of much more value than they? And which 
 of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature ? And 
 why are ye anxious concerning raiment ? Consider the lilies of 
 the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : yet 
 I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, 
 which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not 
 much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore 
 anxious, saying. What shall we eat ? or. What shall we drink ? or. 
 Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? For after all these things do 
 the Gentiles seek ; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
 need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his 
 righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be 
 not therefore anxious for the morrow : for the morrow will be 
 anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 
 
 By a natural sequence we pass from the melan- 
 choly spectacle of those who have ''received their 
 reward" to the consideration of the nature and 
 
102 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 place of the real treasure. To lay up a treasure 
 is to make some possession or attainment one's 
 highest wish. It is the seeking, striving, aspiring 
 side of human nature to which Jesus appeals. The 
 standpoint of the Beatitudes is that from which all 
 this Sermon on the Mount is uttered : man is 
 everywhere looked upon as seeking his own bless- 
 edness, and the Saviour's moral teaching makes 
 its appeal accordingly. Not the fearing or hating 
 man, but the loving and desiring man is primarily 
 subjected to the influence here exerted. Jesus 
 knows that when he has the desires and the long- 
 ings he has the man. The real wish is the man. 
 Let one but catch sight of his own blessedness, 
 and be awakened to the pursuit of it, and he is in 
 the way of spiritual renewal. 
 
 We recognize what the treasure spoken of is ; 
 
 it is the kingdom of God. When 
 Ver. 33 the Teacher says, ** Seek first his 
 
 kingdom and his righteousness/' he 
 is reiterating in other words the same advice with 
 which he here sets out, '^ Lay not up for yourselves 
 treasures on the earth . . . but lay up for your- 
 selves treasures in heaven." Describing it as a 
 treasure located in heaven defines more closely the 
 nature of that kingdom. So great an idea as the 
 kingdom of God cannot be defined in a single 
 word. Parable after parable in the Saviour's 
 teaching is put forth to show what the kingdom 
 of God is like. The very word '^kingdom" is 
 subject to erroneous apprehension. Briefly, it 
 means the reign of God in the life, that condition 
 of things in which God is obeyed. But at the 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO3 
 
 very outset it has to be pointed out that the obe- 
 dience contemplated is not the mere mechanical 
 conformity to the letter of the law, as one con- 
 forms to a civil statute. It is the love which finds 
 out and does all that the spirit of the law requires, 
 whose high goal of attainment is, *^ Be ye per- 
 fect." It is an obedience inspired by enthusiasm, 
 and looking forward to its own completion as its 
 blessedness. That completion of obedience — that 
 kingdom of God — is a treasure for which the 
 aspiring soul longs with infinite longing. Among 
 the first similes with which it is described in parable 
 are those of a pearl of great price and of a treasure 
 hid in a field. While the Pharisee and the hypo- 
 crite had a pinchbeck treasure, which they were 
 drawing upon and exhausting every day, the 
 Christian of the Beatitudes has a treasure laid up 
 in heaven, where its power to enlist enthusiasm is 
 eternally perpetuated. 
 
 As a treasure securely laid up in heaven, com- 
 pare it with the treasures for which men strive on 
 the earth. The kingdom of God is not just now 
 thought of in its imperative aspect ; it has become 
 a possession, appealing in a way to the appetitive 
 man, and calling out whatever is like acquisitive- 
 ness in our spiritual nature. 
 
 I. Observe first where this treas- 
 ure is to be laid up, and wherein its Ver. 19-21 
 preciousness consists. 
 
 Let that which you value most be in heaven. 
 The kingdom of God is a state of things not fully 
 realized here. It belongs to the unseen and future 
 world. It is called, especially in Matthew, the 
 
I04 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 kingdom of heaven, because its motives, its char- 
 acter, its high standard, are all drawn from heaven. 
 It is that sphere of conduct which has its center 
 and incentive in the ideal man. The ascendency 
 of that ideal character in us is to be our most ar- 
 dent longing, a treasure upon which, beyond all 
 other treasures, our hearts' affections are placed. 
 
 Heaven, then, as contemplated here, is that 
 region of spirituality from which infinite incentives 
 proceed. It is the throne of God. 
 Matt. 5:34 It is that place of spiritual excel- 
 lence, that infinite height, from which 
 the voice of God makes itself heard in the soul, 
 commanding its allegiance and attracting it upw^ard 
 to higher attainment. Yet it is to be observed 
 that New Testament thought does not conceive of 
 all divine authority as appealing to us from heaven. 
 There is a distinction in the place from which 
 God's commands proceed, according to the nature 
 of the appeal that he makes to us. 
 
 A classical passage illustrating what is meant 
 by heaven in its spiritual sense is 
 Heb. 12 : 25 found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 It reads : ^' See that ye refuse not 
 him that speaketh. For if they escaped not, when 
 they refused him that warned them on earth, much 
 more shall not we escape, who turn away from 
 him that warneth from heaven." 
 Heb. 12 : 18-21 The warning on the earth spoken 
 of is the impressive self-revelation 
 of God on Sinai. That speaking to men came 
 down to them from the highest regions of au- 
 thority. It was distinctively and divinely impera- 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO5 
 
 tive It was attended with supernatural marvels. 
 It issued from visible heavens black with thick 
 clouds, awfully vocal with rolling thunder and lurid 
 with lightning. It enforced its pro- 
 hibitions with the death penalty, as Deut. 32:35 
 only God and those powers that are 
 ordained of him have the right to Rom. 13 : 1-6 
 do. One would say that if ever 
 there was a speaking from the heavenly throne it 
 was then. Yet the inspired writer says of all 
 this, '' He spake on the earth, and he speaks more 
 momentously to you from heaven." 
 On the other hand the mountain 
 of promulgation, to which the Chris- Heb. 12 121-24 
 tians addressed were come, is called 
 Mount Zion ; and we can only understand by it 
 the highest beauty and joy and liberty and spiritual 
 excellence of which just men made perfect are 
 capable. The divine speaking in these last days, 
 as it is elsewhere said to these same 
 Christians, is by the Son. It is the Heb. i : i, 2 
 welling-up of sonship in the heart. 
 It gains ascendency as the divinely quickened soul, 
 given power by faith to become a son of God, goes 
 out to meet and ratifies the divine word. It is 
 attended by no terrors of imperative promulgation. 
 It inspires no sense of unyielding coercive author- 
 ity from without. It is the moral appeal which 
 accompanies the proclamation of 
 Jesus Christ as the merciful high Heb. i, 2 
 priest and Saviour. It is the 
 measure of duty which the quickened and loyal 
 soul places upon itself in the spirit of love. 
 
I06 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Such a speaking is distinguished from speaking 
 on the earth, not by such awe-inspiring accessories 
 as supernatural manifestations, astounding terrors, 
 power of hf e and death, but by its intimate aUiance 
 and co-operation with the soul itself. That which 
 distinguishes heaven is not its external elevation, 
 but its inwardness. It is in the soul. Its throne 
 is in the ideal self. It is the voice of our eternal 
 future giving us admonition and precept. When 
 God speaks from our inner and true self, and fires 
 us with anticipation, through faith, of our end in 
 him, he speaks from heaven. Thus appealed to, 
 our obedience is not consciously to an authoritative 
 voice, but to an aspiring impulse ; our dread is not 
 that of an outward infliction, but of an inward 
 defilement ; our anticipation is not that of an 
 awarded felicity, but of an attained purity and 
 wholeness. The heaven from which incentives 
 proceed, and where our treasure is placed, is in 
 our inner and true, yet ideal and future selves. 
 God so closely unites himself to us in the dis- 
 pensation of his grace, that our deepest self is the 
 very habitation of his throne. 
 
 Such a heaven is not simply 2, post mo7't em 1^X2^0.^ 
 
 of felicity. It is rather a realm of excellence and 
 
 peace with which we may enter into the closest 
 
 relations here and now. We do not have to wait 
 
 until death for it. It is so close to us that all the 
 
 truest impulses of our lives are drawn thence. If 
 
 not our bodies, at least our hearts 
 
 Ps. 91 : 1 may be in heaven. " The secret 
 
 place of the Most High," described 
 
 by the psalmist, is a place where even the earthly 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO7 
 
 saint may expect actually to dwell. To lay up 
 our treasure in heaven, therefore, is not simply to 
 have all our affections and anticipations centered 
 in dying and being at rest in paradise. Such a 
 condition of mind is natural only to the sick or the 
 aged. But our having a heavenly treasure is con- 
 sistent with the most whole-hearted interest in 
 earthly things. Yet, after all, the heavenly aspira- 
 tion is for that which is completed only in the 
 eternal future. It contrasts itself with the phari- 
 saic working to be seen of men, or with the avari- 
 cious heaping up of gold, as the treasuring for the 
 future contrasts with the hoarding for the present. 
 Heaven is a contrast to earth. We are to place 
 value on those excellencies which have an infinite 
 reach and outlook. Up above us those things are, 
 but up in a spiritual sense, that is, in the direction 
 of the highest rank of being. The treasure is an 
 attainment in spirituality ; laying it up is living in 
 behalf of the inner and true self as that self com- 
 prehends its own eternal consummation in the 
 presence of God. 
 
 It is, therefore, no unpractical or visionary thing 
 so to live that our truest affections are in heaven. 
 It is no indolent postponing of exertion after ex- 
 cellence to some effortless clime where goodness 
 shall be absorbed unconsciously. It is no selfish 
 anticipation of simply getting revenge for the 
 slights and hardships of life. The anticipation of 
 our heaven transfigures all the activity of life with 
 true and noble and eternal motive. It irradiates 
 all life's experiences, however sad, with the bright 
 hope of an eternal fruitage of good. 
 
I08 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 The particular value for which Jesus recom- 
 mends the heavenly treasure is, that it is durable 
 and inalienable. The moth and rust do not dis- 
 figure in heaven, nor do thieves dig 'through and 
 steal. The desirableness of the heavenly treasure 
 does not depend on a perishable beauty which men 
 .admire, nor upon a transferable property value 
 which men covet. Such attractions but tickle 
 the senses, or gratify the acquisitive propensities. 
 But the sense and appreciation of durableness is 
 acquired by forethought and reasoning. The 
 choosing of it in preference to immediate gratifica- 
 tion means the curbing of imperious passion and 
 the foregoing of temporary gratification for the 
 sake of a higher good. To do it involves living in 
 the higher nature — the region of judgment and fore- 
 thought and self-denial. The advice might almost 
 resolve itself into, '' Cultivate a sense for durable 
 values." It is this which distinguishes the mature 
 from the childish intellect, the civilized from the 
 savage, the conscientious from the unscrupulous 
 and vicious. Thus even in secular civilization 
 there is a progress toward the sense for the dur- 
 able. If we but couple with this elementary sense 
 the spiritual knowledge of what is most durable 
 and most inalienable — the perception of the one 
 thing needful — we have true obedience to the 
 Saviour's command, ^'Lay up for yourselves treas- 
 ures in heaven." 
 
 But the one element of durability and value more 
 important than immunity from the moth and the 
 thief, is the perpetual power of the heavenly treas- 
 ure to enlist and satisfy the heart. It always re- 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IO9 
 
 mains a treasure. '^ Where thy treasure is, there 
 will thy heart be also." Beauty of costly vesture 
 will by and by cease to give satisfaction. Value 
 of coveted riches must shortly be relinquished. It 
 is no treasure except so long as it is esteemed as 
 such. The heart makes its own treasure, and the 
 heart can get but temporary satisfaction in finite 
 things. This restless heart of ours, 
 in which God has set eternity, must EccI. 3 : ii 
 find something which it may serve, 
 and in which it can take delight forever ; and this 
 it can find only in heaven, where infinite values 
 dwell. After all, then, if we have found durable- 
 ness, we have found in our treasure nothing short 
 of infinity. Vanity thinks it finds value in human 
 admiration. Political economy discovers it only in 
 power to pass current in the market. But these 
 elements of value are for the earth alone. They 
 are only associated with ideas of personal distinc- 
 tion and property. The one element of value more 
 important than all is permanence; and the heavenly 
 treasure possesses this, because it is eternally glori- 
 ous, eternally inalienable, eternally satisfying and 
 precious. 
 
 2. But the Saviour now passes to 
 the thought of how this treasure, Y^r. 22-34 
 which has only durability to recom- 
 mend it, shall compete for men's appreciation on an 
 earthly stage. It does not seem to fill the same want 
 that the earthly treasure fills. It may have dura- 
 bility, but has it attracting power for the present } 
 Especially in a world where the necessities of the 
 body are very pressing, can the Saviour reasonably 
 
no MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 expect men to give up the anxious pursuit of neces- 
 sary riches for the sake of a possession which can- 
 not clothe the body or fill the mouth with food? 
 
 The vital question is the question 
 Ver. 22 23 ^^ appreciation. Will the man see 
 the treasure ? It is worthy of notice 
 how dependent is our spiritual development on the 
 eye. It is the eye rather than the reasoning pow- 
 ers on which the Saviour rests the capability -of 
 having a treasure at all. The eye is the organ of 
 the individual ; it acts only from the personal 
 standpoint. It does not, like the logical devices 
 of the reason, establish a common ground for col- 
 lective knowledge. All cultivating, therefore, of 
 the eye, bodily or spiritual, is a training in personal 
 character and power of appreciation. 
 
 The value of the treasure, then, is subjective. 
 Heavenly excellence may exist in all its glory, but 
 it sheds no light on the soul until that soul has 
 eyes to see it. *^The lamp of the body is the eye : 
 if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body 
 shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil thy 
 whole body shall be full of darkness." The great- 
 est darkness is the darkness of impenetrability — 
 the quenching of the light that is hi thee. The 
 word single, as applied to the eye, is important. As 
 the Saviour said in the Beatitudes that the pure — 
 that is, unmixed — in heart should see God, so here 
 he says that the single of eye shall see the infinite 
 treasure. I presume there is no reference to the 
 physiological fact that only as the rays of light 
 converge to a single point on the retina of the eye 
 is there a distinct image and clear vision. Such 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE III 
 
 an allusion would hardly have been possible with 
 the Saviour's auditors. But there is in the figure 
 an emphatic statement of the principle that only by 
 single spiritual allegiance is the vision for infinite 
 values kept clear. Moral obliquity will ever divide 
 and cloud the soul's sight. 
 
 The thought, therefore, naturally 
 passes to that of divided allegiance. Ver. 24 
 •' No man can serve two masters." If 
 a man would appreciate and rejoice in the heavenly 
 treasure, he must make God the absolute ruler of his 
 heart. His treasure is that which masters him and 
 calls out all his enthusiasm. And it must master him 
 in a different way from that in which mere acquis- 
 itiveness masters a man. The heavenly treasuring 
 and the earthly proceed from opposite impulses, 
 that can be mingled only at the cost of debasing 
 and neutralizing each other. *^ Ye cannot serve 
 God and mammon." 
 
 This principle of the incompatibility of God's 
 service and that of riches becomes somewhat diffi- 
 cult exactly to define when we undertake to reduce 
 it to practice. It does not mean that only those 
 who renounce all secular occupations and assume 
 a life of poverty can render acceptable service to 
 God. It does not mean that the earthly responsi- 
 bility is to be borne in any half-hearted manner, as 
 if God were jealous of all except absolutely neces- 
 sary interest, on the part of his children, in this 
 world and its prosperity. The best Christian may 
 be the most diligent in business, and the most 
 nobly eager for success in business, which is the 
 making of money. As Ruskin says : 
 
112 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 "All healthily minded people like making money — ought 
 to like it, and to enjoy the sensation of winning it ; but the 
 main object of their life is not money ; it is something bet- 
 ter than money." He goes on to say : " You cannot serve 
 two masters ; you must serve one or the other. If your 
 work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your 
 master, and the lord of work, who is God. But if your fee 
 is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, 
 and the lord of fee, who is the devil ; and not only the 
 devil, but the lowest of devils — the ' least erected fiend 
 that fell.' " 
 
 The principle is, that the longing for an infinite 
 reward and acquisitiveness, or self-seeking, are en- 
 tirely distinct motives. They cannot mingle. If 
 one serves God he must do so unselfishly, and with 
 utter absorption in a higher object than earthly 
 good. The natural impulse for acquisition — the 
 self-regarding impulse, which when given supreme 
 sway issues in mammon-worship — is absent from 
 the service of God. That which we have of it be- 
 longs to the life of this world, not to the distinctive 
 life of the sons of God. It is necessary to state 
 this, because we are contemplating the heavenly 
 kingdom in the light of a treasure. It is natural 
 to think of the laying of it up as a kind of higher 
 and wiser self-seeking. Let it be seen, then, that 
 the heavenly treasure is sought and valued by an 
 absolutely unselfish impulse, and one that is en- 
 tirely distinct from the self -regarding impulse, or 
 acquisitiveness. The value of that treasure is not 
 property value. Ideas of ownership, of self as an 
 end, of property, can be mingled with the service 
 of God only at the expense of debasing and de- 
 stroying the pure motive from which that service 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE II3 
 
 proceeds. Ye cannot serve God and mammon in 
 the one act. 
 
 Heaven, therefore, as the reward of the right- 
 eous, cannot be looked upon as a selfish acquisi- 
 tion. The motives with which one truly serves 
 God are not at all such motives as those with 
 which one works for wages. As to the happiness 
 of his soul in its disembodied state, the godly man 
 trusts his heavenly Father for that, and closes his 
 eyes in unselfish peace. Mere post mortem felicity 
 is not an object of striving; divine grace is the 
 assurance of future happiness, and no merit of the 
 man's own can make this any surer. But the re- 
 ward which he seeks and anticipates is the eternal 
 truth and holiness for its own sake. Eternal life 
 is the high goal and standard of all his strivings, 
 and this reward he begins to get when his inner 
 and deepest man is at harmony with infinite good- 
 ness, whether he has entered on the unseen exist- 
 ence or not. Nor is this personal excellence which 
 he seeks a surpassing trait whose value to him is 
 simply that it distinguishes him, and makes him con- 
 scious of merit. Entirely apart from the thought 
 of exclusive ownership, the eternal goodness is an 
 attainment which enlists his enthusiasm. 
 
 Now the objection may arise, that while this may 
 be very good theory, the carrying out of such an 
 unselfish principle is impracticable. You may 
 very likely question whether any one ever lived a 
 life of striving for some abstract truth or lofty at- 
 tainment without reference to the property value 
 or distinguishing merit of that attainment for him- 
 self. But does not some such thing often happen 
 
 H 
 
114 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 ill the realm of art and science ? The true artist 
 is absorbed in an ideal which he is seeking to 
 shadow forth on his canvas. Is his seeking a selfish 
 aspiration ? Some idea and vision of beauty has 
 possessed and mastered him. It is not simply for 
 the vulgar honor of being the exponent of that high 
 ideal to the world that he labors. Honor of course 
 is grateful, but the successful embodiment of his 
 ideal is a different and far less selfish gratification. 
 It is for his ideal's sake that he labors, and not for 
 his own. Moreover, he cannot worthily serve his 
 ideal and mammon at the same time. In so far as 
 he labors simply for his market he debases his art. 
 He knows that entire absorption in the highest 
 artistic excellence is a different thing from the 
 thrifty looking to immediate profit. He often has 
 to interrupt his highest labors for years, feeling the 
 regret and deprivation all the time, that he may 
 meet the wants of this life. This he calls pot- 
 boiling. If he becomes successful in bread-and- 
 butter art, and as a consequence begins to lose his 
 vision and longing for his higher ideal, he con- 
 demns himself. The truest artistic striving is 
 unselfish and entirely distinct from ambition or 
 avarice. 
 
 Truth too, apart from its immediate utility, may 
 become a treasure which will absorb the man's 
 whole desire and striving. The pursuit of it may 
 be for its own sake, and by an entirely unselfish 
 impulse. The great scientist, Agassiz, said that he 
 had no time to make money. Yet if he had chosen 
 he might have turned his scientific knowledge and 
 reputation to great account in enriching himself. 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE II5 
 
 Look again at the patient and laborious life of 
 Darwin. Here was a man who, possessed of in- 
 dependent means, devoted all his life and great 
 amounts of money to the patient investigation of 
 facts in nature. Was he seeking personal distinc- 
 tion for himself.'* Did the preciousness of his 
 treasure consist in the fact that it was his exclu- 
 sively .'* Can we charge him with acting all his life 
 on the mere vulgar desire to be the introducer of 
 novelties ? We should be unjust to him if we did. 
 Perhaps, on the other hand, we can hardly go so 
 far as to credit him with working distinctively and 
 solely for his fellow-men. He had caught sight of 
 truth and had fallen in love with it. He was seek- 
 ing truth for its own sake. To know facts, to be 
 able to classify and generalize the results of his 
 observation, was in itself his exceeding great re- 
 ward. Whatever we may think of the theory that 
 has grown out of his study, he has certainly en- 
 riched the world immensely with established facts. 
 And all this labor he undertook, we may believe, 
 not with the motive of making his fortune, or of 
 distinguishing himself, but simply for the sake of 
 knowing. The same may be said of the work of 
 Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Roentgen. 
 These looked for a treasure which the thief could 
 not get, and which was not subject to moth and rust. 
 Once secured, it was the possession of the world, and 
 its result of enlarging the world's intellectual ho- 
 rizon was a permanent one. Thus we see how, even 
 in secular affairs, a man may become engaged in 
 the pursuit of an abstract and unseen good, a 
 treasure which is immaterial and unfading:. 
 
Il6 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 In the pursuit of truth for its own sake, as in 
 the cultivation of the highest art, the man cannot 
 serve his high end and mammon at the same time. 
 God is hght, or truth, and as truth he can be wor- 
 shiped only with a single allegiance. The teacher 
 who is penetrated simply with the thought that he 
 must keep his position and make his account by 
 teaching what his employers prescribe is incapac- 
 itated, so far as that thought rules him, for the in- 
 dependent search for truth. In fact, it is not his 
 business as an employed teacher to prosecute orig- 
 inal investigations ; it is to diffuse that knowledge 
 which is regarded as established. Original research 
 can hold out no promise of enrichment for this life. 
 Subserviency to mammon dims the eyesight for the 
 infinite value of undiscovered truth. The same 
 applies to all that is of infinite reach and precious- 
 ness, as contrasted with what is under finite com- 
 prehension and control so as to be simply useful 
 for the life. If you would have its light shine upon 
 you, keep the light of the body clear. If you would 
 make the infinite your mastering enthusiasm and 
 treasure, serve it with a single allegiance. Do not 
 mingle thrift with devotion to the ideal, whether it 
 be in the realm of beauty or truth or moral excel- 
 lence. It will debase it ; it will darken the eye of 
 your soul. ''Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
 There is no doubt then, that the entirely un- 
 selfish pursuit of the infinite treasure may become 
 
 more attractive and engaging than 
 Ver. 25-34 ^^^ amassing of earthly riches. But 
 
 Jesus now turns to those upon whom 
 earthly striving makes its fiercest demand, namely. 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE llj 
 
 the necessitous. Can we expect these to remit 
 their anxiety for the sake of a treasure which has 
 only durability to recommend it ? We might say : 
 *' It is easy enough to talk about striving for an 
 unseen and permanent treasure if we are so situ- 
 ated that we do not have to give thought to the 
 question of maintenance. But as long as our 
 earthly life has to be passed in the getting of those 
 things which are consumed in the using, so that 
 we have to get them over and over again as we use 
 them up, it is difficult to find any pursuit more 
 fiercely engaging than this. How then can the 
 service of the heavenly Master be so single-hearted 
 as a clear vision of his glory requires } " 
 
 Let it be understood, that in speaking of the ac- 
 quisitive impulse as a contrast to that enthusiasm 
 by which one seeks the kingdom of God, I do not 
 mean to imply that this is a sinful impulse and that 
 all the life of acquisition must be replaced by an 
 entirely unselfish striving for unseen good. The 
 kingdom of heaven is not a new profession or occu- 
 pation which excludes and renders unlawful those 
 pursuits by which we acquire wealth, but it is a 
 leaven which pervades and ennobles all our earthly 
 care and labor. The eager and even absorbed pur- 
 suit of earthly necessities remains, on the level of 
 this world, as the inert lump into which the leaven 
 of the kingdom is placed until the whole is leav- 
 ened, giving us, as the result in our active life, not 
 all leaven, that is, all unworldly rapture, but a leav- 
 ened lump of victorious striving, having its earthly 
 body of present achievement, and its heavenly soul 
 of eternal life. 
 
Il8 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 The earnest striving for the things necessary to 
 the body is presupposed. People do not have to 
 be commanded to do this. Necessity will drive 
 them. But the life of the kingdom of heaven in 
 the soul will mitigate the anxiety of that striving. 
 Concerning these very pressing necessities the 
 Saviour says, '* Be not anxious." And the very 
 potent consideration which lightens anxiety is the 
 truth that the God whom we serve is a loving 
 Father. He is not only an infinite Glory of Holi- 
 ness in whom our souls may become absorbed, but 
 he is an infinite Heart of Love who cares for us, 
 knows our needs, and may be trusted to provide. 
 The life of aspiration is also a life of trust. As 
 the Christian trusts God without stipulation for the 
 happiness of his soul beyond the grave^ and mean- 
 while goes on undistracted in his striving for near- 
 ness to his purity, so also he trusts the same God 
 for the supply of whatever may be necessary here 
 below ; and thus his honest labor for a maintenance 
 is made no less assiduous and prudent, and at the 
 same time far more confident and hopeful. Our 
 heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air, which 
 neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and we 
 may call ourselves much more worthy of a holy and 
 loving Being's regard. He clothes the lilies, which 
 neither toil nor spin, in such a beauty as Solomon 
 in all his glory never equaled ; and if he is worthy 
 of our faith he cannot but do much more for us. 
 If things go by the disposal of an intelligent and 
 loving Being here below, then trust in him and 
 conformity to his nature is not only the highest 
 good, but the best condition of any prosperity which 
 
THE HEAVENLY TREASURE IlQ 
 
 a true heart would be willing to accept. Anxiety 
 is utterly useless ; it cannot add to our stature one 
 cubit. But the appreciation and anticipation of the 
 heavenly treasure, while the direct condition of the 
 truest good, is also a confidence in God which 
 keeps necessity from overbearing our integrity and 
 overwhelming us in discouragement. It makes the 
 person sure that the highest abstract good is not 
 only integrity and purity, but that these are the 
 only good which will pay in the long run. 
 
 That which we should want most, even in the 
 midst of our earthly necessities, is the kingdom and 
 righteousness of God. Whatever else yields, let not 
 that. Seek that as of first importance. For the 
 rest, let us in our most prudent striving trust God. 
 With the integrity and love which his kingdom pro- 
 duces in the life, we shall be surest of providential 
 supply. It is not the most ravenous beast that 
 gets the most constant supply of food. It is not 
 the thief that in the long run gets the best living. 
 It is the man who by his unselfish goodness lays 
 humble ones all around him under the greatest 
 debt of gratitude who is surest of human succor 
 in his helplessness. It is the honest and true man 
 who is surest of forbearance and sympathy when 
 he experiences reverses. ** The 
 young lions do lack, and suffer hun- Ps. 34 : 10 
 ger : but they that seek the Lord 
 shall not want any good thing." ^^ All these 
 things " which we need are far surer to come if 
 we seek first the kingdom and the righteousness 
 of God, than if our first and supreme motive is the 
 conscienceless scheming to get on. 
 
I20 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Even our earthly striving will be 
 Ver. 34 most efficient when unclouded by 
 
 anxiety. Prudence would dictate 
 that we should not let the anxiety of to-morrow 
 crowd itself upon to-day. '* The morrow will be 
 anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the 
 evil thereof." Even in our most absorbed concern 
 for the earthly need, we strive best in the con- 
 fidence of the kingdom of God. There may be 
 no mingling of the service of God with that of 
 
 mammon, but at the same time god- 
 I Tim. 4 : 8 liness is profitable for all things, 
 
 having promise of the life which 
 now is, and of that which is to come. Thus the 
 Saviour who prescribes a morality of the highest 
 idealism is so mindful of our legitimate earthly 
 needs as to show us the path of the truest worldly 
 prudence. The kingdom of heaven is a treasure 
 worthy of our supreme effort both now and here- 
 after. 
 
VI 
 
 CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 
 
Matt 7 : 1-12 
 
VI 
 
 Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye 
 judge, ye shall be judged : and with what measure ye mete, it 
 shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote 
 that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in 
 thine own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me 
 cast out the mote out of thine eye ; and lo, the beam is in thine 
 own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first 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 your 
 pearls before swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, 
 and turn and rend you. 
 
 Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
 and it shall be 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, who, if his son 
 shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone ; or if he shall ask 
 for a fish, will 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 ? All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do unto you, even so do ye also unto them : for this is the law and 
 the prophets. 
 
 In this section of the Mountain Sermon Jesus 
 is giving advice in view of a certain great fact of 
 human nature from which we cannot free our- 
 selves. It is a fact which hardly attracts the 
 common attention because we rarely think what it 
 would be to be without it. Yet it is a fact which 
 it is our duty, just as far as we can, to rise above, 
 at least to take into account in all our judgments 
 of character, and make the very considerable cor- 
 rections which are required in every estimation of 
 
 123 
 
124 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 desert on account of it. Jesus sees the fact clearly, 
 and knows how to lay down rules in view of it, 
 because as the Son of God he is above it. 
 
 This fact is our individuality. I am so shut 
 within myself that you cannot enter into my men- 
 tal state or consciousness, so as to realize exactly 
 how things seem to me. You are shut within 
 yourself in the same way. All my experiences 
 are mine in such a way that the full consciousness 
 of them cannot be imparted. All your experiences 
 are in the same \vay exclusively yours. Whatever 
 you or I think or do, we constantly take into ac- 
 count ourselves as thinking or doing it. We do 
 nothing impersonally ; there is in every mental act 
 the feeling of ourselves as performing it. Any 
 such thing as moral character would be impossible 
 without this fact. Unless I knew what motives 
 are worth, and what I am as affected by motives 
 and doing deeds, I should perform no moral judg- 
 ment on myself while I am doing deeds, and should 
 have nothing in me on which condemnation or 
 approval could be based. Good or evil could not 
 belong to my actions. This individuality, this 
 consciousness of ourselves as doing what we do, is 
 what makes our moral life possible. Yet the fact 
 that each of us is conscious of himself as of no 
 one else is a fact which incapacitates us for some 
 things in the spiritual world, and a fact which must 
 therefore be taken into account in our moral 
 judgments. 
 
 We do not look at ourselves or our actions from 
 an impartial viewpoint. This is emphatically true 
 when we compare ourselves with others. Each 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I 25 
 
 of US judges from a point within himself. Any 
 other one seeing the same thing sees it differently, 
 because it is from within himself, and with the 
 consciousness of his relation to it, that he views it. 
 So it comes to pass that the comparative merits of 
 men are judged exclusively from separate apart- 
 ments. It is as if each of us saw a wide landscape 
 from a small aperture. Each of us sees it differ- 
 ently, and none of us is competent to describe it 
 as a whole. It is evident that if there is to be 
 any true judging of character it must be by some 
 one who can view it without the confining effect 
 of this individuality of ours. Some one who is 
 able to judge himself in comparison with others, 
 from a point of view superior to both sides, alone 
 can be the judge of the world. If we could only 
 get above ourselves and see things as God sees 
 them, then we should be competent to say whether 
 I am better than you, or you are better than I. 
 But we never get entirely above ourselves. We 
 always remain individuals, viewing life from the 
 personal basis which is natural to us. Under the 
 influence of the spirit of Christ we make progress 
 toward getting upon the higher plane for seeing. 
 Just in proportion as God's Spirit possesses us we 
 have some conception of how we and all men look 
 in God's sight. When, indeed, we come to see 
 ourselves as God sees us, we call it conviction of 
 sin ; and it is this profound sense of sin which 
 makes us ask for God's forgiveness. Yet there 
 always remains the fact that we are individuals — 
 a fact which, with all our effort, we never entirely 
 rise above. 
 
126 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Now this fact I have described as simply as I 
 can. Perhaps it may seem a somewhat abstract 
 conception to introduce into this very practical dis- 
 course of the Saviour's ; but this fact is the basis 
 and presupposition of what Jesus has to say here, 
 and therefore must be pointed out that we may 
 understand his words. We may as well go on and 
 find a name for this psychological fact of human 
 nature; for if we have it named we shall get along 
 the better in dealing with it. We will call it ego- 
 ism — that is, the influence of the egOy the I, that 
 lies at the basis of each human character. This 
 egoism shuts each of us up to his own individual 
 view of things, and thus makes his personal judg- 
 ments too narrow to be universally true. 
 
 It is evident that if any one is to judge the world 
 rightly, and pronounce just sentence on it, he must 
 be able to extricate himself from the influence of 
 this ego. He must be able not only to see my side 
 as I see it, and at the same time to see your side as 
 you see it, but he must be above us both, so as to 
 see things as neither of us sees them. He must be 
 able to look down upon us from a point above the 
 individual entirely. He must be able to judge the 
 matter, not as it affects either of us, nor as it 
 affects him personally, but as it affects the truth 
 of things. Thus viewed, my dealing with you, 
 which may look very badly as seen with your eyes, 
 or your dealing with me, which may have made me 
 very indignant, shall be judged by one who enters 
 with infinite nearness into the feeling of both of 
 us in the matter, and yet at the same time sees it 
 all from the height of an infinite equality of justice 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 12/ 
 
 such as you and I never perfectly attain. The 
 Judge of all the earth must be more than an indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Jesus professes to be able to judge in this higher 
 way. He sees us from God's viewpoint because he 
 is the Son of God. He sees from our own because 
 he is the Son of man, the general man, the spirit 
 of humanity. He says that this fact of his being 
 the Son of man is why God has given 
 him power to execute judgment. He John 5 : 27, 30 
 says too, that if he judges, his judg- 
 ment is just, because he seeks not his own will, but 
 the will of him that sent him ; that is, he has God's 
 purposes and God's way of looking 
 at things. In still another place he John 8 : 14 
 says very suggestively that though 
 he bears witness of himself his testimony is true, 
 because he knows whence he comes and whithei 
 he goes; which seems to indicate that he is vividly 
 and practically conscious of that infinite aspect of 
 his personality which surrounds his present exist- 
 ence as an eternal origin and destiny, — that greater 
 life which is higher than mere indi- 
 viduality, — so that, even though he Cf. 2 Cor. 5 : 16 
 became flesh, or individual, he judges 
 not after the flesh ; even his account of himself is 
 preserved from the narrowing and vitiating effects 
 of egoism. Such a judge have we ; and we can 
 rejoice on being judged by this wonderful Being, 
 for we know that we shall be rightly appreciated. 
 We shall be more justly appreciated than we ap- 
 preciate ourselves, and far more justly than any 
 other man appreciates us. 
 
128 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 But think what such judgment means. I say 
 we shall be more justly appreciated than we appre- 
 ciate ourselves. If we so live that our only basis 
 for any kind of self-approval, or even self-respect, 
 is our warped and bigoted egoism, then judged 
 from a divine point of view we shall be condemned. 
 We are condemned, indeed, whenever we come to 
 see ourselves from the divine side. It carries the 
 
 sharpest consciousness of sin to our 
 John i6 : 8 hearts. It convicts us '' in respect 
 
 of sin," and we call it the work of 
 the Holy Spirit. But if we so live and believe 
 and love that it is our highest joy to be judged by 
 universal and divine judgment, and we know that 
 the judgment cannot destroy our self-respect, be- 
 cause we derive that self-respect, not from our own 
 merit, but from the free grace, or unmerited favor, 
 of God, then the judgment cannot harm us any. 
 We welcome it. We rejoice in it. We want God's 
 
 thought of us to penetrate us fully. 
 Ps. 139 : 23, 24 With the psalmist, we ask him to 
 
 search us and know our hearts, to 
 try us and know our thoughts, to see if there be 
 any way of wickedness in us, and to lead us in the 
 way of eternity. The higher, the divine and im- 
 partial judgment, is what we long for with unspeak- 
 able longing. It gives us all our sense of worth, 
 for it plants us ever more firmly on the divine 
 grace and pardon. 
 
 Now Jesus says that this fact of egoism unfits 
 us to be judges of others in comparison with our- 
 selves. Any general judgment into which others 
 enter as elements of the problem is above us as 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I 29 
 
 individuals. We cannot be entirely sure of doing 
 it with perfect justice. Of course, we must per- 
 form some moral judgments on our own actions 
 within ourselves. As we have seen, there can be 
 no moral character without it. But in relation to 
 others, and especially when our personal feeling 
 enters into the problem, the Saviour says ** Judge 
 not." Refrain from it. Be afraid 
 that your egoism will vitiate the re- Matt. 7 \ 1 
 suits. Be cautious, for fear you will 
 be unjust and uncharitable. In order to be a real 
 judge you must stand on a level above individu- 
 ality as the Saviour does. This you may do to a 
 degree, but it will always be imperfectly, so that 
 the work you do in that kind will always have 
 elements of injustice which you cannot see. 
 
 If, then, we cannot entirely rise to the level of 
 God's judgments and abide there, we can only do 
 the next best thing. We can learn as far as pos- 
 sible to consider things from each other's point of 
 view. Not the level that is higher than either of 
 us is entirely attainable by individuals, but the po- 
 sition that is common to both of us. By the love 
 of my neighbor I may learn to weigh aright his 
 moral judgments. My egoism must remain, but 
 I can broaden it so as in a sense to include his. 
 I may not see the landscape in wide-open view 
 from the high post of observation, but I may see it 
 from a multitude of different restricted points, and 
 by the spirit of Christ be able to form a pretty good 
 conception of it. This shall affect my action and 
 make me charitable ; but even thus I do not pre- 
 sume in any extensive way to set up as a judge. 
 
 T 
 
130 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Remaining individuals then, as we must, we need 
 to apply certain correctives to our wa3^s of looking 
 at things. If we insist on seeing only our side of 
 any affair between us and our neighbor, we shall 
 not be able to get at even so correct a view as is 
 attainable within the bounds of our individuality. 
 We shall think only of our own selfish wishes, and 
 shall be censorious because our neighbor does not 
 recognize them as we do. We shall feel like de- 
 manding recognition for merits of which we may 
 be conscious, but which have never come abroad 
 so as to do anybody any good. It will be the great 
 / going forth into the world, and demanding, the 
 same respect from other men which it has for 
 itself. It will be the man, not conscious of his 
 faults by which other men suffer, because he has 
 ways of excusing them to himself, and yet at the 
 same time well alive to the faults of his neighbor, 
 without his neighbor's excusing consciousness — 
 and this man demanding that all estimations of his 
 own and his neighbor's relative merits shall be by 
 his measure and no other. Thus acting, men be- 
 come selfish and oppressive. They judge harshly. 
 They condemn cruelly. There is no getting on 
 common ground so as to compose any difficulty 
 which may arise between neighbors. Men must, 
 therefore, learn to use certain correctives in their 
 estimation of affairs between themselves and their 
 neighbors. Just as the astronomer cannot get to 
 the center of the universe to observe the heav- 
 enly bodies in their true relations, and hence has 
 to make corrections from his standpoint on the 
 earth for what he calls parallax, so we in adjusting 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I3I 
 
 our relations to our neighbors must take account of 
 that parallax which is the result of our egoism. 
 
 The first corrective consideration 
 is the fact that we must submit to Ver, 1, 2 
 the same judgment that we give. 
 Our neighbor has his way of viewing things, as 
 well as we, and we shall be judged by him as we 
 judge him. ^^ With what judgement ye judge, ye 
 shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, 
 it shall be measured to you again." My own deal- 
 ings I have estimated by my standard, but let me 
 remember that these must go through the opera- 
 tion again according to some one's else standard. 
 If I have been merciful, I have done much to make 
 others merciful to me. If I have been strictly fair, 
 I have taken the surest course to secure fair play 
 for myself. If I have tried to estimate and act 
 upon matters as they would appear to my brother, 
 I have forestalled his judgment of me. I expect 
 only that which it is his disposition to give. That 
 is all I demand. I refrain from 
 judging, and I am not judged. I i Cor. 11:31 
 measure with liberal allowances for 
 diverse views, and I receive the same measure. I 
 give good measure, pressed down and running over, 
 and men can hardly help giving me the same. 
 
 Have you ever met men who have a perpetual 
 grievance against society ? Some men always have 
 something to be dissatisfied about. Somebody is 
 forever getting unfair advantages over them, or 
 trying to crowd them to the wall. It seems as if 
 they happened in life to fall in with the worst lot 
 of neighbors any one ever had. Their grocer and 
 
1^2 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 their butcher cheat them, and their plumber grows 
 rich by them, and the government taxes them 
 to death, and the whole world is banded against 
 them. They are all the time fighting a hostile 
 alliance and beating back attack. Now you do 
 not hear all men complain in this way. What 
 is the matter.'^ It is largely in the man himself. 
 He is constantly demanding and expecting as 
 his right more than his neighbors can give. He 
 looks only on his own side of things, and thus he 
 seems to himself to be the worst-treated of men. 
 He suspects everybody, and where he suspects he 
 finds. Indeed, it is not unlikely that many of his 
 neighbors feel as if a man so exacting were their 
 lawful prey, if they can only get the better of him. 
 They know him to be on the watch for the best 
 
 hold upon them, and human nature 
 Man. 26 : 52 prompts them to retaliate. Jesus 
 
 says, ** They that take the sword 
 shall perish with the sword." When you are 
 armed you must expect to be treated as an armed 
 man. But let this man who is so ill-treated be- 
 come a merciful, charitable, generous man, he w^ill 
 soon find then that his neighbors have become 
 different from what they were. It is not only 
 because they are actually different toward him, 
 but because he sees them differently. He applies 
 the corrective to his observation of things, namely, 
 that it is only fair that he should be judged by the 
 judgment with which he judges ; and he finds that 
 the correction evens up the equation, and makes 
 his estimation of himself and his neighbor much 
 more just and satisfactory. 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 33 
 
 Then Jesus points out the ab- 
 surdity of a man with a beam of Ver. 3-5 
 wood in his own eye, going to his 
 brother and saying, '* Let me take the mote out 
 of thine eye." The saying has become a proverb. 
 It is portable ; we can carry it in our memory and 
 introduce it as a formula into our moral figuring. 
 '^ 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." 
 
 The first corrective for egoism 
 therefore is, Remember that you Ver. 6 
 must submit to the same judgment 
 which you give. Now the next piece of advice in 
 view of the fact that each of us has a different in- 
 dividuality is, that we are to consider the character 
 of the receiver when we bestow anything. This 
 fact that we each have a different outlook makes it 
 impossible to bestow gifts indiscriminately and ex- 
 pect a uniformity of effect. What is a grateful 
 present to one may be an insult to another. What 
 is kindly meant may rightly produce offense when 
 seen through the other's eyes. The habit of hav- 
 ing a living, active sympathy with others, by which 
 we may justly divine their feelings, will guard us, 
 not only from harsh judgments, but from stupid 
 benefactions. You have seen people with the 
 kindest hearts and the most unselfish dispositions 
 who are always getting somebody offended with 
 them. They do kindnesses stupidly, and without 
 considering what the kindnesses are to the receiver. 
 Closely akin to this is that not uncommon fatuity 
 in society of introducing pleasantries or witticisms 
 
134 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 which to another than the speaker's preoccupied 
 perception are ridiculous or embarrassing, a fault 
 which results from a deficiency in the sense of 
 humor, which is only another name for lack of 
 sympathy. Still another form of egoistic stupidity 
 is the dull iteration in public address of arguments 
 or observations totally removed from the sphere of 
 thought to which the hearer is accustomed. Such 
 didactic effort may result from a genuine desire to 
 impart a benefit, and yet the person's absorbed 
 egoism keeps him from getting on common ground 
 with the person to be taught. That which we call 
 culture and good-breeding has as one of its surest 
 signs the disposition which can enter into all shades 
 of feeling, and consider what shall make those 
 happy around us. We call this trait tact. It is a 
 trait well worthy of being encouraged as it is in 
 the Saviour's Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 The second corrective, then, in view of the fact 
 of egoism, is that we are to consider the position 
 of the receiver when we give. This also is stated 
 in proverbial form, and in such a striking way that 
 none can fail to remember it. ** Give not that 
 which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your 
 pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample 
 them under their feet, and turn and rend you." 
 
 But now a third truth comes in, 
 Ver. 7-12 which is simply the other side of 
 what has just been said. All through 
 this discourse on egoism runs the principle. Turn 
 about and apply your rule from the other side. So 
 this rule, '' Give not that w^hich is holy unto the 
 dogs," is to be turned about. We must apply it 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 35 
 
 to ourselves. If those who do not appreciate nor 
 desire them are not to have unwise gifts from us, 
 remember that it would be equally unwise for God 
 to give us spiritual gifts if we do not appreciate 
 nor want them. This is especially true of the 
 highest gifts. We may expect God 
 to give his best things — and Luke Luke ii : 13 
 has it, his Spirit — only as we want 
 them and ask for them. We receive only as we 
 appreciate. This is the rule we are to heed in 
 giving : we must expect to abide by the same in 
 receiving. 
 
 *'Ask," says the Saviour, *^ and it 
 shall be given you ; seek, and ye Ver. 7, 8 
 shall find ; knock, and it shall be 
 opened unto you." This may be taken as a prom- 
 ise that the one who asks shall receive ; but it is 
 especially to be taken, as I believe, as a statement 
 of the condition of receiving, as much as to say : 
 '' How can you expect to receive unless you ask } 
 You are not fit for the gift unless you want it. It 
 is the one who asketh that receiveth, the one who 
 seeketh that findeth. If you do not desire the 
 things given, you would run the risk of being like 
 the swine before which pearls are cast. You would 
 be none the better for the gift, and it would be 
 unwise in God or man to give it to you." 
 
 This is true especially in spiritual things ; and 
 in these the saying as a promise is also abundantly 
 true. Those who ask for the highest and truest 
 gifts will receive them. In the kingdom of God 
 we are in a kingdom where the very desiring of the 
 thing brings it. The desiring fits us for the thing 
 
136 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 desired, and when we are fitted for the Spirit we 
 hav^e it. That is what it is to have God's Spirit, 
 namely, to be where we want God in all his good- 
 ness to rule us. To want the Holy Spirit is to 
 want what. the Father is waiting to give. It is 
 only the sign of appreciation — hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness — which he is waiting to see. 
 The very wishing is the condition of getting. 
 
 The kingdom of God is the kingdom of prayer. 
 It is the kingdom where things are got for the 
 asking. In the kingdom of nature, on the other 
 hand, we often find outward conditions inexorably 
 opposed to our receiving. Under the action of 
 laws of economics and of society we often find un- 
 fortunate hindrances which frustrate all our plan- 
 ning. In this lower realm of God's ruling the only 
 way to be fortunate is to conform to unchangeable 
 laws. If we are debarred from doing this we must 
 submit to the consequences. There is no begging 
 off. We must console ourselves with some higher 
 good which comes in another way. We may trust 
 God for what we need. He knoweth that we have 
 need of these things. But to be miraculously free 
 from laws of nature and of society is more than 
 we can expect. Howbeit, a higher good is in store 
 for us, which we may have for the asking. It is 
 nothing less than the blessedness of the Beatitudes. 
 Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness, and it shall be an abundant recompense for 
 the lack of earthly good fortune. In this higher 
 realm gifts are brought by prayer. Prayer is but 
 the appropriating of the gift. The spirit makes its 
 own blessedness by its faith and its earnest desire. 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 13/ 
 
 That is to say, as we go up higher in spiritual 
 things, we come more and more into a region 
 where the spirit makes its own world by its adap- 
 tation and desire. We look forward to heaven as 
 a place of perfect adaptations. It is the place 
 where the spirit has become perfectly free ; it 
 wants what it has, and it has w^hat it wants. The 
 progress of all development is toward the suprem- 
 acy of free spirit. The lower creation is entirely 
 under the rule of necessity. It moves as it is 
 moved upon. The beast begins to show some 
 working of freedom in its actions ; but this is 
 under the bondage of the species, so that he 
 makes no progress, nor do we account his actions 
 responsible. The man has, to a responsible de- 
 gree, freedom of will, being centrally that created 
 form of spirit which we call soul ; and yet with the 
 influences and limitations of his environment his 
 freedom is not perfect. Much that he wants he 
 must go without, and often his w^ished-for develop- 
 ment is hindered by adverse fortune. He frets 
 under the hard conditions of his life. He is 
 always wanting more, and he is conscious of a 
 hard necessity which keeps him down, so that he 
 cannot be all that he desires to be. He often finds 
 himself in conditions which are not adapted to his 
 nature and tastes, and yet he can only chafe un- 
 der them. 
 
 But there is a higher realm into which he can 
 enter by prayer. This is the realm in which his 
 spirit lays hold of its freedom. It is the kingdom 
 of heaven. He may have it by wanting it. He 
 asks, and he receives ; he seeks, and he finds. 
 
138 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 Thus as he goes on higher and higher in spiritual 
 things, he makes his own world. All things work 
 together for his good. May we not believe that 
 heaven is the world where all these truths are fully 
 realized, and w^e find ourselves perfectly adapted 
 to our world, because our spirits have created their 
 world by what they are and seek ? We need not 
 be solicitous about our surroundings in heaven. 
 Only be solicitous as to what you are, and your 
 surroundings will be simply what you desire as 
 sons of the heavenly Father. You desire above 
 all things his Spirit, and this he is more than pa- 
 rentally willing to give. 
 
 The disposition of our heavenly 
 Ver. 11 Father assures us in this matter. 
 There is a little realm of things here 
 below which is something like heaven in this re- 
 gard. It is the loving family. If we are fathers, 
 we know how it is. Do we give a stone to our child 
 who asks for bread ? And yet we are evil, and do 
 not always act in perfect love even toward our 
 children. Shall not God much more give good 
 things to them that ask him ? It is thus that 
 Jesus teaches us, by the tenderest and most un- 
 selfish relation into which we can enter, to con- 
 ceive in some degree what is our heavenly Father's 
 disposition toward his children who seek the high- 
 est things. 
 
 But all this is in accordance with the principle 
 with which the discourse set out, that it is what 
 we are individually which regulates our receiving, 
 whether in judgment of character or in good gifts. 
 It is what the recipient is which must regulate our 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM 1 39 
 
 giving to him. Jesus is simply stopping for a mo- 
 ment to point out that world where the principle 
 applies perfectly. The world of free spirit is that 
 world. All men are not treated alike ; all are not 
 judged alike, nor do all receive good gifts alike. 
 Yet this discrimination is no ^* respect of persons" : 
 men receive as they are fitted to receive. It is 
 their egoism which makes the difference — that is 
 to say, the fact that they have their way of looking 
 at things which no one else has, nor can any one 
 perfectly enter into it so as to share their con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 In dealing with our fellow-men, however, we 
 cannot act just as God does. That is, we cannot 
 always bestow just as we see the person deserves 
 and can appreciate ; for we do not see clearly into 
 his heart. God who sees our hearts with perfect 
 clearness can give to his children his best gifts 
 just as they are fitted for them. But we with our 
 fellow-men can only do the next best thing. And 
 here comes the general rule which, 
 in view of our inability to dispense Yqt. 12 
 absolute justice, is to regulate our 
 conduct with others. It is the Golden Rule which 
 solves the difficulties of egoism — a rule so true 
 and so just that no man can help admiring it, 
 whether he puts it in practice or not. If all men 
 acted in accordance with it society would be far 
 less unstable and apprehensive than it is. ''As ye 
 would that men should do to you, 
 do ye also to them likewise " — this Luke 6 : 31 
 sums up all that is excellent in the 
 law and the prophets. Think how you would like 
 
140 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 to be dealt with if you were in your neighbor's 
 stead. Let imagination and sympathy enter into 
 the problem. ^' Put yourself in his place," and you 
 shall find all these difficulties between one individ- 
 uality and another solved, as well as reciprocal hu- 
 man judgments, distinguished from absolute jus- 
 tice, can solve them. 
 
 We may see this fact, that the progress of the 
 world in real goodness since Christ's time, as Mr. 
 Lecky has pointed out, has been marked by the 
 development of the imagination. I mean that 
 imagination which makes men sympathetic, that 
 imagination which makes them shudder at cruelty 
 because they have learned to put themselves in the 
 injured being's place. It is the working, in short, 
 of the spirit of the Golden Rule which brings the 
 world toward the victorious kingdom of Christ. 
 The most unmistakable sign of advancement in the 
 world is that brutality is gradually dying out. It 
 is banished to the secret places and to the lower 
 ranks of life. Men learn to shudder and pity, and 
 they are not ashamed of it. Under the influence 
 of Christianity the public gladiator contest and the 
 wild beast fight fell into desuetude long ago. It 
 is difficult to imagine a state of society in which 
 the most cultivated people, even tenderly nurtured 
 ladies, exulted in scenes of carnage which would 
 make our blood run cold. People do not take de- 
 light in cruelty as they once did. War is not 
 looked upon as a normal state of things. The 
 duel is ridiculed ; the pugilistic encounter evades 
 the police. Even the beasts are counted as having 
 rights, and we form and maintain our societies for 
 
CORRECTIVES OF EGOISM I4I 
 
 the prevention of cruelty to animals. A thousand 
 different ways of relieving distress, preventing ig- 
 norance, vagrancy, suffering, and crime, enlist the 
 sympathies of men. This is destined to be so 
 more and more ; and it is all in proportion as men 
 cultivate the imagination so as to pity others, as 
 they put themselves in their place. 
 
 Yet we must pray that this Golden Rule may 
 yet fill a much wider place in society. Far from 
 perfect is the submission of men to its mild sway. 
 Let us for our part act in all our dealings accord- 
 ing to its guidance. We shall solve the difficulties 
 of our reciprocal relations as individuals if we 
 always remember to imagine how we should like 
 it if positions were reversed, and as we would that 
 men should do unto us, to do even so unto them. 
 
VII 
 THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 
 
Matt 7 : 13-27 
 
VII 
 
 Enter ye in by the narrow gate : for wide is the gate, and 
 broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they 
 that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate and straitened the 
 way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it. 
 
 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's 
 clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye 
 shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
 thistles ? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but 
 the corrupt tree bringeth 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 down 
 and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know 
 them. 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 will say to me in that day. 
 Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name 
 cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works ? -And 
 then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me 
 ye that work iniquity. Every one therefore which heareth these 
 words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man 
 which built his house upon the 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 the rock. And 
 every one that heareth these words 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 smote upon that house ; and it fell : and great 
 was the fall thereof. 
 
 Our Saviour began this Sermon on the Mount 
 by throwing open the gates of the kingdom of 
 heaven so that any one could enter in. The very 
 humblest and least meritorious could possess him- 
 self of the righteousness described in the Beati- 
 tudes. It was a righteousness which came by 
 
 K 145 
 
146 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 aspiring and reaching upward, rather than by 
 meriting. He who was conscious of his poverty 
 of spirit, who kept his heart single and pure, who 
 longed after righteousness, who made something 
 higher than the praise of men the test of his god- 
 liness, was in the way of the kingdom of heaven. 
 How hospitable and accessible seems that kingdom 
 after we have read and appropriated the words : 
 ''Blessed are the poor in spirit," ''Blessed are they 
 that mourn," "Blessed are they that hunger and 
 thirst after righteousness," "Blessed are the 
 meek." To open the way for such righteousness 
 as this is to make the kingdom of heaven a 
 kingdom of grace ; it is to found all heavenly 
 attainment on the principle that the just shall 
 live by faith — that is, inward and trustful cleav- 
 ing to eternal good — rather than by the deeds of 
 the law. 
 
 But now an apparently inconsist- 
 Ver. 13 14 ^^^ ^^^^ presents itself. The way 
 of life so generously thrown open is 
 really a narrow way. But few find it. The broad 
 way to destruction, on the contrary, is the way that 
 is thronged. This is a fact for which Christian 
 doctrine is not responsible. Not the Bible alone 
 recognizes it, but all religions, and all enlightened 
 observation. It is one of the commonplaces of 
 human thought that the way to real excellence is 
 trodden by but few. We see multitudes of men 
 in all parts of our populous world whose lives em- 
 body those elements of falsehood, hatred, animal- 
 ity, and vice which we know cannot produce bless- 
 edness. We see many lives which are kept only 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 1 47 
 
 by temporary hindrances from a natural fate of 
 fiery ruin. Despite the universal and hospitable 
 truth that the poor in spirit may evermore have 
 eternal life for the wishing and believing, but few 
 enter and pursue the upward path, while the broad 
 way that leads to destruction is full of heedless 
 travelers. 
 
 One great reason for this very general fact is 
 that the many never seek the way of life. They 
 are never awakened to the desire for the goodness 
 and blessedness of heaven. They are drifting; 
 they are going a road which it requires no moral 
 effort to pursue. The many who have no high 
 purpose, who see no eternal goal to strive for, who 
 abandon themselves to their natural and baser de- 
 sires, easily travel the broad road. No one has 
 had to make effort to get them started in this 
 way. No one has had to drill and discipline 
 them in the lore of wickedness. It has seemed 
 to come of itself ; these men have been left to 
 go the road which, without moral training and 
 self-control, their low^er self naturally takes. They 
 have not found the strait gate because they have 
 not sought it. 
 
 But the class with which this section of the 
 Lord's discourse especially concerns itself are those 
 who seek the way and miss it. The most pathetic 
 failure to obtain eternal life is the failure of those 
 who strive to enter in. '' Narrow is the gate, and 
 straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few 
 be they that find it." It is because the way is not 
 found, though sought, rather than because it is 
 ignored, that these people are lost. As Luke re- 
 
148 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 ports this saying it reads: *'Many 
 Luke 13 : 24 shall seek to enter in, and shall not 
 
 be able." There is a foreshadowing 
 of that memorable Jewish rejection of the Son of 
 God which nailed him to the cross ; we catch the 
 premonitory sound of that wail from Olivet: ''If 
 
 thou hadst known in this day, even 
 Luke 19 : 42 thou, the things which belong unto 
 
 peace! but now they are hid from 
 thine eyes." Israel, following after a law of right- 
 eousness, did not arrive at that law, because of a 
 
 certain blindness or insusceptibility 
 Rom. 9:31 by which the striving of centuries 
 
 of type and prophecy at last missed 
 its end. 
 
 The gatevv^ay is indeed narrow; the germ of 
 character which is sure to expand into acceptance 
 with God is fitted in its beginning to tax our dis- 
 cernment. But if that germ in its development 
 expands into hearing these sayings of Christ and 
 doing them, we may be assured that the person 
 has begun aright. What then is that initial trait 
 which constitutes susceptibility to the kingdom of 
 God.-^ As entrance to a kingdom, submission to a 
 control, it must be some kind of obedience. But 
 it is an obedience, be it observed, which the most 
 scrupulous and devoted nation of the world failed 
 to comprehend, whose most common abuse, ac- 
 cording to the Saviour's warning in these verses, 
 produces the false prophet and the deluded won- 
 der-worker confiding in his own exhilaration, and 
 whose final achievement is outward deeds in con- 
 formity to Christ's teachings. Obedience as mere 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I49 
 
 observance of detailed precepts does not work in 
 this way. It touches no deep spring of being and 
 opens no barred gate. But the genuine obedience 
 which this whole Sermon on the Mount is set to 
 inculcate does answer to just these tests and just 
 these liabilities to abuse, as will be seen when it 
 is a little more clearly defined. 
 
 I. Obedience, which is described as a narrow 
 gate, would at first sight seem to mean that which 
 is extremely exacting in its requirements, which 
 produces a very distinct sense of the pressure of 
 the higher will, and which issues in a very nar- 
 rowly defined and strait-laced manner of life. The 
 command, "Enter ye in at the narrow gate," would 
 thus mean, '' Observe the strictest and most irre- 
 proachable principles of conduct." With this idea, 
 the more self-denial and crucifying of the will there 
 is in the life, the more sure is it of conforming to 
 the kingdom of God. The perfection of God's 
 ascendency over us would be marked by the great- 
 est possible power to make us do what we do not 
 want to do and sacrifice what is most costly and 
 dear. 
 
 But it does not appear that the special glory of 
 Christianity is the abundance or severity of its 
 feats of self-crucifixion. In fact, much more mar- 
 velous achievements in that kind belong to heathen 
 religions. From the earliest ages men have sought 
 to enter into peace by costly sacrifices and have 
 not been able. It was genuine enlightenment 
 from the Spirit of God which taught the psalmist 
 to say, in token of victory over those haunting, 
 superstitious notions: ''For thou delightest not in 
 
150 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou 
 Ps. 51 : 16, 17 hast no pleasure in burnt offering. 
 The sacrifices of God are a broken 
 spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou 
 wilt not despise." It was the light of true relig- 
 ious sanity which enabled the ancient prophet to 
 say: '< Wherewith shall I come be- 
 Micah 6 : 6-8 forc the Lord, and bow myself be- 
 fore the high God? Shall I come 
 before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a 
 year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thou- 
 sands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of 
 oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgres- 
 sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? 
 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and 
 what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
 justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
 with thy God?" The progress from false to true 
 religion seems everywhere to be marked, not by 
 the increase of marvels of self-immolation, but by 
 the more rational apprehension of the nature of 
 God. 
 
 Nor does mere strictness of law-keeping consti- 
 tute the narrowness of the way. This was the 
 idea which the Pharisees had, those people who, 
 with the most glorious heritage of preparation, 
 most ingloriously failed to find the kingdom of 
 God. Their thought of obedience was that its 
 special value was in its pressure on the will. Ob- 
 servance must be so strictly prescribed that its 
 interferences with the ordinary conduct shall be 
 felt. With this idea, their Sabbath, which was in 
 its nature a day of rest and freedom, could have 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I5I 
 
 no acceptance with God except by a minute arbi- 
 trariness which made it a day of constraint and 
 bondage. Indeed, their minuteness of supervision 
 over the life overshot its mark and 
 produced a hypocrisy and insincerity Matt. 23 : 28 
 which was the greatest obstacle to 
 the Saviour's influence. It all grew Luke 12 : i 
 out of the notion that obedience be- 
 gins with observance, and finds its end and glory 
 in the greatest pressure on, and interference with, 
 the will. But, according to the teaching of Christ, 
 the narrowness of the portal is seen, especially in 
 that it requires a peculiar sharing in the mind of 
 God to find it. The value of obedience is attested, 
 not by how many difficult things the person will 
 be willing to do, but how intelligent he is in dis- 
 covering what God requires of him. Christ does 
 not labor especially to produce scrupulousness, nor 
 does he begin with burdensome commands, he 
 awakens boundless hope and aspiration. But a 
 certain spiritual discernment is necessary in order 
 that one may find the way. It is so narrow that 
 it may be missed by the anxious devotee, so hum- 
 ble that the proud overlook it. Not the strictest 
 external obedience insures the acceptance of God 
 so long as this rightness of spiritual discernment 
 is wanting. 
 
 The initial command of the king- 
 dom of heaven is, *^ Repent." If Matt. 3 : i ; 
 God does not delight in costly sacri- 4 • 17 
 fice, he does accept a contrite heart. 
 And this repentance is more than mere sorrow for 
 sin ; it is the coming to be of a new mind. Mat- 
 
152 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 thew Arnold has made the word ^'metanoia'' the 
 subject of one of his happy translations. He says : 
 *'We translate it repentance^ a mourning and la- 
 menting over one's sins, and we translate it wrong. 
 Of ^metanoia,' as Jesus used the word, the lament- 
 ing one's sins was a small part ; the main part was 
 something far more active and fruitful, the setting 
 up an immense new inward movement for obtain- 
 ing the rule of life. And ^metanoia^' accordingly, 
 is a change of tJie inner man'' Jesus told Nico- 
 
 demus that a man must be born 
 John 3 : 3 again in order to see the kingdom 
 
 of God ; it is through lack of this 
 new birth that men fail to discover the narrow 
 portal. By prayer and self-consecration a spirit is 
 acquired which is no less than a sharing in the 
 
 divine mind, and Jesus in this ser- 
 ver. II mon says that God is more willing 
 
 to give this spirit in response to 
 Luke II : 13 prayer than we are to give good 
 
 gifts to our children. By this spirit, 
 or new inner man, we come to stand, as it were, 
 on common ground with God, so that we appre- 
 hend his nature and the requirements of his holi- 
 ness. It is thus that we enter in, thus that we 
 appropriate the righteousness of the Beatitudes 
 without our enthusiasm harming us, or leading us 
 into erratic paths of sentimentalism and delusion. 
 
 This obedience of the kingdom, therefore, arises 
 from the possession of a new nature. Its com- 
 pleteness is marked, not so much by conscious 
 constraint from God's will, as by spontaneous, 
 self-regulated action in a line with his will. It 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 53 
 
 begins in religious feeling. Its characteristic 
 movement is the seeking of blessedness, of ideal 
 good. It embraces a righteousness which may be 
 had by asking, by persuading one's self that he 
 has it, by the energy of faith. Positive precepts 
 are everywhere interpreted and held by their un- 
 derlying principle rather than by their letter; and, 
 indeed, that about the man which is developed 
 most effectively is not the capacity for submission, 
 but the law-making power. In the end the man 
 becomes a law unto himself, like the Son of Man, 
 the only perfect exponent of this obedience, not 
 doing his own will, but the will of him that sent 
 him, and yet doing this divine will because it is 
 his own nature. 
 
 Such a spirit must be embraced while it is unde- 
 veloped in the soul. Not its observances but its 
 germ is the first thing to be planted in the heart. 
 We have not all the marks for discerning it in its 
 beginnings which appear in its practical outcome 
 later on. The greatest circumspection is requisite 
 at the portal; many seek the way and do not find 
 it. The test is in the development. All the rest 
 of the Saviour's discourse, therefore, is devoted to 
 the very essential advice, '*Have a care for the 
 fruits." The person often believes he is born again, 
 in the only way in which he can determine the fact 
 while his experience is undeveloped, namely, by 
 feeling; and often the germ thus thought to be 
 implanted develops into something very different 
 from a life in a line with God's will. The tree 
 must be judged by its fruit; many whose feeling 
 and power have nourished great hopes will find 
 
154 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 themselves unrecognized at last, and the only 
 proof of solidly founded character is the final out- 
 come that these sayings of Jesus are rightly heard 
 and practised. 
 
 2. But an obedience which begins 
 Ver. 15-23 i^ emancipation and fervent feehng 
 has its characteristic danger or cor- 
 ruption. Many who even strive after a new birth 
 fail to find the narrow way. As the abuse of the 
 merely legal obedience produces the lifeless and 
 enslaving college of scribes, so the abuse of the 
 impulse for ideal blessedness produces the false 
 prophet and the deluded wonder-worker. After 
 setting forth the nature of the kingdom of heaven, 
 it is but natural that Jesus should point out the 
 conditions that particularly belong to such a king- 
 dom. '^ Beware of false prophets, which come to 
 you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening 
 wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them.'' 
 
 The false prophets are those who have experi- 
 enced something of the warmth and glow of the 
 kingdom, but are not renewed in heart. Inwardly 
 they have anything rather than the meek and lowly 
 disposition of the Lamb of God. They are selfish 
 and violent, like ravening wolves. But without 
 they are arrayed in sheep's clothing. They have 
 become sufficiently versed in Christian doctrine so 
 that it gives them a fluency of speech and an ex- 
 altation of the intellect. George Eliot remarks 
 that it is one of the mixed results of revivals that 
 some gain a religious vocabulary rather than a re- 
 ligious experience. It is not hard for an unsanc- 
 tified heart to be really animated with the abstract 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 55 
 
 truths of revelation. He may see their cogency, 
 their nobleness, their self-evidencing truth. All 
 this may awaken his admiration ; and all his as- 
 senting and reasoning powers may experience a 
 sense of exaltation and satisfaction. His admira- 
 tion he may mistake for worship. He imbibes the 
 theory of Christianity so copiously that he becomes 
 a prophet. He opens his mouth, and it seems like 
 the word of God flowing from it, so fluent and 
 ready is his mental action on religious themes. 
 And the very joy he experiences in setting forth 
 these truths may deceive him into thinking he is 
 thereby made a disciple of Christ. The very adap- 
 tation of Christian thought to his reasoning powers 
 may satisfy and elate him, when he knows nothing 
 of the saving results of that truth in his life. But 
 Christian doctrine thus taken in charge and dis- 
 pensed by a corrupt heart is sure to be corrupted 
 in its transmission into something of harmful ten- 
 dency; the unsanctified fountain wells up in false 
 prophecy. 
 
 This characteristic perversion of 
 Christian inspiration must be judged Ver. 15-19 
 by its fruits. Men do not gather 
 grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. If you 
 would know the character of the impulse which 
 thus quickens the mental powers and unlooses the 
 tongue, observe the results. They will be as in- 
 variable as the fruit from the tree. ''A good tree 
 cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt 
 tree bring forth good fruit." That ferment of in- 
 spiring thought and feeling which produces the 
 movement of real consecrated activity, may also 
 
156 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 produce in the false heart the movement of erro- 
 neous teaching. Jesus has already 
 Matt 5 : 19 pointed out the one who, in the in- 
 spiration of the kingdom, teaches 
 men to transgress the least of God's recorded pre- 
 cepts, and shows how he is rewarded by a speedy 
 lapse into insignificance. But even those who 
 have missed the narrow portal may in like manner 
 teach, as if by an inspiring spirit, the most hurtful 
 error ; and though their doctrine cannot stand, yet 
 during its brief time of influence it may lead many 
 astray ; so that it is the most obvious wisdom for 
 the disciple to beware of them. 
 
 A closely related product of per- 
 Ver. 20-23 verted religious enthusiasm is the 
 man whose sole ground of rejoicing 
 is that he works wonders in Christ's name. Not 
 every one who says to Jesus, Lord, Lord, shall 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. There is a 
 certain success in the name of the Lord which 
 may be attained by a spirit very unlike his. Re- 
 ligious success or fluency is not in itself a proof 
 that the person belongs to the kingdom of heaven. 
 He who builds all his joy and self-approval on his 
 success in the name of Christ is cultivating a very 
 shallow and unspiritual type of piety. 
 Luke 10 : 20 Jesus cautioncd the Seventy when 
 they returned from their first suc- 
 cessful trip of healing and evangelizing, even while 
 he thanked the Father with them that the demons 
 were subject to them through his name, not to re- 
 joice because the spirits were subject to them, but 
 rather to rejoice because their names were written 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 5/ 
 
 in heaven. I am afraid many an enthusiastic Chris- 
 tian worker forgets to bring all his plans and his 
 enthusiasms to this test, and falls to regulating his 
 work solely by the standard of success. Remem- 
 ber that those whom Jesus pronounces blessed are 
 the persecuted, those whose lives, to superficial ob- 
 servation^ exhibit a melancholy failure of success. 
 Jesus pictures a group at the last day saying to 
 him, Lord, Lord, who have been very successful 
 in prophesying and in all wonder-working in his 
 name, but who have nothing in common with his 
 spirit, and whom he does not recognize as his 
 friends. We may well be admonished to look 
 deeper within for fruits of the Spirit, or evidences 
 that we are in the way of life, than at the success- 
 ful work which we may do, in a world so easily led 
 away by false teachers, even in the name of Christ. 
 
 But all these perversions must be judged in 
 their development rather than in their germ. The 
 religious feeling is the beginning of true obedience, 
 but it is not so distinctive in its character as to be 
 unerringly known apart from its fruits. Some- 
 thing very like it may develop the false prophet or 
 the unspiritual accomplisher of great things. Yet 
 while that feeling is undeveloped we must appro- 
 priate it and act upon it. No wonder the Saviour 
 enjoins great care in entering the strait gate, for 
 many, with heedless mistaking of the true spirit, 
 fail to find it. 
 
 We do not seek this gate, however, altogether 
 blindly. There are characteristics by which the 
 true heart, without waiting for the event, may 
 know the way of life. Those who by their enthu- 
 
158 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 siasm become false prophets, or build a delusive 
 hope on their success, have only themselves to 
 blame for missing the way of life. Some base ad- 
 mixture has mingled itself with their motives for 
 seeking the narrow gate ; and with a selfish bias 
 they have entered the wrong portal. It is by the 
 purest intuition alone that the way of the kingdom 
 of God can be seen in its beginnings ; the pure in 
 heart see God. That initial and most healthful 
 impulse of the human soul by which, apart from 
 conventional and selfish considerations, we judge 
 right and wrong must never be denied. It is the 
 voice of the Holy Spirit. The obedience which 
 is susceptible to the knowledge of God is faithful- 
 ness to our highest intuitions. If the Jews had 
 preserved and been faithful to their truest intui- 
 tions, instead of becoming entangled in their con- 
 ventional notions of piety, they would have known 
 Jesus simply by his divine goodness, and not have 
 rejected him. It is not by conventional signs that 
 the strait gate is found, but by the sincere in- 
 tuition of a pure heart. 
 
 3. The final test, however, of true 
 Ver. 24-27 obedience is harmony with Christ's 
 teachings. '' Every one therefore 
 which heareth these words of mine, and doeth 
 them, shall be likened unto a wise man which built 
 his house upon the rock." That trustful accept- 
 ance of ideal goodness which so penetrates the 
 heart as to produce actual conformity in life with 
 the sayings of Christ is shown to be a solid founda- 
 tion. Such religious life the storms of hardship 
 and passion do not shake. It shows an obedience 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE I 59 
 
 which is true and spiritual, and which also brings 
 all the selfish propensities into subjection to it, so 
 as to produce outward conduct in a line with the 
 Saviour's character. 
 
 Observe the two ways in which the development 
 of obedience may be conceived of. That obedience 
 which is mechanical conformity to prescribed rules 
 puts hearing and doing at the beginning. This is 
 not its final test and glory, this is its first act. 
 But if we were looking for the power of such obe- 
 dience to develop human character, our question 
 would be, '' How much of the inward spirit and 
 higher discernment does such obedience create .^ " 
 It begins with the outside, how deep does it strike 
 in ^ This was the test by which the worth of the 
 Mosaic economy was judged. Given the positive 
 precept and its conservation, how much of the 
 nature of God will people learn from his law ? 
 The lawgiver might say, '^ Whosoever heareth these 
 words of mine, and becometh of one mind with 
 me in the control of his own life, he it is who is 
 solidly founded." In such a system of positive 
 commands an outward law was given, and its task 
 was to produce an inward spirit, and a developed 
 moral intelligence. Its crown and test would be 
 its inward results. 
 
 But the obedience taught by Christ begins with 
 the inward. It is primarily a new heart and an 
 aspiring spirit. The test of its completeness is 
 outward deeds in conformity with the teachings of 
 Christ. Given the spirit of the Beatitudes in the 
 person's heart, how much and what will it make 
 him do ? It begins at the center, how efficiently 
 
l6o MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 does it work out ? If it only makes a false prophet 
 or a selfish wonder-worker of the man, it is not 
 the solid foundation. The true development of a 
 character which begins in spiritual enthusiasm is 
 seen in every-day Christlike deeds. 
 
 And this is a real test, because in thus obeying 
 God the person is doing his own will. When he 
 has risen to the level of such obedience he does 
 not wait to hear the positive command ; he acts of 
 his own sanctified purpose. He is following out 
 the promptings of a new nature. As the observ- 
 ance of commands in their spirit becomes more 
 habitual the pressure of the higher will upon the 
 conduct is less consciously felt, and the progress 
 is toward greater spontaneity and second nature. 
 As this second nature freely expands, the question 
 of interest with regard to it is, '' How vital a sim- 
 ilarity to Christ's teachings will result from such 
 self-chosen conduct } " A real test of spontaneous 
 goodness is its conformity to the words of Christ. 
 
 But if it abides the test it indicates a glorious 
 thing. It shows not merely subserviency to, but 
 oneness with, Christ. Not only is the person sub- 
 dued to his will, but he is a sharer in his nature. 
 Christ has come actually to dwell in him. To them 
 who believe is given power to be- 
 Koinonia, come SOUS of God. They have a 
 I John I : 3 fellowship, or sharing of spirit with 
 him : they are doing his will from 
 their own independent perception of its wisdom 
 and fitness. They are raised to the level of asso- 
 ciates, embracing the same infinite ends, cherish- 
 ing the same loving and heavenly purposes, and 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE l6l 
 
 using their own sanctified judgment in every new 
 juncture of circumstance and civilization to carry 
 them out. Thus thpir obedience is not the obe- 
 dience of servants, but the obedience 
 of friends. '' Ye are my friends," John 15 : 14 
 says Jesus, ** if ye do the things 
 which I command you." A character which ex- 
 hibits this indication of free, unconstrained move- 
 ment in a line with the spirit of Christ is the 
 character which is likened to a house built on the 
 rock. And the character which, whatever the fer- 
 vency of its initial glow of feeling, consists only 
 in hearing and not doing, is likened to the house 
 built on sand ; the rains descend, and the floods 
 come, and the winds blow, and smite upon that 
 house, and it falls with a great and melancholy 
 fall. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount is a fundamental 
 law in this sense, that it is a definition of the rela- 
 tion of human subjects to the will of their divine 
 King. It is the Magna Charta of the kingdom of 
 God, the letters patent of the liberty wherewith 
 Christ hath made us free. It enters into the 
 practical relations of life as a leavening spirit 
 whereby all obedience is transfigured, and all true 
 character made godhke. It is not simply a re-en- 
 acting of the old law in more spiritual form, so 
 that it shall rest on the conscience in the same 
 way in which positive precepts press upon it. To 
 erect the kingdom of heaven on that basis would 
 simply be to begin a development of the same es- 
 sential nature as the old theocracy, and destined 
 
1 62 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 to end in the same bondage which was found to 
 result from the Jewish law. Christian precepts 
 and institutions henceforth appeal to the obedience 
 by their idea or spnit, which the enlightened con- 
 science has come to comprehend, rather than by 
 sheer weight of authority. Thus the Christian is 
 obeying God, but he is at the same time discover- 
 ing his own way and creating his own institutions 
 by the indwelling spirit w^hich has become the 
 heart of his own character. 
 
 Yet this free obedience does not discard the 
 
 specific precepts of the olden time. The teaching 
 
 of Christ always remains true, *' If 
 
 Matt. 19 : 17 thou wouldest enter into life, keep 
 the commandments." The spon- 
 taneous obedience of love does not need the an- 
 nulment of the law as a law in order to the free 
 exercise of aspiration and spiritual judgment. But 
 it enters into the reasons for those commands, and 
 adopts them with the same motive and spirit with 
 which they were revealed. It does not dispense 
 with authority, but it counts its faith incomplete 
 until it has seen the reasons for believing and obey- 
 ing, and has assented because of its own glad per- 
 ception of the end to be attained. 
 
 Nor is the spirit of obedience under this Magna 
 Charta of Christian liberty always quarreling with 
 the existing Use and Wont, that it may establish 
 a better way of its own. Much of that ** cake of 
 custom " into which at any period the impulses of 
 society have solidified is purely conventional habit. 
 The prevailing custom may have had its sufficient 
 reason for existing once, but that reason is no 
 
THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF OBEDIENCE 1 63 
 
 longer discoverable. Yet its established existence 
 gives it binding force. Obligations and restraints 
 of particular kinds rest on men simply because 
 they belong to a particular form of civilization. 
 These have a de facto authority as recognized and 
 expected usages. Many of these restraints of 
 custom belong almost obviously to an imperfect 
 order of things ; and yet it may so happen that 
 the Christian of the Beatitudes does not have the 
 perception of their lack of absolute fitness. The 
 child of the same influences which produced the 
 existing custom, he may enthusiastically follow 
 that custom as the will of God. It is not 
 given to many to become reconstructors of society. 
 That which men expect, if it be not at war with 
 the conscience, may be a real obligation ; the love 
 for the weaker brother may lead even to an abridg- 
 ment of liberty for the sake of avoiding occasions 
 of stumbling. Some of the Christian's own dis- 
 ciplinary habits may be so mechanical as to be a 
 disturbing reminder of his imperfection ; but yet 
 he may need them, and may reach upward through 
 them toward a perfect righteousness which is per- 
 fect freedom. The question is not alone, how 
 near to the final consummation are the institutions 
 which the person shall respect, nor how near the 
 absolute truth are the beliefs to which he is edu- 
 cated, but especially in what spirit he obeys that 
 form of teaching whereunto he was 
 delivered. If it gives opportunity Rom. 6 : 17 
 according to his limited mind for 
 the perfect obedience, then it is sufficient for his 
 sanctification. There is always the law-making 
 
164 MAGNA CHARTA OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 
 
 power in the heart ; and this, though mainly occu- 
 pied in enabling the man to see through his own 
 eyes the fitness and binding force of the morality 
 of his time, has the strength, when custom shall 
 become insincere and evil, to break it up and in- 
 terpret for itself anew the spirit of Christ. Thus 
 Christian society under this charter has perpetual 
 power to renew itself ; as its customs become bur- 
 densome they may be replaced by the re-adapted 
 creations of the enlightened understanding. 
 
 Thus obedience rises by faithfulness to the ob- 
 ligations which are next at hand to the higher con- 
 ception of, and conformity to, the will of God. 
 Never idly waiting for the perfect to come before 
 it begins to act, it is always above all things obe- 
 dient, always fulfilling conscientiously the less per- 
 fect, that thus it may rise to the comprehension of 
 the more. Thus the force of Christlike enthu- 
 siasm and love, which is creating and renewing 
 Christian customs, is a building and establishing, 
 rather than a revolutionary force, and it contains in 
 itself the power, by perpetual self-renewal, to bring 
 in at last the new heavens and the new earth. 
 
 Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship ? 
 The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, 
 Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness ; 
 But copies, Moses strove to make thereby. 
 Serve still and are replaced as time requires ; 
 By these, make newest vessels, reach the type ! 
 If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 
 Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law, 
 Indulging every instinct of the soul 
 There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing ! 
 
 — Browjiing. 
 
MAY 23 1900 
 
'.70