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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
Prof. Benjamin W. Bacon

STUDIES IN
THE TEACHING OF THE
SERMON ON THE MOUNT

STUDIES IN
THE TEACHING OF THE
SERMON ON THE MOUNT

BY

ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D.
CANON OF CANTERBURY

LONDON
STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
32 RUSSELL SQUARE, W.C.I
1022

First published, January 1923.
Second Jmpression, March 1923.

V ^ sr 7

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND II YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH

PREFACE
The writer of this book has been urged to his
task by the conviction that the Sermon on the
Mount contains the message that is required
to meet the needs of which we are being made
increasingly aware at the present time. The
first of these is the need of discovering a remedy
for the " reduced Christianity " from which we
have been suffering. The effects of this are felt
in the lowering of the pulse of the will to
worship, in a general slowness to volunteer for
tasks of spiritual adventure, and in a readiness
to be content with compromises where there
ought to be courageous decision. (There is
only one remedy for this state of things, and
that is an increase of loyalty to the Person and
the principles of Christ^ In no way is such
loyalty of faith and confidence so likely to be
kindled in the heart of our generation as by a
deepened understanding of the unique quality of
the truths which He uttered when as a teacher,
and more than a teacher, He appeared among
men.

PREFACE
But, if we need an increase of vital Chris
tianity, we need also a much fuller and freer
expression of that which we already possess.
It is a profoundly true diagnosis which tells
us that as a people we are suffering from " sup
pressed religion " ; and that it is our persistent
habit of keeping our better thoughts and feelings
to ourselves that has created the " complex "
which is a main cause of our troubles. Far
more than most of us suspect, it is this shrinking
from open avowal, and the desire to be ac
counted less Christian than we really are, that
is at the bottom of the restlessness and dis
satisfaction which we vainly attempt to cure
by perpetual excitement and continual change.
We need to be convinced that it is our duty
.and wisdom to find adequate expression jorour
spiritual impulses ; a"d it is frnrr| the Sermon
[on the Mount that we can best learn howthis is
to be done both naturally and effectively.
Then, once more, we are sorely in need of
right guidance as to the part which, at the new
stage of civilization upon which we are entering,
our Christianity ought to take in the reconstruc
tion of the social order. In our search for this
guidance we certainly shall not do better than
put ourselves to school again with those who
6

PREFACE
first listened to the lessons that were given to
the earliest disciples in the hearing of the
multitudes of Galilee. It is from these that
we shall most easily learn what was intended by
the original proclamation of the " Gospel of the
Kingdom." We must, however, be prepared
to find that there are still unsuspected revela
tions in that greatest of pronouncements, " the
Sermon on the Mount where," as it has been
truly said, " so many secret elements of social
volcano slumber." *
These studies will consist of short chapters,
in which an attempt will be made to present
as clearly as possible the main thoughts of the
teaching ; and at the end of each of the chapters
will be found the Notes, illustrative and explan
atory, to which references are made. It will
probably be more satisfactory to read through
the chapter in each case before consulting the
notes.

1922.

A. W. R.

Lord Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. i. p. 204.
7

CONTENTS
I. The Person of the Teacher . ii
II. The Ideal of the Future . 20
III. The Present Experiences of those
who accept the Ideal . 35
IV. The Relation to the Past . 43
V. The Relation to the Past (continued) 53
VI. The Peril from the Blandish
ments of the World . . 69
VII. The Peril from Material Cares 82
VIII. The Peril from Spiritual Evil 95

STUDIES IN THE TEACHING
OF
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

THE PERSON OF THE TEACHER
There is no reason to doubt that Renan was
right when he declared that St. Matthew's
Gospel has influenced the world more than any
other book that has ever been written. And
probably we should all agree in thinking that no
part of this Gospel is more characteristic and
impressive than the three chapters near its
beginning which contain what we all know as
the " Sermon on the Mount."
We are to make an effort to set forth the
general lines of the teaching of the Sermon,
with such consideration of the particular
details as will enable us to understand what
it must have meant to those who originally
heard it, and to realize its special bearings
ii

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
upon the problems by which we ourselves are
surrounded to-day.
By way of introduction, it will be good that
we should pause awhile, and fix our thoughts
upon the Speaker, the Teacher Himself. Let
us try, if we may reverently do so, to answer
the question which is almost inevitable when
we think of the unrivalled influence that He
has exercised upon countless minds and lives
during all the Christian centuries. How, we
may well ask, is that influence to be accounted
for ?
A true impulse leads us to say that it has
been due to the power of His Personality. As
we know, it has become a commonplace to
talk of this kind of power. There is no other
that can be compared with it. Our most
modern mental science is emphasizing the fact
that the greatest formative influence of infancy
is that exerted by the personality of the parent
or earliest attendant. It used to be maintained
that we came to believe in the existence of other
personalities as an inference which we derived
from our knowledge of our own ; but we are
assured now that what happened was exactly
the reverse. It was through contact with, and
knowledge of, other persons that we first arrived
12

THE PERSON OF THE TEACHER
at a consciousness and understanding of our
selves. And the influence of personality does not
diminish as the years go by. It is by this that
the growing boy is led on to imitation and hero-
worship. Nor is it otherwise with the man to
the end. The influence may operate chiefly
through the memories of the past, but it is none
the less potent on that account. Carlyle said of
Goethe : " The sight of such a man did, verily,
I believe, save me from destruction outward
and inward." " I was a thoroughly idle boy,"
said a certain bishop, speaking of his Eton days,
" but I was saved from worse things by getting
to know Gladstone." Or again a bookseller
at Brighton once pointed to a portrait of
Frederick Robertson and confessed : " When I
am tempted to do anything mean, I look at
that picture, and the face recalls me to my
better self." There is not one of us who could
not think of some personality to whom he has
owed a debt that it would be wholly impossible
to estimate.
And, if we are to- select the Personality
which has been the most dominant and bene
ficial in its sway over all ages and all types of
men and women, we should without hesitation,
13

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
and with bowed heads, name as the Name that
is above all others, the name, not of a son,
but of The Son of Man.
% " It is His Personality which is to-day inspiring
^and vitalizing as is no other. His is the influ-
,'ence not merely of a literary figure in the past,
but of the living force of the present. It is
felt in a measure by all. It is felt as an abso
lutely transforming power by those who wil
lingly and continuously surrender themselves
to it.
One such follower declared his conviction
that there is no single utterance of His of which
the meaning has ever yet been exhausted ; and
another joyfully acknowledged that he had
found in Him more than he had ever expected
to want. We need, then, fear no contradiction
when we say that the fact of His Personality
is the explanation of the power of His influence.
But to say so much is only to start a further
inquiry. We cannot but go on to ask, What is it
in His Personality that thus attracts and com
mands ? We shall find that the answer, which
long pondering and much experience has led
men to make to that question, is twofold. In
part it is plain ; in part it is enveloped in
mystery.

THE PERSON OF THE TEACHER
What is plain is that our Lord's influence is
largely due to the fact that in Him we can
" behold the Man." In Him we can see the
most perfect type of human excellence {Note i).
In His character are combined qualities which
are nowhere else so harmoniously blended.
He has in ample measure dignity and simplicity,
strength and gentleness, purity and patience.
He is at once tender and firm, true and sympa
thetic, gracious and courageous. We find Him
great even in smallest things, and calm in the
storm and crisis. He is unmindful of self, and
unsparing in His service of others. In His
heart there are depths of compassion that we
cannot plumb ; and our utmost self-sacrifices
pale when we set them by the side of that
which He has endured for our sakes.
To say this is to account for much. Some
would seem to have persuaded themselves that
it will account for all. But in truth more is
required if we are to explain the admiration
and devotion, and the worship of the ages.
We need to know more before we can think that
we have discovered the whole secret of His
mastery over our souls.
We may well shrink from making the attempt
to put this further part of the answer to our
15

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
question into intelligible words. This much we
can say, that the more we are able to fathom the
mystery of our being, the more we are made
aware that it possesses capacities for the appre
hension of the infinite as well as the finite ;
and that amid all that is earthbound and
relative there is that in us which reaches out
to the Universal, the Absolute, the Eternal.
Only in this way can we account for the hunger
and craving within us that demands for its
satisfaction a Something, an Ideal and a Hope,
which transcends all that our knowledge of
our fellows can suggest, and reveals to us a
promise of what in our highest moments we
are convinced that both they and we are
destined to become {Note 2). And where is
that satisfaction to be found ? The dazzling
truth is that we have all we can desire in the
Lord Jesus Christ. His greatness so com
pletely answers to our wants that we need not
" look for another." As we gaze upon Him, we
still hear the challenge that sounded of old :
" Whom think ye that I the Son of Man am ? "
And we can but spell out in wonder the accents
of the old reply : " Thou art the Son of the
Living God ! "
We must not be surprised that human speech,
16

THE PERSON OF THE TEACHER
devised for quite other uses, should prove to be
inadequate to express all this in the terms of
precise definition and formulated system. It
would be strange if it were otherwise. We
should be grateful for the efforts after clear
ness that have been made in the past, and we
may be bold to hope that further help will be
derived from the scholarship and philosophy of
the future. What is of vital importance is
that we should not relax our hold upon the fact
that our Lord was, and is, far more than all
it is in the power of our imagination to con
ceive. If we enter upon our study of the
portraiture of the Gospels with this conviction,
we need not be afraid to bring our best intelli
gence to bear upon its interpretation ; nor need
we fear that the growth of our knowledge will
have any other effect than to increase the
strength of our reverence {Note 3).
Notes.
1. The words of J. S. Mill are almost too well
known to need quoting.
" Not even now would it be easy, even for an
unbeliever, to find a better translation
of the rule of virtue from the abstract
into the concrete, than to endeavour
17 B

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
so to live that Jesus Christ would approve
our life." — Three Essays on Theism,
P-255-
2. "It is urged that what we want is a human,
not a superhuman or infinite ideal, an
example, not of what is possible for a
God in human shape, or for a human
nature rendered infallible by association
or combination with an omnipotent,
divine nature, but of what is possible for
man, for a nature really and simply
human. But the answer is, that not
the latter but the former, not a finite
but an infinite ideal, is what we truly
want. It is of the very nature of the
moral and spiritual life that its ideal
is not a finite one. Our aim as spiritual
beings is not likeness to man, but like
ness to God, participation in a divine and
eternal life." — John Caird, Fundamental
Ideas of Christianity, ii. 119.
3. The difference in the levels occupied by our
Lord and His hearers may not be ob
truded, yet it is continually implied.
How much is suggested by the incidental
remark, " if you that are evil " ! And,
again, it is to be noted that " Jesus draws
a sharp line of distinction between Him
self and the disciples in purposely setting
aside the usual ' Our Father in Heaven,'
where He Himself is concerned, and yet
18

THE PERSON OF THE TEACHER
prescribing its use for His disciples
(Matt. vi. 9).
" From this, too, it may be perceived that it
was not the veneration of those who came
after that first assigned to Him an excep
tional relation to God, incapable of being
transferred to others."
— Dalman, The Words of Jesus, p. 190.
" The Divine personality, knowledge, and
authority of Jesus are the foundation on
which the discourse rests. The passages
Matt. v. 11, 17; vii. 21-23 onV state
what all the teaching involves, that He
who speaks thus is ' The Son of God '
in the highest sense ; sustaining to Him
a unique relation, and rendering to men a
unique service." — Votaw, Hastings' Diet.
of Bib., vol. v. p. 44.

J9

II
THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE (Matt. V. I -9)
From the thought of our Lord as the teacher
who has exercised unrivalled influence upon
mankind, we pass to consider those words of
His, so well known and yet it is to be feared
so little known, which are familiar to us all as
" the Sermon on the Mount " {Note i). They
tell us of the things that He saw to be essential
to the spiritual life ; and they begin, as indeed
we might expect them to begin, by exhibiting
His Ideal of the character and conduct that
should be aimed at.
Being all that He is, we might anticipate that
this ideal will be a high one, and in truth we
shall find it so bold that we could not imagine a
bolder. We have heard a good deal of late
about our indebtedness to the Greek thinkers ;
and it is right that we should be reminded of
their " splendid intellectual hazard," the full
" audacity of which we can no longer realize."
It will do us nothing but good to be humbled
20

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
by the knowledge that our greatest scientific
and artistic achievements are after all only a
" confirmation " of what Greece taught the
world long ago as to the " rationality and
beauty of the universe " {Note 2).
But, at the same time, we may not forget
that there is another comparatively little
people to whom we have owed a still greater
debt. It is from the Hebrews, with their ancient
line of prophets, and from Him who deigned to
place Himself in its succession, that we have
inherited gains of unrivalled spiritual hazard,
which even now far outreach the furthest
attainments of our most advanced civilization.
Let us direct our minds, then, to the Christian
Ideal as presented by Christ, and let us see how
it stands in contrast with the usually accepted
standards of the world. As we follow it from
point to point, it will be strange if it does not
seem to rise high and resplendent before us, a
veritable spiritual Oberland.
We know well what are the incentives of
ordinary human activity. If asked to say what
it is that men are most eager to acquire, we
should not hesitate to answer — Possessions,
riches. We cannot be blind to the fact that the
21

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
desire for wealth is the ruling motive of our
social life to-day. How startling, then, is the
initial contrast expressed in these opening
words : " Blessed are the poor in spirit."
They assign the primary place to those who are
inwardly free from the overmastering passion
of acquisitiveness. Attempts have been made
to show that in speaking thus our Lord was not
referring to material possessions ; but St Luke
can have felt no uncertainty on the point
when he reported the saying as " Blessed are ye
poor," without any further qualification {Note 3).
An acute observer of the last generation used
to say that he was afraid there was a great deal
more in the New Testament against being rich,
and in favour of being poor, than we liked to
recognize {Note 4). Certainly we must have
studied what the Gospels tell us of the example
and mind of Christ to little purpose if we can
wonder that detachment from the love of
riches, and readiness to do without them,
should have been given by Him the first place
among the qualifications of those who are the
fittest for the Kingdom of Heaven {Note 5).
When we ask what is the second strongest
desire of human nature, as we commonly know
it, the desire which leads most people to think
22

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
that the acquisition of riches is worth toiling for,
we shall probably agree that it is the wish for
Pleasure and enjoyment ; the longing, as we
say, to " have a good time." How startling,
again, is the announcement : " Blessed are
those who mourn ! " Here we have our
Lord's commendation and felicitation of all
who realize that life is a serious business, and
who refuse to shut their eyes and ears thought
lessly and callously to the sorrows and needs
about them. For such it is not possible to be
" at ease in Zion," until far better comfort is
forthcoming than any which is at present
available. That this comfort will one day be
theirs, they are entitled and encouraged to
hope. Another thing that very many set before
themselves as the prize to be coveted is Position,
the securing of place and status ; a rise, it may
be, in the social scale, or an advancement to
public office, with a corresponding right to
claim the superiority which such precedence is
supposed to confer. Of course, it would be
untrue to say that recognized positions have no
value and importance ; but, as soon as they
are sought as ends in themselves and as means
of personal glorification, they cease to be useful
23

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
and are more likely than not to lead to dis
appointment and failure. Here it is the very
opposite temper that is commended : " Blessed
are the meek " ; those who would rather look
up than look down, who are not always thinking
of urging their rights and pushing their claims
to pre-eminence.
These will come to their own some day ; in
the meantime they can bear themselves with the
quiet dignity of the heirs of a future which will
be theirs and of which no one will want to
dispossess them {Note 6).
And the contrasts are not ended. " Blessed
ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER
righteousness." Here what is praised is the
temper of divine discontent with things as they
are, the refusal to be satisfied with existing
conditions, the yearning for a time when might
will give way to right, and the passion for justice
will be continually satisfied {Note 7).
Again : " Blessed are the merciful." Here
the contrast is with the hard and cynical mood,
which seems almost always to develop itself in
thoroughly worldly minds. Against such mis
trust and unhopefulness are set the sympathy
and generous expectancy of a gentler and nobler
manhood. Great souls of this type know too
24

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
well their own need of forbearance from others ;
and they will not fail to receive it. " They will
obtain mercy." •
About the next quality in the list there is
room for more difference of opinion. The
usual explanation has tended to identify it
with an inward condition to which attention is
directed in a later part of the Sermon. We
shall probably realize its intended meaning best
if we bear in mind that another outstanding sign
of the worldly temper is its unbounded respect
for external appearances, its love of ceremonial
properties, the cult of the respectable. So true
is it that " man looketh upon the outward
appearance," and determines accordingly the
conditions of admission into the grades of his
societies. But there is a judgment that goes
deeper than the surface, and far more is to be
demanded from those who would " ascend into
the hill of the Lord." They must have not
only " clean hands " but " a pure heart."
This is more likely to have been the meaning
which would be conveyed to those who origin
ally heard the words : " Blessed are the pure
IN HEART, FOR THEY WILL SEE GoD."
And now we have come to the final contrast.
Of all the marks of lower civilizations, and less
25

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
developed types, the most persistent and
universal has been the tendency to quarrel
someness, the readiness to take offence and to
appeal to force, the desire for revenge, and the
love of war. In diametrical opposition to the
glorification of such a character we have the
words : " Blessed are the peacemakers." To
them the promise is given that they shall be the
recipients of honour. Some day it will be
recognized that it is they who are the supermen ;
for " they will be called sons of God."
We may take it that no one is likely to ques
tion the assertion that the character thus out
lined is markedly opposed to the standards and
ideals that have commonly prevailed in the
world ; indeed, it will be allowed that the one
word which best describes it is the word
" Unworldliness." The only objection to that
term is that it is liable to be regarded as equiva
lent to a sort of " other-worldliness " that is
wanting in the robustness which is essential to
a vigorous life. It is most important that it
should be realized that the temper prescribed
and commended by our Lord is not the outcome
of indifference towards, or incapacity for dealing
with, earthly concerns ; nor is it open to the
charge of weakness and lack of virility. With-
26

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
out doubt its unworldliness involves a change
in the scale of values, and a sense of proportion
that is determined by a recognition of " the
ascendancy of the future " ; but the fact that
it requires the will to resist what is merely
conventional, and is impossible where there is
not a readiness for the endurance of hardness,
is enough to show that it can only exist where
there is much strength of personality and a real
capacity for heroism. It is too often forgotten
that " meekness, patience, forbearance, silence,
are not the signs of mere self-mortification ;
they are the signs of power in reserve "
{Note 8).
But, while this may be admitted as true, there
is a doubt which is very sure to make itself
heard. Those who can go with us so far are
certain to ask what prospect there is that this
ideal of Christ will be adopted and applied on
any large scale.
Let it be granted, they will say, that it is a
noble and beautiful ideal, and that if it were
to be generally accepted it would transform
society ; but can we honestly think that it is
likely, in any time that we can suggest, to be
brought within the range of practical politics ?
Do we not know what befell Him who was the
27

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
first to proclaim the ideal, and who perfectly
exemplified it in His life and deeds ; and is there
any reason to suppose that a similar fidelity
will meet with an entirely different treatment
to-day ?
We shall find that our Lord Himself anti
cipated the question, and that He has provided
us with the materials for answering it. His
method was always that of beginning with the
few with the purpose of reaching the many.
He would be bold indeed who could suppose
that there will be for a long time to come any
world-wide submission to the Christian standard
{Note 9). The general consciousness moves
slowly ; but it does move, and there are not
wanting signs of an advance in the right direc
tion {Note 10). Ideas are the most potent of
all the factors in our life history ; and, when
once an idea has become familiar to many, it
has a way of automatically influencing practice.
Over and over again it has been proved that,
if even a few persons go on repeating, suggest
ing an idea, with quiet persistence and an
evident readiness to make sacrifices in its
support and defence, their faith and courage
will have a remarkable effect. Attention will
be secured, understanding will grow ; and
28

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
opposition, though at times it may wax fierce
and formidable, will sooner or later make its
offers of compromise, if indeed it does not
raise the flag of surrender. " Great is the
truth, and it does prevail," if only itsjservants
can hold on and keep heart.
There is a further thought that it may be
worth while to add in connexion with the
practical realization of the ideal. We have
been accustomed to consider the various points
as they follow one another in our Lord's
description of a true ethical attainment ;
but have we always paid sufficient regard to
the order in which they are placed ? Have we,
for example, asked ourselves whether there is
any special significance in the position which
is assigned to the first and the last ?
Without the least desire to underestimate
the value of the best known of all our attempts
to practise this programme of splendid un
worldliness, may we not venture to say that
even more might have been accomplished,
if those who set out upon their great endeavour
had taken as their starting-point a revaluation
of wealth, and had discouraged the accumula
tion of riches, instead of laying the initial
stress upon the abolition of war which would
29

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
most assuredly have followed as a necessary
consequence f {Note n).
Notes.
i. The tradition which points to Karn Hattin
— the Horns of Hattin — ij miles N.W.
of Tiberias, as the Mount of the Beati
tudes is not known to be older than the
time of the Crusades, but it has much
in its favour. The hill rises 60 feet
above the plain, and would be a central
meeting-place for people from the lake
and from the towns of Galilee ; and
there is a platform on a high level which
would be suitable for the gathering of
a concourse. It is the only height to
be seen in this direction from the shores
of the lake, and it commands a glorious
view.
2. Bosanquet, Meeting of Extremes in Con
temporary Philosophy, p. 99.
3. "It is not of great importance to determine
whether Matthew and Luke give us
divergent reports of one and the same
discourse, which is the opinion held
by most scholars ; or of two similar but
different discourses, addressed to dif
ferent audiences on different occasions,
which is a tenable view still advocated
by some." 3°

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
" That a sermon closely resembling these two
reports was actually delivered by our
Lord, need not be doubted for a
moment." — Plummer, St Matthew, p. 55.
St Luke omitted much of the sermon as in
applicable to Gentiles. But " innumer
able Gentiles ever since have preferred
the sermon of the First Gospel."
" When St Mark wrote his Gospel, the
Matthaean Logia (in various Greek
forms) was in general use. It was
unnecessary for him to repeat the
sermon." — Votaw, Hastings' Diet, of Bib., v. 7.
4. Bishop Gore tells us that this was said to
him more than once by Dr Jowett, the
Master of Balliol.
5. A great deal has been written as to the
meaning of the phrase " The Kingdom
of Heaven." The main point at issue has
been whether the term " Kingdom " is
to be interpreted as denoting sovereignty,
or polity ; reign, or realm. It may be
said with confidence that, the more we
study the growth of the Jewish expecta
tion, and the New Testament uses of
the word, the more we shall be disposed
to agree with those who hold that both
conceptions ought to be included. " The
Kingdom " is more than " Kingship."
3i

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
We are bidden to pray for its coming as
a gift from God, and to look forward to
being permitted to " enter " it when it
appears. Its beginnings are here and
now ; in its fullness it is to be expected
hereafter.
" It was not merely the content of the
conception which forms the kernel of
our Lord's teaching that was new and
original, but also His application of the
term, despite the fact that the phrase
selected originally belonged to the reli
gious vocabulary of the Jews. The
theocracy about to make its entrance into
the world was something more than a
gratifying realization of the hopes enter
tained regarding it ; it was a creative
force bringing new ideas in its train." —
Dalman, Words of Jesus, p. 139.
Much of the difficulty that has beset the dis
cussion of the subject has been due to
failure to realize that " the Kingdom of
God is to be something wider than the
Church, which exists to prepare for
it." — Bp Gore, Ephesians, p. 273.
). " It is difficult to explain why egoism is in
reality a cause of weakness ; that is to
say, as soon as an individual's own self
is felt to be the main object of his
attention, he ceases to influence us, and
after a time to interest us. Conversely,
32

THE IDEAL OF THE FUTURE
when any one is found literally never
to think about himself, he at once be
comes supremely interesting to others ;
and, if his own claims are never pressed,
but he is known to be swayed solely
by consideration for others, at once a
power goes forth from him, and that
which no amount of self-assertion would
win for him is easily conceded." " To
say that this spirit of gentleness is not in
harmony with the Teutonic tempera
ment is not the same as to show that it is
foolish or ineffective : but rather that we
require to study it all the more care
fully." — E. Lyttelton, Sermon on the
Mount, pp. 49, 69.
" It has always appeared to me that the
love of justice is one of the rarest among
all good qualities — I mean the love of it
with full and commanding strength. I
should almost dare to say there are
five generous men to one just one." —
Gladstone, Life, ii. 640.
Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian
Character, p. 65.
" Human nature, which may appear to have
improved and to be still improving, has
not yet come anywhere near to reaching
the Christian standard set forth in the
New Testament." — Bryce, Hindrances
to Good Citizenship, p. 16.
33

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
10. " Do you think that Christ is still a hving
influence in the present day ? " " The
wholesale rebellion against His influence
which culminated in the war has turned
out so badly that just at present there
are probably more people who feel that
in Christ is the only hope for the world
than there ever were before in the
lifetime of men now hving." — (From
a report of an interview with Mr G.
Bernard Shaw, May 1922.)
11. " Whence come wars and fightings among
you ? Come they not hence, even of
your lusts ? " — St James iv. 1.

34

Ill
THE PRESENT EXPERIENCES OF THOSE WHO
ACCEPT THE IDEAL (Matt. V. IO-l6)
There have been teachers whose idealism was
of so exalted and abstract a character that they
thought it beneath their notice to pay any
attention to the results that might be produced
if their principles were applied in ordinary life.
They have even prided themselves upon their
lofty indifference to practical consequences.
But a very slight acquaintance with our Lord's
teaching will show that this was not His way.
On the contrary, He constantly warned those
who wished to be His disciples that they must
count the cost ; and He was always ready to
help them to reckon it.
Let us see how He does this in the present
case. There is no ignoring, or disguising, of
difficulties. In truth the situation is so plainly
presented that it speaks for itself. To take a
line that is clearly in advance of the commonly
accepted practice, more especially in matters
35

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
of moral conduct and social behaviour, is, as
we are accustomed to say in popular language,
to " ask for trouble." Those who deliberately
disregard conventional standards must not be
greatly surprised if they are considered to be
unpractical visionaries, and treated, when they
persist, as dangerous disturbers of the peace.
Persecution is an ugly word, and we may wish
to believe that our age has got beyond anything
of the kind. But, though the methods of the
world may have altered, the results of its dis
approval can be formidable enough. The
persecution may not be as coarse and as violent
as in former days, but it is not less persecution,
because it shows itself in half-concealed scorn,
in social neglect, and in religious reprobation.
Our Lord would have His followers face the
prospect, and accept the experience, if it should
come to them, without surprise and without
bitterness. Nay, more, He bids them accept it
with joy. They may console themselves with
the assurance that, when they are ill-treated and
falsely maligned, they are taking their places
in a succession which has included the noblest
of all ages ; and He promises that their loyalty
will meet with the fullest recognition hereafter.
But, if persecution may have to be faced as
36

PRESENT EXPERIENCES
one of the results of faithful discipleship, it is
not the only one ; and our Lord proceeds to
tell of another result which is happily not only
a possibility, but a certainty. Human nature
is so constituted that it does not grudge effort,
and painful effort, if it can be sure it will be
worth while. And for noble minds there is
nothing that can make effort so entirely worth
while as the certainty of exercising a real and
far-reaching influence for good.
Our Lord assures His disciples that they need
have no doubt on that score, and He tells
them what their influence would be like. It
would be like that of salt, noiseless and unseen,
but penetrating and pervasive. And it would
be like that of a lamp set to illuminate the
darkness ; or of the sunshine reflected from the
roofs and walls of a town conspicuously set
on a hill- top {Note i). Even so, they would be
transfusers of sweetness and light, correcting
what was unwholesome and corrupt, banishing
ignorance and dispersing gloom {Note 2).
Sooner or later their worst detractors would
have no choice but to bless them, and would
acknowledge that they were the channels of a
power that was not of earth but of heaven
{Note 3). 37

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
There can scarcely be any subject more full
of fascinating interest than this subject of
Influence. Much has been said and written
about it. The more we consider our Lord's
teaching as to its nature and methods of work
ing, the more we shall be impressed by the
clearness and completeness of His statement.
We may especially notice two points which
must have been novel at the time, and which
still need to be emphasized and carefully
pondered. In the first place, it must have been a new
idea that the success of a great cause should be
made to depend upon the spiritual character
of those who were to represent it. There had,
of course, been leaders who believed in meeting
material forces by material force ; and there
had been teachers who had depended upon the
effect of written words and the support of
elaborate systems.
But our Lord left no writings, and it is only
with difficulty that we are able to trace in His
instructions the beginnings of organized institu
tions. The power upon which He relied was
personal influence, distilled from character and
diffused by life. We cannot be too often
reminded that the arguments and evidences
38

PRESENT EXPERIENCES
which He held to be of value were those which
could be read and seen in the temper and
behaviour of His followers. If the cause of
Christ is to prevail in the world, it will be because
there are in every place, and in all ranks and
occupations, in the home, and the school, and
the office, and the workshop, and the council
chamber, an ever increasing number of men
and women who are passionately loyal to the
Christian ideal. We need not be ungrateful
for what learning has done, and can do, for the
strengthening of the Faith ; and we shall be
most unwise if we ignore the worth and the
necessity of the organizations that support it :
but we dare not forget that character and
conduct are the things that matter most.
The other point that it is specially important
to notice in the teaching must have been even
more novel when that teaching was given, and
is very far from being fully understood and
accepted to-day. It is that influence depends
upon unlikeness !
How natural it is to think that if we are to
help others we must make it our aim to resemble
them as much as possible. We are inclined to
argue that it will not do to be too unworldly,
lest we should lose what hold we have upo
39

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
them. Now, our Lord made it evident that
He regarded the right policy as the very
opposite of this. He saw clearly that men are
not impressed by a type of character which is
just a little better than their own, but by
lives which are directed and inspired by motives
and principles that are unmistakably different
{Note 4). His illustrations seem to have been
chosen with the express purpose of making it
plain that in His view those only can help
the world who are unlike the world.
The salt of which He spoke, gathered as it was
from the marshes, was in continual danger of
deterioration. If it was to retain its quality,
it had to be carefully preserved from a too
close contact with the soil ; otherwise it soon
became insipid and literally " good for nothing "
{Note 5).
So, again, what could have been more ex
plicit than the illustrations He used to show
that the difference between His true disciples
and the world was to be the difference between
light and darkness, and that any attempt at
concealment could only be fatal to the light
itself f
Later on we may see cause to suppose that
our Lord thought it well to use the language
40

PRESENT EXPERIENCES
of paradox and even of Oriental hyperbole ;
but here we can discover nothing of the kind.
There can be no possibility of misunderstanding
His meaning. The service that He asks must
involve opposition, and may bring painful
persecution. It will bring also rich compensa
tion. But He would have us know that this
can only be on the condition that there is no
thought of hesitation or compromise.
Notes.
i. Our Lord, as He spoke, may have pointed
to Safed as the city set on a hill. The
present town is of later date, but it is
probable that there were buildings on the
site in His time. Its height is 2749 feet
above the Mediterranean, and nearly
3500 above the lake. " The illustration
would be the more striking from the
fact that this situation of cities on the
tops of hills is as rare in Galilee as it is
common in Judea." — Stanley, Sinai and
Palestine, p. 429.
2. An apt parallel has been discovered in
Pliny {Nat. Hist., xxxi.) who said:
"There is nothing more useful than
salt and sunshine."
3. " Your good works." The Greek word here
used for " good " suggests an attractive
41

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
quality. It might perhaps be rendered
" noble." So later in the Sermon we
have " good " or " fine " fruit.
" The praise and glory of a well-lighted and
brilliant feast would be given not to the
lights, but to the master of the house ;
and of a stately city on a hill, not to the
buildings, but to those who built them."
— Alford, Commentary, in loc.
" The effectiveness of the work of Chris
tianity . . . has been proportioned to
the thoroughness with which it has
devoted itself to some higher principle
than any which could be called worldly."
— E. Lyttelton, Sermon on the Mount,
p. 27.
" It is a well-known fact that the salt of
this country, when in contact with the
ground, or exposed to rain and sun, does
become insipid and useless ... it actu
ally destroys all fertility wherever it is
thrown ; and this is the reason why it
is cast into the street." — Thomson, The
Land and the Book, p. 382.
It is humbling to reflect that " an immense
amount of human energy is expended
in safeguarding our lives from the very
influences which our Saviour pronounces
to be blessed, vitalizing, and fertile." —
E. Lyttelton, Sermon on the Mount, p.
103. 42

IV
THE RELATION TO THE PAST (Matt. V. I7-20)
We have seen that our Lord began His great
Sermon by setting forth the ideal of human
character, and that He did it with the confident
assurance that the future would be found on its
side. We have seen also how He described the
results that were to be expected here and now
by those who bravely resolved to translate the
ideal into practice.
In speaking thus He was dealing with ques
tions that might naturally arise in the minds of
His hearers. But there was still another ques
tion that they would be certain to ask. He had
told of the future, and He had referred to the
present ; what had He to say about the Past ?
If the other questions came before it, this
question would be ready and waiting, and not
far behind {Note i). Those who feel any doubt
as to that can know little of the temper of the
Jewish people at the time, and of the circum
stances in which they were placed.
43

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
No nation ever had so wonderful a past as
theirs. They were rightly proud of it, and
tenacious of its lessons and experiences. They
held these to have been a special proof to them
of the Divine nearness and favour ; and they
realized that they were bound to preserve and
transmit undiminished so goodly a heritage.
The sense of their duty was strengthened by
their fear lest those privileges should be under
valued or neglected.
At that particular epoch there were threaten-
ings of this danger from more than one side.
Under the changed political conditions, the
maintenance of the old discipline was no longer
easy, nor was it always possible. New ideas
and new fashions were fast coming in as the
results of their contact with Greek culture and
Roman civilization. Already there was in
existence a party of expediency, consisting of
those who were prepared to go great lengths in
the way of accommodation to the new tenden
cies. Hence, it was not wonderful that amongst
the more religiously minded there should be
serious apprehensions and grave misgivings.
For such it could truly be said that " criticism
was a heresy and change a horror." It was not
difficult to commend these views and to com-
44

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
municate these fears to the public mind, with
the result that the most highly esteemed and
popular leaders were those who made a display
of the greatest veneration for their prede
cessors, and who held it to be their chief duty
to make, as they said, a " fence " of minute
restrictions round every detail of what was old,
in order that they might the more effectively
bar the way against encroaching innovations
{Note 2).
Any new teacher, therefore, who appeared in
those days, and more especially if he expressed
himself in language that was at all unfamiliar,
would inevitably be met with the challenge —
" How does your teaching accord with that
which we have already received ? What is
your relation to and your attitude towards the
Past ? " {Note 3).
Our Lord was more than prepared to give
His answer to these inquiries and fears. We
must note with great care what that answer was.
We shall do this with the more interest if we
remember that the subject is one which occupies
a prominent place among the problems we have
to face in our own time. We ourselves are
no strangers to controversies and disputes as to
the attitude that ought to be adopted towards
45

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
certain formularies which we have inherited,
and which for generations have been accepted
amongst us as sacred and venerable. Appeals,
as we know, are even now being made to our
authorities, calling upon them for intervention
and explicit direction. It is of urgent import
ance that we should, all of us, whether leaders
or led, study anew the lines upon which our
Lord dealt with a question which, however
certain of its aspects may vary, remains essen
tially the same, and was never in more need of
wise and reverent treatment than it is to-day.
We shall find that His answer consisted of two
parts. In the first place, He made it clear that
He was no mere revolutionary, bent upon up
setting the traditions and ignoring the achieve
ments of the past. He would have His hearers
rid their minds of any such fear or suspicion.
" Think not," He said, " that I came to destroy
the law or the prophets." " Heaven and
earth will pass away," He declared, before the
smallest fragment of the old legislation should
be dismissed as useless and obsolete {Note 4).
Those who presumed to treat any part of it
with disrespect would receive no support or
encouragement from Him. He would have
His disciples be no whit behind the most
46

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
uncompromising upholders of the teaching of
the past ; nay, He would have them be more
respectful and dutiful than any of them.
Twice over He says it : " I came not to destroy,"
" I came not to destroy."
Only when He had repudiated this misin
terpretation of His mission in the strongest
language He could use {Note 5), did He go on
to the second, more positive part of His answer.
" I came," He explained, " to fulfil."
Expositors have not always agreed as to the
precise meaning of that word " fulfil," but if
we follow with care His own interpretation we
can scarcely be left in any doubt on the matter.
The main point was evidently this, that,
while He insisted upon reverence, even scrupu
lous reverence, for the past, He would have men
know that reverence is not incompatible with
belief in progress ; but, on the contrary, is
impossible without it. The past, as He saw it,
was not perfect in the sense that it was incapable
of any fuller expression. It was of value
because it was a stage on the road to the final
goal. It was sacred because it held within itself
the seed and possibility of further development
{Note 6).
" I came ... to complete," that is probably
47

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
the form in which we can best convey His
meaning. He would have it to be understood
that everything that was vital in the past
was to be retained, and raised to its highest
power. In the sacred process of agelong
evolution, " no one thing should be destroyed,
or cast as nothing to the void, till God had made
the pile complete." On the one hand, there
fore, there was to be in His school the utmost
veneration for what had been ; and, on the
other, the freedom and hope that would come
of enlarging knowledge and increasing vision
{Note 7).
Of the general purport of our Lord's teaching
on this important subject we can speak with no
little confidence. We can do so because we
see no way of avoiding the conclusion that
His own statement has made His principles
unmistakably clear. And happily He has Him
self made this certainty doubly certain ; for
not content with such a general statement, He
has added a series of illustrations for the express
purpose of showing, by references to particular
instances, that His aim and object was not
to set aside the old legislation, but to fulfil
it by a more complete realization of its design
and intention. 48

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
In our next chapter we shall examine and
consider these illustrative cases. For the
moment it may be enough to suggest that our
Lord must have felt very strongly the import
ance of this part of His teaching, or He would
not have thought it necessary to devote to its
elucidation the longest of the sections of His
Sermon. Notes.
i. There has been considerable debate as to
whether we have in the Sermon on the
Mount a single consecutive utterance,
or a collection of sayings, spoken on
different occasions, and gathered to
gether as specimens of the teachings
that were given by our Lord from time
to time. For the latter view a long list
of authorities can be quoted ; see e.g.
the references in Prof. Votaw's article
in Hastings' Diet, of Bib., vol. v. But it
is interesting to note that not a few of
the critics who began by taking this view,
have been constrained after further study
to abandon it. The present writer has
no doubt that his readers, as they pro
ceed, will be increasingly impressed by
the naturalness, and indeed inevitability,
with which the sections follow one
another, and will be convinced that they
49 D

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
are dealing with a discourse which bears
the clearest marks of an original unity.
2. " No sermon of any scribe had any authority
or value without ' The Rabbis have a
tradition,' or ' The wise men say ' ; or
some traditional oracle of that nature.
Hillel the Great taught truly and as the
tradition was concerning a certain thing,
' But although he discoursed of. that
matter all day long, they received not his
doctrine, until he said at last, So I heard
from Shemaia and Abtalion.' " — John
Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., ii. 159.
" The fence lies at the root of the Rabbinic
system." — C. Taylor, Pirke Aboth., i. 1.
3 . " The attitude of Jesus to the Jewish law
would naturally form a cardinal point
in any such inaugural address, especially
as popular curiosity must have been
already whetted and misunderstanding
created by the conflicts between Jesus
and the religious authorities." —
J. Moffatt, Encycl. Bibl., iv. 4384.
4. The mention of iota would be meant for
Greek readers. For them it was the
smallest of their letters. " In the time
of Christ there was prevalent over all
Palestine, from the extreme north to the
south, a single literary language in
Aramaic, varying but slightly in the
different parts of the country." " He
50

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
would be obliged to speak Aramaic to
His disciples and to the people, in order
to be understood." — Dalman, Words of
Jesus, pp. ii, 80.
Jod is the smallest letter in the Hebrew
alphabet. Some of the others are only
distinguished from one another by
little horns or hooks ; and it is to
these the reference is made. That our
Lord was speaking in a manner which
would be well understood by His
hearers, may be gathered from the
following quaint story of the Rabbis.
" The letter Jod came and prostrated itself
before God and said : ' O Eternal Lord,
Thou hast rooted me out of the name of
that holy woman.' The blessed God
answered : ' Hitherto thou hast been in
the name of a woman, and that in the
end (viz., in Sarai) ; but henceforward
thou shalt be in the name of a man,
and that at the beginning.' Hence is
that which is written, ' And Moses called
the name of Hoshea, Jehoshua.' " —
J. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., ii. 101.
" Verily," literally Amen, " I say unto you."
" The way in which Jesus uses amen is
unfamiliar to the entire range of Jewish
literature." " This is not an oath, yet
more potent than a simple ' verily,'
because it gives the hearer to understand
51

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
that Jesus confirms His own statement
in the same way as if it were an oath or a
blessing. Thus did He fulfil His own
injunction to make the simple ' yea, yea '
take the place of an oath." — Dalman,
Words of Jesus, pp. 228 f.
6. " Our Lord must use the word fulfil in its
most strict and ordinary sense : He
must mean that He is come to give that
which fills up the husk of the outward
law, its kernel, its substance."
" He came to confirm ... to show the
ground, the inward righteousness, of
these rules."
— F. D. Maurice, Kingdom of Christ,
ii. 252.
7. It has been wisely said that " No one who
follows Jesus' example in advancing the
Kingdom will labour exclusively, or even
primarily, to overthrow the false ; rather
will he devote himself to the establish
ment of what is true." — Votaw, Hastings'
Diet, of Bib., v. p. 23.

52

V
THE RELATION TO THE PAST — {continued)
(Matt. v. 21-48)
The first of our Lord's illustrative instances was
the enactment of the old legislation against the
crime of murder. Here was a law without
obedience to which no society could hold
together. He had certainly no thought of
abrogating that. On the contrary, He bids
men root out of their hearts the feeling from
which the act of murder proceeds. That
feeling, of course, is hatred {Note 1).
The old law did not dare to go so far as to
forbid haired in general. It laid down what
it deemed to be practicable. He endorsed and
upheld the prohibition ; but He went much
further in the direction of its purpose and aim.
He taught that anger and contempt are to be
regarded as sins which would make those who
indulged them amenable to penalties even more
terrible than those of a court that could con
demn to capital punishment {Note 2).
He declared that no act of worship, however
53

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
sacred, can be acceptable to God while there
remains unacknowledged injury and ill-will
on the part of the worshipper {Note 3). And
He bade them remember, that when a wrong has
been committed, prudence not less than duty
makes it desirable to seize the first opportunity
of settlement.
In the same way He dealt with the law that
had guarded the sacredness of the home. The
old legislation had done what it could to this end.
It had forbidden the definite act of immorality.
He prohibited the feeling that prompts to the
act. The old law had judged it necessary to
tolerate relaxations of the marriage bond, but
had insisted that this was only to be broken by
means of a regular legal process. It was not to
be lightly or easily done. Our Lord went much
further, and limited the granting of a divorce
to the single case in which the sanctity of the
marriage relationship had been most grievously
sinned against {Note 4).
Next came the matter of oaths, and the
sacredness of the spoken word. The old law
had tried to check the universal habit of profane
swearing, by insisting that an oath once made
must be held to be binding. But innumerable
casuistical devices had been invented whereby
54

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
it was held to be lawful to evade and defeat the
requirement {Note 5). Our Lord would have
none of these evasions. An oath was in all
cases to be accounted a solemn thing ; and
accordingly it was to be banished from ordinary
speech. " Let your conversation be, Yea, yea ;
Nay, nay." Expletives, that go beyond these,
are offences against the simplicity of genuine
truthfulness, and are to be treated as suggestions
from the evil one.
The two cases which follow are, at first
hearing, not quite so easy to interpret ; but a
little consideration will show how they also
serve to illustrate the principle.
The law had said, no less than three times :
" An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."
Could such injunction as that be fulfilled ?
Most certainly it could ; for it marked an
advance upon an earlier state of society in
which the indiscriminate vengeance of a wild
vendetta had been allowed and encouraged.
It decreed that the recompense for an injury
should at all events be kept within the bounds
of carefully calculated justice {Note 6). That
was so far good. Our Lord went a great deal
further in the same direction of progress. He
forbade the indulgence of the desire for retalia-
55

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
tion in any shape or form {Note 7), and would
teach men to give all rather than to ask all,
even of that which legally belonged to them
{Note 8).
And one more instance He gave. The old
law had said, if not in so many words, yet
certainly in effect : " Thou shalt love thy
neighbour, and hate thine enemy " {Note 9).
Was that a command of which the spirit and
intention could be respected ? Yes it was, for
here again the injunction marked an advance.
It was certainly an advance upon a condition
of things in which all alike were to be treated
as enemies. Love for some was the necessary
step which was eventually to lead to love for
all. Our Lord had come to make the further
progress possible. He would have His fol
lowers love their enemies, as well as their
friends and their brethren. He could allow no
halting on the road. They might not be
satisfied merely to reproduce the behaviour of
other men. The goal to which He was leading
them was an elevation of spirit nothing short
of the Divine. " You are to be perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect."
Such, then, was our Lord's teaching as to the
true relation to the past. The old is to be
56

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
reverenced because it was an anticipation of a
better which was intended to grow out of it.
The worth of the old is to be seen in the light
of that which is to be. It was a view of the
past which regarded it, if we may venture to
employ a very modern simile, as a moving
staircase mounting upwards.
The doctrine was new at the time it was pro
claimed. We have no reason to think that it
had ever been presented before. Nor can we
say that it is yet fully understood and appre
ciated. Perhaps we have little conception of
the light that it might bring if it were to be
generally accepted. When, for example, people
are puzzled and distressed by the chapters
which from time to time they hear read from
the Old Testament, and even by passages in the
Psalms, where there seems to be so much of the
" eye for an eye " and " thou shalt hate thine
enemy " type of morality, it would make all
the difference if they could realize that they are
listening to accounts of the gradually ordered
steps of the Divine education ; and that the
very feeling of distress is an evidence that the
long process has now advanced a good distance
on its way. If, moreover, it is true that nations
and individuals have to pass through the stages
57

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
which were travelled long ago by others before
them, then we should be able to see how the
record of their experiences must have a use and
a value for us still. The reading of the Old
Testament history ought to be " an excellent
cordial for drooping spirits." " The things
which were written aforetime were written
for our learning . . . that we might have
hope." And this is by no means all that we have to
learn from our Lord's words. We may be
sure that they have an application to Christian,
as well as to pre-Christian times. They tell us
that, while we ought to have a deep reverence
for our inherited religious traditions, we must
not so reverence them as to forget that they
are intended to help us on the way to the future.
It may well be that the past has more in it
than we have ever yet been able to gather
from it ; but we must not imagine that we can
find a resting place in it. We, too, are on the
great staircase. And we are bound to recog
nize that " it moves ! " to use words which
have become famous in a somewhat different
connexion. We might be frightened if we had not our
Lord's assurance to rely upon, and if we had not
58

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
the promise of the help of His Spirit, whose
appointed function it is to lead those who will
trust Him into all the truth, as they are able
to bear it. Notes.
i . " Hates any man the thing he would not
kill ? " — Shakespeare.
2. Raca, or emptyhead, was " a word used by
one that despiseth another, in the highest
scorn ; very usual in the Hebrew writers
and very common in the mouth of the
nation." — J. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., ii.
p. 109.
The word for "fool," in the Greek {rnori),
may also be a transliteration from the
Hebrew. It seems intended to imply
fixed and settled detestation of one who
is held to be guilty of apostasy from
God.
The various stages of trial must have been
understood as referring to the then
existing systems of judicature. Probably
the " judgment " (vv. 21, 22) denoted
the " minor Sanhedrin," which, accord
ing to the Talmud, consisted of 23
members, was appointed for every town,
and was empowered to deal with cases
of life and death. The Sanhedrin
proper, which had 70 or 72 members,
was the supreme court of Judaism.
59

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Gehenna, or the valley of Hinnom, was a
narrow gorge on the S. of Jerusalem
which had been defiled by Josiah as an
act of abhorrence for the Moloch wor
ship that had been carried on in it
(i Kings xi. 7), and was used for the
destruction of refuse. It had come to
be treated as a symbol of the place to
which the ungodly will ultimately be
consigned.
A suggestion has been made (see Votaw,
op. cit., p. 26n) that the passage w. 21, 22,
would be more easily intelligible if we
might suppose that certain words con
tained in the original form of it had
dropped out. We might then read it
as follows :
" You have heard that it was said to
them of old time, Thou shalt not kill,
and whoever kills shall be in danger of
the Judgment. But I tell you that
everyone who is angry with his brother
shall be in danger of the Judgment.
[Moreover, it was said] Whoever says
to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger
of the Sanhedrin. [But I say unto you]
Whoever says, Fool, shall be in danger of
the Gehenna of fire." The weakness
of the conjecture is that it is unsupported
by external evidence.
3. The Talmud gives a similar rule when it
60

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
says : " If a man is on the point of offering
the Passover, and remembers that there
is any leaven left in his house, let him
return to the house and remove it, and
then come to finish his Passover." It
will be noted as significant that what the
Rabbis laid down as a duty in regard to
the " leaven of bread," our Lord applied
to the " leaven of malice and wickedness."
4. We might have thought that no questions
could have arisen — as we may be sure
that no questions were raised at the
first — in regard to our Lord's meaning
in these words about divorce. As a
matter of fact, no words in the New
Testament have given rise to more
discussion and contention.
In the first place, there has been the diffi
culty that the qualifying clause, " except
for the cause of unchastity," is not
found in the similar pronouncements
given in St Mark x. 11, and St Luke
xvi. 18. It has been argued that the
words in St Matthew must have been a
later insertion, and were not originally
spoken by our Lord. For such a hypo
thesis there exists no external evidence ;
and it is to be remembered that they are
given twice by St Matthew in what are
virtually the same terms, here and in
xix. 19. Moreover, it is generally al-
61

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
lowed that the first Evangelist had the
Gospel of St Mark, if not also that of St
Luke, before him when he wrote. What
he added, therefore, was added deliber
ately. It seems reasonable to conclude,
with Dr Sanday (see C.S.S.S., Occasional
Papers, Ap. 191 1), that "the presump
tion is that he had some good external
ground for introducing " the words.
It is worth while to call attention to the
opinion of the Jewish scholar, Mr C. G.
Montefiore, who regards St Matthew's
as the original form of this particular
saying. (See his Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels, i. p. 235 f.)
Another question has arisen as to the mean
ing of the word for " unchastity."
The Greek term is that which is most
commonly used to denote pre-nuptial
unchastity, though passages occur in the
LXX. in which it was employed in a
wider sense. In the early Christian
Church there was no question but that
it was to be so understood here. (See
Diet. Chr. Ant., ii. 1100a, and Watkins,
Holy Matrimony, p. 221.) The Syriac
version of the second century has the
rendering : " He that dismisseth his
wife concerning whom adultery has not
been alleged, he causeth her to commit
adultery." 62

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
A good deal has been made of the provision,
in Lev. xx. 10 and Deut. xxii. 22,
that the punishment for adultery was
to be death, and it has been argued that
our Lord could not therefore have
regarded divorce as a possible penalty.
But it seems clear that the law had long
ceased to be enforced. " I do not
remember that I have anywhere in the
Jewish pandect read any example of a
wife punished with death for adultery."
— ( J. Lightfoot on St Matthew xix. 8.)
Yet, once more, uncertainty has been felt
as to what is implied by our Lord's
words in regard to the possibilities of re
marriage after divorce. It is not dis
puted that He forbade the remarriage
of the woman who had been improperly
divorced ; but what of the remarriage
of either party when the permitted
divorce had occurred ? By His hearers
such remarriage would certainly have
been held to be legitimate, and it is not
likely that they would have gathered
that He meant to forbid it. From very
early times the Christian Church has
been divided in its view of the matter.
In the East, at all events, the remarriage
of the innocent party has been officially
allowed.
Taking the teaching as a whole, it would seem
63

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
to be a just inference to say that " In
asmuch as our Lord's words expressly
forbid divorce, except in the case of
fornication or adultery, the Christian
Church cannot recognize divorce in
any other than the excepted case, or^
give any sanction to the marriage of
any person who has been divorced
contrary to this law during the hfe of
the other party." (Resolution of the
Lambeth Conference in 1888, reaffirmed
in 1908.)
. There is abundant evidence to show that
our Lord, when He was speaking of
oaths, was alluding to actual phrases
which were in common use, and were
encouraged by the Pharisaic doctrine.
(See e.g. J. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. ii.
127 f.)
" That He did not refer to the solemn invo
cation, on special occasions, of God as
witness to the truth of a formal declara
tion, such as the evidence given in a
Court of Law, is shown by His own
response, when on His trial before the
Sanhedrin, to the adjuration of Caiaphas.
" A solemn oath of this kind was recognized
by the law : ' Thou shalt fear the Lord
Thy God . . . and by His name shalt
thou swear ' (Deut. x. 20) ; and by the
Jewish teachers who distinguished ' an
64

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
oath of testimony ' from all other kinds
of oaths."
— Savage, The Gospel of the Kingdom,
p. 118.
" Not one of the oaths which our Lord
instances as illustrative of His prohibition
is a judicial oath." " No literal inter
preter would be heedless of the circum
stance that the communication which is
to be yea, yea, nay, nay, cannot, without
a most strange use of language, imply
a formal, legal procedure." — F. D.
Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, ii. pp.
259 f-
6. " Non fomes sed limes furoris est." — St
Augustine, Contr. Faust, xix. 25.
7. " The law protests against the selfish, indi
vidual principle, and raises a standard
against it . . . the Gospel comes to
exterminate that same selfish principle
out of the mind and heart of the man."
" Never resist evil for a selfish purpose . . .
this is our Lord's meaning."
— Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, ii. pp. 274 f.
Where it is a matter of personal loss and
inconvenience, submission to the civil
authority was to be made most un
grudgingly. The reference to State
impressment for public service was
peculiarly significant at the time. " The
whole country was seething with unrest.
65 E

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The nationahst aim of throwing off the
Roman yoke was intensely active. . . .
He made use of the oppressions which
specially galled them to point the moral
of a great principle ... at the same
time He so worded His teaching as to dis
countenance altogether any movement
of national resistance to the authority of
the Empire. The Kingdom of God must
not, in any sense or degree, be debased
into a political revolution." — Savage,
The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 125.
A happy instance of the more excellent way
of non-retaliation is to be found in
A Book of Quaker Saints, by L. V.
Hodgkin. An American Friend, William
Savary, a tanner by trade, from whose
yard a sack of skins had been stolen,
merely advertised in the local newspaper
that " Whoever stole a lot of hides on
the fifth day of the present month is
hereby informed that their owner has
a sincere wish to be his friend. If
poverty tempted him to this false step
the owner will gladly keep the whole
transaction secret, and will gladly put
him in the way of obtaining money by
means more likely to bring him peace of
mind." The thief brought the skins
back one night and broke down com
pletely in tears and repentance. He gave
66

THE RELATION TO THE PAST
up his evil ways, and was employed in the
tannery as a faithful servant for many
years.
8. The Easterns who listened to our Lord
would see at once that, in describing the
relations between individuals, He was
using figurative language. Probably we
ought to recognize a definite purpose in
" His practice of so wording His ex
hortations that not even the most
rabbinically-minded of His hearers could
suppose that the command was to be
obeyed literally." — E. Lyttelton, Sermon
on the Mount, p. 165.
It has been the failure to distinguish between
precepts, and principles that underlie
them, that has been largely responsible
for the disastrous doctrine which has
maintained that, though the Ethics of
the Sermon on the Mount might be
practised by individuals, they could not
possibly be interpreted as applicable to
the conduct of nations.
9. " The whole precept as it stands undoubtedly
represents, and is a summary of, the
sense of the law." — Mozley, Lectures on
the O. T. p. 188.
" The words ... do not appear, totidem
Uteris, in the O. T. Scripture." " The
commentator . . . does not find the
words in any text of the Bible. Does he
67

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
not find the meaning in a hundred ?
Can he read the five books of Moses, the
Kings and Chronicles, above all, the
Psalms, and say that if a scribe inserted
this phrase, he did not very happily
embody in it the feeling of the old
time, or that our Lord does not evidently
sanction his representation of it ? " —
Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, ii. 277.

Si

VI
THE PERIL FROM THE BLANDISHMENTS
OF THE WORLD (Matt. vi. I-l8)
A few years ago a little work was published by a
thoughtful writer, which attracted a good deal
of attention. It was a survey of the spiritual
and intellectual tendencies of the period, and
was entitled Reasonable Apprehensions and Re
assuring Hints.
We are considering a far older and more
comprehensive investigation into the spiritual
life, to which it would not be inappropriate
to give the same title, but with one not
unimportant change. A change must be made
in the order of the words. The contents of
the Sermon on the Mount might very well be
described as consisting of Reassuring Hints and
Reasonable Apprehensions.
Our Lord begins with the hopeful view. For
Him the entire spiritual landscape is irradiated
by Hope. He foresees in the future the
supremacy of ideals that are as yet only im-
69

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
perfectly apprehended and appreciated. He
points to the experiences of the present as the
pledge and guarantee of that which is coming.
And, more than that, He claims that the roots
which have produced the blossom of the
present, and are yet to produce the fruit of the
future, can be traced far back through the long
process of the growth and development of the
past. It is always best to begin with hope when we
are dealing with the character and prospects of
an age, or a people, or an individual. The
wisest teachers and the safest guides have been
those to whom it was natural to look first on the
bright side of things.
But, if that is true, it is equally true to say
that no teacher or guide can be entirely trust
worthy who Is content to allow us to imagine
that the bright side is the only side that we are
bound to consider.
It should not surprise us, therefore, to find,
when we pass to the second part of the Sermon
on the Mount, that, as the first has been occu
pied with Hopes, so the second is to be con
cerned with Fears.
What is strange is the slowness with which the
character of these fears has been recognized. We
70

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
are accustomed to be told that the first of the
perils to which the spiritual life is exposed is
that which comes from the World; and it might
have been supposed that we should be prepared
to learn that the primary place is assigned to
this fear by our Lord. That this has not been
sufficiently understood has been due, no doubt,
to the fact that it is not generally realized that
the peril from the world may take more than
one form. Obviously, it may come in the
shape of direct opposition, in efforts to silence
and crush, by ridicule or force. Our Lord
had already foretold the possibility of this
undisguised antagonism, when He had warned
His disciples that they must be prepared to
meet with persecution.
But there is another, and a very different,
form which the danger from the world may
take. The world may assume a guise of
friendliness ; it may approve and reward the
doings of religious people, leading them in
consequence to look to itself for the commenda
tion and support which ought to come to them
only from a Higher Source ; with the result
that they are gradually turned into its slaves
and dependents, seeking for its approbation
as the very breath of their life, until all that is
71

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
left is but the mask and semblance of
piety. It was against this more subtle and fatal
form of the peril that our Lord uttered His
warning, when He said : " Take heed that ye
do not your righteousness to be seen of men."
In those days, unhappily, there was no need
to look far for illustrations of what the world
was able to effect in this way. His hearers
would quickly recognize the types as He
described them : the men who were careful
when they gave alms to let everyone know what
they were doing {Note i) ; who contrived to be
found at a busy street corner when the hour had
arrived for the daily prayer, and stood there,
bending low and making long prayers, until
hours had been spent in this fashion {Note 2) ;
or who, when they fasted, blackened their
faces with ashes, and did this so constantly
that in some cases their natural countenances
were never allowed to appear ! {Note 3).
It was all very carefully staged, and it did not
fail to secure the anticipated attention and
favour. The best that could be said of these
performers was that they could expect, and
certainly would receive, no higher reward.
The world had usurped in their lives the place
72

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
that belonged to God, and their pretence of
religion was worse than valueless.
In the Notes that will follow this chapter
something will be said about our Lord's illus
trations, and about particular points in His
teaching to which these Pharisaic extravagances
gave rise. But, before we pass to such details,
we shall do well to consider more carefully the
general warning, and try to understand how we
are to turn it to the best advantage.
We shall agree in condemning the extrava
gances of the Pharisees. Our wonder is that
a sense of humour, if nothing else, did not make
it impossible that they should be taken seriously
by anybody. No doubt we have to remember
the tendency in the East to indulge in violent
contrasts of light and shade, so that offence
is not readily caused by what would seem to us
immoderate and unrestrained.
But, however we may make allowances for
others, we find it hard to conceive that we
ourselves could be led into anything that would
in the very least resemble these caricatures of
religion. We are much more likely to pretend that we
are less religious, rather than more religious,
than we are ; and perhaps we imagine that in
73

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
this way we are showing our independence of
the opinions of others, whereas in reality we
may be only conforming more closely to the
conventional standards of to-day. And, even
when we are not ashamed to take an open part
in the performance of religious duties, is it
always quite certain that we are not to a large
extent influenced by the views of our equals and
superiors ? Does it make a difference whether
we are alone, or in the presence of others ?
How much would remain of our devotions if
only that was left which is unperceived by
human eyes ? When we are invited to give a
subscription, does it occur to us to make the
amount of it depend upon whether our names
will appear on a public list F
It is not easy to speak rightly about all this.
We owe so much to the restraint and guidance
of public opinion that we should be foolish
and ungrateful if we thought of it only as an
evil. None the less it may be true that " the
world is too much with us," and we dare not
forget that its influence is not favourable to
any sustained endeavour to rise above the most
commonplace levels of moral and spiritual
character. No one of us may presume to
think that he has no need of our Lord's warn-
74

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
ing ; nor may we be content until we have
learned how the danger is to be overcome.
Indeed, we may well ask how it is possible
that, being what we are, we should be able to
escape from an influence such as that of the
world, always and everywhere present to suggest
and control our thoughts. To that question
we shall find upon consideration that there are
only two answers that need be taken into
account. The first is that which has been made familiar
to us by Psychology and Mental Science.
According to this, the way to exclude one idea
from the mind is to introduce another into it.
Think of something else, and the unwelcome
obsession will be dislodged and its tyranny
broken. The advice sounds simple enough, but the
application of the remedy is far from easy.
Amid the continuous rush of impressions so
insistent and penetrating it is all very well to
say " Think of something else " ; but experience
proves that it is most difficult, if not wholly
impossible, to do this.
It is only when we have struggled and failed
that we are likely to perceive the wisdom and
effectiveness of our Lord's more excellent way.
75

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
What He says is : Think of some One else.
He bids us set the thought of God always before
us. We are to realize that He is with us in
our most secret chamber. We are to accustom
ourselves to the fact that His eye is upon us ; and
to train ourselves In the belief that He con
tinually watches to help us with all, and more
than all, the sympathy and care of a parent for
a child. We do not need to be told that this " Practice
of the Presence of God " is not to be learned
without the expenditure of both time and
strength. It is everything that we have the
Lord's assurance that the effort will be re
warded. Certain it is that we can hope to be
delivered from the first great danger to the
spiritual life in no other way. It is only the
love of the Father that can and will overcome
the world. Notes.
i. It is to be noted as remarkable that there
was no allusion to the Ceremonial
Law in our Lord's references to the
more important religious duties. Such
a silence would distinguish His teaching
from any other at that time.
Among the Jews, almsgiving was regarded
as the most meritorious of religious
76

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
acts. Evidently our Lord did not ques
tion its claim to the primary place.
The phrase about sounding a trumpet was,
no doubt, meant to be understood
metaphorically. " I have not found,
though I have sought for it much and
seriously, even the least mention of a
trumpet in almsgiving." — J. Lightfoot,
Hor. Heb., ii. 138.
2. Standing was the customary attitude in
prayer. That prayers were ostentati
ously made, as is here described, is amply
attested by the accounts in theTalmud,
e.g. " R. Jochanan said, I saw R. Jannai
standing and praying in the streets of
Tsippor, and going four cubits, and then
praying the additionary prayer."
" Very usually for three hours together they
were seen in a praying habit and
posture." — J. Lightfoot, op. cit., ii. 154.
Since prayer is the most difficult of the three
religious practices, it was fitting that it
should "be dealt with at greater length
than the others. The main thing in
sisted upon is the need for reality, that is
to say, simplicity, sincerity, and spirit
uality. Prolixity In speaking is of no
avail. True prayer is the outcome of
utter confidence in the wisdom and
goodness of God.
The Lord's Prayer has been described as the
77,

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
only religious formulary that is capable
of being translated into every known
language (Max Muller). Its keynote is
struck in the great word " Father."
This name of God occurs no less than
seventeen times in the Sermon. While
it may be true to say that " Jesus adopted
this term for God from the popular
usage of His time " (Dalman, Words of
Jesus, p. 1 88), it must also be remem
bered " how immeasurably the concep
tion of Fatherhood is extended by our
Lord beyond that in the Old Testament.
The bond is moral, and not physical ; it
is personal and human, and not national.
It suggests thoughts of character, of
duty, of confidence which belong to a
believer as such, and not peculiarly to
those who stand in particular outward
circumstances." — (Bp Westcott, Addi
tional Note on i John i. 2, where special
reference is made to the passages in the
Sermon on the Mount.) Then, again,
while we are fully justified in saying that
in the Lord's Prayer we have the very
" simplest form of speech," of which
the leading ideas can easily be made
intelligible to all, we may not forget
that in the Greek there are at least two
expressions which have been the cause
of a good deal of controversy. One
78

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
of these is the word epiousios, the
adjective used to describe the bread
that is to be asked for. Strange to
say it is not to be met with in the
whole of Greek literature outside the
Lord's Prayer. Our choice must appar
ently he between two explanations.
The more commonly adopted is that
which derives the word from epiousa,
" the coming-on " (day), which might
mean the day as thought of in the
morning, or the day as thought of in
the evening, when, according to Jewish
reckoning, the new day began. (See
Bp Chase, " The Lord's Prayer," Texts
and Studies, vol. i. No. 3.) Or it may
be that, as periousios meant " beyond
what is necessary," epiousios was coined
to signify " just what is necessary."
(See Votaw, Hastings' Diet, of Bib., v.
P- 37-)
The translators of the Syriac versions seem
to have been uncertain as to the sense.
Accordingly they vary between the two
renderings, " continual " and " neces
sary."
Happily we can be well satisfied with our
own translation " daily " ; and the more
so as St James (ii. 15 f.), who may be
supposed to have had the petition of
the Prayer in his mind, speaks of " daily
79

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
food," and " things needful to the body,"
as if the two were equivalent.
The other question which has been matter
of discussion is whether the concluding
words of the Prayer ought to be rendered
" deliver us from evil," or " deliver us
from the evil one." The fact that our
Lord had recently passed through His
sore trial in the wilderness would make
it natural that He should speak with
special feeling about " temptation " and
deliverance from " the evil one." And
for other reasons the case for the latter
translation appears incontestably strong.
" The evidence from the Gospels seems
without any shadow of uncertainty to
warrant the conclusion." — Bp Chase,
"The Lord's Prayer," p. 112.
" The evidence of the Greek Fathers, who
in such a matter have great weight, of
the earliest Latin Fathers, and of the
various Liturgies, is strongly in favour of
the masculine." — Plummer, St Matthew,
p. 103.
It has been well observed that it is doubtful
whether the idea of an abstract principle
as an actuating power would have been
intelligible to Jewish minds.
" They say of R. Joshua Ben Ananiah that
all the days of his life his face was black
80

PERIL FROM THE WORLD
by reason of his fastings." — J. Lightfoot,
Hor. Heb., ii., 154.
Fasting is treated by our Lord as a regular,
and even a necessary factor of the
rehgious life. He does not say ' If ye
fast,' but ' When ye fast.' In no sense
does He abrogate the practice of fasting ;
He assumes that it wfll remain under the
New Covenant as a normal observance.
But what He does forbid is the open
ostentation of fasting, by which the
Pharisees degraded it into an opportunity
of self-advertisement." — Savage, The
Gospel of the Kingdom, pp. 185 f.

81

VII
THE PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
(Matt. vi. 19-34)
The first great source of peril to the spiritual
life is the World, not less to be dreaded when it
seems friendly than when it is undisguisedly
hostile. Having spoken of this, our Lord goes
on to indicate another danger against which it
is necessary to guard. This is indeed more for
midable, because we carry it with us wherever
we go. We cannot be surprised that our
Lord should have given a serious warning
against the mischiefs that lurk in the Flesh ;
but what may strike us as strange is that these
mischiefs are not by any means those that we
might have expected. As in the case of the
world, so also in that of the flesh, there are two
modes of assault ; and again attention is
directed to the less obvious mode. When we
think of the danger from the flesh, we generally
think of its pleasures and lusts. These, as we
know only too well, may very grievously war
against the soul. What we do not, as a rule,
82

PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
so seriously consider is that the flesh may also
exercise a fatal influence upon us in quite
another way, not through its pleasures, but
through its Cares.
It is of these that our Lord felt it necessary
to speak, knowing as He did the hearts and
circumstances of those whom He was addressing ;
the working men whom He had chosen to be
His nearest disciples, and the crowds of ordinary
people who, in the outer circle, were listening
with them. He knew that these crowds were
made up of fathers and mothers of families
engaged and engrossed in the perpetual struggle
for existence. For such, as indeed for the vast
majority of men and women in every age,
there is no foe of the spiritual life that can be
more daunting and depressing, more capable of
hindering freedom and progress, than the
great enemy, Care. Not less than four times,
then, is the warning given " Be not anxious."
" Be not anxious." That for us to-day is
more intelligible than the older English render
ing, " Take no thought." The words are
simple, but we can imagine the mixed feelings
with which the counsel would be received.
The advice was so admirable, and the release
from the burden of care was a boon to be
83

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
ardently desired. There was not one in those
crowds who had not many a time tried to get
rid of that burden ; but how httle had come
of the effort ! Was it possible that the new
Teacher could show how the thing was to be
done ? He could, and He does. We are to
see how He does it.
In the first place, He tells of remedies that
will not avail. " Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth." How often has that
remedy been tried ! It seems so natural and
obvious to say : " You have only to get rich,
and then you will have no cares." But this
method, as our Lord points out, is necessarily
doomed to failure. The hoarded wealth itself
becomes a fresh source of anxiety {Note i).
At the best, it only means that one set of
cares takes the place of another ; and the soul
continues to be miserably distracted and dark
ened by its bewilderments. " If your eye is
single, your whole body will be luminous. But
if your eye is evil, your whole body will be
dark." Many a true word has been spoken in
jest, and there is a wisdom that goes deeper than
the surface in the remark that the letters of the
word " acres " will also spell " cares " !
It is not by the accumulation of earthly goods
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PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
that care can be driven away ; and there is
another method which is often tried, only to
prove equally unsuccessful. This is the method
of compromise, which aims at making the best
of both worlds by a skilfully divided allegiance.
A very common form of it is the attempt
to combine a scrupulous devotion to the
service of God on a Sunday, with whole
hearted consecration to money-making on the
other six days of the week. But this division
of the life into distinctly adjusted compart
ments will not work. " You cannot serve God
and Mammon " {Note 2). These are two lords
with irreconcilable interests. One or the other
must prevail ; and there can be no rest for the
soul which thinks to satisfy both.
What, then, is the right remedy ? He will
tell them. But, before He does so, He will
point to some beautiful illustrations which they
ought not to miss. They are illustrations from
the natural world of the happiness and freedom
of a life that is unburdened by care.
He bids them "Behold!" It looks as if
His eye had been caught by the sight as He
was speaking. He would have them take note
of the rock pigeons that were circling overhead
{Note 3), and of the flowers that were arrayed
85

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
in such brilliance of scarlet and purple at their
feet {Note 4). Surely, if these works of the
Creator are cared and provided for by an all-
considering Providence, it cannot be intended
that the Heavenly Father's children should be
burdened and crushed by Irrational and profit
less anxieties {Note 5).
No, Indeed, they are not condemned to live
a life that is lower than that of the creatures
beneath them. And He proceeds to give them
a rule that will lead them, if they will faithfully
accept it, into the liberty which will make them
free indeed {Note 6).
Mr Matthew Arnold used to point to what he
thought was the most noticeable characteristic
of the teaching of Christ — its " sweet reason
ableness." No more delightful example of
that quality is to be found than this passage,
which treats of the true way of deliverance
from care. It is reasonable, in the strictest
sense of the word, because it directs its appeal
to that which is noblest and highest in our
nature ; and it is reasonable, in yet another
sense, because it offers the security of a pledge
in regard to the results that will foUow if the
course recommended should be adopted.
" Seek first the kingdom of God and His
86

PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
righteousness." That is to be the supreme
rule of life. There can be no doubt as to the
meaning of the words. First things are to
come first. The things that are eternal and
spiritual, the things of God and the soul,
these are to hold the chief place in men's
thoughts and ambitions. The attainment of
these should be made the main concern of their
lives. Only so can they hope to rise to the
destiny for which they were made, and to
fulfil the law of their being. No one could
question the loftiness and Tightness of the
appeal. But, as always, our Lord is delicately con
siderate of what the consequences will be.
With Him the thought of the ideal ever led to
the practical, and in this instance it was His
special object to show how those who followed
His counsel would be set free from their
mundane uncertainties. He knew that many
would at once begin to exclaim : " Your
counsel is admirable, and our souls are eager to
respond and obey ; but we have bodies also,
and there are our homes and our families to
be thought of. What is to happen to them ? "
Indeed He is not unmindful of such things,
and He tells them what exactly the results
87

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
may be expected to be. In the first place, they
may be quite certain that they will obtain what
they have most desired : that is plainly imphed
in the assurance that something else will be
" added." They will get what they have
sought. The great things, the heavenly things,
will be given to them. The kingdom will draw
nigh ; their eyes will perceive its advance in
the world, and their hearts will experience
its reality and power. Who can estimate the
value of that promise ? How often the search
after God has seemed to go unrewarded, and
the doubt has come whether after all it is a
practicable quest for such as we are ! Here,
then, is a Voice which urges us to follow on,
and assures us that ultimately there will be no
failure ; that those who truly seek will surely
find. We can believe that our Lord would have
rejoiced to dwell upon this highest success
at much greater length, but at the moment
He was chiefly concerned to impress upon His
hearers the certainty of another not unim
portant result. Strictly speaking, it was only
a by-product of the higher spiritual process ;
but by-products, as we know, may possess
considerable value. So He tells them of some-
88

PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
thing more to be received, over and above,
besides the principal gain.
" All these things shall be added unto you."
Again they could have no doubt as to His
meaning. He had previously spoken of the
things about which so many were continually
and painfully anxious ; the things that are
needed to eat and to wear. He pledges Him
self that these should be forthcoming.
It is most important that we should realize
what it is exactly that the pledge includes. We
cannot settle it in our minds too clearly that
our Lord promises the necessaries, and not the
luxuries, of life. He had not the luxuries
Himself, and He knows that for most of us
they would be no help to high living and
thinking, but very much the reverse. What
He assures us is that nothing will be wanting of
that which is good and necessary for life and for
godliness. Just as in His pattern prayer, He
had told men to put first the coming of the
kingdom and its righteousness, and after that
to ask for the provision of " daily bread "
Note 7), so now He would have them know
that this is the true order, and promises that
those who follow it will be doubly rewarded.
What the promise amounts to, we may take it,
89

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
is that health and opportunity will be given to
enable the necessary provision to be made ;
and that, when these are for any reason with
held, the need will no less certainly be met.
" In some way or other the Lord will
provide." Again we may ask — Is that a small matter ?
Would not a whole-hearted dependence upon
that pledge make " all the difference " to vast
numbers of overburdened lives ? It certainly
has done so for countless multitudes of faithful
souls who have relied on the promise and have
found it to hold good. If it has been possible
to point to a rare case in which " the righteous "
has been " forsaken," and " his seed " found
" begging their bread," we may make bold to
believe that such a case is " the exception " that
" proves the rule."
One further point was required to make the
treatment of the matter complete. If men are
not to be anxious about the troubles of to-day,
they most certainly need not borrow its troubles
from to-morrow ! As a matter of fact, most
of the troubles from which people suffer are
imaginary troubles. It is foolish to be burdened
by these. Our wisdom is to do the next thing,
and to take each stage of life's journey as it
90

PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
comes ; for " sufficient unto the day " is the
difficulty, the trouble, " the evil thereof."
We may be sure that our Lord does not
discourage the making of reasonable provision
for the future. What He would solemnly
impress upon all of us is that it is not only a
Christian privilege, but a Christian duty, to go
through the world care-free.
Such, then, is our Lord's remedy for care.
He would have all His disciples live a life worthy
of their relationship to a Father in Heaven ;
and He tells them that if they do so they need
have no anxieties as to the supply of their
earthly necessities. It is good news. Would
that it were always accepted and taught as an
integral part of the Gospel. Notes.
i. In a primitive state of society wealth is
hoarded in houses, and consists partly
of rich apparel.
2. " Mammon," a transliteration of the Aramaic
mammona, is a common Rabbinic term
for riches. Our Lord uses it again
when He speaks of " the mammon of
unrighteousness," and " the unrighteous
mammon " (St Luke xvi. 9, 1 1).
91

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
3. Canon Tristram spoke of seeing " myriads
of rock pigeons " on that spot. — Land
of Israel, p. 446.
4. The " lilies of the field " may have been the
rich scarlet anemones that are common
in Palestine ; or the word " lily," which
in the Greek is somewhat indefinite, may
be taken to include also flowers of the
tulip and amaryllis kind that appear
in the early summer and autumn.
The pathos of the comparison is increased
by the implied suggestion that the
flowers are not distinguished from the
grass when this is cut down for burning.
The Eastern oven was a vessel of pottery
which was heated by means of light fuel
that was ignited within it. When it
had become sufficiently hot, the ashes
were removed and a thin layer of dough
was plastered on the sides to be baked.
5. It would appear that the Greek word
should be translated " age " (as in
John ix. 21 and Heb. xi. 11), and not
" stature " (as in Luke ii. 52 ; xix. 3).
The word occurs frequently in the papyri,
and never in the sense of " stature."
St Luke, when he reports this saying,
must have intended it to be interpreted
as " age," for he adds the remark : " If
then ye are not able to do even that
which is least," etc. An increase of a
92

PERIL FROM MATERIAL CARES
" cubit" (18 inches), to a man's height
could not be so described. For a
parallel to this use of a term of measure
ment with reference to age, compare
Ps. xxxix. 5. " Thou hast made my
days as handbreadths."
6. It is related that Frederick William IV. of
Prussia once visited a school and put
some questions to the children. Point
ing to the stone in his ring, a flower in
his button-hole, and a bird that flew
past the window, he asked to what
kingdom each of them belonged, and
received the right answers — to the
mineral, the vegetable, and the animal
kingdoms. Then he said, "And to what
kingdom do I belong ? " After a pause,
a little hand went up, and the reply came
— " To the kingdom of Heaven, your
Majesty." The king was delighted, and
kissed the child.
The incident is interesting as a reflexion of
the wisdom and skill with which the
greatest of teachers led on the thoughts
of His hearers from the flowers and the
birds to an understanding of the duties
and privileges that belong to the members
of the supernatural order.
7. At first sight it might seem as if the Lord's
Prayer had been included in the report
of the Sermon in order to illustrate the
93

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
teaching by a concrete example which
had been given on some other occasion.
This view has been held by many. But
a closer consideration is likely to lead
us to change our minds and to agree that
" it is scarcely too much to say that the
Lord's Prayer would be almost unin
telligible in its full meaning apart from
the detailed teaching of the Sermon on
the Mount ; while the Sermon itself
would be incomplete without the
Prayer." — Savage, The Gospel of the
Kingdom, p. 184.

94

VIII
THE PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL (Matt, vii.)
The really wise optimist is not the man who
refuses to see anything but what is bright in
life. On the -contrary, it is his very optimism
that emboldens him to face the dangers, and
even the defeats, that lie along the course to
the goal. Experience has taught him that
courage must be blended with caution.
We have seen how our Lord began His
manifesto of the spiritual life by sounding the
note of Hope ; and we have seen how He passed
on to complete His teaching on the practical
side by revealing the sources of Fear.
There was the fear of what the World, under
the guise of friendliness, could do to win the
servants of God from their allegiance. And
there was the fear of what the Flesh might do,
by its distracting cares, to rob them of their
confidence in His Fatherly goodness.
It remained to tell of yet another fear, a
deeper danger and a darker depth ; an even
95

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
more malignant and deadly foe, the effect of
whose working may be to transform the spiritual
nature itself until it becomes irredeemably evil.
So subtle is this enemy that it is possible to
read the description of his activities without
so much as a suspicion of what is intended.
That such may be the case has been proved
again and again in connexion with the inter
pretation of this seventh chapter of St Matthew.
We are frequently assured that in this chapter
" the sequence is less apparent," or that it
deals with " a number of accessory topics "
which have been left over from the preceding
sections. And yet, it does not seem too much to say
that we must fail entirely to grasp the true
meaning of this final passage of the Sermon
until we can perceive that its dehberate aim
is to set forth the signs of operations of a power
of evil whose influence is to be dreaded more
than any other, inasmuch as it may be at its
greatest in the lives of those who are thought
to be, and who think themselves to be, in the
very forefront of religious people.
We need not hesitate to say that it has been
the teachers who have been most keenly alive
to the personality of the principle of good, who
96

PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL
have been also most sensitive to the mysterious
presence and working of an agency of evil
{Note i). There is one such to whom we may
naturally turn in the hope of receiving guidance
as to the significance of this warning of our
Lord. In a familiar passage of the First
Epistle of St John (iii. 10) the writer tells of
the marks which plainly distinguish a genuine
spirituality from that which is false. " In
this," he says, " the children of God are mani
fest, and the children of the devil : whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither
he that loveth not his brother."
With that clue in our hands we shall be hard
to help if we can miss our way to the discovery
of the true interpretation of the 7th chapter of
St Matthew. With St John's words in mind we
can scarcely fail to see that the signs which he
indicates are exactly those that are described
by our Lord ; the only difference being that by
Him the order is reversed.
He begins with Uncharitableness. When we
reflect upon the matter we cannot be surprised
that He does so. We must be aware that the
world has always been most ready to bring this
particular charge against rehgious professors
and religious enthusiasts. It has complained
97 c

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
that the most conspicuous fault of the religious
temper is its tendency to censoriousness ; its
quickness to suspect the worst, and to find the
soul of evil even in things good.
Our Lord does not often take sides with the
world, but in this instance it is clear that He
agrees with its verdict. He points to the danger
and most earnestly warns His disciples against it.
He tells them they are not to " judge."
This does not mean that they are not to exer
cise a reasonable discrimination. On the con
trary, they must use their common-sense. It
is sheer folly to cast pearls before swine. They
will only turn in a rage upon those who have
done so, when they discover that they have been
disappointed in what they took to be peas or
acorns. What they have to be on their guard
against is the unloving, fault-finding, critical
spirit {Note 2). Such a temper brings its sure
penalty to all who indulge it ; for criticism
begets sensibility to criticism, and the critics
will get as good as they give. " With what
measure you mete, it will be measured to you
again." And these condemnatory criticisms are often
so foolish. Unhappily the good are not always
endowed with a strong sense of humour ; but
98

PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL
even those who have least ought to be able to see
the absurdity of the situation in which the man
with the beam in his own eye is proffering his
services to extract the splinter from his brother's
eye ! {Note 3).
And there is still more decisive argument
against uncharitableness in a Christian. It is
the spirit that is the most utterly and mani
festly opposed to the character and practice of
God. The oft-repeated assurance of Christ's
teaching is that God treats men as a parent
deals with his children. He does this liberally
and without grudging. His actions are based
on the principle of the largest generosity.
With Him the rule is "Ask, and it shall be
given." All who are to be like God must seek
to imitate His example. This is the very first
axiom of any true religion. And indeed it is
nothing new. " All things that you would
have men do to you, even so do to them ; for
that is the law and the prophets " {Note 4).
But our Lord would have His followers to
remember that those who think they have
escaped from one set of perils may be in danger
of falling into others of a seemingly opposite
kind. They must not forget that, if there is
a false narrowness, there is an equally false
99

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
laxity ; a walking in the broad way, which no
less certainly leads to destruction {Note 5). If
it is startling to find uncharitableness where we
have every right to look for love ; what is to be
said when Unrighteousness, the very negation
of the most ordinary morahty, is to be seen
masquerading in the garb of sanctity ? Alas !
it is only too certain that in this matter the
unexpected and seemingly incredible can, and
does, happen. The fruit that has seemed so
fair has been revealed as rotten at the core ; the
edifice that was so stately has suddenly collapsed
into a ruin of discredit and disgrace. What is
so appalling is that the duplicity and deceit
may have been combined, not merely with a
loud rehgious profession, but with much
spiritual capacity and success. Moreover, the
process of deterioration may be so secret and
gradual as to have been unsuspected even by
those who are the victims of it.
They may say without misgiving " Lord,
Lord " ; and may appear to themselves to be
the very patterns of orthodoxy. They may be
able to appeal to their record of spiritual
achievements — " Did we not prophesy by Thy
Name, and by Thy Name cast out devils ? "
They may have been the means of help and
100

PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL
blessing to others. But He who sees what is
deeper than the surface will have no choice
but to reject them as " workers of iniquity "
{Note 6). These are terrible words and they
reveal awful possibilities. We are reminded
as we read them of other mysterious passages
in the N. T. which tell us that the final master
piece of the evil one is yet to be manifested
in an unsuspected combination of religion and
lawlessnesss. The prospect of such a thing
makes the heart sick, and may well shake the
stoutest with the terrors of self-distrust.
Our Lord brings His Sermon to an end with
a thought, which, while it does not resolve the
mystery, fixes the attention upon the practical
issue of the teaching. It is the tremendous
thought of human responsibility. Failure,
when it comes, is not to be attributed to the
will of God ; nor is the blame of it to be cast
only upon the devil. The man has to make his
decision, and that decision is determined by his
wisdom or his folly. There are fixed spiritual
principles and unalterable ethical laws. It is
as these are obeyed or rejected that success or
disaster must follow.
Our Lord's illustration of the two builders
IOI

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
would appeal at once to the dwellers among the
hills and glens of Galilee. They would often
have seen the streams, swollen by the rains of
spring or early winter, sweep down in torrents
carrying everything before them ; and they
would know how insecure must be the site
provided by the alluvial sand which was left
when the water had disappeared. To build
on such a foundation would be an act of folly
of which no one could be guilty who had any
knowledge of the country, or the least foresight
into the future {Note 7).
With this thought of unavoidable responsi
bility the great utterance reaches its close.
Things are what they are, and their conse
quences will be what they will be. The good
ness of God is supreme over all ; but "all's love"
and " all's law." As moral beings, men have to
choose whom they will serve ; and it must be
the united service of both heart and will.
Religion is not to be separated from morahty.
In the long run it is the idealist who is proved
to be the practical guide. So the teaching
which at first might seem to begin in the clouds
is found at last to rest upon foundations firmly
planted on the ground. What it all comes to
is this — Christianity, true Christianity, is the
102

PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL
only thing that will work, and the only thing
that can last.

Notes.
i. "Our Lord came to proclaim with a dis
tinctness unknown before the supreme
and perfect goodness of the Father in
Heaven. It was now possible and need
ful in the development of religious
thought that men should learn that to
the All-good is opposed the one who
is absolutely evil." — Chase, " Lord's
Prayer," p. 94.
" Rabbinic writings contain no mention of a
kingdom of Satan. In other words, the
power of evil is not contrasted with that
of good, nor Satan with God. The
devil is presented rather as the enemy
of man, than of God and good. This
marks a fundamental difference." — Eder-
sheim, Life and Times of the Messiah,
ii. p. 755.
2. " The habit of noting the good in our
neighbours, and being at least reticent
concerning the evil, is required of us
by God more urgently than perhaps any
other duty which we owe to each other."
— E. Lyttelton, Sermon on the Mount,
p. 310. 103

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
3. The Talmud employs similar language when
it says : " It is written that in the days
when they judged the Judges them
selves, when one said to another, Cast
out the mote (or sphnter) out of thine
eye, the other answered him, Cast out
the beam out of thine eye."
4. " A certain Gentile came to Shammai, and
said, ' Make me a proselyte that I may
learn the whole law, standing upon one
foot.' Shammai beat him with the
staff that was in his hand. He went to
Hillel, and he made him a proselyte,
and said, ' That which is odious to
thyself, do it not to thy neighbour :
for this is the whole Law.' " — J. Light
foot, Hor. Heb., ii. 158.
It is possible that our Lord's words may
have contained an allusion to this well-
known story of the preceding generation.
Long before Hillel, Aristotle had replied,
to one who had asked him how we should
behave to our friends, in words which
even more closely resemble those of
Christ : " As we should desire them to
behave to us." {Diog. Laert., v. xi. 21.)
But it must be noted that his advice is
limited to the treatment of friends.
5. A remarkable parallel to our Lord's illustra
tion is contained in a work by Cebes, a
104

PERIL FROM SPIRITUAL EVIL
disciple of Socrates {Tabula, xv.) " Seest
thou not a certain small door, and
a way before the door, which is not
much crowded ; indeed, very few go by
it. That is the way that leadeth to the
true discipline."
6. The expression " in that day " would be
recognized as having reference to the
last judgment. Compare the language
of St Luke x. 12, and St Matt. x. 15.
The phrase was as old as Isa. ii. 11, 17.
7. How " modern " is this comparison of
ethical to natural law is strikingly shown
by some words used by Professor Huxley
with regard to the proper education of
children. They should be taught, he
said, " that there lies in the nature of
things a reason for every moral law, as
cogent and as well defined as that which
underlies every physical law ; that steal
ing and lying are just as certain to be
followed by evil consequences, as putting
your hand in the fire, or jumping out of
a garret window." {Lay Sermons, Essays,
and Reviews, p. 29.)
The Gospel Ulustration has an advantage
over the Professor's, inasmuch as the
retribution, though certain, does not
always follow immediately. And,
further, it may be observed that the
105

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
great lesson must never be thought
to be outgrown. Important as it is
for children, we dare not allow our
selves to forget that in old age it may
be needed most.

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