THE DISCOURSES OF CHRIST.

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innocence of soul, His freedom of spirit, and transcendent loftiness of morals, were all His own, but they must have used, for their high ends, the facilities around Him. The very neighbourhood of a heathen population may have had its influence in breaking down the hereditary narrowness of His race, and who can tell what ardours may have been kindled by the wondrous view from the hill-top of Nazareth? Free from all thought of Himself; filled with a Divine enthusiasm for His Father above, and for humanity; these mountains, that azure sky, the sweeping table-land beyond the Jordan, the wide glory of heaven and earth, veiling, above, the eternal kingdoms, and, at His feet, revealing the enchanting homes of wide populations differing in blood and in faith, but all alike His brethren, may have coloured not a few of the sacred utterances of the Sermon on the Mount.

This unique example of our Saviour's teaching displays in one view nearly all the characteristics presented by the more detached illustrations preserved in the Gospels. Never systematic, the discourses of Jesus were rather pointed utterances of special truths demanded by the occasion. In perfect inner harmony with each other, these sententious teachings at times appear to conflict, for they are often designed to present opposite sides of the same truth, as required by the distinct point to be met. The external and sensuous in all His teachings, however, was always made the vehicle of an inner and heavenly lesson. He necessarily followed the mode to which His hearers were used, and taught them as their own Rabbis were wont, that He might engage attention. At times He puts direct questions; at others He is rhetorical or polemic, or speaks in proverbs, or in more lengthened discourse. He often uses parables, and sometimes even symbolical actions; 2 is always spontaneous and ready;3 and even, at times, points His words by friendly or cutting irony.* But while thus in many ways adopting the style of the Rabbis, His teaching was very different even in outward characteristics. They spoke with a slavish adherence to traditional antecedents, overlaying every address with citations, in their fear of saying a word of their own; but the teaching of Christ was the free expression of His own thoughts and

1 John v. 31; viii. 14. Luke ix. 50; xi. 23. Matt, ix. 17; xiii. 52. 2 John xiii. 4.

3 Matt. iv. 19; viii. 22; xii. 49. Luke viii. 21; xi. 27.

4 Luke vii. 47. Mark vii. 9. Luke xiii. 33.

feelings, and this, with the weight of the teaching itself, gave Him power over the hearts of His audience. With a minute and exact knowledge of the theology of the schools, He shows, by repeated use of Rabbinical proofs and arguments, that He was familiar, also, with the current modes of controversy. His fervour, His originality, and the grandeur of the truths He proclaimed, were enough in themselves to commend His words, but He constantly supports them by the supreme authority of the Scriptures, which were familiar to Him as His mother-speech. Simple, as a rule, in all He says, He yet often opens glimpses into the infinite heights, where no human thought can follow Him. The spirit of His preaching is as transcendent as its matter. Tenderness and yearning love prevail, but there is not wanting, when needed, the sternness of the righteous judge. Throughout the whole of His ministry, and notably in the Sermon on the Mount, He bears Himself with a kingly grandeur, dispensing the rewards and punishments of the world to come; opening the Kingdom of Heaven to those only who fulfil His requirements, and resting the future prospects of men on the reception they give His words, Even to read His utterances forces from all the confession of those who heard Him, that "Never man spake like this."

1 Matt. vii. 28. Mark i. 22. John vii. 46.

THE

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT (CONTINUED).

HE opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount mark the contrast between the New Kingdom of God and the Old. There is no mention of forms, for the whole life of Jesus was one unbroken service of God.1 The Temple service, and the burdensome laws of sacrifices, are passed over, for the Sermon was delivered in Galilee, far from the splendour of the one, or the vexatious minuteness and materialism of the other. The great question of clean and unclean-which divided the nation within itself, made life a slavery to rules, and isolated the Jew from all brotherhood with humanity at large—is left to sink into indifference before the grand spiritual truths enunciated. The Law came with threats, prohibitions, and commands; the "Sermon" opens with benedictions, and moves in an atmosphere of promises and enticements. Its first sentences are a succession of lofty congratulations of those whose spirit and bearing already proclaim them fit for the new society.

The virtues thus praised are not the active only, but the passive; not those only of doing, but of bearing."Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven; blessed the meek, for they will inherit the earth; blessed they that mourn, for they will be comforted; blessed they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied; blessed the merciful, for they will find mercy; blessed the peace-makers, for they will be called sons of God; blessed they that have been persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye, when they shall reproach and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets that were before you."

1 Bibel Lex., vol. ii. pp. 525.

2 Luther, quoted by Meyer. Matt. in loc.

"3

3 Matt. v. 3-12. I give the version of Tischendorf.

The mission of Christ was said by Himself, in a quotation from Isaiah, to be to preach to the poor, and hence it is with no surprise that we find St. Luke substitute simply "the poor" for the "poor in spirit," for both are right. The first disciples were won almost exclusively from among the lowly. "The contented poor," Jesus would here say, "who bear their burden meekly, since it comes from God—those, that is, who are poor in spirit,'-have, in their very meekness, the sign and proof that, though poor in outward things, they are rich in higher, for they will, so much the more surely, be, hereafter, the opposite of what they are now. They are the poor who have nothing and yet have all. They have none of this world's possessions, and have not yet received the blessing in the world to come. But the very longing for the future, and hope of it, are virtually a present possession. Their devout poverty is their wealth, for it secures treasures hereafter. 1 The Kingdom of Heaven' is theirs already." This principle runs through all the beatitudes. As Christ's disciples, the future will be the contrast to the present, riches for poverty; joy for mourning; plenty for hunger; a heavenly crown for earthly suffering for the Master's sake. The contrast of sin and pardon; the lowly sense of needed salvation, which already has in itself the assurance that salvation is granted, are implied in all the states of heart recounted. Through all, there is the deepest sense of the sinfulness and troubles of the present, and springing from this, the loftiest religious aspirations, rising far above the earth, to eternal realities. They thus disclose the inmost and central principle of the new Kingdom; the willing and even joyful surrender of the present, in lowly hope of the future-and that from no lower motive than loving obedience and fidelity to Christ. Immediate self-interest is to be disregarded, for the infinitely higher prospects of the future world. The one passion of the heart. is to be for greater righteousness,—that is, for an ever more complete self-surrender to the will of God, and active fulfilment of its demands. Towards Himself, Jesus claims the most loyal devotion, even to the endurance of "all manner of evil," for His sake. To seek happiness is to fail to obtain it, but self-surrender to God, and faith in Christ as the Messiah, in themselves bring it, when disinterested and sincere.

1 Baur's Geschichte, p. 27.

THE BENEDICTIONS.

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It is striking to note the anticipations of suffering associated by Jesus with true discipleship.1 It is assumed as the inevitable result. He holds out no attractions to insincerity or worldliness; but at the very outset, fans the chaff from the wheat, and repels all but the earnest and devoted.

Four benedictions are bestowed on the passive virtues, four on the active. To bear poverty with lowly resignation to God; to mourn, and yet trust that all is for the best; to reproduce the meekness which Jesus Himself displayed; and to endure trials and persecutions loyally for His sake, are the negative graces demanded as conditions of membership of the New Kingdom. But active virtues are no less required: the hungering and thirsting after righteousness, which finds its food in fresh, joyful, continuous acts of goodness; the mercy which delights to bless the wretched; the purity of heart which strives to realize in the soul the image of God; and the gentleness which spreads peace around it.b

The key-note of all the utterances of Christ reveals itself in these few sentences. His kingdom is at once present and future: present by the undoubting faith in His assurances that it would hereafter assuredly be attained; future in the fact that the realization of its joys was reserved for the life to come. Unlike John, He proclaims that the time of expectation is over: that the New Kingdom has already come as a living power in the soul, diffusing its blessings, at once within and around its members. It is established, in its rights and duties, to develop and advance, henceforth, till its glory cover the earth. In one aspect, it is incomplete till its full realization in the distant future; in another it is already perfect, for it reigns in every single soul which has humbly accepted Jesus as its King.

After this introduction, He proceeds to enforce on His disciples the duties of their new relation to Him, and to cheer them, by recalling the dignity it confers. "You have indeed, good cause to rejoice," says He, "and to be brave of heart, for you are the salt of the earth; the light of the world; a city set on a hill." Mere ostentation, or insincere parade of virtue, were abhorrent to Him, and formed His great charge against the acted religion of the day. But the enthusiasm of true goodness, He tells them, must of necessity

1 See Ullmann's Sündlosigkeit, p. 112.