The Sermon on the Mount: A Practical Exposition. Gore Charles

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      “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

      Of course wherever human misery is, there is also human pity. But, apart from Christ, it was not thought of as a motive force, to be used in redeeming others’ lives and in enriching our own. The Buddha, indeed, one of the purest and noblest men who have ever lived, was first awakened from the dream of luxury, in which he had been brought up, by the threefold spectacle of human misery—decrepitude, disease and death. And once awakened, he made his “great renunciation”: he abandoned his royal state: after much searching, he discovered for himself, as he thought, the way of emancipation from life and, being filled with compassion, taught it to others. But he believed life to be radically an evil. He could imagine no redemption of life but only escape from it. The philosopher Aristotle, who examined and catalogued human qualities, could not have failed to come across the fact of pity. But he seems even to have regarded it as a troublesome emotion—a disturbing force which had better be got rid of in practical concerns. The Greek tragedy, which by its marvellous presentations of the weakness of man was calculated to evoke the sentiment of pity in great intensity, he regarded as a vent or outlet for the emotion which in this way could be purged off and leave the Greek citizen in untroubled serenity in face of actual life. It is to be feared that we very often use the drama and literature in this way. We let our emotion of pity be stirred by the pictures of human misfortune presented to us, and we find a luxury in the indulgence of the emotion. But it is a luxury, and nothing more. It leads to no effective action for the removing of the misery which we deplore. This is pagan. For the disciple of Christ pity is a motive to vigorous action. God in Christ declares His “power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity.” Powerful pity is pity which passes from emotion into practical and redemptive action. Of such pity only does Christ say “Blessed are the merciful or pitiful.” Compassion which does nothing is in the New Testament27 regarded as a form of pernicious hypocrisy.

      And the merciful shall obtain mercy. Here we get a great law of the divine dealing. God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men. In the Old Testament28 it is said “With the merciful thou, God, wilt show thyself merciful; with the perfect man thou wilt show thyself perfect; with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the perverse thou wilt show thyself froward.” And again, in our Lord’s parable,29 when the servant who had been let off his debts by his master was found to deal unmercifully with his fellow-servant who was indebted to him, the remission was cancelled, and the weight of his old debt fell back upon him, to teach us that God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men. Thus again, in view of the last great day, our Lord says “Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom.” So in our Lord’s Prayer, we pray “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Do we want to know how our Lord will regard us at the last day? We can find the answer by considering how our face looks, not in mere passing emotion, but in its serious and deliberate aspect, towards our fellow-men. God deals with us then, as we deal with our fellows. Nor need we confine the principle to God’s dealings with us. The same law is observable in the treatment we receive at men’s hands. On the whole we can determine men’s attitude to us by our attitude to them. Almost all men have their best selves drawn out towards a really compassionate life. “Perchance for a good man—one who is not only just, but good—some would even dare to die.”30 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

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      “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

      If we take part in the kingdom, there must be singleness of purpose. Purity of heart is, of course, continually taken in its narrower meaning of absence of sensual defilement and pollution. That is an important part of purity; and may I say a word about the pursuit of purity in this narrower sense? A great many people are distressed by impure temptations, and they very frequently fail to make progress with them for one reason, namely, that while they are anxious to get rid of sin in this one respect, they are not trying after goodness as a whole. Uncleanness of life and heart they dislike. It weighs upon their conscience and destroys their self-respect. But they have no similar horror of pride, or irreverence, or uncharity. People very often say that it is impossible to lead a “pure” life. The Christian minister is not pledged to deny this, if a man will not try to be religious all round, to be Christ-like altogether. For the way to get over uncleanness is, in innumerable cases, not to fight against that only, but to contend for positive holiness all round, for Christlikeness, for purity of heart in the sense in which Christ used the expression, in the sense in which in the 51st Psalm a clean heart is coupled with a “right spirit”—that is, a will set straight towards God, or simplicity of purpose. There is an old Latin proverb—“Unless the vessel is clean, whatever you pour into it turns sour.” It is so with the human will. Unless the human will is directed straight for God, whatever you put into the life of religious and moral effort has a root of bitterness and sourness in it which spoils the whole life. Our Lord means “Blessed are the single-minded,” for they, though as yet they may be far from seeing God, though as yet they may not believe a single article of the Christian Creed, yet at last shall attain the perfect vision; yes, as surely as God is true, they shall be satisfied in their every capacity for truth and beauty and goodness; they shall behold God.

      Any measure of true spiritual illumination, like that of Job when the Lord had answered his questionings, may be described as “seeing God;” and in this sense to see God is a necessary preliminary to repentance31 and is requisite for spiritual endurance.32 But in its full sense it is incompatible with any remaining dissatisfaction; it is the final goal of human efforts, the reward of those who here are content to “walk by faith, not by sight,” and it includes in perfection—what in a measure all discovery after search includes—satisfaction for the intellect, and full attainment for the will, and the ecstasy of the heart, in God as He is.

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      “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.”

      Christ is the Prince of Peace. He brings about peace among men, breaking down all middle walls of partition between classes and races and individuals, by making them first of all at peace with God—atonement among men by way of atonement with God. This is the only secure basis of peace. There are many kinds of false and superficial peace, which the Prince of Peace only comes to break up. “I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword.”33 Peace can never be purchased in God’s way by the sacrifice of truth. But peace in the truth we, like our Master, must be for ever pursuing.

      Do we habitually remember how it offends our Lord to see divisions in the Christian Church, nations nominally Christian armed to the teeth against one another, class against class and individual against individual in fierce and relentless competition, jealousies among clergy and church-workers, communicants who forget that the sacrament of union with Christ is the sacrament of union also with their fellow-men?

      Christians are to be makers of Christ’s peace. Something we can all do to reconcile individuals, families, classes, churches, nations. The question is, Are we, as churchmen and citizens, by work and by prayer, in our private conduct and our public action, doing our utmost with deliberate, calculated, unsparing effort? If so our benediction is the highest: it is to be, and to be acknowledged СКАЧАТЬ