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

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      “Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

      There has now been given the picture of the Christian character in its wonderful attractiveness—that detachment, that readiness to enter into the heritage of human pain, that self-suppressing meekness and humility towards our fellow-men, that strong passion for righteousness, that effective compassion, that singleness of heart, that striving for peace. Yet, where it is not welcomed, it stings by its very beauty, it hardens by its very holiness. Thus there came about the strange result, that when that character was set in its perfection before men’s eyes in the person of our Lord, they would not have it. They set upon Him and slew Him. It is in full view of this consequence of being righteous that our Lord speaks this last beatitude: and He gives it pointed and particular application to His disciples.

      “Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

      THE PLACE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER IN THE WORLD.

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      As soon as ever a man sets himself seriously to aim at this Christian character, the devil at once puts this thought into his mind—Am I not aiming at what is too high to be practicable? am I not aiming too high to do any good? If I am to help men, surely I must be like them? I must not be so unworldly, if I am to help men in this sort of world. Now our Lord at once anticipates this kind of argument. He says at once, as it were, No, you are to help men by being unlike them. You are to help men, not by offering them a character which they shall feel to be a little more respectable than their own, but by offering them a character filled with the love of God. They may mock it for a while; but in the “day of visitation,” in the day when trouble comes, in the day when they are thrown back on what lies behind respectability, in the day when first principles emerge, they will glorify God for the example you have given them. They will turn to you then, because they will feel that you have something to show them that will really hold water, something that is really and eternally worth having.

      Thus our Lord at once proceeds to answer the question, How is a character such as the beatitudes describe, planted in a world such as this is, to effect good? It is to purify by its own distinctive savour, it is to be conspicuous by its own splendid truth to its ideal, it is to arrest attention by its powerful contrast to the world about it. This is the meaning of the metaphors which follow the beatitudes:

      “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.”

      “Ye are the salt of the earth.” Salt is that which keeps things pure by its emphatic antagonistic savour. “Ye are the light of the world.” Light is that which burns distinctively in the darkness. “A city that is set on a hill” is a marked object, arresting attention over a whole country side.

      “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” The savour of a Christianity which does not mean what it says, wherewith can it be salted? How can it recover its position and influence? Would it not be better never to have been Christians at all than to be Christians who do not mean what they say? What is so useless as a hollow profession of religion? “It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.” “I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”34 Christians exist in order to make the contrast of their own lives apparent to the world.

      “Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

      We may point the significance of this teaching of our Lord by contrasting it with that of another great religious teacher. We have often heard it said that more people are good Mohammedans in Mohammedan countries than good Christians in Christian countries. That may be true, and for this reason: Mohammed set before his disciples an ideal of conduct calculated to commend itself naturally to the people he had to do with. Supposing no fundamental change of character, no real transformation, was required of them, he saw that they would be ready enough to observe religious ceremonies, and to fight, and to abstain from drink. He fastened on these things. These, he said, are what God requires of you. And he has won a high measure of success on the average. Mohammedans have been conspicuous for courage and temperance and regularity in the transaction of religious forms. But just because Mohammed was so easily satisfied, his religion has been a religion of stagnation. He neither aimed at nor effected any regeneration of man.

      But our Lord said “Except a man be born again,”—i.e. unless so fundamental a change take place in him, that it can only be compared to a fresh birth—“he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And He made it plain that the working out of this new birth would not be possible without the sternest self-denial. For this very reason our Lord’s religion has found fewer genuine adherents than Mohammedanism, but by means of those who have been genuine adherents it has effected a profound spiritual renewal even in society as a whole.

      No doubt the Church has often seemed to forget her Lord’s method. There have been times—as at the baptism of the Franks—when the Church incorporated men in masses, allowing the Christian standard to be lowered almost indefinitely, in order that a whole race might be called Christian. So, again, there was a time when Jesuit casuists said (in effect), if only we can keep people Catholic, making their confessions and receiving absolution, it shall be done at any cost of accommodation to existing morals. Once more, the Church of England, in order to maintain the ideal of “a national Church,” has in result allowed almost all the power of spiritual discipline, which she should have kept in her own hand, to be surrendered to a Parliament which is in the loosest possible relation to Christianity of any kind.

      In each of these cases the Church abandoned the method of Christ: she sacrificed reality to numbers, or genuine discipleship to supposed political influence, and as a result in each case the salt lost its savour.

      The question remains for us “Wherewith can it be salted?” Is the savour of true Christianity among us so far gone as to be irrecoverable? We thankfully answer No. But if we are to make good our denial, we must set to work to let men understand that, as the Church has a creed which she cannot let go, and a ministry and sacraments which are committed to her to exercise and to dispense, so she has a moral standard, which, if she is not to fall under the curse of barrenness, she must re-erect and be true to. Only when men have come to understand what the Christian moral standard is—in marriage and in the home, in commerce and in politics—and to understand that it can no more be dispensed with than the creed or the sacraments, is there any prospect of a healthy revival of church life.

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