through life blind, than to have eyes that inflame his heart with evil desires.*

Moses, guarding the nation against the combined vices of profanity and falsehood.common to all Oriental nations, gave to the oath that judicial sacredness which still, in all Christendom, attaches to it. Christ, perceiving that all such solemn asseverations in common conversation spring from a latent consciousness that the mere statement is unentitled to the highest confidence, demands such measure of truthfulness that simple yea and nay shall need no strong indorsers. In this he undertakes to regulate only individual intercourse; he does not speak of those judicial proceedings wherein the state demands some more solemn sanction; and he took himself, without hesitation, the solemn oath administered to him by the Sanhedrim on his final trial.§

Moses, guarding the individual against personal revenge, and the citizen against cruel and unusual punishments, provided a rude but simple expedient in the lex talionis. The measure of a man's punishment was the mischief he had done: "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, strife for strife."|| Of this law, wisely adapted to a rude and barbarous age, the gallows alone now remains, a relic of the past. Christ inveighs not against this statute as a principle of administration of public justice, but he condemns its adoption as a principle for the regulation of private conduct. In commanding the smitten to turn the other cheek, he says nothing against the employment of force by the community for the protection of its citizens, but he condemns the employment of force by the individual for the punishment of offenses personal to himself.

Moses, who had commanded the Jew to love his neighbor, had also carefully forbidden him to associate with the sur

* Matt. v., 27-32. + Exod. xxii., 11; Matt. v., 33-38.

Levit. xix., 12; Num. xxx., 2; Deut. vi., 13.

§ Matt. xxvi., 63, 64.

Exod. xxi., 23-25.

rounding Gentile nations,* an association fraught with danger to the Hebraic nation in its infancy. From these prohibitions the Pharisees had deduced the precept "Thou shalt hate thine enemy," an injunction which they obeyed with the greatest unction. Jesus, not impugning that national policy, which, however strange it may appear in our altered circumstances, was one of self-preservation at the time of its adoption, lays down that law of love in personal intercourse of which his whole life is the best exemplification, and the consummation of which is found in the closing sentences of this part of his discourse. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Patience, purity, truth, and love, inspiring the heart and wrought out in the life, these are the principles which Christ inculcates. The soul that is thoroughly transfused with them will unconsciously fulfill the law of the state, which rests as a yoke uneasy to be borne only upon those whose natural inclinations to revenge, license, falsehood, and selfishness in conduct it but imperfectly represses.

Christ next proceeds to contrast the principles of the kingdom of God with those which characterize the reformed religion of the land-Pharisaism. In this he enters into an analysis of motives, and, seeming to violate his own precept, “Judge not, that ye be not judged," really interprets the exception which he appends, "Cast not your pearls before swine."

The three good works of Pharisaism, like those of the Roman Catholic Church, are alms-giving, prayer, and fasting. Nothing that Christ says can be deemed to detract from their vital importance. They are the language of three of the cardinal Christian virtues-love, piety, and humility. But lan

*Deut. xxiii., 6.

Matt. v., 43-48. Perfect, Greek Tλto, "complete in your love of others; not one-sided or exclusive, as these just mentioned, but all-embracing and Godlike."-Alford on Matt. v., 48. 1 Tim. i., 8-11.

guage is only the vehicle of thought, and these services have too often degenerated into mere soulless babbling. Christ inveighs against that spirit of essential irreligion which substitutes quantity for quality, which confounds the act with the motive. That the world still needs to study his admonitions will be evident to any who consider how the words which are significant of states of the soul have degenerated into mere descriptions of conduct. By charity we mean no longer love, but giving to the poor, and "cold as charity" has passed into a proverb. Benevolence no longer signifies well wishing, but large giving. Character and reputation are continually used as synonyms. Against this superficial holiness, which confounds seeming and being, Christ earnestly warns his followers.*

Alms-giving was rightly held in high honor among the Jewish people. At their feasts 'they never forgot their poor.f By poet and prophet this virtue was accounted among the chiefest evidences of a genuine piety, and, descending to the successor of Judaism, it became one of the most characteristic features of the early Christian Church.§ But in that age, as in this, the value of the act was measured by the amount of the contribution, and not by the motive which prompted to it. Of all the many widows who have cast in their mite, the one whom Christ pointed out in the Temple has alone become immortal. How much of our modern so-called benevolence rests really in the praise of men is sufficiently attested by the fact that every philanthropic society finds it indispensable to its success to publish to the world the names of its supporters and the value of their contributions. Christ does not forbid the employment of such means. He does not even condemn such benevolence. He declares that it shall have the reward that it seeks, the praise of men. But a good bargain is not an eminent Christian virtue; and he who looks alone for the reward of his own heart, and the approval of his

* Matt. vi., 1-18. Psalm xli., 1.

Esth. ix., 22; Neh. viii., 10. § Acts ix., 36; x., 2; Gal. ii., 10.

heavenly Father, will give as Boaz gave to Ruth,* as God perpetually gives to us-under cover.

Prayer was not less ostentatious than alms-giving. The Jew, like the Mussulman, had his appointed hours of prayer, and at the given moment went through his mechanical devotions with as much punctuality as a clock, and with about equal emotion. There were not wanting those who were careful to be in the market-place at the hour, that the fullness of their devotion might be seen. The synagogue, too, stood always open for purposes of prayer, as does with us the modern cathedral; and the pious Jew measured his piety by the number of his petitions, as the pious Romanist too often estimates his devotion by the number of his Ave Marias and Pater Nosters. He who spent entire nights in communion with his Father, and who openly invoked his blessing at the tomb of Lazarus, and acknowledged with gratitude his providence and love before the multitude, neither condemned much prayer nor public prayer, but much speaking and prayer for the sake of publicity. The voice of praise and prayer may well ascend to the throne of the heavenly Father from the great congregation, but the man whose public prayers outrun in fervor his secret devotions may well doubt the genuineness of his piety.‡

*Ruth ii., 15-17.

"Every one that multiplies prayer is heard."-Lightfoot, quoted in Alford in loco.

The Lord's Prayer is supposed by many scholars to have been given at another time, and to have been inserted here by Matthew, chap. vi., 9-15, because cognate to the subject. Luke says that it was given by Christ in response to a request of the disciples (Luke xi., 1), who would hardly have asked him to teach them with the implication that in this respect his teaching lacked something which John the Baptist afforded his followers, if he had already given them this form of prayer in his inaugural discourse. It seems more fitting, too, for private instruction than for a public discourse. So Neander, Ebrard, Pressensé, and Olshausen. Lange supposes that the disciples asked for and received this prayer before the sermon, and immediately after the night of prayer. Tholuck, Stier, and Alford suppose the prayer to have been twice given once to the public, as in Matthew, and once to the disciples, as in Luke. I shall refer to it again. See Chap. XXVI.

Even the superficial reader of the Old Testament will hardly need to be reminded how prominent a characteristic of its pious men was their fasting.* Their humiliation was always a public one. They clothed themselves in sackcloth; they sat in ashes. The extent to which their badges of mourning were worn is indicated by the fact that the King of Nineveh commanded that even the beasts should share the garments of sackcloth with their masters. Christian preachers still quote this heathen fast as an example to the Church of Christ. The argument for such an exhibition is specious. The more public the humiliation, the more complete it would seem to be. Openly to confess one's sins is deemed to be the highest and most difficult exercise of humility.

In truth, because it is so regarded, Christ dissuades from it. Humility is a recognized virtue. Public confession is often only a public boast; and the pride of humility is the most dangerous of all forms of pride. The Christian confesses to God by his prayers, to the neighbor whom he has injured by his open retraction, but to the community only by his reformed life. If, in days of sorrow, fasting becomes the natural language of his overburdened heart, as it often does to the mourner in the hour of poignant grief, Christ dissuades him not from fasting, but he cautions him against giving public expression to his humility; he even recommends to his disciples to contrast with the dissimulation of the Pharisees a "certain dissimulation of face," that to men they seem not to fast.

Vanity is the first vice of Pharisaism; greed is the second. They desire to serve God. They are determined to serve the world.§ The same religion which fasts often, prays * Exod. xxxiv., 28; 1 Kings xix., 8; Judges xx., 26; Ezra viii., 21; Esth. iv., 3, 16. + Jonah iii., 5-8.

Stier, quoted in Lange, Life of Christ, vol. ii., p. 425. § Matt. vi., 19-34. This passage is believed by Neander not to belong to the Sermon on the Mount, because it is not found in Luke, and does not seem to him to belong in logical order to this discourse. But Luke's account is evidently fragmentary, and any delineation of Pharisaic righteousness which

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