IMPARTIAL CONSIDERATENESS
The Christian is to be discriminating, but not niggardly. On the contrary, recognizing the readiness of God to give in response to human prayer and effort, he will exhibit a like impartial benevolence towards all men. This is the last of the three characteristics of the Christian character which our Lord enjoins: impartial benevolence proceeding from its own experience and knowledge of the divine character.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.”
As reported by St. Luke, our Lord gives a commentary on “Knock, and it shallbe opened unto you.” For He gives us the parable of one who comes at an inconveniently late hour, and knocks at the door of a neighbour’s house, and demands food for a friend who has unexpectedly arrived. And our Lord represents how the owner of the house is at last unwillingly overcome by the importunity of the applicant, and consents to rise and give his neighbour what he wants.
Our Lord then in His proverbial way lays down the general principle that importunity—asking, seeking, knocking—at last overcomes all obstacles and obtains what it wants. And we notice that our Lord first arouses attention by the indiscriminate assertion of this general principle. Having done that, when the attention of men was arrested, He on different occasions—for those who had ears to hear—modified it, or gave it its more definite meaning.
Such modifications or exacter definitions are the following: “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them” (St. Mark xi. 24). “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall bedone unto you” (St. John xv. 7). “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive” (St. John xvi. 24). It is not too much to say that all these three statements are in effect identical. To ask in Christ’s name is to ask in accordance with Christ’s will, and this brings the third statement into identity with the second. We can only, as intelligent sons of our Father, “believe that we have received” requests which we know to be in accordance with His mind. Thus the first statement, in common with the other two, makes the effective prayer the prayer which rises in intelligent correspondence with the revealed will and character of God.
Even in this passage may be found a suggestion to the same purpose. “What man is there of you,” asks our Lord, “who, when his son asks a loaf or a fish, will give him”—something that looks like what he has asked for, but is in fact wholly useless or noxious? If then human fathers are to be relied upon in this way, much more is our heavenly Father to be relied upon to give good things to them that ask Him. But there is a converse to that statement. If ason asks for something harmful, what will a wise father do? Not give him what he asks for, but give him according to his request as it is interpreted by his own larger wisdom. So it is with God. He must hear and answer prayers, not simply as they are ignorantly offered, but as interpreted for our good in accordance with His wise purposes. Roman Catholics and Anglicans and Eastern Christians and Nonconformists may be praying for unity among Christians, each according to their own preconceptions. God will be attentive to the good-will of their prayers: they will not, as has been suggested, “neutralize one another:” for God will answer them according to His own wisdom.
Very suggestive then is the version of this saying of our Lord which is given by St. Luke: “Shall not your Father which is in heaven give”—not good things, but—“the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”
It is often said, we know, that the Sermon on the Mount contains no dogmas, no doctrines. But it implies, in a remarkable way, two cardinal Christian doctrines: the Godhead of Christ and the “fallen” state of man. The Godhead ofChrist, as has been and will again be noticed, is involved in the authoritative tone in which He speaks. And a significant expression in this paragraph is unintelligible unless all men, even the best, may be assumed to be sinful. For our Lord is talking about good parents who will do their best for their children: yet He says “If ye, being evil.” Now, I do not know any words which could more forcibly imply—all the more forcibly because incidentally, or by the way—that our Lord thought of us all as having something evil and corrupt in our nature as it is; so that every one of us needs regeneration and conversion, in order that we may become what our Lord would have us. The intimation seems to me to be indeed the more emphatic because, as I say, it is uttered by the way. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more....”
Finally, on these considerations of the divine goodness, our Lord bases our duty towards our fellow-men.
“Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.”
Our conduct towards our fellow-men is to be the reflection of that benevolence which we have learned and experienced in our own relations to God.
In the maxim in which our Lord expresses our social duty there are several points which require notice.
(1) In its negative form it had been already announced both among the Jews and among the Greeks:“Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto yourselves.”[84] But one great superiority of our Lord over other teachers lies in the positive character of His teachings. His will is not simply that men should abstain from wrong-doing, but rather that they should be occupied in right-doing.
(2) Here, as elsewhere, our Lord is proverbial; and this maxim must not be interpreted “at the foot of the letter.” Nothing in common life is more annoying than when people do so interpret and act upon it; with the result that they behave as if every one must agree with them inwhat they like or dislike. What is meant of course is that we are to act towards others with the same considerateness which we would desire that others should exhibit towards us.
(3) We must realize that here we have the very kernel of Christian social duty. There was a great truth announced by the philosopher Immanuel Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only.” We are to treat all men always as ends in themselves; never as means merely towards some other end which we have in view, whether it be production, or convenience, or pleasure. Now this is only putting into a philosophical form what our Lord states more simply, more practically. We are to take the same thought for others that we would have others take for ourselves. We are to make no exceptions in our own favour. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are to remember that every one in God’s sight counts for one; and that nobody counts for more than one. This, I say, is the principle of all Christian social conduct. It is the principle ofjustice; that is, of equal consideration. We could go on drawing out its applications for hours, and never have exhausted them. And it cannot be said that it is at present within reasonable distance of being realized in what is called Christian society. We have a more or less true ideal of what our own human life ought to be—of what opportunities we ought to have for the development of our faculties—of what home and school and college, youth and married life and old age, work and rest, ought to mean for ourselves and our families. We are to make these ideals universal. We are so to limit our desires that what we want for ourselves we can reasonably expect also for others. We are to be as truly zealous and active for other classes or other individuals as we are for our own class or our own family or ourselves. The service which we expect from others, we are to see that we render in some real sense to them, and that without respect of persons. This maxim is not inconsistent with inequality of position or (within limits) of wealth—for men are differently constituted in their capacities and wants—but it does demand equality of consideration.
(4) “This,” our Lord says, “is the law and the prophets,” that is, this is the principle in which the true spirit of the Old Testament culminates. There was, of course, much in the Old Testament narrower than this and on a lower level; and, as we have seen, our Lord occupied a large part of this sermon in showing us those points in which the Christian law is to supersede the legislation of the Old Testament. But the Old Testament represents throughout a process of growth; and this is the point towards which it tends and in which it culminates. As St. Paul says,“If there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended”—summed up, or accomplished—“in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”[85]
CHAPTER X
FINAL WARNINGS
OUR Lord concludes the Sermon on the Mount with three emphatic and striking warnings. We may paraphrase them thus:—There are two ways in life, the easy way of self-pleasing and the hard way of self-denial. Many are found to seek the first, few to tread the second. But they lead directly away from one another: and the first is the way to death, the second is the way to life.
There are many voices of teachers in the world, speaking fair-sounding words. But not by their words, nor by the results they seem to win, shall men be judged by the Son of Man, but by their characters.
There are many spiritual fabrics which men are raising. They seem the one very much as good as the other; but the test lies in their capacity to last. And no spiritual fabric that is built on anythingelse than the teaching of the Son of Man can endure the strain and stress which will come upon it before the end.
Let us direct our attention to each of these three warnings in turn.
THE TWO WAYS
“Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it.”
This is the “doctrine of the two ways.” Human instinct has seized on the metaphor in many parts of the world; the easy way of self-pleasing, the difficult way of duty. It speaks home to every heart, to every intelligence, and nothing needs to be said about it. But I would ask your attention to one question which in our time arises instantly as we read these words—Are we to suppose that our Lord is here saying that at the last issue many will be “lost” and few “saved”? Is this the meaning of “Few be they that find it”?
To this question we may reply thus: On one occasion the disciples categorically asked our Lord, “Are there few that are being saved?” and our Lord replied,“Strive to enter in by the narrow door.” And on another occasion Peter asked the question about John, “What shall this man do?” and was answered,“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.”[86] Beyond all question, our Lord does not intend us to know the answer to the questions which our curiosity raises as to the ultimate destinies of men. He fixes our attention, we may say, on three great principles: the character of God our Father, and His impartial, individual, disciplinary love: the final and universal victory of His kingdom over all resisting forces within and without: the critical character of our present life with its capacities for good or for evil, and the limitless consequences for good or evil which flow from the present attitude of each individual towards his personal responsibilities.
It is not unfair to translate our Lord’s words here, “Many there be that are entering the broad way; few there be that are finding the narrow way.” Thus they embody what is always found to be true in the experience of men. Always, to one who wants to do his duty, itwill become plain in the long run that he has to be prepared to stand alone, or at any rate to go against the majority. He cannot tell the opportunities and responsibilities that others may have. He knows that God is infinitely considerate, and will do the best possible for every soul that He has created; but he can, he does, know his own responsibility and his own duty, and in following that he will have to bear the burden of going with the few and watching the spectacle, so depressing or staggering to the imagination, of the multitude running to do evil.