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.