XII.
Preached January 4, 1852.
THE CHRISTIAN AIM AND MOTIVE.
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”—Matthew v. 48.
There are two erroneous views held respecting the character of the Sermon on the Mount. The first may be called an error of worldly-minded men, the other an error of mistaken religionists. Worldly-minded men—men that is, in whom the devotional feeling is but feeble—are accustomed to look upon morality as the whole of religion; and they suppose that the Sermon on the Mount was designed only to explain and enforce correct principles of morality. It tells of human duties and human proprieties, and an attention to these, they maintain, is the only religion which is required by it. Strange my Christian brethren, that men, whose lives are least remarkable for superhuman excellence, should be the very men to refer most frequently to those sublime comments on Christian principle, and should so confidently conclude from thence, that themselves are right and all others are wrong. Yet so it is.
The other is an error of mistaken religionists. They sometimes regard the Sermon on the Mount as if it were a collection of moral precepts, and consequently, strictly speaking, not Christianity at all. To them it seems as if the chief value, the chief intention of the discourse, was to show the breadth and spirituality of the requirements of the law of Moses—its chief religious significance, to show the utter impossibility of fulfilling the law, and thus to lead to the necessary inference that justification must be by faith alone. And so they would not scruple to assert that, in the highest sense of that term, it is not Christianity at all, but only preparatory to it—a kind of spiritual Judaism; and that the higher and more developed principles of Christianity are to be found in the writings of the apostles. Before we proceed further, we would remark here that it seems extremely startling to say that He who came to this world expressly to preach the Gospel, should, in the most elaborate of all His discourses, omit to do so: it is indeed something more than startling, it is absolutely revolting to suppose that the letters of those who spoke of Christ, should contain a more perfectly-developed, a freer and fuller Christianity than is to be found in Christ's own words.
Now you will observe that these two parties, so opposed to each other in their general religious views, are agreed in this—that the Sermon on the Mount is nothing but morality. The man of the world says—“It is morality only, and that is the whole of religion.” The mistaken religionist says—“It is morality only, not the entire essence of Christianity.” In opposition to both these views, we maintain that the Sermon on the Mount contains the sum and substance of Christianity—the very chief matter of the gospel of our Redeemer.
It is not, you will observe, a pure and spiritualized Judaism; it is contrasted with Judaism again and again by Him who spoke it. Quoting the words of Moses, he affirmed, “So was it spoken by them of old time, but I say unto you—” For example, “Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths.” That is Judaism. “But I say unto you swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, and your nay nay.” That is Christianity. And that which is the essential peculiarity of this Christianity lies in these two things. First of all, that the morality which it teaches is disinterested goodness—goodness not for the sake of the blessing that follows it, but for its own sake, and because it is right. “Love your enemies,” is the Gospel precept. Why?—Because if you love them you shall be blessed; and if you do not cursed? No; but “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of”—that is, may be like—“your Father which is in Heaven.” The second essential peculiarity of Christianity—and this, too, is an essential peculiarity of this Sermon—is, that it teaches and enforces the law of self-sacrifice. “If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee cut it off.” This, brethren, is the law of self-sacrifice—the very law and spirit of the blessed cross of Christ.
How deeply and essentially Christian, then, this Sermon on the Mount is, we shall understand if we are enabled in any measure to reach the meaning and spirit of the single passage which I have taken as my text. It tells two things—the Christian aim and the Christian motive.
1st. The Christian aim—perfection. 2nd. The Christian motive—because it is right and Godlike to be perfect.
I. The Christian aim is this—to be perfect. “Be ye therefore perfect.” Now distinguish this, I pray you, from mere worldly morality. It is not conformity to a creed that is here required, but aspiration after a state. It is not demanded of us to perform a number of duties, but to yield obedience to a certain spiritual law. But let us endeavour to explain this more fully. What is the meaning of this expression, “Be ye perfect?” Why is it that in this discourse, instead of being commanded to perform religious duties, we are commanded to think of being like God? Will not that inflame our pride, and increase our natural vainglory? Now the nature and possibility of human perfection, what it is and how it is possible, are both contained in one single expression in the text. “Even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” The relationship between father and son implies consanguinity, likeness, similarity of character and nature. God made the insect, the stone, the lily; but God is not the Father of the caterpillar, the lily, or the stone.
When therefore, God is said to be our Father, something more is implied in this than that God created man. And so when the Son of Man came proclaiming the fact that we are the children of God, it was in the truest sense a revelation. He told us that the nature of God resembles the nature of man, that love in God is not a mere figure of speech, but means the same thing as love in us, and that divine anger is the same thing as human anger divested of its emotions and imperfections. When we are commanded to be like God, it implies that God has that nature of which we have already the germs. And this has been taught by the incarnation of the Redeemer. Things absolutely dissimilar in their nature cannot mingle. Water cannot coalesce with fire—water cannot mix with oil. If, then, Humanity and Divinity were united in the person of the Redeemer, it follows that there must be something kindred between the two, or else the incarnation had been impossible. So that the incarnation is the realization of man's perfection.