A. D. 28. Isai. 61.2,3. John 16. 20. 2 Cor. 1.7. Rev. 21. 4. d Ps. 37. 11.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

d

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit e See Rom. the earth.

4. 13.

f Isai. 55. 1.

& 65. 13.

8 Ps. 41. 1.

ch. 6. 14.

Mark 11. 25.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: 8 for they shall obtain

2 Tim. 1. 16, mercy.

Heb. 6. 10.

Jam. 2. 13.

h Ps. 15. 2. & 24. 4.

Heb. 12. 14.

8 h Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be i1 Cor. 13.12. called the children of God.

1 John 3.2,3.

4. "Mourn."

With a spiritual mourning, and a holy sorrow chiefly perhaps for their sins, but also with any sorrow which is sanctified by resignation to God's will, and patient waiting upon Him.

5. "The earth." This promise is taken from Ps. xxxvii. 11, which says, "The meek shall inherit the earth." In what sense is this said? It may be said in three senses. 1. The meek shall inherit this world, because they shall have a peace and joy even in the midst of this world's troubles, which no others can find. The joys of earth are to the meek very bright, and its sorrows are very blessed. 2. The meek shall inherit this world because God hath chosen them to confound the mighty, and the kingdom of Christ shall be theirs. Their Lord would teach them not to look for temporal glory and dignity. Such is not the expectation of the meek. They will gain their victory by subduing kingdoms for Him who is their pattern in meekness and lowliness of heart. 3. The meek shall inherit the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth "righteousness." Their days shall be long in the land, the better land, which the Lord their God shall give them.

6. "Hunger and thirst." How comforting a saying is this! Had Jesus said, "Blessed are the righteous," who would have dared to take to himself that blessedness? But the sinful may "hunger and "thirst after righteousness." And "they shall be filled." For God will both sanctify them with His blessed Spirit, and justify them for their Saviour's sake. The former-namely sanctification-is doubtless the "righteousness" our Lord speaks of in this verse; yet, knowing how faulty and imperfect such righteousness as we may attain to in this life must ever be, we may well remember that other righteousness, which we may also obtain, namely the perfect righteousness of justification through the merits and atonement of Jesus Christ.

8. "See God." Both here, and hereafter. Here; for the pure in heart can alone understand God's purity and holiness and love. While the windows of the soul are foul with sin the light of God's truth cannot shine within. But the promise will be most perfectly fulfilled hereafter: for then they that, hoping to see God, have purified themselves even as He is pure, "shall see Him as He is." Their ". eyes shall see the "King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off" (Is. xxxiii. 17.).

9,"Children of God." More literally 'sons of God,' because like the true Son of God, who came to make peace, and to gather

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their's is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of 1evil against you falsely, for My sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for "so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

together all things in one. The word translated "shall be called," here and in other places, means more than is expressed by the English, and is used almost in the sense of 'shall be'; or perhaps rather, 'shall not only 'be, but shall be proclaimed and owned to be.'

For

10. "Persecuted." Persecution stands last in the Beatitudes. it will not come till after that which arouses it. A godly life and holy habits must be in some measure formed before there can be persecution. "All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. iii. 12.).

"The kingdom of heaven." the first indeed it is the crown and sum of all blessings, for with "the "kingdom of heaven" we have all things:-here grace, joy, peace;— hereafter glory everlasting.

The eighth blessing is the same as

11. "Falsely, for My sake." Here is the key to the blessedness. The evil speaking must be false, the persecution must be for Christ's sake, or it can bring no blessing. Sufferings bless not in themselves, but in the manner of receiving them (See 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.). The kingdom of heaven is promised not to those alone who thus suffer for Christ, but also, above, to the "poor in spirit ;" and the two sayings must be joined together if we would understand them aright. It is true the "poor in spirit" may win the blessing without persecution, but the persecuted cannot win it except they be "poor in spirit."

12. "Reward." Here, as everywhere else where used of the future glory of the saints, not the measure of our merits, but the free gift of God.

We cannot pass on without one glance back on this first most beautiful portion of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the picture of the man whom Christ declares "blessed." Very wonderful is this picture in itself. It is a picture to gaze upon, and to study, and to learn by heart, and to set side by side with that of our own sinful selves; that we may both be humbled by seeing how little we are like it, and also strive to win a fuller share of its blessedness. It is also a wonderful opening to the whole Sermon. The great subject of that Sermon is, as we shall see more fully farther on, the nature of Christian righteousness, which is shown by applying God's law in the spirit and not in the letter, and which is a far truer, deeper, more spiritual, righteousness than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. And do not the Beatitudes at once declare the true nature of Christian saintliness? It is as though our Lord began His Sermon by a vivid description of the true saint, that from that He might the better go on to discuss the varied marks and evidences of the saintly character. He draws a glowing picture of the "blessed," and, holding that up and pointing to it, says (as it were), Now listen while I unfold to you the hidden elements of strength and beauty which make

A. D. 28.

Luke 14, 34,

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt Mark 9,59, have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, Phil. 2. 15. and to be trodden under foot of men.

35.

P Prov. 4. 18.

9 Mark 4. 21. Luke 8. 16. & 11. 33.

2 The word in the original signifieth

14 PYe are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

q

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under 2a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth about a pint light unto all that are in the house.

a measure

containing

less than a peck.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they

1 Pet. 2. 12. may see your good works, and glorify your Father 1 Cor. 14. 25. which is in heaven.

$ John 15.8.

up this perfect whole.' Observe too how this picture is entirely that of a spiritual holiness, such as the whole Sermon enforces. It is no doing of this or that duty which is declared so blessed." Christ goes at once to the heart. His picture is by a few masterly strokes full of the living inward graces which form and stamp and characterize the Christian man. It is the spirit, and not the body;-the light and shade and colour, not the mere outline;-the kernel and not the shell;-which we are looking on now. The poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry and thirsty after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted :-here is surely a picture of a righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees. For is it not in very truth a picture of Him who drew it?

13-16. The Church to purify and enlighten the world.

13. “The salt." To preserve the world from corruption. The question "Wherewith shall it be salted?" refers, probably, to the salt, and not to the world. The meaning is, If the teachers of the world become spiritually corrupt and graceless, who shall teach and turn them? They are like tasteless salt; they can give no savour to any thing else, nor is there any thing else which can give savour to them. An awful warning to the faithless Christian minister.

14. "The light." Not the "true light," for Christ is "the true "Light, which lighteth every man." Christ's people shine with borrowed light, as the moon and planets with that of the sun. They are like a shining "cloud of witnesses" (Hebr. xii. 1.).

"A city set on an hill." The Church of God, the spiritual Zion, "the Mountain of the Lord's house" (Isaiah ii. 2.), this "cannot be hid," but must stand forth in the sight of the world.

15. "Neither do men" &c. The disciples are the candle, lit from Christ the true Light, and the candlestick is the Church set up to shed abroad the light in the world (See Rev. i. 20, and compare St. Mark iv. 21. St. Luke viii. 16. & xi. 33.).

16. "So." This means 'in like manner,' that is, like a city on a hill, and a candle in a candlestick. This command must be set side by side with the warnings to the Scribes and Pharisees against hypocrisy and

13. "His savour." This would in these days be translated its savour', which is what it means, and then it would be plainer that "it", in the question which

follows, refers to the salt. When our translation of the Bible was made 'its' was never used, 'his' being used for the neuter as well as the masculine pronoun.

17 ¶Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

A. D. 28. Rom. 3. 31. Gal. 3. 24.

& 10. 4.

u Luke 16. 17.

display. Here we are told to let our religion be seen, in order that men may glorify God; there we are told not to make a display of it so that men may glorify us (See on St. John xv. 8.).

17-20. Christ the Fulfiller of the Law.

17. "Think not" &c. With this verse begins more distinctly the great subject of the Sermon on the Mount. That subject is Christian righteousness as shown in the spiritualizing-the Christianizing-of the revealed Law of God. Christ does not give a new meaning to the Law. Much less does He give a new Law. He brings out and displays the true meaning, the spiritual, the Christian, meaning, which always lay --though hidden for the most part-in the Law. We must also not think that this true and spiritual meaning of the Law was hidden through any imperfection in the Law itself, for "the law is holy, and the "commandment is holy, and just, and good" (Rom. vii. 12.). It was hidden through man's blindness, and unfitness to receive it. This subject the drawing out of the spiritual meaning of the Law-occupies the remainder of the Sermon, though more particularly to the end of the eighteenth verse of the sixth chapter. Observe how St. Paul's words (Rom. iii. 31.) bear upon this subject, "Do we then make void the "law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."

"I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Much of the old Law was to end with Christ; no part of it was to be destroyed. The Law was of a mixed nature: part being in its very nature eternally binding upon God's people; part distinctly temporary, and prophetic of the Messiah. He came to "fulfil" all: the moral Law, by His perfect sinlessness; the ceremonial, or typical, Law, by His perfect completion of all its types and figures. Nay, more; He came to give to the Law a fulness in the eyes of men which it had not before. To "fulfil" in this place means more than simply to obey and accomplish. It means rather to fill up. Christ fulfilled the law by showing its fulness and breadth and completeness. He filled it up, as a painter might the outline of a sketch, putting in all the colours and shades and expression. He filled it full of life and power, as a spirit fills a body. He poured through it a stream of Divine light, and men beheld its spiritual excellence.

18. "One jot or one tittle." The "jot" was the smallest of the Hebrew letters; the "tittle" a very little mark by which one letter was known from another. What a mighty testimony does this verse give, not only to the truth of the Old Testament, but also to its perfect unity with the New! Unbelievers have always begun by slighting the Old Testament. Let any tempted to do so remember that Old and New must stand or fall together; and that those who attack the Old Testament are knocking away the foundations from Christianity itself. In this verse the Son of God has Himself set His seal to the truth of the Old Testament, and proved to us that the Church is right in teaching that "the Old "Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New "Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ" (Article vii.).

A. D. 28. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these * Jam. 2. 10. least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great, in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousRom. 9. 31. ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

& 10.3.

2 Or, to them. 21 ¶ Ye have heard that it was said by them of

19. "Whosoever therefore" &c. This verse gives still greater weight to the sanctity of the old Law; although it seems spoken rather of the moral part of it-that part which is eternally binding-than of that part which was to find its fulfilment and end in Christ.

"Least." Observe the repetition of this word. He that breaks, and teaches men to break, the least command of God's Law shall be least in God's kingdom. Our Lord does not say such an one will lose his place in that kingdom altogether. But he will forfeit the higher place of the more faithful teacher. So St. Paul teaches us (1 Cor. iii. 14, 15.) that errors may imperil without wholly destroying the soul; for the man who builds up faulty doctrine on the true foundation of Christ "shall be "saved," because of his true foundation; yet so as by fire,"-as a brand plucked from the burning, because of his errors.

20. This verse may almost be taken as the text for the following part of the Sermon. Jesus is going on to show how the Christian's righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (that is, the righteousness both taught and practised by them), because his view of God's Law is so much deeper and more spiritual than theirs. It might well make us tremble to hear thus of the greater righteousness required from the Christian, but that we know that He who thus deepens and broadens our view of God's Law also gives the strength and grace to do it, and by His own perfect obedience wins for us pardon for our failure in the doing.

21-26. The Law of Murder.

21. "Thou shalt not kill." Our Lord's first example of the Christian view of God's Law is drawn from the sixth Commandment. We here see that the difference between the light in which the Jew of old regarded the Law and the light in which the Christian should regard it is simply the difference between the letter and the spirit. The Scribes and Pharisees taught that to break the sixth Commandment was simply to take another's life, and they had no idea of any other way of breaking it. This was to understand it in the letter. Our Lord teaches that bad

20. "Scribes." See on ii. 4.

said to them of old time-but I say unto

with the examples which follow, it seems best to accept "by them," as in the text, for, though the examples are drawn from God's law, yet they are used to express rather man's narrow view of that law, than the mind of God.

21. "By them This, as the margin. However, comparing this verse shows, may with equal correctness be translated to them.' In that case the sense would be, It was said to them of old time by God! This would destroy the force of what is said upon the word "I" in the next verse, and would throw the contrast upon the "you." It was