L. 37 JUDGE not, and ye shall not be judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be for- 38 given. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both 40 fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect, shall be as his master. 41 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the 42 beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye. M. 6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened 8 unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to 9 him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son 10, 11 ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more 12 shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth 14 to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they 16 are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. For every tree is known by L. 44 his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather M. 17 they grapes. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree 18 bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a cor- 19 rupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. L. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is evil; wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

CHRIST brings back the doctrine of prayer to reality: “Ask, and ye shall receive.” It is all in these five words. And five homely words out of the heart are better than prolonged and polished ascriptions on a thoughtless tongue. Prayer for the least things, the commonest things, the really wished-for things, intercessions for others beloved, as little children ask what they know they shall receive, or what they know a love wiser than their own will deny!

What is natural, if not that a child should speak to his parent, dependent weakness to sustaining power, the needy subject to the gracious king—speak his wants, his gratitude, his trust, his hope—speak in the common language that earnest feeling always chooses and always finds; should ask for what none else than this God can give, tell him the truth because there is a privilege in telling it? And this is prayer. It is a reality, then. It is something yearned for, and something satisfying. So speaks the world’s best experience, ever since man has breathed upon it, and looked up from it to the pitying heavens. And this is what Christ and the New Testament teach about prayer: make it real; keep it fresh, simple, true, and then it will be fervent and constant. Fall under no torpid routine in it. F. D. H.

Consider the great High-Priest of our profession, who himself showed the way of obedience to his own precept, “That men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Consider, too, for ourselves, the blessedness of being allowed to bathe our spirit’s wings, as in living streams; of running, and not being weary; of being able to bring everything that is distorted within us, that it may be illumined; all that is rebellious, that it may be subdued. Consider this, and who it is that invites, beckons, entreats, commands us to this; and then consider how great our guilt and our folly must be, if, with such a throne of grace provided for us, we only approach it languidly and rarely; if, with such powers of the world to come brought within our reach, we do not earnestly lay hold of them; how just our doom will be, if, when God was ready to give, we did not care to ask; if, when he was waiting to be found, we were not willing to seek; if, when heaven’s door would have opened to our knocking, we counted ourselves so far unworthy of eternal life, or rather counted eternal life so little to us, that we did not care so much as earnestly to knock at that door! T.

37. Judge not.** There is no denying that the world is full of such judgments as are here forbidden: needless, uncharitable, false, and hypocritical judgments. V.—What the Lord aims at is the spirit out of which they spring. Provided we eschew this unlovely spirit, we are not only warranted to sit in judgment upon a brother’s character and actions, but, in the exercise of a necessary discrimination, are sometimes constrained to do so for our own guidance. It is the violation of the law of love which alone is here condemned. B.—We are not to condemn those rigidly and unmercifully whose faults are certain and visible; rather are we to conceal and excuse them as much as we can, without prejudice to truth and justice; and to be far from aggravating or divulging them, or desiring the punishment of them. Q.

38. The same measure shall be measured.** Give judicial measure, and you will have judicial measure. Give fraternal measure, and you will have fraternal. S. Coz.—41. We search into the heart of our neighbor to discover something for which we may condemn him, either out of curiosity, or envy, or in order to find our own justification in the condemnation of others; this is what a great part of the world do almost without perceiving it. When we shall have as much zeal to correct ourselves as we have inclination to correct others, we shall then know our own defects better than we now do those of our neighbors. Q.—42. Shalt thou see clearly. He that rids himself of the spirit of censoriousness, and seeks to discern the good and not the evil in his neighbor, is prepared to help him to get rid of the evil. It is not the spirit of criticism, but the spirit of charity, which is curative. Before he had only beheld the mote; now he sees to cast it out. L. A.

The warning is only directed against the rebuking in a wrong spirit, without earnest endeavors at self-amendment, without the remembrance that we also have been “foolish, disobedient;” and thus a rebuking, not in the spirit of meekness and of love, but in that of arrogance or scorn, or with an evil pleasure in the humiliation of a brother. So far from all Christian rebuke being here condemned, there is implicitly a command to exercise this difficult grace, only at the right time and in the right temper; “then,” after we have in ourselves sought the removal of all that is hindering our own vision of God, and rendering us incapable of giving true counsel to our brother, “shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye;” and it is not to love, but to hate our brother, under the plea of charity to refrain from the exercise of it, when it is needed. T.

M. 6. Give not that which is holy. The holy, a technical term for the sacrificial meats laid upon the altar of God. Of these meats no unclean man was permitted to eat; how much less a dog! To the Jew, the dog was odious and unclean; even to touch him was to become unclean. S. Coz.—Trample them and rend you. The warning is, You will at once expose the truth to insult and yourselves to injury. T.—The connection is this: Judge not; attempt not the correction of others, when you need it far more yourselves. Still, be not such mere children, as not to distinguish the characters of those with whom you have to do. A.

7. Ask—seek—knock.** For a fuller understanding of the appropriateness of this charge, look back upon the whole of the discourse: call to mind the benedictions with which it opens, and the lofty standard which they set us both of heart and life; remember the grave declarations of Christian responsibility made in the figures of the salt of the earth and the light of the world; the demand of a righteousness exceeding that of scribe and Pharisee in all who would enter God’s kingdom; the spiritual application of the divine law, extending its rules of conduct to the very thought and soul within; and the warnings against ostentation, against anxiety, and against a divided service. How suitable the precept concerning prayer in connection with this discourse concerning grace and duty! V.

Ask, and it shall be given you. Simple words, but covering the deepest facts in our life! Consider how much they imply: the being of God; the dependence of man; a communion, or intercourse, between their spirits; a feeling of want on the part of man; a faith that God can fill that want; and the absolute truth that God is able to fill it, out of his infinitude. These are certainly great facts. They are as impressive to a rational intellect by their grandeur, as they are affecting to the heart by their tenderness. They are at once majestic ideas and comforting promises. F. D. H.—It would seem as though all God’s words to us in reference to asking blessings of him, and all his dealings with us in reference to such requests, were so many challenges to our faith and hope. Promises to the praying heart are without limitation on God’s side. There is no restriction upon the blessings that may be sought. “Ask”—how often? From heaven there is no answer to that query. There is not the slightest intimation that we can trespass by a too frequent supplication. It is left to us to say how many times a day we may prefer a petition. It is a challenge to our faith. Large asking and large expectation on our part honor God. They declare our sense of his greatness and goodness. They attest our confidence in the truth of his pledges. A. L. Stone.

Seek. Christ here urges us, with condensed concern, to seek—for we shall find. What the object of this ceaseless and infinite quest shall be—so far as the immediate language goes—is left sublimely unuttered. In this case, as in many of the utterances that break the most solemn pauses and declare the grandest truths, the unmentioned thing is the supreme thing. There is only one aim large enough, and noble enough, to satisfy your soul’s hunger, when you make a fair, free, deliberate decision. The one true search of man can have but one object—God. The ways and the helps of this seeking are fixed and definite as the rules for any human attainment. They are studious meditation, the exclusion from the heart of conflicting affections, a daily intimacy, through the record, with the perfect Christ and the whole body of revelation, prayers as punctual as the sun, the dashing away of that one dear, dark idol which stands between almost every heart and the light of heaven, and the faithful applying of the spirit of holiness given straight from

God to one district after another of the practical territory of experience. F. D. H.

8. Every one.** To show that the assurance is without exception, to make it so specific that no one can even think that he is excluded by any unworthiness from the ear and heart and mercy of God, Christ here repeats this promise of promises, and individualizes its every particular: every one that asketh—he that seeketh—to him that knocketh. J. G. B.—Scripture insists much on the power of strong wishes in spiritual things. Its language is—if men really wish to be good, they will become good; if they really wish for faith, they will get faith; if they really wish to have habitual seriousness, they will gain habitual seriousness; if they really wish to realize God’s presence, they will in time do so. The power of prayer, which is so much taught in Scripture, is in fact the power of strong wishes; wishes are prayers, if men believe in God, and if their wishes are formed around his presence. Asking, seeking, knocking—all these express earnest wishes of the heart which have put themselves in the shape of addresses to God. If we do not become believing or serious Christians, Scripture says it is because we have no real wish to become so. We do not ask, or seek, or knock; if we did we should obtain. J. B. M.

9-11. How much more certainly will a heavenly Father impart to his children the true riches of his kingdom! for it is such that the Lord has prominently in his eye, as is evident from a comparison with the parallel passage in Luke, where, instead of “good things,” it is his “Holy Spirit” which is promised to them that ask it. As he will not deny his children, altogether withholding what they ask, so neither will he deceive his children, giving to them a useless or a noxious thing instead of a good. T.

12. All things ye would, do ye.** These practical counsels are naturally concluded and summed up by this golden rule: Deal with others as ye would be dealt with by others; even as ye are dealt with by God. Be true, just, and kind in your judgments, as he is. Forgive as he forgives. Give that which is good, give generously and with discrimination, as God gives. J. G. B.—This is the law and the prophets. It was certainly not Christ’s purpose here to set up a rule of morals contradictory to the whole spirit of the rest of the sermon, which places the seat of true morality in the heart. Mere outward action, according to this rule, might spring from diverse dispositions, e. g., the mere prudence of selfishness might lead us to observe it, in order to get like for like. But, placing it in connection with what has gone before, and making love the mainspring of our actions, the rule affords a touchstone of their character. And when our actions stand this test, Christ says that “the law and the prophets (i. e., the life and essence of piety to which they point) are fulfilled;” for “love is the fulfilling of the law.” N.

How bright and clear is Christ’s rule of equity toward our neighbor; and how many cases of conscience would it decide, if it were sincerely consulted on all occasions! Our self-love blinds us, and renders us unjust to our neighbor; and it is this very self-love which must serve to enlighten and set us right in respect of that which is owing to him. By changing persons, and putting ourselves in his place, and him in our own, we shall more easily discover our injustice and our duty. Q.—Place yourself, in thought and idea, in the condition or the circumstances of another. Think what would you, in that place, feel to be just, considerate, kind, toward you; what would give you pleasure, what would promote your welfare in soul, in body, in estate: and do just that. Do it, not once only, or in one thing, but always, and in all things. Make it your study so to act and so to speak: and you will be keeping God’s law; you will be fulfilling the voices of the prophets; you will be going to the root of duty and of obedience; because you will be living by the rule of Christian love, and Christian love is the fulfilling of the law.

13. Enter ye in.** In that coming to God—in that first coming—in that coming once—lies the chief part of the great work of salvation. To go up to that glimmering light which indicates to us the first entrance of the way of life—to throw ourselves upon our knees there, as sinners wanting guidance, wanting help, wanting mercy—is all that we can do: blessed be God, it is all that he bids us to do. V.—At the strait gate. Some of the city gates contain, in one of their folds, a small door, which is left open an hour or more after sunset. This little door is still more common in the gates of the bazars. We like to look at those curious little doors, and imagine that when our Lord had uttered these memorable words, he had in mind these two gates—the one wide, easy, and traversed by the multitude in broad daylight, and the other narrow, high in the step, to be found in the dark, and sought amid danger by a few anxious travellers. Van Lennep.

14. Strait the gate, etc.** What is it, Augustine asks, which makes this gate so strait to us, and this way so narrow? It is not so much that it is “strait” in itself, as that we make it strait for ourselves, by the swellings of our pride; and then, vexed that we cannot enter, chafing and impatient at the hinderances we meet with, we become more and more unable to pass through. But where is the remedy? How shall these tumid places of our souls be brought down? By accepting and drinking of the cup—wholesome though it may be distasteful—of humility; by listening to and learning of him, who having said, “Enter ye in at the strait gate,” does to them who inquire, “How shall we enter in?” reply, “By me;” “I am the way;” “I am the door.” T.

To plant the right spirit and motive in the heart, out of which all true morality proceeds, is the great object he aims at. “Look up to God,” he says to us, “as indeed your Father—ever living, ever loving, patiently bearing with you, largely providing for you, willing to forgive you. Walk humbly, meekly, trustingly before him. Commit your way to him, cast all your care on him, seek all your supplies from him, render all your returns to him. Look upon all your fellow-men as children of the same Father, members of the same family. Love each other, and live together as brethren, bearing yourselves toward all around you patiently, forgivingly, generously, hopefully. The gate thus opened is strait, the way is narrow, but it is the only one that leadeth unto life. H.

17–19. There is a wonderful significance in the simple image running through the whole of Scripture, according to which men are compared to trees and their work to fruit—the fruit being the organic product and evidence of the inner life, not something arbitrarily fastened on from without. It is a comparison which helps greatly to set forth the true relation between faith and works, which relation is, in fact, just as plainly declared by our Lord, when he says, “A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” as by Paul in any of his epistles. There are three kinds of works spoken of in the New Testament, which may all be illustrated from this image: First, good works, when the tree, being made good, bears fruit of the same character; then dead works, such as have a fair outward appearance, but are not the living outgrowth of the renewed man—fruit, as it were, attached and fastened on from without, alms given that they may be gloried in, prayers made that they may be seen, works such as were most of those of the Pharisees; and, lastly, wicked works, when the corrupt tree bears fruit manifestly of its own kind. T.

Section 41.—The Wise and the Foolish Builders.

L. 46 AND why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Not every one M. 21 that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that 22 doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? 23 and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. 24 Therefore, whosoever cometh to me, and heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built an house, and digged deep, and 25 laid the foundation upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; 26 and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, that, without 27 a foundation, built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the stream did beat vehemently upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall and the ruin of that house. 28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished 29 at his doctrine. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

No labored argument, no scheme of doctrines formally propounded, no routine of religious services prescribed. He dealt with the simplest, plainest truths and duties; and did this in the simplest, plainest manner. The thing that struck the listeners most, was the calm, unhesitating, authoritative tone in which the whole was uttered. Here is one who comes forth from none of the great schools—who has sat at the feet of none of the great masters—who uses no book language—who appeals to no authority but his own—a young untaught Nazarene; and yet he takes it upon him to pronounce with the utmost confidence who the truly blessed are, and reckons among these those who were to be persecuted for his sake. Here is one who does not shrink from taking into his hands the law and the prophets, acting not simply as their expositor—the clearer of them from all false traditional interpretations. He is bold enough to say that he came to fulfil them; in one remarkable instance, at least—that of the law which permitted divorce—speaking as the original law-giver was alone entitled to do, declaring that the time for this permission had now ceased, and that henceforth such divorces as Moses had tolerated were not to be allowed. Here is one who speaks of God as one who fully knew and had a right to declare how his children were to act so as to please him; whom he would forgive, whom he would reward, upon whom he would bestow his gifts. Here is one who, though seated on that Galilean mountain, with nothing to distinguish him from the humble fishermen around him, speaks of a day on which he would be seated on the throne of universal judgment. Dimly, indeed, through this Sermon on the Mount does the Jesus of the Cross appear, but the Jesus of the Throne is here. And once that we have learned from other after-teachings of himself and his apostles to know, and love, and trust in him, it will be the habit of every true follower of his to dwell upon this wonderful discourse, in which the very spirit and essence of a humble childlike faith in God, and the lofty ideal of a perfect, a heavenly morality, are unfolded and enforced. H.

CHRIST concludes the whole discourse with a contrast between true and false disciples; between those who take care to apply to their life and practice the truths which he had laid down, and those who do not. He thus makes prominent, in the conclusion, the great truth announced in the beginning, and carried through the discourse, viz., that a right disposition of heart is essential in all things. N.

22. In the words, “Many will say to me in that day, Have we not taught in thy name?” etc., our Lord anticipates the time when active zeal for himself will be no guarantee. The prophecy puts before us the fact of a great deal of work being done in the Church, and outwardly good and zealous work, upon the same motive in substance upon which worldly men do their work in the world; and stamps it as the activity of corrupt nature. Religious machinery provides as pleasant a form of activity, and exercises much the same kind of talents and gifts as the machinery of a government office or a large business. The Church is undoubtedly in its design a spiritual society, but it is also a society of this world as well; and it depends upon the inward motive of a man whether it is to him a spiritual society or a worldly one. J. B. M.

23. This “I never knew you” must be accepted according to that deeper meaning of knowing which includes also loving—a knowing which, in its essence, is reciprocal, he only being known who also knows; so that Augustine has all right when he affirms “I never knew you” to be but another way of saying, Ye never knew me. Not to be known of the Lord is never to have known him, and is therefore itself the condemnation. And hereupon follows that terrible sentence of doom, that everlasting separation from the presence of God, wherein everything that is fearful is contained. Augustine often brings out that the terribleness of that “Depart from me” presents itself unto men under very different aspects, as they are or are not the true servants and children of God. And he often presses each man to judge of himself and his state, whether he be a lover of God or only a fearer of hell, by asking himself what is the truly terrible which this “Depart from me” contains for him. T.

24. Built his house.** The house which a man builds for himself as a secure abode, as a defence, and protection, against wind and weather, signifies the abiding and standing before the judgment of God, both in time and eternity. Stier.—The rain and the floods. Their mountain streams are of a peculiar character. These watercourses, called wadies, are in the summer perfectly dry; in the rainy season they are swollen streams. A friend, journeying through Palestine, pitched his tent one fair night in one of these wadies, and was before morning awakened by the sound of water, from which he and his party had barely time to escape with the loss of clothing, books, and instruments. So the trial of the last great day will come, without warning, and overwhelming those whose exterior was fair, but the foundation of whose life was insecure. L. A.

24-27. This similitude must not be pressed to an allegorical or symbolical meaning in its details; but the Rock, as signifying him who spoke this, is of too frequent use in Scripture for us to overlook it here. He founds his house on a rock, who, hearing the words of Christ, brings his heart and life into accordance with his expressed will, and is thus by faith in union with him, founded on him. Whereas he who merely hears his words, but does them not, has never dug down to the rock, nor become united with it, nor has any stability in the hour of trial. A.—The spiritual builder that would translate his foundation from the sand to the rock, must not presume upon Christ as his Saviour, till by obedience to his laws he has owned him for his sovereign. And this is properly to believe in him—this is truly to build upon a rock, even that “rock of ages,” upon which every one that wears the name of Christ must inevitably either build or split. R. S.

There is a solemn awfulness in this conclusion, which Augustine bids us specially to note; namely, that by neither the one nor the other of these two classes, not by those who are swept away any more than by those who stand, can the open despisers of the truth be signified. For in each case there is a readiness to hear the word, a certain good-will therefore toward the truth. But this is not enough. In one way only does that which is heard win a stable foundation in the soul, that is, through being turned into action, when the heard is also the done. Christ, as in so many other places of Scripture, is himself the “rock;” that man builds on the rock, who does the things which he hears and learns of Christ. It remains as the only prudent thing—to hear, and what we hear to do; being doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving our own selves. T.

29. One having authority.** Christ’s words have a character essentially simple and practical. His object is to pervade the human soul, to establish himself in it—to save it. He knows human nature in its universality, and what it will be in future generations: his object is to produce upon it an effect at once positive, general, durable. He chooses the ideas, he employs the images suitable to his design for the regeneration and salvation of all. God’s Ambassador is the most penetrating and able of human moralists. F. G.

Not as the scribes. The scribes (sopherim) date as a distinct body from the period of Ezra. The name is derived from sepher, or “book,” and means “scripturalists”—those who explained and copied the law. Their functions were to copy, read, amend, explain, and protect the law. It was in the latter capacity that they invented the “fences,” which, under the title of “words of the scribes,” formed the nucleus of the “tradition of the elders,” or oral law. The teaching of the scribes was narrow, dogmatic, material; it was cold in manner, frivolous in matter, second-hand, and iterative in its very essence; with no freshness in it, no force, no fire; at once erudite and foolish, never passing a hair’s-breadth beyond the boundary line of commentary and precedent; concerned only about priests and Pharisees, in temple and synagogue, or school, or Sanhedrim, and mostly occupied with things infinitely little. This testimony of his enemies furnishes us with a convincing proof that his teaching was not, as some would insinuate, borrowed from the various sects and teachers of his times. It is certain that he was never enrolled among the scholars of those scribes who made it their main business to teach the traditions of the fathers. And from whom could Jesus have borrowed? From the Pharisees? The very foundations of their system, the very idea of their religion, was irreconcilably alien from all that he revealed. From the Sadducees? Their “expediency” politics, their shallow rationalism, were even more repugnant to true Christianity than they were to sincere Judaism. From the Essenes? They were an exclusive, ascetic, and isolated community, with whose discouragement of marriage, and withdrawal from action, the gospels have no sympathy, and to whom our Lord never alluded, unless it be in those passages where he reprobates those who abstain from anointing themselves when they fast, and who hide their candle under a bushel. The schools in which Jesus learnt were not the schools of the scribes, but the school of holy obedience, of sweet contentment, of unalloyed simplicity, of stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The lore in which he studied was not the lore of rabbinism, in which to find one just or noble thought we must wade through masses of puerile fancy and cabalistic folly, but the books of God without him, in Scripture, in nature, and in life; and the book of God within him. F.

THE Sermon on the Mount is to the new covenant what the law given from Sinai was to the old; and, to exhibit the unity of the covenants, its precepts are based upon the ten commandments, unfolded in all their spiritual breadth, cleared of all the human interpretations by which their spirit had been bound down or frittered away, and expanded into the new law of love. The key-note to this, the main body of the discourse, is struck by the words: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil;” and, “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The principle of all Christian goodness, and especially of all Christian love, is laid in restoration to the image of God himself: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect;” “Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” And its practical climax is attained in the Christian law of brotherly kindness and charity: “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”

To these precepts there is a preface and a conclusion. The former insists on the spirit and conditions of entrance into the kingdom of heaven, by repentance, humility, faith in him and endurance for his sake. But these conditions, unlike the curses of the law, are pronounced as blessings and sustained by promises. In the conclusion, the principle of judgment is brought in, to enforce all that has been said: character is brought to the test of deeds, not words; and a final note of warning and promise, equally mingled, assures the hearers that as they sow, so shall they reap; everlasting life from living faith in Christ, destruction from pursuing their self-will. S.

Section 42.—Heals the Centurion’s Servant.

Capernaum.