PRINCETON, N. J. S/iel/.. BS 2415 .A2 B7 1882 The Galilean gospel m^mm 'of ^be Iboueebolb Xibran? of lEyposition- THE GALILEAN GOSPEL. THE GALILEAN GOSPEL BY ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D., PROFESSOR OF APOU3GET1CS AND NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. I 882 PR ./ PREFACE. This book is not a miscellaneous collection of sermons, gleaned from a ministry of sixteen years, and strung together by a catching title. It is intended to serve a definite purpose, and the greater part of the contents has been written expressly for this publication. My aim has been to convey as vivid an idea as possible of the Gospel Christ preached, and above all of the evangelic spirit as reflected in His teaching and life. I believe that this will meet a want of our time, and will be welcomed by many. While there is little in the actual Christianity of our day, or in the state of the churches to awaken enthusiasm, it is rest-giving to go back to the beginning of the Chris- tian era, and drink of the pure wells of truth opened in Galilee in the days of the Son of Man. Reflecting on the baleful controversies of centuries, and the tragic divi- sions resulting therefrom, on the theological schools and their conflicting oracles, the sigh involuntarily escapes from the breast, " Oh that I had wings like a dove, that I might fly away to Jesus of Nazareth, and forget the windy storms of human opinions and passions !" He does not disappoint the weary heart. In His teaching is eternal wisdom ; in Himself, perennial beauty. What one has found he will desire to communicate to others, in the belief that it must be good for all to know the authen- tic Gospel preached in Galilee, and the type of piety ex- emplified by the Preacher. Here, as in all things, Jesus must be the model. Attempts may legitimately be made to define, by historical examples, the characteristics of evangelical religion ; but the surest and most direct road to this knowledge is to study the words and ways of Him who, just because He is at the fountain-head anterior to / Vi PREFACE. ^ all divisions, is apt to be overlooked in our theological definitions and historic studies. It is well to remember whence the term evangelic comes. It is forrhed from the Greek name for the Gospels : to. evayy^Xia, ihe Evangels. The Evangels or Gospels have for their burthen the minis- try of Christ. That ministry is the gospel in its purity and Divine poetic simplicity. That, therefore, is the source whence our notions of evangelic truth and piety must in the first place be taken. It will be well for the church to remount to that source, and to have her ideas of Christianity rectified by the standard, and her intui- tions restored where they have become obscured through the moss of ages. When this has been done, it will be acknowledged that evangelic piety does not belong ex- clusively to a sect or theological school, but is cathoHc and unsectarian ; and also, that it is not to be identified with the conservative spirit in religion. The days in which we live are trying. Unbelief threatens to sweep away all reaUsed religious ideals, creeds, churches, clergy. With some things one might be willing to part, under stress of weather, to save the ship. It is well to know what is ship and what is ballast. A recent writer on Natural Religion proposes to throw overboard every- thing except that with which men like Strauss, Mill, and Tyndall could agree, and to be content with nature, art, and humanity as sufficient to satisfy the religious crav- ings of the soul. Even Christ and the Gospels may be dispensed with. To us Christ and His Gospel are the only things absolutely indispensable. While the spirit of the age is falling away to the worship of the unknowable, the beautiful, the scientific order of the universe, we would say, " To whom shall we go, Thou hast the words of eternal life." This book is a slight contribution to the study of some of these golden words. It is written mainly for the people. May it help them to a better knowledge of the people's Friend. THE AUTHOR. Glasgow, November 1882. / CONTENTS. CHAP. I. II. III. IV. V. VI, VII. VIII. IX, X. XI. XII. XIII. BEGINNING FROM GALILEE ... I THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD . 20 THE BEATITUDES 39 THE BEATITUDES— Conit'nucd . . 56 THE HEALER OF SOULS .... 73 MUCH FORGIVENESS, MUCH LOVE . . 9I THE JOY OF FINDING THINGS LOST . I08 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST . . . I28 THE POWER OF FAITH .... I46 THE VICARIOUS VIRTUE OF FAITH . . 163 CHRIST THE GREAT INNOVATOR . . 180 THE JOY OF THE JESUS-CIRCLE . . I97 THE EVANGELIC SPIRIT .... 214 IN PREPARA TION. THE PAULINE GOSPEL, [By the Rev. Professor A. B. Bruce, D.D. A Companion Volume to the " Galilean Gospel.'''' CHAPTER I BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. " Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sat in darkness saw a great light ; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up." — Matt. iv. 15, 16. Galilee was the cradle of the Gospel. " The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, began from Galilee," spreading thence throughout all Judea.* It was a fitting birth-place for the kingdom of heaven. First of all it had been pointed out by the voice of prophecy as the place of dawn for a new era of Hope. The fact is duly recognised by the Evangelist, and with spiritual tact he cites the oracle as one finding its fulfilment in the events he is about to record. The appro- priateness of the citation is not to be denied, though the circumstances contemplated by the prophets were very different from those which prevailed at the beginning of our Lord's public ministry. The darkness which brooded over the region to the west of the sea of Chinnereth, in the days of Isaiah, was the desolation and *Actsx. 36, 37. A 2 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. misery caused by the devastating hosts of As- syria. The people in that quarter of the Holy Land felt the curse of war first, because along the way which skirted the lake the Assyrian oppressor marched to conquest. To them, by way of compensation, was to come first, also, the promised redemption. And that blessing, when it came, was to consist in the breaking of the oppressor's yoke, the emancipation of a down-trodden people from the cruel sway of the eastern tyrant, by the power of a Messianic Prince sent by God to deliver His people. Then the people that sat in darkness should see the dawn of a better day for the chosen nation, bringing to the conquered and spoiled the bles- sings of liberty, peace, and prosperity. Eight centuries later the position of Israel was in many respects changed. Still she was in bondage to a foreign yoke, but Assyria had given place to Rome. And the yoke of Rome was easy and her burthen light in comparison with those of Assyria. Under her dominion a submissive people, not restive under the symbols of conquest, might enjoy the blessings of good government, security for life and property, and encouragement to industry. The deepest dark- ness brooding over the land now was not politi- cal, but moral and spiritual. The deliverance most urgently called for was not emancipation from a foreign yoke, but salvation from the BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 3 night of ignorance, and from the power of sin. The need of Israel was not a political Messiah, but one who could bring to her the light of spiritual truth and the liberty of holiness. Such a Messiah God gave to Israel in the person of Jesus, who came to save His countrymen, not from Rome, but from their prejudices and their sins. He was the true Messiah to whom all prophecy dimly pointed, in whom all prophetic ideals found their highest fulfilment ; not less, but all the more, the true Messiah, because His role was spiritual, not political ; for all true, lasting redemption must begin in the spirit. He began his beneficent work in Galilee, not because Galilee's need was the sorest, for there were other parts of the land where the darkness in some respects was deeper. But Galilee's need was great if not the greatest ; the shadow of death which lay over the Lake of Tiberias was deep if not the deepest. Jesus might as well begin His work there as anywhere. And if He did begin there it was natural that the Evangelist should note the fact and signalise its correspondence with the word of prophecy ; seeing therein a remarkable fitness, if not an intentional fulfilment, a concurrence by no means accidental, though its true reason might lie below the surface. But, apart from prophetic considerations, there were other reasons which made it pecu- 4 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. liarly fit that the ministry of Jesus should com- mence in Galilee, or, to speak more exactly, on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. I. Among these a place ought to be assigned to the pJiysical beauty of the scene. This, in an- cient times, for the aspect of nature is much changed now, appears to have been very great. The Jewish historian Josephus speaks of the region in terms of glowing admiration ; repre- senting it as the ambition of nature, as possess- ing a climate adapted to the production of the most diverse kinds of fruits, as bringing forth all manner of fruits in greatest abundance, and especially supplying the noblest of all, the grape and the fig, during ten months of the year.* Even yet, in spite of the desolation and the de- population which have followed in the track of the Moslem, travellers speak with rapture of the blue lake lying deep in the hollow, the horizon line, the shrubs, the flowers, conspicuous among which are the pink-coloured oleanders — All through the summer night Those blossoms red and bright Spread their soft breasts t along the little promontories indenting the shore line. The inhabitants of Quito, high up among *De Bell , Jud. iii. x. 8. t Keble, "Christian Year," quoted by Stanley, " Sinai and Palestine." BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 5 the Andes, have a saying, " after Quito heaven, V and in heaven an opening to look down on Quito." Somewhat similar seems to have been the feeling of the ancient Jews with reference to the region surrounding the Sea of Galilee ; and even yet there is enough of beauty remaining to bring the feeling within the reach of our sym- pathies. That Jesus, who, from all His utterances, ap- pears a lover of nature, should have felt drawn to this region we can well understand. But apart from personal liking, there was a congruity between the scene and the Gospel He was about to preach. That Gospel was emphatically a Gospel of hope, and it was meet that it should be cradled in a region of beauty and sunny bright- ness. Conceive for a moment Christ commenc- ing His ministry in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea ! How unsuitable that land of death, and sterility, and desert desolation to be the birth-place of a gospel which was to remove the blight and curse brought on the world by sin. Let John the Baptist commence his ministry there, but not Jesus. The proper scene of His work is the lake, not of death, but of loveliness. In either case the place was well chosen, viewed as an emblem of the spiritual characteristics of the ministry carried on therein, and of the temper of the agent. John's ministry was legal, Christ's was evangelic ; John's temper was 6 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. severe, gloomy, despairing, Christ's was genial, kindly, hopeful. Let John then, by all means, go to the Dead Sea, with its salt-encrusted shore and its barren rocks, and there, amid the grim- ness of nature, preach repentance and the near approach of a Messiah whose coming, as he represents it, is awful news rather than good news. But let Jesus come to the bright, sunny, beautiful Sea of Galilee, and on its shore preach His Gospel of peace, and love, and hope, and show Himself as the sympathetic Son of man, and herald a kingdom of grace to whose bless- ings even the most sinful and miserable are welcome. And let us join Him there. "Ye are not come to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion," said the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews to his countrymen, who stood in need of consolation, and also of instruction in the true genius of Christianity. In the same spirit, and with like intent, we might say to Christians now, " Ye are not come to the Dead Sea, but to the Sea of Galilee." This is what we would say in this sermon, and in this book. We desire to bring you back to the Galilean lake, to the haunts of Jesus and to the spirit of Jesus, to the brightness and sunny summer richness, and joy, and geniality, and freedom of the authentic Gospel preached by Him in the dawn of the era of grace. Some have not yet come to that BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. *] happy place ; many linger by the Dead Sea, and are disciples of John, to their great loss. For it is good to be with Jesus in Galilee. An evangelic faith, and still more if possible an evangelic temper, in sympathy with the Gali- lean proclamation, is a grand desideratum. It is what is needed to redeem the evangel from the suspicion of exhaustion or impotence, and to rescue the very term " evangelic " from the reproach under which it lies in the thoughts of many. 2. A second point in the fitness of the locality chosen by Jesus to be the scene of His ministry was the mixed character of its population. This was a feature of Galilee as a whole, as well as of the parts immediately adjacent to the lake. Hence the name " Galilee of the Gentiles," as old as the prophet Isaiah. The northern part of Palestine was a border country, and as such was liable not only to experience in an unusual degree the miseries of incessant warfare, but also to have the purity of its blood, and of its national manners, tainted by strangers taking up their abode within it. Originally the name seems to have been confined to the limited dis- trict in which were situated the twenty towns given by Solomon to Hiram, King of Tyre, which w^ould naturally become filled with foreigners, and so come to be called the district or circuit of the Gentiles. In course of time 8 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. the name was applied to the whole northern territory, probably in consequence of the spread of the foreign element among the inhabitants. In the text Galilee stands as a synonym for the northern tribes, and a Gentile mixture is ascribed by implication to the whole region. And what is indirectly asserted of Galilee in general, is virtually affirmed of the crowded populations along the shores of the lake. The Evangelist means to emphasise the mixed character of that population. He uses with reference to it the expression Galilee of the Gentiles, not merely because he finds it in the prophetic oracle which he quotes, but be- cause that point seems to him a very significant feature in the prophecy. He would have us note as characteristic that Jesus began His ministry in a locality occupied not by a pure Jewish race, but by a motley multitude of people of various nationality, Jewish, Syrian, and Greek. For he, too, though in a less degree than Luke, knows, and rejoices in the know- ledge, that the light which first shines in Judaea is destined to lighten all the lands, and he finds in the mixed character of the population on which the rays of that light first fell, a prophetic foreshadowing of the fact. If such was indeed the Evangelist's thought, we must admit that it was no mere idle fancy. We perceive it to be fitting that Galilee of the Gentiles was selected BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 9 by Christ to be the cradle of a gospel destined to universality. It was well that He who, ere He left the world, said to His disciples, "Go and teach all the nations," should commence the work among a people amidst whom Jewish isolation and exclusiveness appeared only in a very mitigated degree. Not that He meant to anticipate the time appointed for preaching the Gospel to the outside world. He did not judge it wise to do so, and He confined his own activity strictly to the Jewish people, the exceptions being such as proved the rule. Hence His avoid- ance of Tiberias, at the south end of the lake, which was in the whole style of its buildings and manners, a Greek city. But while ever acting as a minister of God to Israel, He did not shun opportunities of hinting, as it were in parable or symbol, that a time would come when the word of the kingdom would overflow the boundaries of the elect people. Such a hint He gave in the choice of the district called in the language of prophecy, Galilee of the Gentiles, as the scene of His labours. The choice meant : " though I personally be a minister of the kingdom to Jesus, My Gospel concerns Gentiles, It is My vocation now to disperse the darkness that broods over Israel, but I came to be eventually the light of the world," 3. A third feature recommending the environ- lO BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. ment of the lake to be the theatre of Christ's ministry, was the density of its population. The shores of the Sea of Galilee are now almost wholly depopulated, only a few wretched villages being thinly scattered along the coast. But in our Lord's day these shores were crowded with towns, inhabited by great multitudes of busy, industrious people. Josephus writes : " The cities here lie very thick, and the very numerous villages are full of people on account of the good- ness of the soil, insomuch that even the smallest of them contains above 15,000 inhabitants."* There may be exaggeration, even gross exag- geration, in this statement, but no one in his senses would make it, unless the region spoken of were in a remarkable degree populous. This populousness was an attraction to Jesus. On one side of His nature He dearly loved soli- tude, but on another He delighted to mix in the busy haunts of men. He did not care for the thing called popularity, but He loved human beings. He had an intensely human heart, and He liked to be in the crowd, observing men's ways and work, gaining acquaintance at first hand with real life ; and all in order to get close to men for their good, and to the largest num- ber possible. Some crowds, indeed, Jesus did not care to be in, but avoided, the crowd, for example, to be found in the city of Jerusalem ; * B. J. iii. 3, 2. BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. I I the reason being that the people there were so encased in self-conceit, and prejudice, and artifi- ciality as to be inaccessible to any influence not wholly conventional and traditional, a risk to which all cities of culture are exposed, and a very serious risk it is. But happily the crowds in the cities of the lake were not in this case. They were simple, natural, open, receptive, partly from their occupations, the chief being that of fishermen ; partly because they were a mixed race mutually modifying each other ; none, or at least few, being able to boast of pure Jewish blood, and custom ; a great advantage, for nothing hardens like pride of blood, and race, and rite. Nothing but the pride of virtue, the worst pride of all. From this also the Galileans were comparatively free, for the simple reason that they had probably not much virtue to boast of Mixing of races is apt to bring along with it corruption or degeneracy of morals. Of the prevalence of such corruption in Galilee we have an indication in the question of Nathanael to Philip, " Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"* as also in the note appended to the name of Mary of Magdala — " out of whom went seven devils." -f" 4. Strange to say, this very corruption formed a fourth element in the fitness and attractiveness of the region by the lake, as the scene of Christ's * John i. 46. tLuke viii. 2. 12 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. ministry. It was meet that Jesus should go down to Capernaum, and make it the place of His abode, just because it was down not physi- cally merely — lying many feet below the level of the Mediterranean in a great chasm, but morally as well. That descent was the emblem of a gospel which was to be distinguished by the depth to which it could go in compassion for human depravity, not less than by its world- wide length and breadth of interest and range of destination. Not only was it meet that Jesus should go down there for that reason ; He was attracted to that low-lying region for the same reason. The corruption of those populations on the margin of the lake drew Him down. Why } Because the greater their corruption, the greater their need of Him. Not only so, but the greater their corruption, the greater the possibilities of good in them once brought to repentance. They to whom much is forgiven love much. One out of whom seven devils are cast, is capable of a sevenfold devotion. The last in depravity can become by grace the first in sanctity. Jesus knew these things to be true, — it is from Him we learn them ; therefore He went down to the side of the lake in high hope of making among the people dwelling there signal gains for the Divine kingdom. From the foregoing particulars, taken together, we already know something concerning the BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 1 3 nature of the " Galilean Gospel." It is a gospel of geniality and joy, smiling as the region in which it is preached ; of world-wide sympathy with all classes and races of men; of tender compassion and buoyant hope for the degraded and depraved ; for publicans like Matthew, for sinners like the Magdalene. It may be well, however, that we try to form a somewhat more definite idea of the Light that arose on the people which sat in darkness. The light was the whole ministry of Christ. The Evangelist, thinking of all that Jesus said, did, and was in Galilee, as about to be recorded in his narrative, prefixes to the record this reflection : The people that sat in darkness did indeed see a great light. From the verse im- mediately succeeding our text, in which it is stated that " from that time Jesus began to preach, and to say : repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," we might be tempted to narrow the light to the doctrine of repentance and pardon. But in reality it embraces the whole doctrine of the kingdom, as a kingdom of grace ; and besides that, and above all, the person of the King — " the Prince of Peace." More than all he said, Christ Himself was the Light. For " in Him was life, and the life was the light of men." The sun that rose on the land of darkness, with healing in its wings, was "the Son of Man," the man Christ Jesus. He 14 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. was a sun to Galilee, to Judaea, and ultimately to the world, in all the varied aspects of His character and work. In Him appeared such an one as the world had never seen before, recog- nisable by all who saw Him, and could appre- ciate His worth and work, as a great Deliverer. Jesus was as a sun to Galilee specially in four respects : — First, as a man of intense sympathy, whose heart was touched with pity by all forms of human suffering. The evidence and the out- come of this pity were the healing miracles, which might fitly be mentioned first in an account of Christ's ministry because they would be most readily appreciated by the people. Matthew accordingly speaks of this aspect of the ministry in the sequel of the chapter from which our text is taken, telling how Jesus healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. There were many forms of disease to heal, some of a very aggra- vated and peculiar character. The prevalence of painful, loathsome, mortal disease was one phase of the darkness that brooded over the land. Jesus felt for the victims, and His sympathy was a ray of the light that streamed from Him as a sun. It was so intense that thereby, as the Evangelist elsewhere remarks. He took on Him- self men's infirmities and bore their sicknesses. Of this sympathy Galilean sufferers got the BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. I 5 benefit, but not they alone ; it is a permanent element in the h'ght of Christ. It is an intima- tion that disease and death are not to last for ever, a prophecy of the redemption of the body, a hint that the purpose of God's gracious love embraces in its scope the whole man, not the spirit only. As such it is worthy of all accepta- tion. A second element in the light of Christ was the spirit of hopeful love with which He regarded the most aggravated cases of moral depravity. His yearning love for the sinful was wonderful ; His hope for their recovery not less so. Both were new, and came on those who witnessed their manifestation as a surprise. The way of the well-conducted in those days was to be at once careless and hopeless respecting the bad ; to shun their society, and to regard them as finally given over to evil courses. Jesus did neither of these things. He loved and He hoped in connection with the lapsed ; loved and therefore hoped ; hoped and therefore took trouble to bring them to repentance ; having fellowship with them, that by sympathy He might restore them to goodness. And great was the brightness with which this love and this hope shone into the darkness. For nowhere else did such lights appear. And the darkness on which the love and hope of Jesus shone was very deep. Sin was rampant in Galilee, as 1 6 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. well as disease ; sin especially in forms which cause conscious misery and degradation. One looking on the surface would say: Little hope of reformation there. Jesus declined to sa}' that ; He dared to hope for new life even amid vice and profligacy. And this love that refused to despair is another permanent element in the light of Christ, telling us that sin is not, any more than death, unconquerable, and that even the chief of sinners are not beyond redemption. A third element in the light that arose in Galilee to which we simply refer, is the zvisdom of Jesus, revealed in all His words, and more particularly in His parables of grace, and in His doctrine of the kingdom. Nothing is more remarkable in this connection than " the Beati- tudes," forming the preface to the Sermon on the Mount. Think of the kind of people who are there pronounced happy : the poor, the hungry, those that weep ! These are they whom the world accounts miserable, and speaks of heart- lessly as unfortunate. And they are unhappy in a sense. But Jesus says they are not there- fore necessarily wretched. Though unhappy they may be blessed ; that is, partakers of a higher kind of felicity, which he who has once tasted it would not part with for all the happiness that wealth, health, and friends can bestow. Com- fortable doctrine for the children of sorrow ! Blessed light amidst forms of darkness in BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. I 7 which this earth in all places and in all ages abounds ! Poverty, hunger, tears, are every- where. But where they are Christian blessedness may be, wealth of grace, abundance of right- eousness and wisdom, joy in the Holy Ghost. Finally, another ray in the light of Christ was what we may call His 7iaturalness as a man and as a teacher. In him appeared a man of free untrammelled mind, totally exempt from the spiritual fetters of the time. The appearance of such a man is at all times a boon to be welcomed ; but never was there greater need for the light of moral originality than in the days of our Lord. The want of that was the darkest element in the darkness of the age. The people of Galilee were afflicted with the darkness of disease, and with the darkness of sin ; but they were afflicted still more griev- ously with the darkness produced by blind guides. That darkness was densest over Jeru- salem, but it was in Galilee too ; it was every- where in the Holy Land. All over Palestine, north, south, east, and west, were to be found those dismal teachers of the law who multiplied rules, and split casuistical hairs, and made life miserable, conscience uneasy, and God's law contemptible. Through their baleful influence the light within, the moral sense, was darkened, and the shadow of death spread over the whole country. What a boon at such a time the ap- B l8 BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. pearance of a man of free creative mind, with fresh moral intuitions, unsophisticated in con- science, fearless in spirit, while averse from con- troversy and desirous to live at peace with all men. His appearance is a republication of the moral law, a restoration of the light of day in the moral world, after a long night of supersti- tion, hypocrisy, and delusion, driving unclean birds to their hiding places, and encouraging honest souls to come to the light that their deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God. Such a moral revolution Jesus wrought sim- ply by being a true man among many counter- feits, a free man among many slaves, a brave man among many cowards, a natural man among many artificial men. Such a revolution he is able to work still, through the same elements of His character, which are also a per- manent part of the light which He sheds on the world. And there is need of such revolutions from time to time. For Rabbinical darkness is ever apt to reappear, in new forms but the same in spirit ; and when it does reappear, there is urgent need that the moral and spiritual intui- tions be restored in their purity and power. Perhaps we should not greatly err if we said that such is the need of our own time. What a bright light would spring up to us were Christ shown to our spirit as He appeared in Capernaum BEGINNING FROM GALILEE. 19 — the son of man, the man of tender sympathy, of boundless love and hope, of divine wisdom, and of absolute moral simplicity and originality ! Then should we know what genuine evangelic piety is ; then should we see the kingdom of heaven in all the beauty of the Galilean dawn ; then should we experience the power of the Gospel in our own hearts to gladden and sanc- tify : in the church to beautify it with wisdom, zeal, and charity ; in society to turn its waste places into fruitful fields, bearing an abundant harvest of sobriety, righteousness, and godli- ness. CHAPTER n. THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. Luke iv. 16-30. Every Christian would wish to know what were the first words spoken by Jesus as a preacher of the good tidings of the kingdom. Two of the Evangelists seem to gratify this natural curiosity. The *' Sermon on the Mount " comes in at a very early point in Matthew's narrative, as if the intention of the writer were to present it to his readers as the first discourse pronounced by Christ after entering on His public ministry. On this view, " the Beatitudes " were the inaugural utterances of the Galilean Gospel, and they are certainly well worthy to strike the key-note of the heavenly music which ushered in the era of Redemption. According to the third Evangelist, not the Sermon on the Mount, but the sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth on the acceptable year of the Lord, appears to have had the honour of being the first embodiment in solemn speech of the good news of God. Luke certainly does give to that sermon the same place of prominence, near the THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 2 I beginning of his narrative, assigned by Matthew to the Sermon on the Mount ; and the fact is not without significance, as indicative of the distinctive character of his Gospel, as compared with that of the first EvangeHst. The spirit of the two EvangeHsts is indicated by what they place first ; all the more if what they set in the forefront of their story did not occur so early in the actual history. Judged by this test, the bias of Luke was to regard Christ's work as emphatically a ministry of love, and His words as "words of grace." Matthew, on the other hand, by the same rule, while not insensible, as the Beatitudes show, to the gracious side of Christ's doctrine, recognised in it a legal element, which finds expression in the body of the great discourse. There is reason to believe that neither of the sermons occupied the place of an inaugural dis- course. There is the less reason to doubt this in the case of the sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth, that the Evangelist himself allows us to see he is aware that the ministry of Jesus did not begin there and then, and in the manner described. He knows of things previously done, and we may assume said also, in Caper- naum.* Though he puts this scene in the fore- front, he knows that it is not actually the first scene. It is important to note this fact, as it * Ver. 23. 2 2 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. helps to obviate objections that might be taken to the utterances and bearing of Jesus in his native town, assuming the incidents recorded to belong to the early period of His ministry. The V/ words, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears," involve a distinct claim to Messiah- ship ; the references to the history of the pro- phets Elijah and Elisha indicate a preference of heathens to Jews ; the reflections provoked by the not unnatural surprise of the villagers at the talents displayed in the discourse to which they had listened seem to betray a certain tone of impatience or irritation. These things, it may be said, it has indeed been said, do not suit the initial stage, but could only appropriately hap- pen at an advanced stage in the ministry. They make the end the beginning, to the injury of the history, and even of the character of Jesus.* All this may be granted without prejudice to the good faith or the accuracy of the Evangelist. For though, for some reason, he placed this scene at the commencement of his story, he does not mislead his readers. His narrative is quite compatible with the supposition that the events recorded really occurred at the late period implied in the accounts of the first and second Gospels ;-f" that is to say, after a ministry * So Keim in his " History of Jesus of Nazareth." t Matt. xiii. 54-58; Mark vi. 1-6. THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 23 of some duration in the neighbourhood of Caper- naum, including the working of many miracles and the utterance of many weighty words, such as the parables recorded in the thirteenth chap- ter of Matthew. ^ Why it was that Luke transferred to the be- ginning what actually belonged to a late time, we shall see immediately. Meantime it will serve a good purpose to endeavour to form as clear a conception as possible of the probable situation — the historical setting of the dis- course in the synagogue of Nazareth. And in the first place, we remark that a visit to Nazareth, accompanied by some such incidents as are recorded by Luke, is clearly implied in the nar- ratives of all the three synoptical Evangelists. All relate how Jesus came to His own native place, entered into the synagogue there, and delivered an address which created general astonishment, yet failed to win for the speaker a sympathetic believing reception from his fellow-townsmen, but, on the contrary, had for Its final issue deep and permanent alienation. The story in these its main lines has a sure place in the evangelic tradition, distinctly though briefly recognised even in the fourth Gospel* But in what circumstances did this visit to Nazareth take place ? when did Jesus ascend from the sea-shore to His native village, and in * John iv. 43-45. 24 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. what mood ? The probable connection of events was as follows. Jesus had laboured for a while among the cities by the lake. His words and works had produced a great impres- sion, which, however, had proved evanescent. The Capernaum enthusiasm had been followed by a crisis bringing a decline of interest in the Galilean Gospel, and of affection for the Great Evangelist. The effect on Christ's own spirit was a deep sadness which found expression variously: in complaints against the cities wherein His mighty works were done,* and very specially in the adoption of a new parabolic mode of setting forth His thoughts. For the parables are the reflection of a melancholy mood, and the first parable, that of the sower, reveals very clearly the cause of the melancholy in the presence among the hearers of the word of the kingdom of so many in whom that word would bring forth no abiding fruit.f In yet another way did the sadness of Jesus seek relief, viz., by a visit to His native town. The visit did not mean a change of plan, the selection of a new sphere of work, the abandonment of a popula- tion that had deeply disappointed early expec- tations in favour of a people from whom better things — more receptivity and constancy, were * Matt. xi. 20-24. t Vide on this my work on " The raiaboHc Teaching of Christ," p. 19. THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 25 hoped. Jesus knew man too well to expect for a prophet special success in His own country; He was aware, as the proverb he quoted in the synagogue of Nazareth shows, that all experi- ence bore witness to the contrary. That visit meant much the same thing as the occasional retirement into solitary places in the evening to pray, of which we read in the Gospels. It was a weary heart seeking rest, not so much in the sympathy of man, as in the bosom of His Father, amid the haunts of childhood, and the revived associations of by-past years. But while Jesus did not go to Nazareth in quest of a new theatre of operations, or of more receptive hearers. He could not be there without taking an opportunity of proclaiming to His fellow-townsmen the good tidings He had been preaching to the busy populations of the valley below; especially if, as is not improbable. He had not yet appeared among them as the Herald of the kingdom. Even though it be true that a prophet hath no honour in his own country, and therefore does well not to rely too much upon the support of those who have been familiar with him from his earliest years, yet it were unseemly for one who has received a prophet's commission to deliver his message to the wide public and to pass the acquaintances of his boy- hood over. Whatever comes of it, he must preach to them also. 26 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. The needed opportunity was found in the local synagogue. There any one, with the per- mission of the chief man, might without presump- tion read and exhort. The roll containing the prophecies of Isaiah having been put into His hands by the officer, Jesus opened it, and, lighting upon the passage concerning the acceptable year of tJie Loi'd, read it in the hearing of those present. The section read might be the lesson for the day, or more probably it was expressly selected and adapted for the occasion. Adapted it certainly was, if it was read as it stands in the Gospel, for the text as given by Luke differs from the ori- ginal, by the omission of the clause concerning the day of vengeance, and by the addition of a clause from an earlier chapter of Isaiah, this viz., " to set at liberty them that are bruised," which corresponds to the expression, " to let the oppressed go free," in Isaiah Iviii. 6. Having read the unusually brief but peculiarly impressive Scripture portion, Jesus sat down and began to discourse on it, to the effect that He was the anointed one referred to therein, and that in His ministry and mission the promise of the acceptable year was fulfilled. The eyes of all were turned towards Him with eager ex- pectation, for doubtless they had heard the fame of His work in Capernaum, and were curious to see how the rising celebrity, a towns- man of their own, would acquit Himself. To an THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 27 ordinary speaker the intense interest might have been embarrassing, but Jesus rose above all embarrassment and spoke with an inspiration, eloquence, and felicity not to be resisted. The immediate result was universal admiration. But the average of mankind do not long remain in this mood. Admiration soon gives place to envy, and praise to depreciatory criticism. No matter how superior the performance, occasion for fault finding is sure to be found; if not in the person himself, then in his environment. The fault of Jesus lay in His being a Nazarene. He was one of themselves, they knew Him from boyhood, and all His kith and kin, and could give the names of his father and mother, and brothers and sisters. And so they passed from admiration to surprise, and from surprise to irritation. " How gracious the substance of this discourse, and how graceful the manner. But how should a townsman of ours have such rare gifts ; nay, what right has he to be other than commonplace like the rest of us, like the other members of his own family.^ James and Joses and Simon and Judas are all very ordinary men, why should Jesus their brother be extraordinary ^ Is it credible that he should be so extraordinary as he says ; not merely unusually clever, as we cannot deny, but the anointed one, the Messiah, spoken of by the prophet ? It would require strong evidence to convince us of this." 28 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. So thought the men of Nazareth, so spake they to each other with the wonted freedom of a Jewish synagogue. Jesus knew human nature in general, and Jewish human nature in parti- cular too well, to be hurt or surprised at the feelings visible in their countenances, and audible in their words. The reception He had got appeared to Him only a verification of the truth of proverb-lore expressed in such sayings as " Physician heal thyself," " No prophet is ac- cepted in his own country." These proverbs He quoted to His audience, to show them how well He understood them, and how much a matter of course their ungenerous behaviour was in His eyes. But while thus treating their unbelief as natural. He did not allow them to imagine it was blameless. On the contrary. He gave them to understand that it was a moral defect that brought along with it its own penalty. If a prophet had no honour in his own country, it was not the fault of the prophet, but of his countrymen. For the prophet was not without honour, save in his own country, and among his own kin and in his own house. Whence this ex- ception to the universal esteem accorded to one exercising the prophetic office ; what is its meaning and import .'' What but this, a moral blindness that cannot discern nobleness through the disguise of a mean or familiar environment. Such blindness has for its inevitable penalty THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 29 that the prophet goes where he gets honour. This unpleasant truth Jesus hinted to His hearers by the citation of historical examples. It was a truth which, in one form or another, He had frequent occasion to repeat. Already He had spoken it in effect to the men of Capernaum when He said that if the mighty works done among them had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Now He speaks it to the men of Nazareth, not in anger, but in discharge of a sad duty. Ere long He will have to speak it to the whole nation of Israel, in parables of Judgment, like the Barren Fig-tree, and the wicked vinedressers, intimating the transfer- ence of privilege despised or abused, from the elect race to the outside world of the Gentiles. It was a truth which the Jews, in their pride^ could not bear to hear. The Nazarenes were no exception. The ominous allusions to favours conferred by Hebrew prophets on aliens touched their prejudices and passions to the quick, and raised in the synagogue a sudden tempest of indignation, which threatened the bold speaker with instant destruction. The whole scene in the synagogue of Nazareth from beginning to end is full of typical signifi- cance. Commencing with evangelic discourse, and closing with death-perils, it may be said to be an epitome of the history of Jesus. And for 3© THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. that very reason it is introduced here by the EvangeHst at so early a place in his narrative. Luke, perceiving its significance, has selected it to be the frontispiece of his gospel, showing by sample the salient features of its contents. He is not to be blamed for doing this, provided care has been taken to prevent misapprehension as to the true place of the scene in the history. The frontispiece in a book is often taken from an advanced page, from which certain words are quoted to illustrate the picture, the number of the page from which the quotation is made being added for the guidance of the reader. Luke has only availed himself of this literary license, and not without due precautions ; for the reference to the works "done in Capernaum," so to speak, gives the historical page from which the frontispiece is taken. The only question is, has Luke selected his frontispiece well ? He is not to be blamed for having a frontispiece ; but he might be blame- worthy if he gave so prominent a place to a scene not possessing the many-sided significance required. In this respect, however, there is no room for fault finding. The selection is most felicitous at all points. Let us consider the scene in detail more attentively that we may see this. It is probable that for Luke's own mind the emblematic significance of the scene lay chiefly in these two features : the gracious character of THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 3 I Christ's discourse, and the indication in the close of the universal destination of the Gospel. These were things sure to interest the Pauline Evangelist. That the former feature arrested his attention, appears from the phrase which he employs to describe the nature of Christ's sermon, " words of grace," an expression ail the more remarkable that it is of rare occurrence in the Gospels. It goes without saying that he was fully alive to the prophetic import of the final, tragic phase of the scene. In its hints of a wider range for the ministry of grace than the narrow bounds of Israel, the consequent outburst of murderous rage among bigoted villagers, and the escape and departure of Jesus, the historian of the Acts of the Apostles could not fail to recognise anticipations and fore- shadowings of similar incidents in the mission- ary experience of Paul. In this view the present narrative may be regarded as a frontis- piece, not only to the Gospel of Luke, but to the combined historical work of which he was the author. It is a worthy frontispiece, in respect both of the grace and of the nniversality of the Gospel. In the first place, the text of Christ's discourse was a most gracious one ; none more so could have been found within the range of Old Testa- ment prophecy. It was made more gracious than in the original, by the omission of the 32 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. reference to the day of vengeance, and by the addition of a clause to make the account of Messiah's blessed work as many-sided and complete as possible. Its graciousness was further enhanced by the lifting up of the whole ministry of Messiah from the political to the spiritual plane. The mission of the anointed one in the view of the prophet was to deliver Israel from Babylonish exile, and so inaugurate a new year of jubilee, bringing freedom to the captive, and vengeance on the head of the oppressor. The announcement of such deliver- ance was a veritable gospel, albeit a political one, good tidings, indeed, to the meek, from a most gracious covenant God mindful of His people in their downtrodden estate. But there is a worse bondage than that of Babylon, and a higher liberty than that which releases from an outward yoke. Christ had these in view when he quoted the prophetic oracle. That is not indeed expressly indicated. The words as given are susceptible of either reference. But there are times when old words receive new and higher meanings, and there are times when old meanings demand new words. Such a time was that of Jesus. He came to fill old phrases with a deeper, wider sense, to make the oppres- sor signify not Rome but sin, and captivity enslavement by evil desires and habits; to make poverty mean more than the lack of outward THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 3^ goods, and a broken heart more than merely worldly disappointment. The new era which came in with Christ brought along with it two great changes in human thought. It proclaimed the importance of the individual man as a v^ moral subject, and it placed happiness and mjsery within, not without ; in the heart, not in outward possessions or position. Of old the nation was the unit, and the individual man of no account. Israel, as a whole, was God's son, and the object of Divine care. But now, in the new era, men are told that God cares for them individually, for the poorest and the vilest, and this message is itself an essential part of the gospel which Christ preaches. When He speaks of " the poor," " the broken-hearted," " the cap- tives," "the blind," "the bruised," He means, not a community, but individual men and women, much needing to hear some message of hope and consolation. And what He offers to them is not money or food, or freedom from an external yoke, but something nearer themselves. He gives them to understand that happiness consists not in what a man has, but in what he is, and that it is in the power of all to be such in heart, that no matter what his outward lot, he must need be inwardly blessed. Such were the ideas of the new era which made it an era in human history ; and it was with these ideas in His mind that Jesus quoted the text from c 1/ 34 I'HE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD, Isaiah's prophecies. And surely it was a gracious text when so understood ! There was grace in it even when addressed by the prophet to Israel as a whole with reference to her poli- tical condition ; how much more when used as a gospel for the individual spirit, and offering to each human being, however circumstanced, peace, wisdom, self-mastery, release from the fetters of ignorance, passion, and evil habit, into a blessed subjection to the sway of reason, conscience, and God. If Christ's text was full of grace. His sermon appears to have been not less so. It has not indeed been recorded at length or even in out- line, but its drift is indicated, and its general spirit characterised. " He began to say unto them. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." He claimed for His ministry to be a fulfilment of the prophecy, and of course set forth the grounds on which the claim rested. This He could not do convincingly without mak- ing a statement of doctrines and facts, the very burthen of which was grace ; for it would require an array of most gracious sayings and doings to supply the materials of such a demonstration. But He would be at no loss where to find the necessary details of His high argument. He had but to refer to His healing miracles and to His dealings with publicans and sinners, to show that His mission was to fight with and THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 35 conquer physical, social, and moral evil in every shape, and so to inaugurate the acceptable year of the Lord, the new era of redeeming- love. That Christ's discourse was of this tenor the Evangelist indicates when he makes use of the phrase " words of grace " to denote its general character. That phrase, indeed, he reckoned the fittest to characterise Christ's whole teach- ing as recorded in his gospel, and on that very account it is that he introduces it here. But we may assume that he possessed more information concerning the contents of the discourse than he has communicated, and that he employs the expression " words of grace " to reflect the gene- ral impression made on his mind by the details. The discourse, from all he could learn from current evangelic tradition, was emphatically gracious in its strain. The substance was redo- lent of grace, and the manner of the speaker corresponded : the countenance lit up with the sunshine of hope for the world, the eye moist- ened with the dew of sympathy, the whole frame instinct with enthusiastic energy; all com- bining to make a powerful impression even on stolid Nazarenes, whose admiration supplies the crowning proof that the discourse was such as is represented in the narrative. Doubt it not, therefore, that sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth was eloquent in the true sense of the word. Eloquence means speaking so that all 36 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. that is within one finds utterance. All that was within Jesus spoke out in that sermon, yea, and all that was without Him too. Would that all " preachers of the Gospel," so called, could preach in His fashion, with the air of men that had good news to tell ! A gospel is something that makes the preacher himself happy, and which therefore he has pleasure in communicating to others. He therefore is no preacher of a gospel who wears a gloomy countenance, and exhibits a depressed bearing, and whose words sound like words of doom, rather than words of grace, as if he had come forth from a prison, or from some sombre abode smothered among trees whose branches shut out the fresh air and the sunlight, to speak to his fellowmen. Judge not Jesus by such a man ; in matter, manner, spirit, this modern preacher differs toto^codn. from the genial, joyous, winsome preacher of Nazareth. In so far as the grace of the gospel is con- cerned, then, Luke has undoubtedly shown tact in selecting this scene to be the frontispiece of his gospel. Text and sermon are most charac- teristic of Christ's whole ministry, as reported, not only by the third Evangelist, but by all his brethren. No better motto could be found for that ministry than the prophetic oracle read in the synagogue of Nazareth. If Jesus did not actually preach His first discourse from it. He might have done so, taking occasion therefrom THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. 2>7 to draw out a programme of His work as the inaugurator of the acceptable year of the Lord, In respect of the universal destination of the Gospel, this scene is also sufficiently significant. In this connection, indeed, what it supplies is rather omens than distinct intimations. It is hinted that prophets accustomed to receive more honour every where than in their own country, are apt to go where they get a good reception. The anger produced by the hint suggests the thought that prophets ill received by their own people may be forced, whether they will or no, to go elsewhere with their message. The attempt on the life of Jesus foreshadows the tragic event through which the prophet of Nazareth hoped to draw to Himself the expectant eyes of all men. The departure of Jesus from His nativ^e town is a portent of Christianity leaving the sacred soil of Judsea, and stepping forth into the wide world in quest of a new home. Significant traits all these justly appeared to the eye of Luke the Pauline evangelist. The two features most prominent in this frontispiece are just the salient characteristics of the Christian era. It is the era of grass, and of grace free to all mankind. And on these accounts it is the acceptable year of the Lord. It is acceptable to God, for God is the God of grace above all things, and it is His 38 THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD. pleasure to embrace in His gracious purpose, not one chosen people, but all peoples that dwell on the face of the earth. And for the same reasons it should be acceptable to us. We should rejoice in the era to which we belong, because therein God's grace is manifest and magnified. It is to our loss if we remain igno- rant of the characteristics of the era under which we live, and belong in spirit to the old super- seded era of law and limited privilege. It is to our shame if, knowing these characteristics, we remain indifferent to them, and still more if we trample them under foot. CHAPTER III. THE BEATITUDES. Matt. v. 3-12 ; Luke vi. 20-23. The Beatitudes contain Christ's doctrine of happiness. A strange doctrine it must sound to worldly ears ! It seems a series of paradoxes, or even contradictions, amounting together to a declaration that the miserable are the happy. Nowhere does the boldness of the Preacher of Galilee appear more conspicuously than in these opening sentences of the Sermon on the Mount. This Man has faith in the power of His Gospel to cope with every ill that flesh is heir to. He speaks as one who has good news for all classes of men, and for all possible conditions. There is no human experience which He regards with despair. And his doctrine is as original as it is bold, not to be confounded with that of any philosophical school. It is not stoicism. The Stoic preached submission to misery as the in- evitable, and offered to his disciples the peace of despair. Jesus looks on evil as something that can be transmuted into good, and for all 40 THE BEATITUDES. sufferers has a hope, a reward, an outlook. It is not optimism. The optimist denies evil, or explains it away, and thinks to cure human misery by fine phrases. Jesus admits the evil that is in the world, and speaks of it in plain terms ; only^ unlike the pessimist, He declines to regard it as final, insurmountable. The kind of happiness Jesus offers is obvi- ously something novel and peculiar. When He says, Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful. He means either that they are blessed in spite of their misery, or that they are blessed through their misery. In either case the blessed- ness must be something different from what the world usually accounts happiness, something in the soul, not in the outward state. Jesus invites men to reach felicity by the method of inward- ness, representing it as within the reach of all just because that is the way to it. These aphorisms on happiness prefixed to the Sermon on the Mount might have formed a part of the sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth on the acceptable year of the Lord. Only once written in the evangelic narrative, they might have been many times spoken. They would have served well to show how the Scripture quoted from Isaiah had been fulfilled, and to describe the nature of the new era of Grace. They might have been, possibly they were, notes sounded by Jesus on the trumpet of the world's jubilee. THE BEATITUDES. 4 1 They are certainly among the most character- istic utterances of the new era of Hope. It has been remarked of the Sermon on the Mount that it seems to be a mixture of two distinct sorts of doctrine, one specially suited for the ears of disciples, and the other such as might suitably be addressed to the multitude. In the judgment of critics, the former kind of doctrine predominates, so that the sermon may be represented as a disciple-discourse with popu- lar elements interspersed.* There is a certain amount of truth in this view, and the mixture, discernible throughout, is traceable at the com- mencement. Some of the Beatitudes are for mankind, and some are spoken specially for the benefit of disciples. One set contains a specific for the woes of humanity at large, another brings consolation for the tribulations of saints. The distinction is most apparent in Luke's version of the sermon. There three Beatitudes are spoken to the poor, the hungry, those that weep ; then follows one comprehensive Beatitude for the faithful servants of the kingdom suffering for truth and righteousness. It was necessary that there should be Beatitudes for both. No gospel is complete which has not consolations both for sinners and for saints, for ordinary suffering mortals, and for faithful elect souls battling with moral evil. It was natural that the Beati- * This is the view of Keim. 42 THE BEATITUDES. tudes for men in general should take precedence of those for disciples. For the poor, the hun- gry, the tearful are the majority, the million ; nay, the larger category includes the less, for disciples are men, and have once been sufferers and sinners like ordinary mortals, probably are so still ; sufferings for righteousness being an additional drop in their bitter cup. The first group of Beatitudes thus concern all, the latter group concerning only those whose vocation it is to be the light of the world, and the salt of the earth. We shall consider the two groups separately, first the universal ones, and then the special. The universal Beatitudes are in number three, the first, second, and fourth in Matthew's list. Matthew's third Beatitude, " Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," may be regarded as a variation of the first. The meek are the downtrodden and oppressed who have no share in this world's greatness, and \vho accept their situation in a mild and quiet spirit. They are tempted to fret when they see evil- doers prospering, probably at their expense, and to bear a bitter grudge against workers of iniquity. But they bear what they cannot help, and do not puzzle themselves about the mys- teries of Providence. And the promise to such as live in this way is that in the long run things will right themselves, and put the meek in the place of the proud. THE BEATITUDES. 43 The Beatitudes of the first group are am- biguous in form. In Luke's version of the discourse they seem to refer to literal poverty, hunger, and sorrow. Christ appears there say- ing, "Blessed be ye poor;" "Blessed are ye that hunger now ; " " Blessed are ye that weep now." In Matthew's version the terms em- ployed to describe the classes addressed in the twol^ first of these sentences have attached to them qualifying phrases which make the charac- teristics spiritual, and so limit the scope of the sayings, turning them in fact into special Beati- tudes pertaining to the children of the kingdom. If the question be asked which of the two forms is the more original, our judgment inclines to that of Luke. Speaking generally, the more pregnant kernel-like form of any saying of Jesus is always the more likely to have been that actually used by Him, The briefer, less developed form is most in keeping with the striking originality of His teaching. Christ, as ~1 befits the Sage, loved short suggestive sentences, / revealing much, hiding much, arresting atten- ' tion, taking hold of the memory, provoking thought, demanding explanation. Then the very breadth of the announcements in Luke is in favour of their being the authentic utterances of Jesus. It is intrinsically credible that He had something in His doctrine of happiness for the many, for the million ; some such words as //' 44 THE BEATITUDES. Luke puts into His mouth. The poor in spirit, the mourners for sin, the liungerers for righte- ousness, are a very select band ; only a few of them were likely to be found in any crowd that heard Jesus preach. But the poor, the hungry, the sad are always a large company ; probably they embraced nine-tenths of the audience to which the Sermon on the Mount was spoken. Had He nothing to say to them ; to catch their ears, and to awaken hope in their heavy-laden hearts .-' Who can believe it that remembers that in His message to John Jesus Himself de- scribed His Gospel as one especially addressed to the poor .'' We may, therefore, confidently assume that the Preacher on the Mount began His discourse by uttering words of good cheer to those present, to whom the epithets poor, hungry, sad, were applicable, saying, in effect, to such, " Blessed are ye whom the world accounts wretched." It was a strange, startling saying, which might need much exposition to evince its truth and reasonableness, but it was good to begin with ; good to fix attention, pro- voke thought, and awaken hope. Proceeding now to consider the import of these surprising declarations, we understand, of course, that our Lord did not mean to pronounce the poor, hungry, and weeping blessed, simply in virtue of their poverty, hunger, and tears. The connection between these classes and the THE BEATITUDES. 45 kingdom of Heaven and its blessings is not quite so immediate. Yet Christ was not mock- ing His hearers with idle words. He spoke gravely, sincerely, having weighty truths in His mind, every one of which it much concerned the children of want and sorrow to know. One of these, the most immediately obvious, was that the classes addressed were in His heart, that He cared for them, sympathised with them, desired their well-being ; in a word, that He was the poor man's Friend, This at least is implied in the opening sentence of the sermon, "Blessed are ye poor." The mere fact that this was the opening sentence was most significant. It showed how near the poor lay to the speaker's heart, that at least they had the blessing of His most earnest sympathy. Surely a thing not to be despised ! In those days the poor were many, and their state was very abject, and they had few friends. They pined -through a dreary existence unheeded, their misery unalleviated by the charities of Christian civilization. But here was One who manifestly pitied and loved them. He is a great prophet and sage, whose words command the attention of all, and His first w^ord is to the poor ! Why, His love and pity were in themselves a gospel unspeakably soothing and comforting. Then how sugges- tive such love in such a Man : this union of humanity with wisdom ! How much it imports 46 THE BEATITUDES. that the Great Teacher is also the poor man's Friend ! One might have feared that the poor would be beneath His notice ; that He would pass them by as people for whom He could do nothing, and of whom He could make nothing ; too engrossed with sordid cares to become the dis- ciples of wisdom. Surely the poor man's era is coming; an era in which the poor shall not merely be cared for, but learn to think new thoughts of themselves and their state — learn that though a man be poor he is still a man, and may possess most real riches though destitute of silver and gold. This, accordingly, was a second truth Jesus meant to suggest to His hearers when He uttered these Beatitudes. The word, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," signi- fies that the children of want, though destitute of this world's goods, are not necessarily without a portion. There is the kingdom of God, it is accessible to them. If not actually theirs now it may be theirs, their poverty notwithstanding. It is theirs in possibility and hope, if not in present possession. Poverty excludes from many earthly enjoyments, but not from the blessings of the kingdom. These are within the reach of the poor and wobegone not less, to say the least, than of other men. Under this aspect, the real point of the first Beatitude lies in the implied assertion that tJiere is such a thing as the kingdom of God. THE BEATITUDES. 47 Christ's purpose is to put a new idea, a new object of desire and hope into the minds of His hearers. He refers to the Kingdom of God, as a friend of the poor in our time might refer to Austraha or the western prairie-lands of America as a sphere in which industry might find for itself ample and hope- ful scope ; saying to the subjects of his philan- thropic sympathies, "Why pine here in hopeless misery .-' Yonder in the far west are millions of acres waiting for you^ on whieh you may settle, and by the labour of your hands raise abundance of food for yourselves and your children." So Christ says in effect : " O ye poor, hungry, weeping ones, think not your case is desperate. Blessedness is possible even for you ; there is a kingdom of God, lift up your thoughts to it, and it shall be well with you." Of this kingdom of God Christ's hearers for the most part had but the vaguest ideas, many of them possibly had never heard of it before. When they heard the Preacher mention it, they may have asked themselves : Where is it, what is it, this happy land, where the poor man can bid good-bye to his misery .'' and in all likeli- hood their thoughts of it were very crude and very material. Even the disciples of Jesus, many days after they joined His society, cherished very inaccurate and gross conceptions of the kingdom concerning which their Master 48 THE BEATITUDES, SO often spoke. The Sermon on the Mount, therefore, we may be sure, did not convey full and exact information to the miscellaneous audience concerning the better land. At most it put a new thought into their minds, started an inquiry, let into darkened hearts a ray of hope. But we know what the Speaker had in view. He wished to lift His hearers up to the thought that human life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment, that there are two kinds of riches, one material, another in the heart of man. The kingdom of God of which He spoke was not a far away land like the north-west of Canada, to which so many of our countrymen are now flocking, seeking escape from bad seasons, and high rents, and ruined crops, and empty stalls. It was within the breasts of the men and women before Him, if it' was anywhere for them. It zvas there for them all in germ and possibility. For had they not all minds that might seek after wisdom, hearts that might love righteousness, consciences that might attain to tranquillity t And these goods of the soul acquired, what joy was within reach, nay, what joy was in actual possession ! The barrel of meal might be empty, and the cruse of oil fail, but nevertheless the man who was in possession of wisdom, righteousness, and a peaceful conscience, could not be called poor. He had a treasure that might fill his heart with THE BEATITUDES. 49 gladness, and enable him to bound over the rocky places of life with the nimbleness of a gazelle. The kingdom of heaven thus conceived may- appear a very ethereal thing, a most insubstan- tial boon to offer to the needy and sad. What are wisdom, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost to a hungry man } What, indeed ! And yet what are they not, supposing a hungry man actually to possess them .-• What a boon they would be to Ireland, if possessed by her poverty-stricken, sad-hearted children ! They would soon settle the Irish question, soon put an end to assassinations, soon bring even ma- terial wealth into that unhappy land. Is the doctrine that there is a kingdom of heaven really then of no account ? Can we part with the Beatitudes, which teach that doctrine, without loss .'' Nay, verily ! For the kingdom of heaven is a synonym for the spiritual nature of man. To say that there is a kingdom of heaven is to say that man is a free, moral personality, that he is a man and not a beast, that a man is a man, in spite of poverty, and hunger, and tears. It is what all the poets and wise men have been saying from the beginning of time, in one dialect or another. It is what all men and nations have believed who have come to much good. It is what our poor, sorrow- stricken ones must believe to make their exist- 50 THE BEATITUDES. ence on this earth tolerable, and their lives worth living. States may pass away, churches and creeds may pass away, and no very serious consequences to the world happen. But if the human race itself is not to perish, faith in a kingdom of heaven, in the human soul, in the spiritual nature of man, in manhood as distinct from beasthood, must abide ; and he is no friend of the poor who encourages them to treat this truth as an idle dream with which they have no concern. It has been said, " Justice is like the kingdom of God, it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning."* Even if that were all that had to be said, it were still of the utmost importance to respect and cherish the yearning. Jesus Christ was the friend of the poor, not merely because He loved them and pitied their miseries, but because He preached the doctrine of a kingdom of heaven, and preached it to them as a matter in which even they had a vital interest, as offering a bliss not inaccessible to the most poverty-stricken and sorrow-laden. But Jesus meant to say more than this to the poor and sorrowful : more than " I feel for you ; or, the bliss of the kingdom is possible for you." He meant to say this further : just because ye are poor, and hungry, and sad, the kingdom of heaven is neare}' to you than to others. Your * Georc;e Eliot in " Romola." THE BEATITUDES. 5 I very misery may be the means of leading you into the kingdom. That Christ really thought so, His whole teaching and conduct show. He certainly did not, as some pretend, regard poverty in itself as a virtue, nor wealth in itself as a sin. But He did teach that material pos- sessions and worldly felicity created difficulties in the pursuit of eternal life from which poor men by their very poverty were exempt. And, accordingly, He sought disciples chiefly from among the ranks of the poor, as believing that they were most likely to be found there. And the result justified the policy ; for it was mainly from the humbler class of society that the kingdom Jesus preached drew its first citizens. The comfortable classes either held entirely aloof, or languidly patronised the new religious movement. And this experience con- stantly repeats itself in history. All spiritual movements find their earliest and most enthu- siastic supporters among the same classes from which Jesus drew His disciples — the poor, the sorrowful, even the disreputable. The well-to- do strike in when the movement has established itself among the institutions of society and be- come respectable ; and their support is often a very doubtful gain, having for its frequent effect the conversion of a Divine cause into a merely human custom, an Evangel into a Pharisaism. It is not difficult to understand this, to see 5^2 The beatitudes. how it comes to pass that the last on earth should be first in heaven, the remotest from happiness and even from virtue the nearest to the kingdom of God. Possession and character breed self-satisfaction, which is fatal to aspiration. He, on the other hand, who has neither wealth nor character, is in no danger of becoming self-complacent, and can very easily be convinced that he might in all respects be better than he is. Then the life of poverty, sorrow, and passion is real to grim- ness ; the vain show which conceals truth from the eyes of the world is rudely torn asunder by hard experiences. But to be in contact with reality is always beneficial. It breeds earnest thought, serious purpose, longings after some- thing that can yield true contentment, intense desire to know the secret of human well-being. Thus may the poor man come to have his ideas of poverty and wealth greatly widened and deepened, so as to embrace the inward state as well as the outward. He attains to self-know- ledge through the discipline of want, and sees that he is poor indeed, not because he has no gold, but because he lacks the treasure of wisdom ; and that he is hungry, not because he is without the bread that feeds the body, but because the soul has not received that which it needs and craves. Then is he not only poor, but poor in spirit; then is he not only hungry, but he hungers after righteousness ; then does he THE BEATITUDES. 53 not only weep because of outward calamities, but he mourns over the distance between the actual state of his inner life and the spiritual ideal revealed to his purged vision. And when he has become poor, hungry, and sad in this sense, then is the kingdom of heaven with its riches and consolations not only near him, but within him. For in these very states doth the kingdom of God consist. That poverty and sorrow should have these beneficent results is by no means a matter of course. Not all the poor are poor in the mystic sense ; not all the hungry are hungerers in soul as well as in body ; not all those who weep are mourners after a noble sort. These natural states do, indeed, always more or less open up the soul to spiritual influence of some kind. But the influence may be demoniac rather than Divine. Often, perhaps oftenest, it has been such, giving birth to characters and movements having affinity with the kingdom of Satan rather than with the kingdom of God, These two kingdoms and their Heads compete for the alle- giance of all whose lot on earth is hard, fully alive to their spiritual susceptibilities, and to the value of conquests from among those whose tempers want and pain have made keen. Such may become either saints or devils, according to the power that gains the upper hand ; commonplace they are not likely to be. With 54 THE BEATITUDES. full knowledge of this, Jesus speaks to them from the mount, striving to bring them under His beneficent spell, and save them from the malign fascinations of the wicked one. Very significant is the place occupied by the poor in the heart of Jesus, and in the history of nascent Christianity. It gives a glimpse into the nature of the kingdom of heaven, showing it to be before all things a kingdom of grace ; for what else can that be whose first care is for the destitute and forlorn, the proper objects of compassion ? It also teaches the church a plain duty, and suggests an obvious lesson as to the conditions of success in the performance of the duty. It becomes the society that bears the Christian name to remember that by the will of the Master the poor are heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and to endeavour to put these heirs in actual possession of their inherit- ance. But for this purpose one qualification is indispensable. The church must love the poor wath an unfeigned, earnest, disinterested love. Those whose lives are hard are quick to discern real from simulated sympathy. Jesus stood the scrutiny of poverty's keen eyes. Need, sorrow, guilt, despite the suspiciousness native to them, were compelled to admit that this man w^as the Friend of social abjects. And so He gained their ear, and the movement with which His name was associated was in consequence THE BEATITUDES. 55 largely a poor man's, a publican's and sinner's movement. If the same true love were in the church of to-day she would become a poor man's church, and the masses of our population would seek admission to her fold. That so many are without, not desiring to be within, is a thing of evil omen. It means certainly that the powers of evil are busy at work ; means doubtless, also, that the children of light have not been busy enough. But it means, there is reason to fear, more than this — the lack of Christ's spirit of sincere intense sympathy with the labouring and heavy laden portion of humanity. We wish to love, we say we love, and we honestly think we do. But the keen eyes of the hungry, the forlorn, the lapsed, search us through and through, and find us wanting. The church of to-day, in all its sections, appears to these classes to exist, not for them, but for the respectable, well-to-do, middle classes, who can pay for pews, and who care for appearances, and covet the good repute of piety ; and to be pervaded by a spirit which has more affinity with the Pharisees than with Jesus, A melancholy fact, if true. In propor- tion as it is true, or is believed to be, the popu- lation outside the pale will treat the church as a society of no consequence to them, severance from which entails no loss, connection with which confers no blessedness. CHAPTER IV. THE BEATITUDES—