Chapter IX: Christian Characteristics

THE seventh chapter――the last which belongs to the Sermon――is occupied with a number of accessory topics. The character of the citizen of the kingdom of God has now been portrayed for us; the relation of this character to the old law has been explained; its main motive or principle has been described. Now there follow some characteristics which flow naturally from the relation in which the citizen of the kingdom stands both towards God and towards man. The first of these is the uncritical temper. “Judge not and ye shall not be judged.”

THE UNCRITICAL TEMPER

We should observe that in the parallel passage in St. Luke vi. this exhortation follows very suggestively upon a description of the character of God which corresponds to an earlier passage in St. Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. “Ye shall be the sons of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and the evil. Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful. And judge not,” &c. That is to say, God is not critical; He does the best for every one. He gives to every one the gifts he can appreciate. This is to be embodied in the temper of the disciple.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye
judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote that
is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in
thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast
out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own
eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own
eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of
thy brother’s eye.”

Manifestly, what is in our Lord’s mind is the temper and character of the Pharisee. The Pharisee was in his way a strict religionist, a strict observer of religion. But you may almost say that the Pharisee tested progress in religion by the capacity to condemn other people. “This multitude which knoweth not the law is accursed.”[74] The Pharisee had passed through a certain probation in learning. He had, as it were, passed his examinations and stood his tests; and now he was in a position to set every one else in his proper and subordinate place. That was the very test of his progress, that he was able to “despise others”; and it followed that he could be, in regard to his own _inner_ character, lax and self-satisfied. He had attained the right standard; he was performing the right observances. So long as he did these things, he need not be over-scrupulous in examining himself. Therefore the Pharisee was both critical and hypocritical; critical with regard to others, with regard to himself hypocritical.

Our Lord, then, did not mean to make of His disciples a new kind of Pharisee. He did not mean that His disciples, as they grew to learn and follow the strictness of their Master’s standard, should come to be supercilious like the Pharisees, and, like them, morally hollow. Therefore He warns against these two easily combined characteristics.

On the contrary, the temper which our Lord approves is the humility which makes the best of others, and is severe with itself. You, He seems to say, have every opportunity to know your own failings; therefore look stringently to yourself, “the mote, or the beam, that is in thine own eye.” That “bulks big” enough in your own vision. To consider it prevents you from over-estimating yourself, and humbles you in your own sight. Let it also take out of your heart and off your lips all the readiness to criticize and condemn other people.

Make the best of others. For that is, in fact, what our Lord means by “judge not.” It is what we should most naturally express by “Do not be critical.” Because a thing is strange or new to you, because it does not fall in with your ideas, do not condemn it off-hand, but try to appreciate it with sympathy first of all. Make the best of every thing and every person. And there is no doubt that if after looking for the good points in any idea, or undertaking, or person, you are at last bound to condemn, the weight attaching to your adverse verdict will depend very largely on whether you have escaped the reputation of being a “critical” and censorious person. The condemnation of one who is always finding fault carries no moral weight.

I say, If at last you are bound to condemn, and that may be the Christian’s duty. For here, again, as throughout this Sermon, we must notice our Lord’s proverbial method, otherwise we may misinterpret altogether the temper which our Lord here commends. There is a temper of universal toleration very prevalent in our age, both in conversation and in literature; which can indeed tolerate everything, because it has no fixed standards of right and wrong, of true and false, at all. But it is clear enough that this was not what our Lord meant to recommend; it would be so utterly antagonistic to His own character. No one is severer in discriminating judgement than our Lord when the occasion requires it. More than this, our Lord did deliberately intend that His Church, and the members of His Church, should have standards of goodness and truth which should enable them――aye, which should require them when duty called――to condemn their own brethren. A passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel which has been referred to already is clear upon this. “If thy brother trespass against thee”――are you to say, “It is of no account. It is not my business to condemn?” No. When it is not a question of the love of criticizing or of uncharitable judgement, but of maintaining the law of right and wrong, then it becomes our business to judge, and after consideration and patience to condemn.

“Go, shew him his fault between thee and him alone; if he
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee
not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two
witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he
refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse
to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and
the publican. Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever
ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”[75]

Our Lord does here actually commit to the Church――as on an earlier occasion to St. Peter as the chief and representative apostle――not the right, but the duty, to bind and to loose: that is, to pass judgements as to what is right and what is wrong, what is to be permitted and what is not to be permitted, in the Christian society. Again, after His resurrection He gives to His apostles the power and the duty to apply these judgements to persons, to absolve and to retain sins.[76] Thus the Church, and each of its members, is not indeed to be censorious in temper, or to make the worst of people; but, when occasion requires, is to maintain the moral standard. So it is that St. Paul expressly tells the Corinthian Church that, as a Christian society, they are to judge, not those that are without, but those that are within their own body: and he severely condemns them because they had let pass, or tolerated, a serious moral offence without discriminating judgement being passed upon it.[77]

It is the same where doctrine is concerned. The New Testament continually warns Christians that they are to have standards of judgement; to test all things, and hold fast that which is right;[78] to test the spirits whether they be of God.[79] And if any teacher come with a doctrine calculated to subvert the principles which lie at the basis of the Christian life, St. Paul and St. John alike recommend an attitude towards him which cannot exactly be described as tolerance.

“As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man
preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received,
let him be anathema.”

“If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching,
receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting: for
he that giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works.”[80]

These injunctions are given in view of cases where fundamental matters of principle are at stake. About minor matters St. Paul adopts a tone of the widest toleration.[81]

There is then a duty of judgement: while on the other hand our Lord condemns the critical and censorious temper. Is it not true that a candid conscience finds very little difficulty in distinguishing the duty of judgement from the sin of censoriousness and criticism? And is it not the case that those who have the lowest and vaguest standards of what is true and right, are yet very often the most critical in judgement of other people?

We are then to be anxious to make the best of others: and our Lord here again recognizes that law which we have so often heard from His lips, that God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye
judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured unto you.”

This describes no doubt how God will deal with us. And from the parallel passage of St. Luke we should gather that the retaliation will not be confined to God. As we deal with other men, so other men also will deal with us.

“And judge not, and ye shall not be judged: and condemn not, and
ye shall not be condemned: release, and ye shall be released:
give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed
down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your
bosom. For with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you
again.”[82]

From all sides you get as you give. If you deal with men in the critical, censorious, narrow temper, men will deal so with you. If you make the best of others, others will make the best of you.

RESERVE IN COMMUNICATING RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES

The next characteristic of the temper of the Christian follows by way of contrast on what has gone before. It is reserve in communicating religious privileges.

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your
pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under
their feet, and turn and rend you.”

There are high privileges which many men cannot appreciate; and if you press these upon them, you must not be surprised if, indignant with you for having given them something which seems so worthless, they take violent reprisals upon you.

We ask the question, Has our Lord, in inculcating the uncritical temper, inculcated the undiscriminating temper also? Certainly not. That which the Christian has received is of inestimable worth. The kingdom of God, as our Lord told us, is like a pearl of great price, which when a man hath found, for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that pearl. The Christian knows what it is to be a Christian, admitted into the fellowship of God, illuminated by His truth, empowered by His Spirit. In the light of God in which he lives he cannot but gaze out into the world with a discrimination like his Lord’s.

Our Lord, we notice, gave men the best they were capable of receiving. To all the world, if they had but the faith to trust His power, He gave the outpouring of that power in works of healing. He had compassion on them; He gave them what alone they were capable of appreciating――kindness, goodness. But did He teach all men the highest truth? No. He sifted, He discriminated them, till He had got those to deal with who really had ears to hear the highest truth, and then He told it them. Our Lord did not cast His pearls before swine, lest they should turn again and rend Him.

Thus we are to put before men what they are capable of appreciating. Not by any merits of ours, God has given us admission to His fellowship; He has given us great things and small things. We are not to be selfish misers, we are to be anxious to communicate all; but we are to be discriminating. Kindness, self-sacrifice, care for their interests, and their whole life――that all men can appreciate, and we are to give it to all. But we are not to shriek the highest truths of religion at the street corner. We are to wait till people show a desire for the deepest things before we offer them religion. There is to be reserve in communicating religious privileges and religious truths.

Such was the method of the early Church. It went out into the world. It let all the world see the beauty of its life, the glory of its brotherhood, the splendour of its liberality. It made men feel that Christians were the friends of God. But it did not teach them the secrets of its life――its Creed, its Eucharist, its Prayer――till they were ready for them, and showed their readiness at least by inquiry. The Church would explain herself in apologies and dissipate misconceptions, but it was not her way to press her innermost truths upon the indifferent.

At the same time the Church has not an esoteric system, like the Pagan mysteries, or the schools of Gnosticism. These Gnostics would have only the intellectual admitted to the mysteries of God. That was not the Church’s way; her way was to teach _every_ man (who would come with faith), that she might present every man perfectly initiated in Jesus Christ.[83] The Church believed that nothing was necessary for the highest union with God but a simple sense of sin and faith in God, in His Son, in His Spirit. Nothing was necessary but these qualities of wanting and trusting, which are possible to all men. Her cry was――“Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Only, let them come thirsty!

And surely that method which belonged to the early Church――although no doubt it was capable of being abused――is yet the true and best method. Let the Church show her compassion and goodness and geniality to all men, but not press upon them the mysteries of God until, under her discipline and teaching, they begin to show some disposition to receive them. This is a principle which admits of very different applications in a heathen country, in preaching religion among nominal Christians, and in the social intercourse of individuals; but it admits of some application everywhere. And above all let us take care that the Church appears before men’s eyes as offering provision of spiritual privileges not for those who can pay for them, but for those who have some measure of spiritual appetite.

IMPARTIAL CONSIDERATENESS

The Christian is to be discriminating, but not niggardly. On the contrary, recognizing the readiness of God to give in response to human prayer and effort, he will exhibit a like impartial benevolence towards all men. This is the last of the three characteristics of the Christian character which our Lord enjoins: impartial benevolence proceeding from its own experience and knowledge of the divine character.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh
receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh
it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son
shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall
ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them
that ask him? All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is
the law and the prophets.”

As reported by St. Luke, our Lord gives a commentary on “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” For He gives us the parable of one who comes at an inconveniently late hour, and knocks at the door of a neighbour’s house, and demands food for a friend who has unexpectedly arrived. And our Lord represents how the owner of the house is at last unwillingly overcome by the importunity of the applicant, and consents to rise and give his neighbour what he wants.

Our Lord then in His proverbial way lays down the general principle that importunity――asking, seeking, knocking――at last overcomes all obstacles and obtains what it wants. And we notice that our Lord first arouses attention by the indiscriminate assertion of this general principle. Having done that, when the attention of men was arrested, He on different occasions――for those who had ears to hear――modified it, or gave it its more definite meaning.

Such modifications or exacter definitions are the following: “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, _believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them_” (St. Mark xi. 24). “_If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you_, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (St. John xv. 7). “Hitherto have ye asked nothing _in my name_: ask, and ye shall receive” (St. John xvi. 24). It is not too much to say that all these three statements are in effect identical. To ask in Christ’s name is to ask in accordance with Christ’s will, and this brings the third statement into identity with the second. We can only, as intelligent sons of our Father, “believe that we have received” requests which we know to be in accordance with His mind. Thus the first statement, in common with the other two, makes the effective prayer the prayer which rises in intelligent correspondence with the revealed will and character of God.

Even in this passage may be found a suggestion to the same purpose. “What man is there of you,” asks our Lord, “who, when his son asks a loaf or a fish, will give him”――something that looks like what he has asked for, but is in fact wholly useless or noxious? If then human fathers are to be relied upon in this way, much more is our heavenly Father to be relied upon to give good things to them that ask Him. But there is a converse to that statement. If a son asks for something harmful, what will a wise father do? Not give him what he asks for, but give him according to his request as it is interpreted by his own larger wisdom. So it is with God. He must hear and answer prayers, not simply as they are ignorantly offered, but as interpreted for our good in accordance with His wise purposes. Roman Catholics and Anglicans and Eastern Christians and Nonconformists may be praying for unity among Christians, each according to their own preconceptions. God will be attentive to the good-will of their prayers: they will not, as has been suggested, “neutralize one another:” for God will answer them according to His own wisdom.

Very suggestive then is the version of this saying of our Lord which is given by St. Luke: “Shall not your Father which is in heaven give”――not good things, but――“the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”

It is often said, we know, that the Sermon on the Mount contains no dogmas, no doctrines. But it implies, in a remarkable way, two cardinal Christian doctrines: the Godhead of Christ and the “fallen” state of man. The Godhead of Christ, as has been and will again be noticed, is involved in the authoritative tone in which He speaks. And a significant expression in this paragraph is unintelligible unless all men, even the best, may be assumed to be sinful. For our Lord is talking about good parents who will do their best for their children: yet He says “If ye, _being evil_.” Now, I do not know any words which could more forcibly imply――all the more forcibly because incidentally, or by the way――that our Lord thought of us all as having something evil and corrupt in our nature as it is; so that every one of us needs regeneration and conversion, in order that we may become what our Lord would have us. The intimation seems to me to be indeed the more emphatic because, as I say, it is uttered by the way. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more....”

Finally, on these considerations of the divine goodness, our Lord bases our duty towards our fellow-men.

“Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,
even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the
prophets.”

Our conduct towards our fellow-men is to be the reflection of that benevolence which we have learned and experienced in our own relations to God.

In the maxim in which our Lord expresses our social duty there are several points which require notice.

(1) In its negative form it had been already announced both among the Jews and among the Greeks: “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto yourselves.”[84] But one great superiority of our Lord over other teachers lies in the positive character of His teachings. His will is not simply that men should abstain from wrong-doing, but rather that they should be occupied in right-doing.

(2) Here, as elsewhere, our Lord is proverbial; and this maxim must not be interpreted “at the foot of the letter.” Nothing in common life is more annoying than when people do so interpret and act upon it; with the result that they behave as if every one must agree with them in what they like or dislike. What is meant of course is that we are to act towards others with the same considerateness which we would desire that others should exhibit towards us.

(3) We must realize that here we have the very kernel of Christian social duty. There was a great truth announced by the philosopher Immanuel Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only.” We are to treat all men always as ends in themselves; never as means merely towards some other end which we have in view, whether it be production, or convenience, or pleasure. Now this is only putting into a philosophical form what our Lord states more simply, more practically. We are to take the same thought for others that we would have others take for ourselves. We are to make no exceptions in our own favour. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are to remember that every one in God’s sight counts for one; and that nobody counts for more than one. This, I say, is the principle of all Christian social conduct. It is the principle of justice; that is, of equal consideration. We could go on drawing out its applications for hours, and never have exhausted them. And it cannot be said that it is at present within reasonable distance of being realized in what is called Christian society. We have a more or less true ideal of what our own human life ought to be――of what opportunities we ought to have for the development of our faculties――of what home and school and college, youth and married life and old age, work and rest, ought to mean for ourselves and our families. We are to make these ideals universal. We are so to limit our desires that what we want for ourselves we can reasonably expect also for others. We are to be as truly zealous and active for other classes or other individuals as we are for our own class or our own family or ourselves. The service which we expect from others, we are to see that we render in some real sense to them, and that without respect of persons. This maxim is not inconsistent with inequality of position or (within limits) of wealth――for men are differently constituted in their capacities and wants――but it does demand equality of consideration.

(4) “This,” our Lord says, “is the law and the prophets,” that is, this is the principle in which the true spirit of the Old Testament culminates. There was, of course, much in the Old Testament narrower than this and on a lower level; and, as we have seen, our Lord occupied a large part of this sermon in showing us those points in which the Christian law is to supersede the legislation of the Old Testament. But the Old Testament represents throughout a process of growth; and this is the point towards which it tends and in which it culminates. As St. Paul says, “If there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended”――summed up, or accomplished――“in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”[85]