And good deeds; prayer for spitefulness and persecution. all this to prove ourselves the true children of our Father which is in Heaven. His children must reflect His likeness. He is kind even unto the unthankful and to the evil.1 "His sun," the light which He created and could withhold, He causes to shine on all alike. The corn of the evil man is ripened no less than that of the good. The field not of the just only receives rain from Heaven, but even of the unjust. Let us deal towards all with the same large heart and liberal hand, like "Those Who would make good of bad, and friends of foes." 2 "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Thus shall we both become, and prove ourselves to be, "the children of the Highest." Our Lord proceeds further to show that those who acted on the narrow principle of the Jews, showing kindness to those only of their own party, were no better than the Publicans whom they affected to despise. These, we have seen, were a class by themselves, and they were regarded as sinners above all men. Our Lord here shows the Jews, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others,3 that unless they abandoned their narrow notions and misinterpretations of the Law, and acted on the broad principles of His Gospel, they were really not a whit better than the despised Publicans and sinners. These did quite as much as they. Even these returned love for love. These saluted at least their brethren. But to return love for hate, to be courteous to strangers no less than to their own countrymen, was practised no more by the proudest Pharisee than by the most despised Publican. The one was no better than the other. Thus our Lord having humbled them, having convicted them of their imperfection, again sets before them that perfect pattern, which, although in this world they can never actually attain to it, yet must they evermore be striving after. "As a scholar's 1 Compare the parallel passage in St. Luke vi. 27-36, and see the story at the close of Bp. Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. 2 Macbeth II. iv. See Jno. xiv. 103. writing, though it be nothing so good as his copy, yet may have so much likewise as to show he follows it.1 CX. ALMSGIVING. St. Matthew vi. 1-4. Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth : That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. In the six instances which our Lord has hitherto brought forward in His Sermon on the Mount, His object has been to convince those who made their boast of the Law, how far they fell short of its true spirit, and to lead them henceforward to interpret it by the light of His Gospel. Having therefore first pointed out their neglect of duties they seemed ignorant of, He proceeds to point out the proper motives and mode of other duties which they admitted. He singles out three of these, on the outward performance of which they laid great stress, Alms, Prayer, Fasting. These are Abp. Leighton on The Lord's Prayer. He adds, "Although he be not able to match it, yet looking on it makes him do it the better. Though the archer shoot not so high as he aims, yet the higher he takes his aim, the higher he shoots." We have the same simile in George Herbert (The Church Porch): "Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high: So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be. Sink not in spirit: who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher far than he that means a tree.' "God is more easily to be imitated by His children in the perfectious whereby He appears a 'Father, than in those whereby He appears a God. These for heaven; those for the earth."-Quesnel. 1 3 duties which relate severally to our neighbour, to God, and to ourselves. And in this "dedication of our substance, of our souls, and of our bodies, to God," He shows, according to the scope of His whole sermon, that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees," if we would even enter His Kingdom and become His disciples, become Israelites indeed. "It is observable that our Blessed Saviour, assuming each duty as something known and admitted, dwells only on the manner in which each is to be performed." "He could hardly have taught more forcibly the duty of Almsgiving and of Prayer and of Fasting, than by thus taking for granted that all His disciples will give Alms and pray and fast; and by teaching them how to do what He assumes that they will do." This injunction "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them," is by no means contradictory to that other command in this same Sermon on the Mount, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works." For in the one case our Lord is glancing at the Pharisees, of whom it is recorded, "All their works they do for to be seen of men;" and therefore He forbids all such boasting. But in the other case He has rather in view His disciples and those early confessors of Christianity, who might be tempted to cowardice or apostasy, and therefore He bids them not to hide or extinguish their light. It may be a duty to do a good deed openly, for the sake of example; but it can never be right to boast of the good done. A hypocrite is literally an actor, one who plays a part. We are to beware of of doctrine, or directions to duty, which at first sight, or to those who look no deeper than the surface of things, may seem scarcely consistent one with another. For they state the truths broadly, without all those shades and gradations by which they melt imperceptibly into one. In their teaching, the truths stand out like peaks of the same mountain chain; and they insist now on one, now on another, according to the need, and according to the circumstances, of those whom they address. 1 hypocrisy in almsgiving. "Do it because it is a good work, not because it will get thee a good name." The hypocrites among the Jews used to give alms openly and ostentatiously in the Synagogues and in the streets, not for the glory of God, but that they might have praise of men; calling attention to themselves, proclaiming their own fame, as if they had caused a trumpet to be blown before them, as criers or heralds use to do. The praise of men was all that they sought; and they had it. But the disciples of Christ, who desire to have praise of God, must proceed differently. They must not eye their good works with complacency. Our Lord uses a proverbial saying to show that His servants, so far from seeking the applause of others, should, if it were possible, even hide their charity from themselves. At least do not display to him who is at thy left hand what thou doest with thy right.3 "Though in some cases it is necessary to be seen in order to do, yet in no case do in order to be seen. 24 God, our Father, takes note of all our secret efforts in His service. He shall reward thee openly: "if not in the present day, yet at the great day." 2 "5 CXI. OF PRAYER. St. Matthew vi. 5, 6. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in 1 Henry. 2 "One of those vigorous popular sayings which are not to be required to give an account of themselves in detail."-Abp. Trench, Expos. of Sermon on Mount, p. 241. 3 Jacobus Capellus in Poole's Synopsis. See the illustrations from Grotius and Lightfoot, ibid. and compare Pope's "Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." And again, "Who builds a House to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name."-Moral Essays, Ep. iii. Abp. Leighton, quoted in A Plain Commentary. Henry. St. Luke xii. 1-3. the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Our Lord does not insist upon the duty and benefit of prayer, which He takes for granted, and which those whom He addressed were not profane enough to dispute, but upon the motive and manner of it. First He warns His disciples from doing as the hypocrites among the Jews did, and then from doing as the heathen do. Religion in those days, at least the form and profession of it, was in repute. The Synagogues were open for private prayer as well as for public worship; and certain, chiefly of the Pharisees,' who did all their works for to be seen of men, not only thus attracted attention to themselves by conspicuously and ostentatiously posting themselves in the Synagogues, but even by parading their private devotions in the public streets; at the corners, where the ways met, and where they would have the largest crowd of observers and admirers. This was their motive, not to do homage to their Creator, but to obtain it from their fellow-creatures. This was the recompense they sought; and they had it. And sorry enough it was: the empty breath of ignorant men. Their prayers were not, like Daniel's, prayers of faith,2 proofs of moral courage, but the exhibition of mountebanks in religion, doing only what was popular and would procure applause. Our Lord bids him who would be an Israelite indeed, a true son of him who had power with God and prevailed,3 to do very differently. He must enter into his closet, any private place where he can be alone with God; whether with Isaac he go out into the field to meditate at the even-tide, or with Israel at the ford wrestle for a blessing, or with our Lord Himself seek the mountain-side. In this, or in any such oratory as he can find or make, must he shut at least the door of his heart, and 1 St. Matt. xxiii. 5, 14. 2 Compare Dan. vi. 10 with 1 Ki. viii. 44, 48; Ps. v. 7; Jon. ii. 4. 3 Gen. xxxii. 22-28. 4 Gen. xxiv. 63. St. Matt. xiv. 23. |