lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Ye have heard, that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you: Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 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 thee in secret, himself shall reward thee openly. And, when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray, standing. in the synagogues and in 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 the Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. Judge not, that ye be not judged : for, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 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 pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not that, which is holy, unto the dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine: lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.* Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Such were the precepts of him who claimed to be the expected Messiah and the Saviour of mankind. Their unexampled purity will be controverted by none: and their intrinsic excellence approves itself to every heart and head. Never man spake like this man, was the honest confession of the officers who had been sent to apprehend him :|| Truly this was John xiii, 13--15. *Matt. v. vi. vii. John xiii. 34, 35. † Matt. xxii. 37--40. John vii. 46. the Son of God, was the acknowledgment of the centurion and his companions even while he was hanging upon the cross.* In the sayings of our Lord, we behold a calm and dignified and heavenly strain of morality but we vainly seek for the least tincture of insane fanaticism. All is composed and serene, equal and consistent. There are no jarring incongruities, no clashing contradictions, no undue elevation of one moral virtue, no' unreasonable depression of another. Every thing appears in its right place: the whole is perfect harmony: from a perusal of the system we rise satisfied and convinced. Throughout these admirable discourses, instead of that superiority to ordinances which some enthusiasts have claimed for themselves and their followers, we find the dutiful necessity of obedience to the moral law strenuously inculcated upon every disciple: instead of a violent and exclusive enunciation of some one favourite dogma or line of conduct, we find our whole duty both to God and man clearly explained and impartially enforced instead of those useless austerities and appalling self-macerations which in all ages and countries Fanaticism has proposed as the surest mode of propitiating the Deity, we find universal love, and meekness, and sincerity, and mercy, and purity, both of heart and life, set forth as the only certain evidence of our being the children of a heavenly Father. In no part of Christ's recorded language can we discover the slightest vestige of a wild enthusiasm. (2.) As little can we perceive it in any of those actions which are recorded as having been performed by him. When a captious question was proposed as to the legality of a Jew's paying tribute to Cæsar, we cannot doubt what the answer of an enthusiast would have been. Inflated with high notions of his own divine commission, and viewing with indignation the *Matt. xxvii. 54. subject state of the people whom he believed himself appointed to deliver, he would forthwith have boldly declared the deed unlawful, and would have enjoined either a sullen refusal, or a bold resistance by force of arms. But Christ, with singular adroitness, neither exposed himself to the anger of the Jews by controverting one of their favourite maxims, nor compromised himself with the Roman government by declaring that tribute ought not to be paid. "Render unto Cæsar," said he, upon an inspection of the imperial effigies which marked the tax money: "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's."* So likewise when another question was proposed by the Sadducees, which, as they imagined, reduced the doctrine of a future state to an absurdity, he hesitated not a moment to give an answer so calm and so rational, that nothing can possibly be more unlike the frantic ebullitions of enthusiasm. “ Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."+ An enthusiast, when attacked by the arm of force, is generally prone to repel violence with violence: and, believing himself to be the immediate favourite of heaven, he not unfrequently, even if his followers be ever so few, will confidently promise to them a certain victory. But, when in defence of his Lord a zealous disciple wounded one of the servants of high priest, Jesus ordered him to forbear; at once declaring the fate of those who should draw the sword in resistance to authority, and intimating the utter need† Matt. xxii. 23--32. * Matt. xxii. 15--22. lessness of such a step were he himself inclined to crush his enemies. "Put up again thy sword into its place; for all they, that take the sword, shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father; and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?"* An enthusiast, moreover, is very apt to inculcate his doctrines by fire and sword; as thinking that those deserve no mercy, who can impiously reject what to him appears the undeniable mind of heaven. But the mode of propagating Christianity prescribed by its founder, is the very reverse of such sanguinary proceedings. As ye go, said he to his disciples when he sent them forth, preach, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Freely ye have received, freely give. Behold, I send you forth as sheep, in the midst of wolves." Hence, when two of his disciples would fain have called down fire from heaven upon a Samaritan village which had refused him admission, he gravely rebuked them for their violence; intimating at the same time, that they little knew what spirit they were of: "for the son of man," said he, "is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."+ Various other instances of Christ's perfect freedom from enthusiasm might easily be produced; but these may be deemed sufficient. It may safely, in short, he asserted, that not a single mark of fanaticism can be exhibited against him, unless it be the naked circumstance of his claiming to be a prophet sent from God. This, however, according to any just principles of reasoning, cannot be legitimately brought forward as evidence because, in truth, it is a complete begging of the question. If, indeed, Christ were not sent from God; then doubtless his claim of a divine coinmission, made under a full impression of its propriety, would be a most ample proof of enthusiasm; but, on the other hand, if he were truly sent from God; then * Matt. xxvi. 51--54. Matt. x. 7, 8. 16. Luke ix. 51-56. |