the peace of God rule in your hearts." There is a peace that will enter there, if you do not thwart it: there is a Spirit that will take possession of your soul, provided that you do not quench it. In this world we are recipients, not creators. In obedience and ir gratefulness, and the infinite peace of God in the sɔul of man, is alone deep rest and repose.

XII.

[Preached January 4, 1852.].

THE CHRISTIAN AIM AND MOTIVE.

MATTHEW v. 48. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

THERE are two erroneous views held respecting the character of the Sermon on the Mount. The first may

be called an error of worldly-minded men, the other an error of mistaken religionists. Worldly-minded men -men, that is, in whom the devotional feeling is but feeble-are accustomed to look upon morality as the whole of religion; and they suppose that the Sermon on the Mount was designed only to explain and enforcé correct principles of morality. It tells of human duties and human proprieties; and an attention to these, they maintain, is the only religion which is required by it. Strange, my Christian brethren, that men whose lives are least remarkable for superhuman excellence should be the very men to refer most fre quently to those sublime comments on Christian principle, and should so confidently conclude from thence that themselves are right, and all others are wrong. Yet so it is.

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The other is an error of mistaken religionists. They sometimes regard the Sermon on the Mount

as if it were a collection of moral precepts, and consequently, strictly speaking, not Christianity at all. To them it seems as if the chief value, the chief inten tion of the discourse, was to show the breadth and spirituality of the requirements of the law of Moses; -its chief religious significance, to show the utter impossibility of fulfilling the law, and thus to lead to the necessary inference that justification must be by faith alone. And so they would not scruple to assert that, in the highest sense of that term, it is not Chris tianity at all, but only preparatory to it-a kind of spiritual Judaism; and that the higher and more developed principles of Christianity are to be found in the writings of the apostles. Before we proceed further, we would remark here that it seems, extremely startling to say that He who came to this world expressly to preach the Gospel should, in the most elaborate of all His discourses, omit to do so it is indeed something more than startling it is absolutely revolting to suppose that the letters of those who spoke of Christ should contain a more perfectly developed, a freer and fuller Christianity, than is to be found in Christ's own words.

Now, you will observe that these two parties, so opposed to each other in their general religious views, are agreed in this that the Sermon on the Mount is nothing but morality. The man of the world says, "It is morality only, and that is the whole of religion." The mistaken religionist says, "It is morality only, not the entire essence of Christianity." In opposition to both these views, we maintain that the Sermon on the Mount contains the sum and substance of Christianity -the very chief matter of the Gospel of our

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Réddemera It is not, you will observe, a pure and spiritualized Judaism; it is contrasted with Judaism again and again by Him who spoke it. Quoting the words of Moses, he affirmed, "So was it spoken by them of old time, but I say unto you" For example "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." That is Judaism." But I say unto you, Swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, and your nay nay." That is Christianity. And that which is the essential peculiarity of this Chris tianity lies in these two things. First of all, that the morality which it teaches is disinterested goodness →→→ goodness not for the sake of the blessing that follows it, but for its own sake, and because it is right. "Love yours enemies," is the Gospel precept. Why? Be cause, if you love them, you shall be blessed; and if you do not, cursed? No; but "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 "that is, may be like "your Father which is in heaven." The second essential peculiarity of Christianity and this, too, is an essential peculiarity of this Sermon →→→ is that it teaches and enforces the law of self-sacrifice. "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." This, brethren, is (thờ lawe of self-sacrifice the very law and spirit of the blessed cross of Christ.

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How deeply and essentially Christian, then, this Sermon on the Mount is, we shall understand, if we are enabled in any measure to reach the meaningland spirit of the single passage which I have taken as my

text. It tells two things-the Christian aim and the Christian motive.

II. The Christian motive because it is right and Godlike to be perfect.

1. We will, in the first place, take the first of these. The Christian aim is this to be perfect." Be ye therefore perfect." Now, distinguish this, I pray you, from mere worldly morality. It is not conformity to a créed that is here required, but aspiration after a state. It is not demanded of us to perform a number of duties, but to yield obedience to a certain spiritual law. But let us endeavor to explain this more fully. What is the meaning of this expression, "Be ye per fect"? Why is it that in this discourse, instead of being commanded to perform religious duties, we are commanded to think of being like God? Will not that inflame our pride, and increase our natural vainglory? Now, the nature and possibility of human perfection, what it is and how it is possible, are both contained in one single expression in the text: "Even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The relationship between father and son implies consanguinity, likeness, similarity of character and nature. God made the insect, the stone, the lily; but God is not the Father of the caterpillar, the lily, or the stone. When, therefore, God is said to be our Father, something more is implied in this than that God created man. And so, when the Son of man came proclaiming the fact that we are the children of God, it was in the truest sense a revelation. He told us that the nature of God resembles the nature of man; that love in God

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