The Sermon on the Mount: A Practical Exposition. Gore Charles

these beatitudes express His own character. He was detached. The Incarnation was a self-emptying. He clung not to all the glories of heaven, but “emptied Himself” and “beggared Himself,” as St. Paul says.16 Then when He had been born a man, He set the example of clinging to nothing external. He abandoned ease, popularity, the favour of the great, even the sympathy of His friends, even, last and greatest of all, on the cross, the consolation of the divine presence. Each privilege in turn was abandoned without a murmur, not, speaking generally, on the ascetic principle, but because moral obedience to God in fulfilment of His mission required it. He became utterly naked, poorer than the poorest; therefore in a supreme sense “His was the kingdom of heaven.” He stood empty, persecuted, before Pilate, and said “Thou sayest that I am a king”; and the moral conscience of the world has witnessed that He spoke truth. So we, like Him, are to be ready to surrender, ready to give up; and in proportion to this detachment, in proportion as we do really in will adore the sovereignty of God, and are ready to receive and to give up according to His will, in that proportion are all the hindrances removed by which the royalty of His kingdom is prevented from entering into our hearts and lives. St. Paul’s comment on this first beatitude lies in his description of the apostles “As having nothing, and yet possessing all things”; or in his encouragement to Christians generally “All things are yours.”17 The wilfulness with which we cling to supposed “necessaries of life,” “things we cannot do without”; false claims on life for enjoyments which we should be the stronger for dispensing with; false ideals of vanity and display—these, and not our circumstances, are the hindrances to that largeness of heart and peace and liberty and joy, which have their root only in the bare and naked relation of the soul to God.

      The splendid promise attached to this beatitude brings it into contrast with an old Jewish saying which has many parallels, “Ever be more and more lowly in spirit, for the prospect of man is to become the food of worms.” The motive to humility which our Lord suggests is very different.

      Before we pass on, let us observe how important it is that there should be at all times those in the Church who are capable, not merely of poverty in spirit, but voluntarily of poverty in fact. Upon all men our Lord enjoins detachment. But upon one young man in particular He enjoined that he should give his possessions away, that he should sell all that he had and give to the poor. So in the Church there have been those who in the religious orders have dedicated themselves in voluntary poverty to the service of God and of man; and the Church has lost incalculably in ages when there have been none such. Like all other institutions, the religious orders have been liable to great abuses: they have been homes very often, not so much of scandalous vices, as of sloth and corporate greed; but we must not give up the ideal because there are abuses. There is the command of the Lord to all to be, like Job, detached; there is the counsel of the Lord to some to be, in fact, voluntarily poor.

      II

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      “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

      These beatitudes follow one another, as St. Chrysostom says, in a golden chain. Once again our Lord is putting Himself in startling opposition to one of the favourite maxims of the world. The world says “Get as much pleasure as you can out of life; suck it in wherever you can; and hug yourself as close as you can from all that disquiets you or makes you uncomfortable; in a word, get as much pleasure and avoid as much pain as by intelligence and forethought you can possibly do.” In startling opposition to this maxim of the world our Lord puts His maxim “Blessed are they that mourn.”

      What does that mean? Briefly: there are two chief kinds of mourning into which it is the duty of every true servant of our Lord to enter—the mourning for sin and the mourning for pain. We must mourn for sin, for we are sinners. It is possible to hide the fact from our eyes, to prevent the inconvenient light from coming in upon our consciences, to suppose that things that are widely tolerated must be tolerable, that things that are frequently or habitually done must have something to say for themselves. But the Christian gets into the light; he lets the light of the divine word go down into his heart; he strives to see himself first, in the silence of his own soul, as the Lord sees him. Thus he is brought to repentance, and repentance which is in regard to the future a “change of purpose,” is with respect to the past a true mourning: if not emotional sorrow, still profound and heartfelt regret on account of those things in which we have gone against the will of God: and “blessed are they that mourn.”

      Next to this mourning for sin is the mourning of sympathy with others’ pain. There are moments when a Christian may legitimately, like his Lord in the garden of Gethsemane, be engrossed in the bearing of “his own burden.”18 But in the main a Christian ought, like his Lord, or like St. Paul, to have his own burden so well in hand, that he is able to leave the large spaces of his heart for other people to lay their sorrows upon. “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”19 Of our Lord it was said “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases”20—not on the cross simply, but as He moved about in Galilee and Judæa, and the sad, the sorrowful and the sick came to Him. It is always possible to use the advantages of a comparatively prosperous position to exempt ourselves, to screen ourselves off, from the common lot of pain. This is to shut ourselves off from true fruitfulness and final joy. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life, loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”21 “Blessed are they that mourn.”

      “He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.

      Eternity mourns that. ’Tis an ill cure

      For life’s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.

      Where sorrow’s held intrusive and turn’d out

      There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,

      Nor aught that dignifies humanity.”

      And in proportion to the fullness with which you enter into penitence for sin and into sympathy for the sufferings of men, you shall get, not the miserable laughter of forgetfulness, which lasts but for a moment, but the comfort (or encouragement) of God. “That we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”22 “The sorrow of the world worketh death,” but “godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of.23” “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

      And here, by way of warning, let me point out that there is a false as well as a true mourning. It is possible to be discontented with the world but to lack the courage of faith which makes our discontent fruitful of reform. It is possible to be discontented with ourselves, and yet never so simply and humbly make our confession to God our Father as to get the joy which comes of being forgiven. We are discontented; but our discontent is pride, not the humility of true sorrow. It will not be comforted, it will not thankfully take the divine offer of absolution. The “woman that was a sinner” made no delay in believing herself forgiven, but set to work at once to show the love which springs of gratitude in the heart of those who accept their release. The false sorrow of pride was noticed by one of the leaders of monasticism in the west—Cassian, who describes and contrasts thus the true sorrow and the false:24

      “But that sorrow which ‘worketh repentance unto stable salvation’ is obedient, approachable, humble, amiable, gentle and patient, inasmuch as it comes down from the love of God and, inspired with the desire of perfection, gives itself over unweariedly to all pain of body and contrition of spirit; and having a happiness of its own and a vitality which comes from the hope of progress, it keeps all the amiability of an approachable and patient disposition, possessing in itself all the fruits of the Holy Spirit which the apostle enumerates. But the false sorrow is bitter, impatient, hard, full of rancour and fruitless grief, and penal despair, breaking off and recalling the man whom it has got into its grasp from industry and salutary sorrow, because it is irrational, and not only impedes the efficacy of prayers but also empties out of the soul all those spiritual fruits which the true sorrow knows how to impart.”