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.

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 intention 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 Christianity 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 Redeemer.

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 Christianity 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 your enemies,” is the Gospel precept.  Why?—­Because 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