Blessed Are Ye: Talks on the Beatitudes

It was, so the Evangelist tells us, from the mountain slopes above Capernaum, that our Lord delivered the sermon, of which the Beatitudes form the noble and sublime introduction.

Now, it is with mountains that we are wont to associate far-reaching views which stretch to the golden horizon, and the streams which descend, with musical roar, to water the plains.

In these respects, how remarkable the resemblance between this Octave of Blessedness, and the mountain on which the Lord was sitting, 5

when these gracious words proceeded from His mouth! For sublimity, for comprehensiveness, and for power of enriching the lowlands of human life, it is hard to find a parallel even in His words.

It is impossible to exhaust them. The maturing experience of Christian manhood is as unable to explore all their wealth of meaning as the open-eyed wonder of the young disciple. And the simple purpose of this booklet is to show some of the pathways that conduct into the heart of these mountains of God.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The Eight Gates into the City

OF Blessedness .... 9
VHI. Swords into Pruning-Hooks. loi

IX. Martyrs and Prophets. n?

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“BLESSED ARE YE”

AFTER a year’s ministry in Judsea, the records of which are scanty, the Lord Jesus went down to inaugurate His public ministry in Galilee. Rejected, because of the Bethesda miracle, by the Scribes and Pharisees, He threw Himself on the masses of the people. Threatened with death. He took steps to make His kingdom permanent by gathering around Him His closest friends, and by selecting from them twelve to be with Him, and to go forth to preach the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace.

The night before the morning, which was to be thus signalized, was spent by Him in prayer. He assured Himself, during those lone dark 9 lO hours, more fully of His Father’s purpose; received definitely at the Father’s hands those that had been His, but who were now to be transferred to Himself; asked with a new tenderness that they might be worthy of their high calling as the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem. Thus He girded Himself beneath the quiet stars for what awaited Him on the morrow.

As the dawn broke He called unto Him whom He would. The band of the disciples furnished those who were now chosen apostles. From those who had been attracted to Him by His marvellous personality, as well as by the indication of the Baptist, He selected the twelve who were summoned to be foremost in peril and temptation, as they were to be nearest and closest in sympathy and friendship.

Finally, with these beside Him, He descended the mountain slope to a little level place, where a vast crowd awaited Him, gathered from the whole surrounding country, and beseeching His miraculous healing for their sick. ‘’And He healed them.” Then the multitudes settled down to hear this marvellous discourse, the inaugura-IItion of His kingdom, the unfolding of His Galilean ministry. It was a great occasion. Below, the lake; above, the morning sky; around, the hills, on the flanks of which lay long lines of fleecy cloud; the air fragrant with the scent of flowers and new-mown grass, and thrilling with the expectation of the expectant throng. The newly-healed and their bearers, friends and critics, apostles and disciples, hanging on those lips that spake as never man spake.

This was the Sinai of the New Dispensation.

But how great the contrasts!

Moses was a servant; here the Son.

Moses spake amid the peal of thunder and the quivering of the earth; here it was a perfect spring morning, and the only sounds were those of nature, or the murmur of the towns below stealing around.

Moses bore ten awful words, graven on granite tables; but these were gentle, tender words, written on fleshly tablets of the heart.

Moses was storm-girt and terrible; but grace and truth came by this wondrous Man, whose words reach down to the weakest, humblest, weariest.

Moses spake of the curse; but He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying. Blessed.

It was meet that the Master should open His public ministry with beatitudes, — It was thus He finished it. ‘’ It came to pass, while He blessed them. He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.” His last words bent back again to His first words, as in a bridal ring; and all were goldened with the radiance of eternity. And since He has been hidden from our gaze, unseen though loved. His voice from out the throne has spoken many a beatitude beside, recorded for us in the Book of Revelation. How ill do they understand our Master, who fear Him as hard and austere. He is inspired by motives of the purest benevolence; and if He use the knife it is only to cut away what conflicts with our purest bliss, and of which we would be eager to be relieved, if we knew, as certainly as He, what makes for our peace.

His every act pure blessing is,

His path, unsullied light.”

Blessedness is the attitude of Deity, — Before Jesus came men were content, or happy, or mad with hilarious excitement, but not really blessed. This was a new word for them, or it was an old word, new minted. They knew nothing of this deep sweet secret of enjoying even in this world something of the very life of the Deity. No climber had as yet made his way to the lake that lay far up among the hills, mirroring Infinity and Eternity in its pellucid surface. Only He who had come down from heaven, and during His earthly ministry was in heaven, knew of its existence, or of the path that led to it.

God is significantly called ‘’ the Blessed God.’’ From all eternity. His vast and glorious nature has been as blessed as the vault of heaven seems full of ether. And Jesus came down from heaven to discover to us this fact, and to make us understand our privilege. Since we have been made in the likeness of God, we are capable, each one, of a similar blessedness. One spirit with the Lord, we are privileged to share the very blessedness that fills His heart. Not in quantity, but in quality; not in measure, but in essence, we may know what the blessedness of the blessed God is.

It is for us now and here. — Not away in some distant world of bliss, where our circumstances shall be entirely favorable, and the mystery of sin and death ended, but in whatsoever situation we may be found at this present hour. Our real troubles are not in our circumstances, but in ourselves; and there have been thousands who, in precisely those straits which now cost us such anguish, have been deeply and infinitely blessed. If we had lived Paul’s life, in our present state of heart, we should have known nothing of his rapturous experiences; and if he could live in ours to-day, however tempest-tost and troubled, he would find in it the elements of such exceeding rapture, that whether in the body or out of it, he would not be able to tell.

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