PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 8
James Hastings · 167,062 words · 172 reading sections
Section 1
THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE MAH31 IE % THE GREAT TE OF THE BIBLE ;-^'(> EDITED BY THE REV. JAMES HASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE' "THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS" ST. MATTHEW NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SON…
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TJ If thou wilt be well with God, and have grace to rule thy life aright ; and come to the joy of love : this name Jesus fasten it so fast in thy heart that it never come out of thy thought. And when thou speakest to Him, and sayest "Jesus" through custom, it shall be in thine ears joy, in thy mouth honey, in thy heart…
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^J Man is the principle of the religion of the Neo-Hegelians, and intellect is the climax of man. Their religion, then, is the religion of intellect. There you have the two worlds : Christi- anity brings and preaches salvation by the conversion of the will, — humanism by the emancipation of the mind. One attacks the he…
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(2) But if He is only a lawgiver, or a teacher of Divine truth, or a finger-board to direct us in the way of righteousness, He is insufficient for our needs. The man who teaches me the truth is not himself the truth. And if Jesus is only a teacher of the way of salvation, He is not Himself salvation. It is true that ma…
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(3) But if man is to be saved, he must be saved not only from sin's guilt, and sin's defilement, but from sin's power. If man is to be fully saved, not only must he, in the infinite mercy of God, be treated as righteous, he must become actually righteous and holy and good. This is the ultimate purpose of God. He remove…
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TJ Who does not know what is the power of the name of father or mother, sister or brother ? What visions they bring back upon us : what a stream of memories ; of years long passed away, of careless childhood, bright mornings, lingering twilights, the early dawn, the evening star, and all the long- vanished world of hap…
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^| It was in the course of these sermons delivered at Venice, and in the cities of Venetia, that Bernardine's zeal for the propagation of devotion to the holy name of Jesus tiist began openly to assert 1 Aulrey L. Moore. >\>me Aspeett of Sin. ST. MATTHEW i. 21 15 itself. This devotion, which may be said to date back…
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20 THE MAGI bearing treasures. Kneeling in their royal robes, they adore the child in the manger, and the child bends forward to bless them. Then come all the stories connected with them after their death. Their bodies rested for a long time in the magnificent temple that Eastern Christianity dedicated to the Divine …
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bound together in a common work appointed by a common ruling head. is always seeking a king, for he feels in the depths of his being that he is ne _ at as in the presence • I • ater. Let a great man appear in the world, and smaller men spon- taneously rally round him; for they feel t: jreat as in the presence of thei…
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II. Following a Star. 1. "We saw his star in the east, and are come to worship hi in." While in the East they saw the star of the King of the Jews. They saw, probably, at first, one of the fixed stars, to which they were led, in the course of their inquiry, to attach this specific value ; and as it shone out on them …
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In early summers, Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around mo, Moving to melody, Floated The Gleam, down to the end, when 1 II. G. Wood, George Fox, 115. Therefore : ST. MATTHEW n. i, 2 27 I can no longer, But die rejoicing, For thro' the Magic Of Him the Mighty, Who taught me in childhood, There on …
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^j Wise men from afar are still seeking that cradle. All the great religions of the earth are really feeling for Christ. The con- summation of all deep thought and aspiration is in Him. And, although often unknowingly, all the sovereign thinkers do Him reverence. The greatest of men have in successive generations made …
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Tj Gold would be always a suitable present. Frankincense and myrrh would be used chiefly in the houses of the great, and in holy places. They were prized for the delicious fragrance which they suffused. They were gifts fit to be presented to monarchs ; and it was to Jesus, as a royal child, that they were presented by …
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Tf John's perfect freedom from jealousy, leading to the frank and glad recognition of One who would supplant him through the greater fulness of His Divine gifts, seems to have been that which most impressed the Evangelist in the character of the Baptist 1 Joseph Parker. ST. MATTHEW in. n 37 It was this self-effaceme…
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TJ Fire represents the Divine nature as it flames against sin to consume it (Heb. xii. 29). This is the fire of God's anger. But there is also the fire of His love. We may have the fire of sun- shine, or the cheery fire of the hearth, or the fire which melts away the dross, as well as the fire of the conflagration whic…
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The great glory of the gospel is to cleanse men's hearts by raising their temperature, making them pure because they are made warm ; and that separates them from their evils. It is slow work to take mallet and chisel and try to chip off the rust, speck by speck, from a row of railings, or to punch the specks of iron or…
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What is greatly to be desired is that, in the lives of those who follow Jesus, there should be a large measure of the enthusiasm that glowed in His own — a serious, intelligent, glowing sympathy with God, a supreme thankfulness because of the purposes of grace He entertains towards our race, and a great readiness to sp…
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Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire And lighten with celestial fire. 2. This enthusiasm needs nurture. There is a danger that the wide divergences of our interests in modern life diminish and impoverish the intensity of our devotion. How did our fathers keep the fire burning? There are some words found very 46 THE TW…
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(2) Our Lord was "in the wilderness alone" — in St. Mark's graphic description, " with the wild beasts." There were none but heavenly witnesses of the mysterious experiences of those forty days ; no human eyes witnessed them ; and their record, therefore, is due to no human observation. The ultimate source of informati…
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The bearing of the words on Christ's hunger is twofold : first, He will not use His miraculous powers to provide food, for that would be to distrust God, and so to cast off His filial dependence ; second, He will not separate Himself from His brethren and pro- vide for Himself by a way not open to them, for that would …
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Now, manifestly, it must lead to the most disastrous results when the lower elements of a man's nature are treated as if they were the only, or at any rate the most important, elements. The soul of the sensualist is like a State in which the ignorant, vulgar and stupid mob has usurped the reins of government, and is pr…
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the moment, that absorb me in the transient and perishable, and will not my spirit gain at a bound its proper sphere ? But," he answers, " the ties cannot be snapped, and even if they could, the end proposed would not be gained. The violent self-suppression at which the ascetic aims can never be effected ; and if it co…
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TJ The rule and measure of duty is not utility, nor experience, nor the happiness of the greatest number, nor State convenience, nor fitness, order, and the pulchrum. Conscience is not a long- sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself ; but it is a messenger from Him who, both in nature and in gra…
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^J How is the soul free ? Not, as has been excellently put, " when it is at the mercy of every random impulse, but when it is acted upon by congenial forces, when it is exposed to spiritual pressure, to constraint within itself." Let us take a concrete instance. Take a high-souled man who is injured or insulted by his …
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Fletcher (A. E.), The Sermon on the Mount and Practical Politics, 1. Fox (W. J.), Collected Works, iii. 210. Gore (C), 27i.e Sermon on the Mount, 23. I l.mibleton (J.), Tlie Beatitudes, 32. Ingram (A. F. W.), Secrets of Strength, 14. Iverach (J.), Tlie Otlier Side of Greatness, 1. Jones (J. D.), The Way into the Kingdo…
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1 Life and Letters of the Mev. F. IV. liubcitson, 442. ST. MATTHEW v. 3 69 that the steps are all down to them. We must descend if we would reigu, stoop if we would rise, gird ourselves to wash the feet of the disciples as a common slave in order to share the royalty of our Divine Master. Tj The world has its own id…
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In saying " Blessed are the poor in spirit," then, Jesus is saying, Blessed are the unworldly ; blessed are they who, though in the world, are not of the world. The world says, Get all you can and keep all you get. Jesus says, Blessed are they who in will and heart at any rate have nothing. He does not say to every one…
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2. Poverty of spirit is not a feeling of self-disgust which comes over us when we compare our gifts and talents with those of others ; it is born from no earthly inspiration, it proceeds from coming face to face with God. A man may be poor in spirit while his soul is on fire with enthusiasm for the cause of God, for th…
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4. Poverty of spirit comes first because it must be first. It is the foundation on which alone the fabric of spiritual character can rise. It is the rich soil in which alone other graces will grow and flourish. Hill- tops are barren because the soil is washed off by the rains; but the valleys are fertile because there …
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1 A. Moody Stuart, Recollections of the late John Duncan, 175, 7 Stopfoid A. Brooke. ;S THE FIRST BEATITUDE TIT. The Benediction. 1. The bulk of the remaining Beatitudes point onward to a future ; this deals with the present ; not " theirs shall be," but " theirs is the kingdom." It is an all-comprehensive promise, …
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80 THE FIRST BEATITUDE true in humble life. Greatness is never ashamed to be found in lowly guise. The surest sign of a high nature is that it can stoop without apologizing for itself.1 3. We can understand the happiness of this attitude. The man is absorbed in the work — the God-given work — before him. He lias no l…
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219. Jones (J. S.), The Invisible Things, 34. Keimett (R. H.), In Our Tongues, 51. Lightfoot (J. B.), Cambridge Sermons, 34. Tjockyer (T. F.), The Inspirations of the Christian Life, 144. Maclaren (A.), The Beatitudes, 53. Bieyer (H. H.), in Drew Sermons on the Gulden Text* fur 1910, 19. M iiler (J. R.), The Master's …
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1 E. L. Hull, Sermons, i. 155. ST. MATTHEW v. 8 87 consciousness found constant expression in Tennyson's works and conversation. Perhaps its clearest expression is to be found in his instructions to his son : " Remember, I want ' Crossing the Bar ' to be always at the end of all my works." I hope to see my Pilot fac…
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Tf Through all the complexities of Christ's mind and mission, how essentially single His spirit and simple His method — rare as morning air., limpid as spring water, clear as a running brook, ever standing in the truth, utterly veracious and sublimely superior to worldly policy ! Is not this, indeed, the meaning of tha…
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T| Science is teaching us now that at each end of the spectrum, beyond the red rays and the violet rays, there are rays of light which our eyes cannot perceive. We know perfectly well that there are notes of music too acute or too grave for our ears to apprehend them. Do they not exist, then, though the ear cannot hear…
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3. It is not enough to be clean outside. In our Lord's days much attention was paid by religious people to external purity. They had many ceremonies of washing. They washed nearly 1 R. E. Prothero, Life of Dean Stanley, ii. 5C7. 2 Bishop Preiser's Lancashire Life, 257. 94 THE PURE IN HEART everything they used — no…
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T[ Mark Rutherford says, " The love of the beautiful is itself moral. What we love in it is virtue. A perfect form or a delicate colour is the expression of something which is destroyed in us by subjugation to the baser desires or meanness ; and he who has been unjust to man or woman misses the true interpretation of a…
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Whately (R.), Sermons, 251. Christian World Pulpit, xl. 360 (A. Melville) ; lviii. 183 (H. S. Holland) ; lxx. 49 (A. Clayton); lxxvi. 75 (W. Glover); lxxxfi. 282 (N. Marshall). The Salt of the Earth. Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost its savour, where- with shall it be salted? it is thencefo…
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2. From one point of view it was an immense compliment for the disciples to be spoken of as salt. Their Master showed great confidence in them. He set a high value upon them. The historian Livy could find nothing better to express his admiration for the people of ancient Greece than this very phrase. He called them sal…
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TJ A king asked his three daughters how much they loved him. Two of them replied that they loved him better than all the gold and silver in the world. The youngest one said she loved him better than salt. The king was not pleased with her answer, as he thought salt was not very palatable. But the cook, overhearing the …
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1 W. M. Thomson, T/ie Land and the Book, chap. xxvi. io8 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 2. WLat is a saltless Christian ? A saltless Christian is one who has gone back to the earthly, the worldly, the carnal. The heavenly element is no longer in the ascendant ; the salt has lost its savour. (1) One sign of deterioration is t…
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no THE SALT OF THE EARTH 3. When the salt has lost its savour it is good for nothing. There are some things, the chemist tells us, which, when they have lost their own peculiar form and utility, are still of some good, for they can he put 1" otbei and baser uses. But to what use can a dead Church be put ? Sou may try …
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St. Matthew, 67. Owen (J. W.), Some Australian Sermons, 88. Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Cliapel, i. 41. Plummer (A.), An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, 74. Shuttleworth (II. C), in Lombard Street in Lent, 199. Smith (W. C), TJie Sermon on the Mount, 52. Southouse (A. J.), Me…
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TJ It is not obvious at first sight what Christ means by " fulfil- ling the law." He does not mean taking the written law as it stands, and literally obeying it. That is what He condemns, not as wrong, but as wholly inadequate. He means rather, starting with it as it stands, and bringing it on to completeness ; working…
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1. Nothing of the old that is valuable or strong shall be lost. Examine the new, and we shall find the old at the heart of it. Study the channel where the new current is running and we shall find the water of the old channel there. That is a very suggestive fact ; it appears everywhere. Study the real forward movement …
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1 H. A. W. Meyer. 122 A CONSERVATIVE REFORMER III. Christ the Fulfiller. Continuity with the old is part of Christ's teaching. He came to conserve. But He came to do more than that — infinitely more than that. He came also to fulfil. " To fulfil." Do we not often limit the idea of " fulfilment " to what are called …
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(3) Christ fulfilled the law by generalizing it. — He broke down all class distinctions in morality. Heathenism divided mankind into two classes, the learned and the ignorant, and between these two it erected a high partition walL These distinctions, though discountenanced in Jewish law, were admitted in Jewish practic…
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(1) The Messiah was to be hunible in the circumstances of His life, — His birthplace, His lowly outward condition, His having no visible grandeur to attract the world's eye, had all been noted by the pen of inspiration. If He had been born in any other place than Bethlehem, if He had appeared as a rich Prince instead o…
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x Archbishop Temple. The Lord's Prayer. ST. MATT. 9 Literature. Akcd (C. F.), The Lord's Prayer. Cohu (J. R.), Our Father. Dearmer (P.), in Churchmanship and Labour, 22L Dods (M.), The Prayer that Tcaclies to Pray. Eyton (R.), The Lord's Prayer. Farrar (F. W.), Tlic Lord's Prayer. Gibbon (J. M.), The Disciple…
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1 A. J. Woriledge, Prayer, 1(50. ST. MATTHEW vi. 9 133 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is to desire (and surely also to be moved to work for) the reorganizing of man's broken life on the basis of a universal subordination to God, orderly and loyal, because willing, enlightened, and free. Think of the p…
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1. Too often man trips in and out of God's presence, saying words that he does not feel towards a Person of whom he has no intelligent conception. But we must not do so. Our love and our awe must be first evoked. " Father," we approach Him as a child in the tenderest relationship ; He is One who loves us with more than…
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T| It is in every line a prayer of fellowship and co-operation. It is a perfect illustration of the social nature of prayer. The co-operation and fellowship are not here confined, and they never are except in the lower stages, to the inward communion of an individual and his God. There is no / or me or mine in the whol…
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I The Name. j " Hallowed be thy name." This is no doxology. It is a prayer. It is the first of three prayers concerning God Himself. 1. What is a " name " ? What is it for us ? A name is the brief summary of a person. The use of a name, the object of each man having a name, is to supersede the necessity of intermin…
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TJ I am prepared to adopt the following declaration : " The coming of the kingdom would mean the death of flunkeyism and 1 W. R. Richards, A Study of the Lords Prayer, 45. 142 THE LORDS PRAYER toadyism in the personal life, the death of mammon in the social life, and the death of jingoism in the national life." I ven…
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It is not enough that the Kingdom be established, that its boundaries be enlarged, and its glory delighted in ; there is an end for which all this is brought about, and that end is that the will of the Ruler may be done. We desire that God may assert His dominion over us and all men, and may give us to know that He is …
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1. The first point to notice in this clause of the Lord's Prayer is its moderation. In the prayer which is prompted by our natural instinct we ask for everything we happen to want ; we put ourselves first ; we are immoderate in our desires ; we seek to bend the Divine will to our own wishes. In all these respects, as h…
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V. Forgiveness. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." After bread, forgiveness. After the wants of the body comes this prime necessity of the soul. " Give us our bread, forgive us our debts." It is put here as a daily spiritual need — something that we require as constantly as food. ST. MATTHEW vi. 9 14…
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1 C. J. Vaughan, Tlic Lord's Prayer, 131. ST. MATTHEW vi. 9 151 that our Lord, to the petition for forgiveness, adds the further petition, " Lead us not into temptation." As that points to the past, this points to the future. When we pray, " Forgive us our debts," we think of contracted guilt which we ask God to canc…
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1. What the particular form of deliverance is which we re- quire must be left for each one to discover in the silence of his or her own heart. The devil does not assail us all alike ; he comes to us in many ways. To some he comes in great spiritual dulness or deadness, rendering them unable to lift up their thoughts or…
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1 Elizabeth Wordsworth, Thoughts on the Lord's Prayer, 212. The First Things First. *a LITERATURE. Alexander (S. A.), Christ and Scepticism, 109. Cla\ ton (C), Stanhope Sermons, 127. Davies (J. LI.), Social Questions, 154. Ebright (II. K)., in Drew Sermons on the Golden Teds for 1010, 37. Ev.ing (J. F.), The Un…
949 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.