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 thenceforth good for nothing-, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.— Matt. v. 13.
The exact position of these words in the Sermon on the Mount must be carefully remembered. They follow immediately after the Beatitudes — those sayings in which Christ had described the various qualities of character essential to the citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, for one who would obey the rule which He had come on earth to establish and extend. A citizen of that Kingdom, Christ had just taught His hearers, must be humble-minded : he must grieve over the sin and the various evils which exist in the world ; he must be gentle ; he must desire righteousness above all things ; he must be merciful ; he must be pure-minded in the fullest sense of the words ; he must do all in his power to promote peace ; and he must be prepared to suffer in order that righteousness may be promoted and extended. A character which fulfils these conditions, that is, a character of which these virtues are the factors, is the character desired by Christ, and such a character is His own.
Immediately after this description has been given, as soon as ever this ideal has been set us as the standard, Christ addresses the words of the text to those who were following Him and learning from Him. To them He looked to cultivate this character. And for a moment He thinks of them, not as they actually were, but as He would have them be. For a moment He treats them as if His ideal for them were already realized in them ; He does not say ye shall be, but ye are the salt of the earth. The spirit of all the united qualities commended in the Beatitude is the salt of the life of the world. All of them — meekness and humility and purity and the rest — run up into two : the spirit of love and the spirit of righteousness. These, then, embodied in
102 THE SALT OF THE EARTH
human life, are the salt of the earth, the salt of Churches and nations, of all forms of human activity, of thought, of imagination, of business, of the daily life of men. These keep humanity fresh and living, preserve it from corruption, and add to it the savour which secures to men their true and enduring enjoyment of life. But chiefly, in Christ's present idea, they were the freshening, purifying, preserving element in His Kingdom.
I.
The Salt and its Savour.
" Ye are the salt of the earth."
1. Salt is one of those superfluities which the great French wit defined as " things that are very necessary." From the very beginning of human history men have set a high value upon it and sought for it in caves and by the seashore. The nation that had a good supply of it was counted rich. A bag of salt, among the barbarous tribes, was worth more than a man. The Jews prized it especially because they lived in a warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and because their religion laid particular emphasis on cleanliness, and because salt was largely used in their sacrifices.
Tj Both in Hebrew and in Eoman bywords, salt is praised as a necessity of human life. Homer calls it " divine," and Plato speaks of it as a "substance dear to the gods." It is an indis- pensable element in the food both of men and of animals. It is so cheap and plentiful with us that we can hardly realize that there are places where there is what is known as salt starvation, which is in its way even more painful than hunger or thirst. A missionary tells us that in Africa he has known natives who have travelled fifty or sixty miles in search of salt. Their hot African blood, lacking the purifying and health-giving salt, has broken out in painful ulcers which drain the life and energy ; and when the mission-house has been reached they have begged in piteous tones, not for money or broad, but for salt.1
•[[ Chloride of sodium (common salt) is fortunately one of the most widely distributed, as well as one of the most useful and absolutely necessary, of nature's gifts ; and it is a matter of much 1 J. G. Mantle, Qod's ToMorrow, 22.
ST. MATTHEW v. 13 103
comfort to know that this mineral exists in such enormous quantities that it can never be exhausted. "Had not," says Dr. Buckland, " the beneficent providence of the Creator laid up these stores of salt within the bowels of the earth, the distance of inland countries from the sea would have rendered this article of prime and daily necessity unattainable to a large proportion of mankind ; but under the existing dispensation, the presence of mineral salt, in strata which are dispersed generally over the interior of our continents and larger islands, is a source of health and daily enjoyment to the inhabitants of almost every region." Even supposing that the whole of the mines, brine pits, and springs become exhausted, we can fall back on the sea, whose supply is as boundless as its restless self ; and there is as little fear of its exhaustion as there is of the failure of the sun's heat.1