The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 182

finish hie work. He hungered for our souls, he tbirste,i for our f&lvation; and we must hunger and thirst after him, who is the Life of our souls, the true Bread that came down from heaven, whose flesh is meat indeed, whose blood is drink indeed, who alone can fill our restless craving hearts. " He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believetb on me shall never thirst." (2) The reason of their blessedness. "They shall be filled." For Christ desiretb us; he longs to give himself to us, as be has given himself for us. "Behold," he says, "I stand at t.he door, and knock." He asks us only to open; he will enter in and sup with us, and we with him. We may hunger and thirst after many things, and never gain them; if we do gain them, they often become mere ashes in our mouth, vanity and vexation of spirit. But they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after Christ, cannot fail to attain the object of that longing desire; for the word of Christ is pledged," They shall be filled." And he bath all things who bath Christ. He needeth nothing more who hath chosen the good part, the one thing needful. "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteous- ness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 5. The fifth Beatitude. (1) "Blessed are the merciful." "The Lord," St. James says (v, 11), "is very pitifol, and of tender mercy." It was pity, tender pity for humanity in its sin, its darkness, its misery, its hopelessness, which moved the Eternal Son to take upon him our human nature. In that human nature he had shown the sweet self-forgetting tenderness of his Divine compassion, as he moved among the sick and suffering of Galilee. His disciples must follow the example of the Master; they must be pitiful. It is the principle, the inner affection of pity, which is co=ended here. The pity which is blessed is like the sacred pity of Christ. It is wide in its range, coextensive with human sin and suffering. '£he Lord pitied not only the afflicted and the poor, but also the proud Pharisee, the cold-hearted Sadducee-that Jerusalem, self-satisfied and unbelieving, that would not seek shelter beneath the wings of his mercy. Human sin as well as human suffering moves the Christian heart with pity. Indig- nation against sin must ever be mingled with pity for the sinner. The thoughtless sinner who lives in wealth and luxury is an object of the Christian's pity as well as the sick and helpless poor. This holy pity lies deep in the heart. It expresses itself in intercessory prayer, in gentle words and looks, e.nd, when it is possible, in acts of mercy. (2) The reason. "They shall obtain mercy." Mercy, in the well-known words of our great poet, is twice blessed; it blesses him that gives and him that takes. It is blessed in its own reflex action on the merciful soul, in the sweetness, the inner joy, which the exercise of mercy brings to the heart. But the Lord states another ground of its blessedness. The merciful shall obtain mercy. We all need the mercy of our God, What would the best of us be without his tender pity? We look back upon our past lives; we see a waste of sin, of hardness, of unloving ingratitude. God pitied us, GoJ called us. We heard the voice of Jesus," Come unto me." We came in awe, in contrition, in trembling hope; we found rest for our souls. Ho pitied us. We need that sacred pity still for our daily sins and shortcomings; and oh I we shall need it in the hour of death and in the day of judgrnent. It is pledged to the merciful: they shall obtain mercy; "they" (the word is emphatic)-they shall be pitied. '!'hen the sense of our own sin and weakness, our own need of God's mercy, our hope of that mercy e.t the last, should quicken in our hearts the holy feelings of pity e.nd sympathy with every form of distress and misery, and lead us to delight in deeds of mercy. 6. The sixth Beatitude. (1) "Blessed are the pure in hen.rt." The Pharisees thought much of legal purity, of the Levitical distinctions between the clean and the unclean. The Lord Jesus insists on purity of heart. The pure heart is the cle.,n heart, clean from taint of every kind, from everything that defileth. To eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man, as the Pharisees thought it did; but evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, these evil things, whether only conceived in thought, or carried out in deed, these defile the man. The pure heart is clear, bright, transparently sincere; it seeks not to deceive. It has no hidden motives, no selfish aims underlying a fair outside; its aim is to be, not to seem. Especially the pure heart is clean from those corrupting thoughts, those foul imaginations, those unholy deeds, which the name unclean, impure, seems especially to designate. This one kind of defilement gains such a terrible hold upon the imagination, it so entirely corrupts the whole heart and  174 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [011. v. 1--48.