The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 199

ING AND THIRSTING" AFTER 11' ? 1. The unfeigned belief in that perfect thing co.lied righteousness, and the acknowledgment of the principle that the righteousness of a perfect life should be still and always the object of endeavour, kept before the gaze of even fe.llen man. Even for him it is still the genuine ideal. Though we should never actually attain it here, the sight of it and the attempt to reach it will not be fruitless.' These will be preservatives against dissipation, They will guard against despair.' They will exert a constant practical elevating influence. They are the protest against a false creed, and the very p_ernicious creed, that we are not in any sense required to live to tlic same standard to which we were once created; and that as to attain it perfectly may be impossible, so it is nugatory to try, and matters less than nothing how little we try. Merely in this view of it, this Beatitude was a startling announcement and novelty for those, in their very degraded national state, whose ears first received it from those most i=racious lips that first spoke it. Is it not for unnumbered millions still the same, aud for us all far too much the same? 2. The genuine craving, continual craving, intense craving, of the soul after it. The unresting deep want, the unquenched aspira• tion so well known to the heart, must have exchanged other objects for this supreme one object. It is the gift of God. As such it justifies the asking of it, that it show the depth, determination, and laslin,,"Iless of divinely implanted qualities. 'l'he desire of all the nature after righteousness must be. at least strong and real as nature, for so it is called "hunger and thirst," the figurative language serving its purpose to the furthest extent possible, but none the less, as we well know, in fact inadequate, as figure should always be to fact. The spiritual appetite here shadowed forth must be, and when in its perfection has shown itself so many times, a far more powerful, command- ing, consuming force than all mere natural appetite. It haa borne the greatest strain, faced the greatest perils, dared all enemies, and "overcome the world,n within and without. Yet nevertheless, in the quieter times of the world's course and our own individual history, it is pre-eminently entitled to ask time to grow, to find food, to gain strength and robUBtness, to learn its own high quality, and feel its own intrinsic force. For often the desire that feared itself and distrusted itself, that did not know whether it would live and could stand certain chill winds, has been rooting itself the more firmly, and has become the dominant holy passion of the soul. That which did not look quite like it at first haa become the genuine, constant, and intense craving of the souL Ill. WHAT IS THE GROUND ON WHICH CHBIBT PBONOUNOEB THOS~ BLESSED WHO BUNGEB AND THIBBT A.FTEB BIGHTEOUBNESB ? The ground which our Saviour assigns for the blessedness of such is that their desire shall not be mocked ; shall not find itself empty, hollow, and such as must come to nothing; shall not find itself unsatisfied. They shall have, have enough, "be filled," but be filled without being sated I How m&ny desires, how ruany hopes, bow many objects of pursuit, how many worthy and even noble enterprises and high•pitched ambitions, fail of fruition; or, not entirely failing of fruition, yet fail of such satisfying and such being satisfied 119 will bring them. up to the meaning of Christ when he says, " for they shall be fUled," I It is an infinite loss that we court, that we incur, when we leave unsought, uncared for, the abiding, the satisfying, the unstinted abundance, for that which wastes, perishes in the using, and does not fill the infinite capacity of a human heart.-B. Ver. 7.-The Beatitude of mercy, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." The line of cleavage that obtains so clearly in the tables of the ten command• me:;ts, between those of our duties that look direct to God and those which in their first action regard fellow-men, has not an exact parallel in the ever•welcome table of the Beatitudes. The distinction is probably in the nature of things not so apparent. Ten commandments readily admit a distinctness of classification which the expansive force of living and ever-growing qualities of soul do in part resolutely refuse. These act more freely and on their own account, and intermingle where they will and where they can. If such qualities and virtues at first seem to turn the face more God ward, in that very act none can fail to see how it is all the more laid upon them to be operative, and powerfully so, towards m&n ; and ~ versd. The distinction, nevertheless, does exist, and in some of the Beatitudes utters itself forth clearly. It is so with the one, fifth in order, now before us. Our mercifulne1111 has no operation towards God, though it must OIi, v. 1-48.] THE GOSPEL .ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 191