man excellence, should be the very men to refer most frequently
to those sublime comments on Christian principle, and should so
confidently conclude from thence, that themselves are right and all
others are wrong. Yet so it is.

The other is an error of mistaken religionists. They sometimes regard
the Sermon on the Mount as if it were a collection of moral precepts,
and consequently, strictly speaking, not Christianity at all. To them
it seems as if the chief value, the chief intention of the discourse,
was to show the breadth and spirituality of the requirements of the
law of Moses--its chief religious significance, to show the utter
impossibility of fulfilling the law, and thus to lead to the necessary
inference that justification must be by faith alone. And so they would
not scruple to assert that, in the highest sense of that term, it is
not Christianity at all, but only preparatory to it--a kind of
spiritual Judaism; and that the higher and more developed principles
of Christianity are to be found in the writings of the apostles.
Before we proceed further, we would remark here that it seems
extremely startling to say that He who came to this world expressly to
preach the Gospel, should, in the most elaborate of all His
discourses, omit to do so: it is indeed something more than startling,
it is absolutely revolting to suppose that the letters of those who
spoke _of_ Christ, should contain a more perfectly-developed, a freer
and fuller Christianity than is to be found in Christ's own words.

Now you will observe that these two parties, so opposed to each other
in their general religious views, are agreed in this--that the Sermon
on the Mount is nothing but morality. The man of the world says--"It
is morality only, and that is the whole of religion." The mistaken
religionist says--"It is morality only, not the entire essence of
Christianity." In opposition to both these views, we maintain that the
Sermon on the Mount contains the sum and substance of
Christianity--the very chief matter of the gospel of our Redeemer.

It is not, you will observe, a pure and spiritualized Judaism; it is
contrasted with Judaism again and again by Him who spoke it. Quoting
the words of Moses, he affirmed, "So was it spoken by them of old
time, but _I say unto you_--" For example, "Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." That is
Judaism. "But I say unto you swear