Sermon on the Mount, and on the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians,
are admirable. They are simple, practical, and profound. We subjoin a
short analysis of the notes on the first part of the Sermon on the
Mount, as an illustration of the teaching which runs all through the
three commentaries.

The Sermon on the Mount is not the whole of Christianity. It
is the climax of law, of the letter that killeth. The Divine
requirement is pressed home with unequalled force upon the
conscience; yet not in the form of mere laws of conduct, but
as a type of character. It is promulgated not by an
inaccessible God, but by the Divine Love manifested in
manhood. The hard demand of the letter is closely connected
with the promise of the Spirit. We are told that many of the
precepts in the sermon were anticipated by Pagan and Jewish
writers. But this we might have expected, since all men are
rational and moral through fellowship with the Word, who is
also the Reason of God. Christ is the light which in
conscience and reason lightens every man throughout the
history of the race. But the Sermon is comprehensive where
other summaries are fragmentary, it is pure where they are
mixed. It is teaching for grown men, who require principles,
not rules. And it is authoritative, reinforced by the
mysterious Person of the speaker. The Beatitudes are a
description of character. Christ requires us, not to do such
and such things, but to be such and such people. ... True
blessedness consists in membership of the kingdom of heaven,
which is a life of perfect relationship with man and nature
based on perfect fellowship with God.... The Beatitudes
describe the Christian character in detail; in particular,
they describe it as contrasted with the character of the
world, which, in the religious sense, may be defined as
human society as it organises itself apart from God. The
first Beatitude enjoins detachment, such as His who emptied
Himself, as having nothing and yet possessing all things. We
are all to be detached; there are some whom our Lord
counsels to be literally poor. 'Blessed are they that
mourn' means that we are not to screen ourselves from the
common lot of pain. We must distinguish 'godly sorrow' from
the peevish discontent and slothfulness which St. Paul calls
the sorr