Now, like all the other members of this sequence, with the exception, perhaps, of the last, this quality refers to disposition much rather than to action Conduct is included of course; But conducted only secondarily. Jesus Christ always puts conduct second, as all wise and great teachers do. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.' That is the keynote of all noble morality. And none has over carried it out more thoroughly than has the morality of the Gospel. It is a poor translation and limitation of this great word which puts in the foreground merely merciful actions. The mercifulness of my text is, first and foremost, a certain habitual way of looking at and feeling towards men, especially to men in suffering and need, and most especially to men who have proved themselves bad and blameworthy. It is implied that a rigid retribution would lead to severer methods of judgment and of action.
Therefore the first characteristic of the merciful man is that he is merciful in his judgments; not making the worst of people, no Devil's Advocate in his estimates of his fellows; but, endlessly, and, as the world calls it, foolishly and incredibly, gentle in his censures, and ever ready to take the charitable--which is generally the truer--construction of acts and motives. That is a very threadbare thought,--brother, but the way to invest commonplace with startling power is to bring it into immediate connection with our own life and conduct. And if you will try to walk by this threadbare commonplace for a week, I am mistaken if you do not find out that it has teeth to bite and a firm grip to lay upon you. Threadbare truth is not effete until it is obeyed, and when we try to obey it, it ceases to be commonplace. I may remind you that this mercifulness, Again, which is primarily an inward emotion, and a way, as I said, of thinking of, and of looking at unworthy people, must necessarily, of course, find its manifestation in our outward conduct. And there will be, what I need not dilate upon, a readiness to help to give , to forgive not only offences against society and morality, but offences against ourselves.
I need not dwell longer upon this first part of my subject. I wished mainly to emphasise that to begin with action, in our understanding of mercifulness, is a mistake, and that we must clear our hearts of antipathies and antagonisms and cynical suspicions, if we would inherit the blessings of our text.
Before I go further, I would point out the connection between this incumbent duty of mercifulness and the preceding virtue of meekness. It is hard enough to bear the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes,' without one spot of red in the cheek, one perturbation or flush of anger in the heart; and to do that might task us all to the utmost. But that is not all that Christ's ethics require of us. It is not sufficient to exercise the passive virtue of meekness; there must of mercifulness. And to call for that be the active one is to lay an additional weight upon our consciences, and to strain and stretch still further the obligation under which we come. We have not done what the worst men and our most malicious enemies have a right to receive from us when we say, with the cowardly insincerity of the world, I can forgive but I cannot forget.' That is no forgiveness, and that is no mercifulness. It is not enough to stand still, unresisting. There must be a hand of helpfulness stretched out, and a gush of pity and mercifulness in the heart, if we are to do what our Master has done for us all, and what our Master requires us to do for one another. Mercifulness is the active side of the passive meekness.
Further, in a word, I would note here another thing, and that is, what a sad stern, true view of the condition of men in the world results from noticing that the only three qualities in regard to our relation to them which Christ sets in this sevenfold tiara of diamonds are meekness in the face of hatred and mercifulness in the face weakness and wickedness; peace making in the face of hostility and wrangling. What a world in which we have to live, where the crowning graces are those which presuppose such vices as these do! Ah! dear friends, as sheep in the midst of wolves' is true to-day. And the one conquering power is patient gentleness, which recompenses all evil with good and is the sole means of transforming and thus overcoming it.
People talk a great deal, and a good deal of it very insincerely, about their admiration for these precepts gathered together in this chapter. If they would try to live them for a fortnight, they would perhaps pause a little longer than some of them do before they said, as do people that detest the theology of the New Testament, The Sermon on the Mount is my religion.' Is it? It does not look very like it. At all events, if it is, it is a religion behind which practice most wofully limps.
