The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 12
Twelfth Day
How Christian Justice excels that of the Heathen and the Jews. — Matt. v. 20-47.
JESUS CHRIST, who has hitherto given the characteristics of a Christian lifer in a more general form, here begins to treat of particular precepts; and, as foundation, He sets down the beautiful principle that Christian 'justice' must ‘surpass that’ of the most perfect amongst the Jews and their Doctors of the Law.[1] We must therefore be most careful here to understand the full perfection of the Gospel Law, which we swore to observe at our baptism.
To show us our obligations, Christ carefully raises us to the perfection of Christian virtue by three degrees.
First, we are to rise above the wisest of the Pagans, for which reason he said, 'Do not even the heathen this? ’ [2] , meaning, 'you must do still more.' We hear of despising riches; have not wise Pagans done so? Of being faithful to our friends; have not the heathen been faithful? Of avoiding fraud and deceit; did not the heathen detest them? Of shunning adultery; did not even the most licentious Pagans hold it in horror?
The second degree is to rise above the Justice of the Law itself and of those who know God, And this, again, we are to accomplish by three degrees, as we avoid respectively three defects in Mosaic i justice.’ The first of these is its being only exterior: — ' You Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the dish,’ and hence he calls them ' whited sepulchres.’ [3] Look at the justice of that Pharisee in St Luke: — 'I am not,’ he said, ' as the rest of men.’ ‘ And in what then do you excel? ’ ' I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ [4] He only boasts of the outside, and those are like him who confine themselves to external observances. To say Divine office, to go to church, to attend the Holy Sacrifice and public prayers, to take holy water, to fall on one’s knees: — to do any or all of these things, without entering into their inward spirit, is a pharisaical virtue which may appear strict, but which draws forth from Our Lord the just reproach: ‘ This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’ [5] This is false justice. But what can we say of those who have not even this exterior virtue and exactness, but that they are worse than the Jew and the Pharisee?
The second defect of Mosaic Justice, as St Paul says, is that ' not knowing the justice of God’ — by which He makes us just — ‘and seeking to establish their own’ — that is, thinking they are virtuous of themselves — they ‘ have not submitted themselves to the justice of God.’ [6] They have, in fact, fancied that they did good by their own strength instead of acknowledging that it was God who worked in them.
St Paul had once practised this kind of virtue — but see how he afterwards speaks of it: [7] ‘According to the justice that is in the law, conversing without blame.’ Observe those words ‘ without blame ’; one would think that perfection could not be carried further, and yet at once he adds: ‘ But the things that were gain to me ’ (according to the Law) ‘the same I have counted loss for Christ. Furthermore, I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ: and may be found in him, not having my justice, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ Jesus, which is of God, justice in faith: ’
Here, then, we see this second defect of the Jews’ ‘justice’: — the thinking that we are just by our own merit; which defect makes such virtue impure, and — as St Paul calls it — nothing but dung, because it is nothing but pride. Let us, then, make it our study to avoid this spirit, by humbly attributing to God whatever little good we may do.
But the third defect of justice in the Jewish people was that its actual works were exceedingly imperfect in comparison with the perfection to which man is raised by the Gospel. We are bound by this to reach a greater height of virtue than was even reached by those of the old law who did really well. And wherefore? On account of that 1 excellent knowledge ’ which St Paul says we have of Jesus Christ. And this is one of the truths that our Lord includes in the saying: ‘unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees — ’ &c.
Thus we find Christian justice raised by two degrees towards its proper height: — above that of the wise heathen, and above that of the followers of the old law. Hence it is that Pagan and Jew will bear testimony against us — the Ninevites, the Queen of Saba, Sodom and Gomorrha — whose iniquities we shall have surpassed, because we ought to surpass the holiness of even the most virtuous. This will help us to form some idea of the grandeur of Christian justice.
But we have to reach something yet more excellent: that is, the third degree, which is perfection. In this degree Christian Justice is to rise above itself ‘Not,’ said St Paul, [8] ‘as though I had already attained and were already perfect: but I follow after: ’ — like a man who does not hold himself to have obtained what he desires: Unum autem: — that is, all I do, my whole aim, my one thought, is, ‘ forgetting the things that are behind ’: — observe, all the progress he has made is nothing; he neither stops nor rests there: — ' to stretch forth myself to those that are before.’ Mark that word he ' stretches himself forth ’: he makes an effort: he in some sort comes out of himself: he, after a manner, dislocates himself, by the exertion he makes to go forward.
Here, then, is the true Christian, the real just man. He believes himself to have done nothing; for, should he think himself virtuous enough, he is not virtuous at all. He must therefore be incessantly advancing and going forth from one state to another. ‘Be you therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.’ [9] At least have the will to be so; for to rest upon what one has done, as if one thought it sufficient, is, in fact, to renounce the attainment of true justice. Nay, more, if you do not go forward you go back, contrary to the Gospel precept. For what does our Saviour decree about those who ‘ look back ’? [10] That they are ‘not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Hence it is that He declares it necessary to ‘hunger and thirst after justice.’ A mere ordinary desire is not enough; it must be such a desire as impels us to seek food to keep us alive: — a keen and unconquerable longing that we should constantly rouse up afresh in ourselves. In whatever state you may be, you should always have this hunger and thirst, because your interior capacity is infinite, as also is the ‘justice’ that you long for.
On this foundation of perfect Christian virtue Jesus Christ builds up the whole edifice — that is, all the precepts of the gospel — so as to raise us respectively above the heathen, the Jews, and ourselves; all of which is included in the saying: 'Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect'; and which His apostle has expressed in the fashion we have seen above.