Page:SermonOnTheMount1900.djvu/63

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the heathen this? ’ [1] , 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.’ [2] 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.’ [3] 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

  1. Matt. v. 47.
  2. Ibid. xxiii. 25-27.
  3. Luke i. 11, 12.