other than a liar. Yet not the less it "cometh of evil," since men ought not to need, and but for their first great departure from God would not need, thus continually to be brought back into his presence, in the presence of whom they ought continually to dwell. And the oath disappears wherever there is any near approximation to this. The true ideal of Christian conversation, that toward which the Church is continually striving, that to which multitudes of God's saints have already arrived in all their intercourse one with another, is that in which the oath has become superfluous, in which the Yea and Nay are all that are ever offered or asked, each one being entirely confident that the other is always speaking as though God heard him. After this sincerity, this entire truthfulness of conversation one with another, the Lord would have his disciples strive, and to this attain. Let guile and deceit cease from among you, and the oath will cease also; for it is "of evil," of your evil; and only that renders it so frequently offered, and so frequently required.

Ver. 38.-Here is again the apparent difficulty of harmonizing the new and old; the appearance as though Christ did not intend to do so, did not mean to put his legislation in connexion with, but rather in opposition to, the legislation of Moses; and with this difficulty, the temptation to forsake the true explanation for the easy one-for that, I mean, which seems easy at first, but which yet presently will involve him that snatches at it in

infinite perplexities and contradictions. Augustine's dispute with the Manichæans must have brought him early to a consciousness of this. They, of course, gladly seized on this passage, * as another proof of the manner in which Christ sought to dissociate and disconnect his teaching from the teaching of the Old Testament; as if He were here saying, They of old time taught one thing, but I teach another: they encouraged retaliation; but I denounce it, and in its place require the extreme forgiveness of injuries. But the true explanation is, that the different precepts belong to different domains of man's life; and Christ is bringing the inner domain of man's life under his law, while Moses had been satisfied with bringing the outward under the dominion of his. But that outward

is not abolished in one jot or tittle of it, by the new law of love. It is still " an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," not always in this form exactly, but the spirit of all law which is exercised in a Christian State is retributive and avenging, and approximating more or less to this. Neither does it herein sink or obscure its character as a Christian State, but rather asserts it the more. magistrate is a revenger to execute justice.

The civil

God has

appointed him to be such; and without such a witness, all sense of righteousness and of judgment would quickly perish from the world.

Moreover, as Augustine observes,† it is monstrous to

*See Con. Adim. c. 8.

+ Con. Faust. 1. 19. c. 25: Quandoquidem et illud antiquum ad

.

adduce this precept, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," as fostering revenge, that is, private animosity and hate. For, he asks, is the natural man, is the enraged savage, satisfied with inflicting on his foe as much as he has suffered? No; his desire is ever to inflict more; to return two, or twenty it may be, for the one which he has received; thus a second time disturbing the balance of equity, though in the other scale,-and so himself losing, and causing his adversary, under the sense of an unmerited amount of injury, to lose, the sense of a righteous government in the world, according to which every transgression of law will recoil on the transgressor, and receive its just recompence of reward. But this law, which took the execution of the vengeance out of the hands of the man who might be tempted to mar it, by overdoing it, or doing it in hatred and personal enmity, was not a fostering, but

reprimendas flammas odiorum, sævientiumque immoderatos animos refrenandos, ita præceptum est. Quis enim tantundem facile contentus est reponere vindictæ, quantum accepit injuriæ ? Nonne videmus homines leviter læsos moliri cædem, sitire sanguinem, vixque invenire in malis inimici unde satientur? Quis pugno percussus non aut judicia concitat in damnationem ejus qui percusserit, aut si ipse repercutere velit, totum hominem, si non etiam telo aliquo arrepto, pugnis calcibusque contundit ? Huic igitur immoderatæ ac per hoc injustæ ultioni, lex justum modum figens, pœnam talionis instituit: hoc est, ut qualem quisque intulit injuriam, tale supplicium pendant. Proinde, Oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, non fomes sed limes furoris est; non ut id quod sopitum erat, inde accenderetur, sed ne id quod ardebat, ultra extenderetur, impositus. Est enim quædam justa vindicta, justeque debetur ei qui fuerit passus injuriam : unde utique cum ignoscimus, de nostro quodammodo jure largimur. Cf. De Serm. Dom. in Mon. 1. 1. c. 19.

a limiting, and in its measure a subduing, the evil of man's heart. It did not indeed implant there a principle of love, nor yet certainly secure that they who availed themselves of it should be pure from all motives of private hate, and inspired only by a zeal for God's outraged justice, and a desire to make an offending brother recognize the law against which he had been sinning: it might be only a righteousness of the unrighteous.* But still (as a preparation at least) it was working in this line, until a higher Lawgiver should come, and teach that besides this law of righteousness, there was a law of love which He would write in the hearts of his people, and which would teach them that, where only selfish interests were perilled, every thing was to be forgiven, every thing to be forgone;-even as this law of love would teach them the harder lesson yet of carrying out, where need was, the justice at once retributive and corrective, of God,†—and this, without the slightest feeling that herein they were suspending the law of love, or rendering to the man evil for his evil, but rather still good for his evil, inasmuch as

* Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 4: Quæ, si dici potest, injustorum justitia est. De Serm. Dom. in Mon. 1. 1. c. 20: Neque hic ea vindicta prohibetur, quæ ad correctionem valet: etiam ipsa enim pertinet ad misericordiam. . . Sed huic vindictæ referendæ non est idoneus, nisi qui odium quo solent flagrare qui se vindicare desiderant, dilectionis magnitudine superaverit. Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 5 : [Deus] autem etiam cum vindicat, non reddit malum pro malo, quoniam justum reddit injusto. Quod autem justum est, utique bonum est. Punit ergo non delectatione alienæ miseriæ, quod est, malum pro malo; sed dilectione justitiæ, quod est, bonum pro malo.

it is justice for his injustice, right for his wrong. Truly a hard thing, yet not an impossible, rightly to do.

Ver. 39. This command to "resist not evil," and the others of like import which are scattered through the Gospels, but which lie the closest in this discourse, are open to abuse upon two sides. There is, first, the abuse of the Quaker, who demands that there should be throughout a cleaving to the letter, and who affirms that it is nothing but cowardice and a shrinking from the strictness of Christ's law, which prevents these precepts of his from being literally obeyed. Augustine meets this assertion, first historically, showing that neither did the Lord himself, nor yet his apostles, whom none can refuse to accept as the authoritative interpreters of the word spoken, hold themselves bound in every case to the letter of these commandments. For instance, when the servant of the High Priest struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, our blessed Lord did not offer himself to be stricken again, but firmly, though mildly, rebuked the smiter. (John xviii. 22, 23.) And St. Paul spake a yet sterner word to that judge who unrighteously bade him to be stricken: "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." (Acts xxiii. 3.)* Then, further, he refutes this interpretation by showing how such a cleaving to the letter of this and similar precepts, will continually issue in a violation of the spirit of Christ's commandments. Thus, in the case of that man

*De Mendac. c. 15; De Serm. Dom. in Mon. 1. 1. c. 19.