without another to be compared with it. No mortal man has ever
since preached a discourse of its kind. The spirit of the address is
throughout that of sincerity and action, as opposed to empty profession
and neglect. In the closing sentences the Lord showed the uselessness of
hearing alone, as contrasted with the efficacy of doing. The man who
hears and acts is likened unto the wise builder who set the foundation
of his house upon a rock; and in spite of rain and hurricane and flood,
the house stood. He that hears and obeys not is likened unto the foolish
man who built his house upon the sand; and when rain fell, or winds
blew, or floods came, behold it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

Such doctrines as these astonished the people. For His distinctive
teachings the Preacher had cited no authority but His own. His address
was free from any array of rabbinical precedents; the law was superseded
by the gospel: _"For he taught them as one having authority, and not as
the scribes!"_

NOTES TO CHAPTER 17.

1. Time and Place of the Sermon on the Mount.--Matthew gives the address
early mention, placing it even before the record of his own call from
the seat of custom--which call certainly preceded the ordination of the
Twelve as a body--and before his account of many sayings and doings of
the Lord already considered in these pages. Luke's partial summary of
the sermon follows his record of the ordination of the apostles. Matthew
tells us that Jesus had gone up the mountain and that He sat while
speaking; Luke's account suggests the inference that Jesus and the
Twelve first descended from the mountain heights to a plain, where they
were met by the multitude, and that Jesus preached unto them, standing.
Critics who rejoice in trifles, often to the neglect of weightier
matters, have tried to make much of these seeming variations. Is it not
probable that Jesus spoke at length on the mountain-side to the
disciples then present, and from whom He had chosen the Twelve, and that
after finishing His discourse to them He descended with them to the
plain where a multitude had assembled, and that to these He repeated
parts of what He had before spoken? The relative fulness of Matthew's
report may be due to the fact that he, as one of the Twelve, was present
at the first and more extended delivery.

2. Pleasure Versus Happiness.--"The present is an age of
pleasure-seeking, and men are losing their sanity in the mad rush for
sen