Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/364

 attend first to the beam in their own. This is followed by the proverbial warning not to cast pearls before swine. A singular passage succeeds, in which the doctrine is broadly stated that whatever men desire of God they are to ask it, "for every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds." And it is added, that as they give their children good gifts, so their heavenly father gives good things to those who ask him. But what of those who do not ask him? Does he, like an unwise human parent, give most to those who are the loudest in their petitions, neglecting the humble or retiring children who make no noise? These verses allow us no option but to suppose that Jesus thought he did, and this inference receives strong confirmation from the parable of the unjust judge, who yielded to clamor what he would not give from a sense of justice (Lu. xviii. 1-5), as also from the illustration of the man who was wearied by the importunity of his friend into doing what he would not have done for the sake of friendship (Lu. xi. 5-9). In the former case, the parable is related for the express purpose of showing "that men ought always to pray and not to faint;" in the latter, the illustration is given in connection with the very verses which we are now criticising. There is, then, no escape from the conclusion that the conceptions Jesus had of the deity were of a nature to lead to the belief that God might be worried by continual prayer into concessions and favors which would not otherwise have been granted.

Excepting a single verse, the remainder of the sermon is occupied with a warning that the way to life is narrow, that to destruction broad; with a caution against false prophets, and a very fine description of the future rejection from heaven of many who have made loud professions of religion, and contrariwise, of the reception of those who have done their father's will, and whom he likens to one who has built his house upon the solid rock as distinguished from one who has built it on the sand. One verse, however, remains, and that not only the most important in the whole of this discourse, but ethically the most important in the whole of its author's system. That verse is the well-known commandment: "All things whatsoever you may wish men to do to you, thus also do you to them. For this is the law and the prophets" (Mt. vii. 12; Lu. vi. 31).