991. The Beatitudes.
From the Authorized Version. The Old Testament Decalogue is followed by the New Testament Beatitudes, which form our Lord's portrait of a true disciple.
John Wesley says (Sermons, 21-3), 'Our Lord, first, lays down the sum of all true religion in eight particulars. Behold Christianity in its native form, as delivered by its great Author! This is the genuine religion of Jesus Christ! Such He presents it to him whose eyes are opened! See a picture of God, so far as He is imitable by man! A picture drawn by God's own hand. What beauty appears in the whole! How just a symmetry! What exact proportion in every part! How desirable is the happiness here described! How venerable, how lovely the holiness! This is the spirit of religion; the quintessence of it. These are indeed the fundamentals of Christianity. O that we may not be hearers of it only!'
Specially impressive are Wesley's words on the Beatitude of the Persecuted. 'One would imagine such a person as has been above described, so full of genuine humility, so unaffectedly serious, so mild and gentle, so free from all selfish design, so devoted to God, and such an active lover of men, should be the darling of mankind. But our Lord was better acquainted with human nature in its present state. He therefore closes the character of this man of God with showing him the treatment he is to expect in the world. "Blessed," saith He, "are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."'
'Let us not rest, Wesley adds in closing his sermons on the Beatitudes, until every line thereof is transcribed into our own hearts. Let us watch, and pray, and believe, and love, and "strive for the mastery," till every part of it shall appear in our soul, graven there by the finger of God.'
In December, 1730, when the Oxford Methodists were running their gauntlet of ridicule and persecution in the University, Samuel Wesley wrote, 'I question whether a mortal can arrive to a greater degree of perfection, than steadily to do good, and for that very reason patiently and meekly to suffer evil.'
Sir F. Bridge says, 'The Beatitudes also will be welcome; the responses to these I have adapted from the celebrated Litany by Tallis. This Litany was sung in the Abbey at the Coronation of King Edward VII.'
