The attempt of these German theologians to frame a philosophical refutation of the Sermon on the Mount gives us something of a shock; but, practically, this has been the attitude of the church in all the generations.  The hopeful sign is that it does now give us a shock to have the doctrine badly stated.

Through a large part of the Christian era the teaching of Jesus with respect to strife has been flouted by the church.  The bitterest and most wasteful wars have been religious wars.  The disciples of the Prince of Peace saw no incongruity in the settlement by the sword of such questions as whether Jesus Christ was of the same substance as the Father or of a similar substance; and whether the cup should be administered to the laity in the Eucharist or only the bread.  The Thirty Years’ war in Europe was a religious war.  Roman Catholic theories still maintain the right of the church to enforce its teachings by the sword.

All these facts show how far, through all its history, the church has departed from the teaching of Jesus.  When our German theologians set themselves to prove that the Sermon on the Mount is no sufficient guide for public affairs, they have the whole history of the church behind them.

Nevertheless they might have noted that the drift, for the last few centuries, has been in the direction of the teaching of Jesus.  It is hardly conceivable that Christian nations should go to war to-day for the settlement of points of doctrine.  Three hundred years ago the whole church thought that necessary; to-day a very large part of the church would think it horrible and monstrous.  It is not very long ago that the church believed in the settlement by force of disputes between individuals.  The wager of battle was supposed to be a proper and Christian way of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person.  To most of the great Christians of the fifteenth century the proposition to dispense with that would have seemed a “noble folly,” just as the proposition of general disarmament now seems to some twentieth century Christians.  But the church has learned that there are better ways of settling personal quarrels than the wager of battle; and it is likely to learn, after a while, that there are better ways of settling international and industrial difficulties than the way of war.  The church is beginning to see that the way of Jesus is not, after all, so impracticable as it has always been supposed to be; it is beginning to discern the truth that the law of service is a stronger law than the law of strife.  One of these days we shall find the church of Jesus taking its stand on the Golden Rule as the practical rule of everyday life, and insisting upon the organization of the industrial and the political order on the basis of good-will.  When that day comes we shall have a right to say that the church believes in Jesus Christ.  When that day comes it will be evident to all that the main cause of the church’s enfeeblement through all these centuries has been her unbelief.  And we shall marvel that it took her so long to find out what might there is in meekness and what force in gentleness; and that it was so hard for her to understand that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God stronger than men.