Thirdly. If a scribe spoke to the people, he bethought himself of topics within their comprehension: he had a double self; one he showed to them and one he kept for his equals: he was afraid of talking over his hearers’ heads, so he took them on the side of what he supposed they might understand, of their interests, for example, and spoke of the advantages of good repute, or, at the highest, of the blessings which God brought on His servants in this life and hereafter, and of the ill fate which awaited offenders. All this implied, “We who speak to you, of course, have for ourselves higher principles and purer motives than those we have named, but these are quite good enough for you.” Now there is nothing that men, young or old, so surely detect, as whether a man serves them with the same thoughts that he gives to himself and his friends. The people, moreover, are always grateful for being supposed capable of higher sentiments than mere hope of gain and fear of loss, and for the appreciation shewn in taking them on higher ground; they seldom fail the speaker who boldly addresses their consciences; they are eager to justify his trust in them: “He has treated us as men,” they say, “and men he shall find we are.” Above all they feel the compliment of being not flattered, but supposed reasonable enough to hear the truth about themselves and shewn their failings; and we feel sure that men went away from the Sermon on the Mount confident of Christ’s respect and regard for them, without His telling them of it in so many words. He talks to them quite naturally of _their_ Father who is also _His_ Father, just as men speak of any common tie: and this took hold of their hearts. Fourthly. We find in the earlier portions of the Sermon on the Mount, which best represent this preaching to the multitude,(147) that our Lord assumes a certain positive authority, by putting His own commands in contrast with the written Law. It had probably been given out by our Lord’s opponents that He had come to destroy the Law, and our Lord in this Sermon declares that He is not come to destroy but to fulfil. We shall see the point most clearly, if we understand the word “fulfil,” to mean, “carry out into its full completeness.” For our Lord does not _destroy_ the Law but he _supersedes_ it by bringing God’s ways to light, and merging in this light the previous partial revelations, of which the Mosaic Law was one. A mathematician supersedes the practical rules which the pupil at first employs for solving particular cases of a problem, by giving a complete and general solution of the whole subject. This may illustrate the way in which our Lord merges the particular case of human conduct in a wider rule embracing human dispositions, and which regards, not only what men _do_, but also what they _are_, and what they will _become_.