‘Extempore Commonplace on The Sermon of Our Saviour on the Mount’

Summary

Introduction

The Sermon on the Mount is at the centre of Christian worship and morality. It contains both the Lord's prayer and the injunction to love not only neighbours but also enemies. Thus it makes a distinct statement about both Tables of the law. However, it was less the content of Christian revelation than its moral standing which was the concern of Burke's time.

The deists argued that God's moral character could not be reconciled with the partial distribution of revelation. The standing assumption was that revelation was necessary to salvation. But as it was diffused slowly over time and that to only a few countries, it followed that the means of salvation were not available to all mankind – in fact, to a few only. If one wished to suggest that God was fair to everyone, it followed that revelation, at best, was superfluous to salvation. As one writer put it:

it has been demanded of me, Whether I should be convinc'd of my Opinion, and admit of supernatural Religion, in case the Gospel a supernatural Religion had been promulgated to all the World? I answer'd, I should; and was contented that the whole stress of the Dispute should be terminated in that one point.

If revelation was irrelevant, what was offered as a substitute? The complement of deist criticism was the assertion that what man could discover through his own reason, unassisted by revelation, was sufficient for his salvation. Thus, deism implied an assessment of reason.