' And once more, whatever divine purpose gave the
chosen people a priority among all peoples in knowledge of divine will
and possession of divine favour, it is impossible to find any rule by
which this priority shall for ever exclude all other peoples from being
within the range of God's manifested love; and conscience cannot but
accept as a divine message that the Gentiles also shall come to the
Heavenly 'Light, and their kings to the brightness of His rising.' So
again, to turn from justice to mercy, we recognise that we are bound to
spare pain to all creatures that can feel, and this duty can only be set
aside by some higher duty which makes that pain the means to a higher
moral end. And if we are set by our consciences to seek for some rule
of universal application for this purpose, it becomes perpetually
clearer that nothing can excuse cruel punishments inflicted on criminals
or enemies, or hard-hearted indifference to the poor and the weak. Our
own nature cries out for kindness in our pain, and that very cry from
within compels our consciences to listen to the cry from without. And
the denunciations of cruelty and oppression we recognise as we hear them
to be the voice of God.
But however true it be that this progress corresponds exactly throughout
with the necessary working of the great moral principles implanted in
the spiritual faculty, it nevertheless remains true also that all this
teaching in its successive stages is given by men who did not profess to
be working out a philosophical system, but who claimed to bring a
message from God, to speak by His authority, and in many cases to be
trusted with special powers in proof of possessing that authority.
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