Looking back over it afterwards we can see that the teaching in its
successive stages was a development, but it always took the form of a
revelation. And its life was due to that fact. As far as it is possible
to judge, that union between Morality and Religion, between duty and
faith, without which both religion and morality soon wither out of human
consciences, can only be secured--has only been secured--by presenting
spiritual truth in this form of a Revelation.
When we pass to the New Testament, all that has previously been taught
in the Old, in so far as it is related to the new teaching at all, is
related as the bud to the flower. The development, if it be indeed a
development, is so great, so sudden, so strange, that it seems difficult
to recognise that it is a development at all.
First, the morality is in form, if not in substance, absolutely new. The
duty of justice and mercy is pushed at once to its extreme limits, even
to the length of entire self-surrender. The disciple has his own rights
no doubt, as every other man has his; but he is required to leave his
rights in God's hands and to think of the rights of others only. The
highest place is assigned to meekness in conduct and humility in spirit.
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