There has been a
perpetual growth in the understanding and in the application of this
perfect teaching, and there will yet be a growth. Of no philosophical
system of morals is it possible to say the same.
But in the second place, the New Testament contains not only a new
morality, it contains also a new account of human nature. The mystery of
that discord which makes the noblest and best of human souls a scene of
perpetual internal conflict is acknowledged and its counterpart in God's
dealings with mankind is set forth. The struggle between the spiritual
faculty asserting its due supremacy, and the lower passions and
appetites, impulses and inclinations, is so described by Saint Paul that
none have ever since questioned his description with any effect. And our
Lord's teaching of our absolute dependence on God and helplessness
without Him; and Saint John's teaching that the whole world, outside
Christ, 'lieth in the wicked one,' lay down the same truth. And as the
mystery of moral evil in mankind is thus set forth, so too the mystery
of the remedy for that evil. In the love of God shown in the Cross of
Christ, in our union with God through that same Death upon the Cross is
the power which conquers evil in the soul and carries a man ever upward
to spiritual heights.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132