rom 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.
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.
The humility of the Sermon on the Mount may possibly by careful
analysis be shown to be identical at bottom with the magnanimity of
Aristotle's Ethics. But the presentation of the two is so utterly
opposed that in the effect on life the identity is altogether lost. And
as justice and mercy, so too self-discipline is pushed as far as it can
go. Instead of the enjoyment of life being an integral part of the aim
set before the will, hunger and thirst for righteousness, and penitence
for failure in keeping to it, are to fill up the believer's hopes for
himself. Of inward satisfaction and peace he is often assured; but
these