Therefore also the first Christians
were enabled to dispense with philosophical phrases, and instead of
saying that they loved the ideal of man in man could simply say and feel
that they loved Christ in every man.
We have here the very kernel of the Christian moral scheme. We have
distinctly before us the end Christ proposed to himself, and the means
he considered adequate to the attainment of it. His object was, instead
of drawing up, after the example of previous legislators, a list of
actions prescribed, allowed, and prohibited, to give his disciples a
universal test by which they might discover what it was right and what
it was wrong to do. Now as the difficulty of discovering what is right
arises commonly from the prevalence of self-interest in our minds, and
as we commonly behave rightly to anyone for whom we feel affection or
sympathy, Christ considered that he who could feel sympathy for all
would behave rightly to all. But how to give to the meagre and narrow
hearts of men such enlargement? How to make them capable of a universal
sympathy? Christ believed it possible to bind men to their kind, but on
one condition--that they were first bound fast to himself.
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