with the most prepossessing pureness, clearness, and beauty, the two qualities by which our ordinary self is indeed most essentially counteracted, self-renouncement and mildness, he made his followers feel that in these qualities lay the secret of their best self; that to attain them was in the highest degree requisite and natural, and that a man's whole happiness depended upon it.
Self-examination, self-renouncement, and mildness, were, therefore, the great means by which Jesus Christ renewed righteousness and religion. All these means are indicated in the Old Testament: God requireth truth in the inward parts! Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure! Seek meekness![1] But how far more strongly are they forced upon the attention in the New Testament, and set up clearly as the central mark for our endeavours! Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup that the outside may be clean also![2] Whoever will come after me, let him renounce himself and take up his cross daily and follow me![3] Learn of me that I am mild and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls![4] So that, although personal religion is clearly recommended in the Old Testament, nevertheless these injunctions of the New Testament effect so much more for the extrication and establishment of personal religion than the general exhortations in the Old to offer the sacrifice of righteousness, to do judgment,[5] that, comparatively with the Old, the New Testament may be said to have really founded inward and personal religion. While the Old Testament says: Attend to conduct! the New Testament says: Attend to the feelings and dispositions whence conduct proceeds! And as attending to conduct had very much degenerated into deadness and formality, attending to
