psycho-physiology, concerns one-eighth of our life and no more. But Jesus, we say, exhibited nothing for the benefit of this one-eighth of us; this is what distinguishes him from all moralists and philosophers, and even from the greatest of his own disciples. How he reached a doctrine we cannot say; but he always exhibited it as an intuition and practical rule, and a practical rule which, if adopted, would have the force of an intuition for its adopter also. This is why none of his doctrines are of the character of that favourite doctrine of our theologians, 'the blessed truth that the God of the universe is a Person;' because this doctrine is incapable of application as a practical rule, and can never come to have the force of an intuition. But what we call the secret of Jesus: 'He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal,' was a truth of which he could say: 'It is so; try it yourself and you will see it is so, by the sense of going right, hitting the mark, succeeding, living, which you will get.'
And the same with the commandment, 'Love one another,'[1] which is the positive side of the commandment, 'Renounce thyself,'[2] and, like this, can be drawn out as a truth of psycho-physiology. Jesus exhibited it as an intuition and a practical rule; and as what, by being practised, would, through giving happiness, prove its own truth as a rule of life. This, we say, is of the very essence of his secret of self-renouncement, as of his method of inwardness;—that its truth will be found to commend itself by happiness, to prove itself by happiness. And of the secret more especially is this true. And as we have said, that though there gathers round the word 'God' very much besides, yet we shall in general, in reading the Bible, get the surest hold on the word 'God'
- ↑ John, xiii, 34.
- ↑ 'We know that we have passed from death to life,'—how?' 'because we love the brethren.'—See I John, iii, 14.
