ut to appear, is secured life for all men who yield
themselves to God, although they should lose the world and the earthly
life. That is, the soul which is pure and holy in connection with God,
and in imitation of the Divine perfection is eternally preserved with
God, while those who would gain the world, and preserve their life, fall
into the hands of the Judge who sentences them to Hell. This dominion of
God imposes on men a law, an old and yet a new law, viz., that of the
Divine perfection and therefore of undivided love to God and to our
neighbour. In this love, where it sways the inmost feeling, is presented
the better righteousness (better not only with respect to the Scribes
and Pharisees, but also with respect to Moses, see Matt. V.), which
corresponds to the perfection of God. The way to attain it is a change
of mind, that is, self-denial, humility before God, and heartfelt trust
in him. In this humility and trust in God there is contained a
recognition of one's own unworthiness; but the Gospel calls to the
kingdom of God those very sinners who are thus minded, by promising the
forgiveness of the sins which hitherto have separated them from God. But
the Gospel which appears in these three elements, the dominion of God, a
better righteousness embodied in the law of love, and the forgiveness of
sin, is inseparably connected with Jesus Christ; for in preaching this
Gospel Jesus Christ everywhere calls men to himself. In him the Gospel
is word and deed; it has become his food, and therefore his personal
life, and into this life of his he draws all others. He is the Son who
knows the Father. In him men are to perceive the kindness of the Lord;
in him they are to feel God's power and government of the world, and to
become certain of this consolation; they are to follow him the meek and
lowly, and while he, the pure and holy one, calls sinners to himself,
they are to receive the assurance that God through him forgiveth sin.

Jesus Christ has by no express statement thrust this connection of his
Gospel with his Person into the foreground. No words could have
certified it unless his life, the overpowering impression of his Person,
had created it. By living, acting and speaking from the riches of that
life which he lived with his Father, he became for others the revelation
of the God of whom they formerly had heard, but whom they had not known.
He declared his Father to be their Father and they understood him. But
he also