lest and most natural relationship
(Luke x. 25-37). Thus religion is ethical through and through, as God's
inner nature, expressed in forgiveness, mercy, righteousness and truth,
is not something transcendental, but belongs to the realm of daily life.
We become children of God and he our Father in virtue of a moral
likeness (Matt. v. 43-48), while of any metaphysical, or (so to speak)
physical relationship to God Jesus says nothing. With this clearly
understood, man is to live in implicit trust in the divine love, power,
knowledge and forgiveness. Hence he attains salvation, being delivered
from sin and fear and death, for the divine attributes are not
ontological entities to be discussed and defined in the schools, but
they are realities, entering into the practical daily life. Indeed they
are to be repeated in us also, so that we are to forgive our brethren as
we ask to be forgiven (Matt. vi. 12; Luke xi. 4).

As religion thus becomes thoroughly ethical, so is the notion of the
Messianic kingdom transformed. Its essential characteristic is the doing
of the Father's will on earth as in heaven. Jesus uses parable after
parable to establish its meaning. It is a seed cast into the ground
which grows and prospers (Matt. xiii. 31-32). It is a seed sown in good
ground and bringing forth fruit, or in bad ground and fruitless (Luke
viii. 5-8; Mark iv. 1-32). It is a pearl of great price for which a man
should sell all that he possesses (Matt. xiii. 44-46). It is not come
"with observation," so that men shall say "lo here and lo there" (Luke
xvii. 20-21). It is not of this world, and does not possess the
characteristics or the glory of the kingdom of the earth (Luke xxii.
24-26; Mark x. 13-16). It is already present among men (Luke xvii. 21).
Together with these statements in our sources are still mingled
fragments of the more ordinary cataclysmic, apocalyptic conceptions,
which in spite of much ingenious exegesis, cannot be brought into
harmony with Christ's predominant teaching, but remain as foreign
elements in the words of the Master, possibly brought back through his
disciples, or, more probably, used by Jesus uncritically--a part of the
current religious imagery in which he shared.

His originality.

It is often declared that in these teachings there is nothing new, and
indeed analogies can be found for many sayings; yet nowhere else do we
gain so strong an impression of originality. The net result is not only
new