4. Q. According to the constitution which God has given the soul, what must it feel before it can feel love for the giver of spiritual mercies? A. It must feel the want of spiritual mercies; and just in proportion as the soul feels its lost, guilty and dangerous condition, in the same proportion will it exercise love to the being who grants spiritual favor and salvation.
5. Q. What is the only possible way by which man could be made to hope for and appreciate spiritual mercies, and to love a spiritual deliverer? A. To produce a conviction in the soul itself of its evil condition, its danger as a spiritual being, and its inability, unaided, to satisfy the requirements of the spiritual law, or to escape its just and spiritual penalty.
6. Q. What does the degree of kindness and self-denial in a benefactor, temporal or spiritual, create? A. The degree of affection and gratitude that will be awakened for him.
7. Q. At the advent of Jesus how was the moral law generally applied by him? A. It was applied to the external conduct of men, not to the internal life. If there was conformity to the letter of the law in external manners, there was a fulfillment, in the eyes of the Jew and the Gentile, of the highest claims that God or man held upon the spirit.
8. Q. How did Jesus apply the divine law? A. He taught that all wrong thoughts and feelings were acts of transgression against God, and as such would be visited with the penalty of the divine law. Thus he made the law spiritual and its penalty spiritual.
9. Q. What does Jesus declare to be the consequence of these spiritual acts of transgression against God? A. Exclusion from the kingdom and presence of God, a penalty which involves either endless spiritual suffering, or destruction of the soul itself.
10. Q. What was then necessary in order that man’s affections might be fixed upon the proper object of love and obedience? A. That a spiritual God should, by self-denying kindness, manifest spiritual mercy to those who felt their spiritual wants, and thus draw to himself the love and worship of mankind.
11. Q. In order to the accomplishment of this end, without violating the moral constitution of the universe, what would be essentially necessary? A. That the holiness of God’s law should be maintained.
12. Q. What does Jesus uniformly speak of as being necessary previous to accepting him as a Savior? A. That the soul should feel the need of salvation.
13. Q. What is the testimony of the Scriptures as to God manifesting himself in self-denying kindness for mankind? A. The testimony of the Scriptures is that God did thus manifest himself in Christ as suffering and making self-denials for the spiritual good of men.