This initial truth is made radiant with meaning, by the teaching of Christianity that every human being is dear to God: a teaching which stands upon that platform, built high above all human deeds and histories, the advent, incarnation, passion, and death of Christ, as a Savior of men.
The race is a brotherhood; God is the Father, Love is the law of this great human commonwealth, and Love knows no servitude. It is that which gilds with liberty whatever it touches.
One more element to human liberty is contributed by Christianity, in the solemn development of man's accountability to God, by which condition hereafter springs from pure character here.
However heavy that saying is, every one of us shall give an account of himself before God—in it is the life of the race.
You cannot present man as a subject of Divine government, held responsible for results, compared with which the most momentous earthly deeds are insignificant, plied with influences accumulating from eternity, and by powers which though they begin on earth in the cradle, gentle as a mother's voice singing lullaby, go on upward, taking every thing as they go, till they reach the whole power of God; and working out results that outlast time and the sun, and revolve forever in flaming circuits of disaster, or in sacred circles of celestial bliss; you cannot present man as the center and subject of such an august and eternal drama, without giving him something of the grandeur which resides in God himself, and in the spheres of immortality!
Who shall trifle with such a creature, full bound upon such an errand through life, and swelling forth to such a destiny? Clear the place where he stands?—give him room and help, but no hinderance, as he equips for eternity!—loosen the bonds of man, for God girds him!—take off all impediments, for it is his life and death and struggle for immortality!
That this effect of accountability to God was felt by the inspired writers, cannot be doubtful to any who weigh such language as this:
"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not, therefore judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his brother's way."
By making man important in the sight of God, he becomes sacred to his fellow. The more grand and far-reaching are the divine claims, the greater is our conception of the scope and worth of being. Human rights become respected in the ratio in which human responsibility is felt. Whatever objections men may hold to Puritanism—their theory since the days of St. Augustine has constantly produced tendencies to liberty and a prevalent belief in the natural rights of man—and on account of that very feature which to many, has been so offensive—its rigorous doctrine of human accountability. Here, then, is the idea of man which Christianity gives in contrast with the inferior and degrading heathen notions of man. He is a being but begun on earth—a seed only planted here for its first growth. He is connected with God, not as all matter is by proceeding from creative power, but by partaking the divine nature, by the declared personal affection of God, witnessed and sealed by the presence and sufferings of the world's Redeemer. He is a being upon whom is rolled the responsibility of character and eternal destiny! Of such a creature it were as foolish to take an estimate, by what he is and what he can do in this life, as it would be to estimate by an eagle's egg, what the old eagle is worth, with wings outspread far above the very thunder, or coming down upon its quarry as the thunder comes! It is the Future that gives value to the Present. It is Immortality only that reaches down a measure wherewith to gauge a man. If a heathen measures, the strong are strong, and the weak are weak: the rich, the favored, must rule, and their shadow must dwarf all others. If a Christian measures, he hears a voice saying: "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother."
These are the things that give value to man.