'There is no difference.'--ROMANS iii. 22.
The things in which all men are alike are far more important than
those in which they differ. The diversities are superficial, the
identities are deep as life. Physical processes and wants are the
same for everybody. All men, be they kings or beggars, civilised or
savage, rich or poor, wise or foolish, cultured or illiterate,
breathe the same breath, hunger and thirst, eat and drink, sleep, are
smitten by the same diseases, and die at last the same death. We have
all of us one human heart. Tears and grief, gladness and smiles, move
us all. Hope, fear, love, play the same music upon all heart-strings.
The same great law of duty over-arches every man, and the same heaven
of God bends above him.
Religion has to do with the deep-seated identities and not with the
superficial differences. And though there have been many aristocratic
religions in the world, it is the great glory of Christianity that it
goes straight to the central similarities, and brushes aside, as of
altogether secondary importance, all the subordinate diversities,
grappling with the great facts which are common to humanity, and with
the large hopes which all may inherit.
Paul here, in his grand way, triumphs and rises above all these small
differences between man and man, more pure or less pure, Jew or
Gentile, wise or foolish, and avers that, in regard of the deepest
and most important things, 'there is no difference,' and so his
Gospel is a Gospel for the world, because it deals with all men on
the same level. Now I wish to work out this great glory and
characteristic of the Gospel system in a few remarks, and to point
out to you the more important of these things in which all men, be
they what or who they may, stand in one category and have identical
experiences and interests.