29.

This compassionate affection Paul recommends in the same Epistle to the Galatians, saying: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." ¹ See whether he has not said, "Make thyself as he is, that thou mayest gain him." Not, indeed, that one should commit or pretend to have committed the same fault as the one who has been overtaken, but that in the fault of that other he should consider what might happen to himself, and so compassionately render assistance to that other, as he would wish that other to do to him if the case were his; that is, not with the subtlety of a deceiver, but with the love of one filled with compassion. Thus, whatever the error or fault in which Jew or Gentile or any man was found by Paul, to all men he became all things,--not by feigning what was not true, but by feeling, because the case might have been his own, the compassion of one who put himself in the other's place,--that he might gain all.