Luther and Lewis

[on the Pharisee and Publican]: For it he had said: 'O God, we are all sinners. This poor sinner is also, and so am I, like all other men,' he would then have fulfilled God's first commandment, namely, he had given honour and praise to God. And if he had afterwards said: 'O God, I see that this man is a sinner, and is in the jaws of the devil, help him, dear Lord,' and had thus taken him upon his back and carried him before God and prayed to God for him, he would have also have fulfilled the other commandment, namely, that of Christian love, as St. Paul says and teaches: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.'—Martin Luther, Sermons from 1522

It is dangerous to press upon a man the duty of getting beyond earthly love when his real difficulty lies in getting so far. And it is no doubt easy enough to love the fellow creature less and to imagine that this is happening because we are learning to love God more, when the real reason may be quite different.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 174.