But, alas! it has not been such. In all ages, in
all religions, men have turned away from this simple righteousness of
God, which is created in justice and truth, and have sought some
righteousness of their own, founded upon anything and everything save
common morality and honesty. Alas for the spiritual pride of man!
He is not content to be simply just and true! for any one and every
one, he thinks, can be that. He must needs be something, which other
people cannot be. He must needs be able to thank God that he is not
as other men are, and say, 'This people, this wicked world, who
knoweth not our law, is accursed.'
If God had bid men do some great thing to save their souls, would
they not have done it? How much more when he says simply to them, as
to Naaman, 'Wash, and be clean.' 'Wash you,' says the Lord by the
prophet Isaiah, 'make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings
from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well, seek
justice, relieve the oppressed,' and then, 'though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be white as snow.' But no: any one can do that;
and therefore it is beneath the spiritual pride of man. In our own
days, there are too many who do not hesitate to look down on plain
justice, and plain honesty, as natural virtues, which (so they say)
men can have without the grace of God, and make a distinction between
these natural virtues and the effects of God's Spirit; which is not
only not to be found in Scripture, but is contradicted by Scripture
from beginning to end.
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