Such, then, is the good life which Christ reveals, and to which He calls
us. To say that to Him we owe our highest ideal of righteousness, is
only to affirm what no one now seriously denies. John Stuart Mill has,
it is true, alleged certain defects against Christianity as an ethical
system, yet Mill himself has frankly admitted that "it would not be easy
now, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of
virtue from the abstract to the concrete, than to endeavour so to live
that Christ would approve our life." If Christ be not our one Master in
the moral world, it will at least be soon enough to discuss a rival's
claims when he appears; as yet there is no sign of him. But the point I
am most anxious to emphasize just now is not simply that Jesus has put
before us an ideal, the highest of its kind in the world, but that there
is nothing of any kind to be desired before it. To be good as Christ was
good, here in very truth is the _summum bonum_ of life, the greatest
thing in the world, that which, before all other things, a man should
seek to make his own, There are times, perhaps, in the lives of all of
us when we are tempted to doubt it--times when the kingdoms of this
world, the kingdoms of wealth and power and knowledge lie stretched at
our feet, and the whispering fiend at our elbow bids us bow and enter
in. But once again, if we be true men, the moment comes,
"When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,"
when the sacred, saving faith in righteousness returns, and we know that
Christ was right, that for ever and for ever it is true that better than
to be rich, or to be clever, or to be famous, is it to be true, to be
pure, to be good.
Yes, goodness is the principal thing; therefore get goodness, and with
all thy getting--at the price of all that thou hast gotten (such is the
true meaning of the words)[42]--get righteousness. Is this what we are
doing? Goodness is the first thing; are we putting it first? Day by day
are we saying to it, "Sit thou on my right hand," while we put all other
things under our feet? "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if
I remember thee not; if I prefer not thee above my chief joy"--is this
the kind of honour that we are paying to it? "We make it our ambition,"
said St Paul, "to be well pleasing unto Him."[43] Where this is the
master ambition, all other lawful ambitions may be safely cherished and
given their place. But if some lesser power rule, whose right it is not
to reign over us, the end is chaos and night. "Seek ye first His
righteousness;" we subvert Christ's order at our peril. And this
righteousness must be sought. As men seek wealth, as men seek knowledge,
as men seek power, so must we seek goodness. "Wherefore giving all
diligence"--in no other way can the pearl of great price be secured; it
does not lie by the roadside for any lounger to pick up. "With toil of
heart and knees and hands," so only can the "path upward" and the prize
be won. "Blessed," said Jesus, "are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness." Blessed, He meant, are they who long more than anything
else to be good; for all such longing shall be abundantly satisfied.
Exalt righteousness, and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to
honour when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head a
chaplet of grace; a crown of beauty shall she deliver to thee.
It is fitting that a chapter on righteousness should follow one on sin,
for this may find some to whom the other made no appeal. At a meeting of
Christian workers held some years ago in Glasgow, the chairman invited
the late Professor Henry Drummond, who was present, though his name was
not on the programme, to say a few words. He accepted the invitation,
but said he would do no more than state a fact and ask a question. The
fact was this, that in recent revival movements, in which he had had
large experience, there were few indications of that deep and
overwhelming conviction of sin which had been so characteristic a
feature of similar revivals in past days. And this was the question, Did
it mean that the Holy Spirit was in any way modifying the method of His
operation? What answer the wise men of the meeting gave to the
Professor's question I do not know. But fact and question alike deserve
to be carefully pondered. The Spirit, when He is come, Christ said,
"will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment." "Will convict the world of righteousness"--have we not
sometimes forgotten this? Have we not put the full stop at "sin," as
though the Holy Spirit's convicting work ended there? Nevertheless,
there are many to-day whose religious life begins, not so much in a
sense of their own sin and guilt and need, as rather in the
consciousness of the glory and honour of Christ. It is what they find
within themselves which brings some men to Christ; it is what they find
in Him which brings others. Some are driven by the strong hands of stern
necessity; some are wooed by the sweet constraint of the sinless Son of
God. Some are crushed and broken and humbled to the dust, and their
first cry is "God be merciful to me a sinner"; some when they hear the
call of Christ leap up to greet Him with a new light in their eyes and
the glad confession on their lips, "Lord I will follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest."
What, then, shall we say to these things? What but this, "There are
diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in
all." Travellers to the same country do not always journey by the same
route; and for some of the heavenly pilgrims the Slough of Despond lies
on the other side of the Wicket Gate. After all, it is of small moment
what brings a man forth from the City of Destruction; enough if he have
come out and if now his face is set toward the city which hath the
foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
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