leased with their utterance and their
knowledge, and accepted them for that; and that in the same way God is
pleased with whatsoever He sees good in us, and accepts us for that.
But, remember, not for our own works or deservings any more than these
Corinthians. They were, and we are accepted in Christ, and for the
merits of Christ. And any good points in us, or in these Corinthians, as
St Paul says expressly (here and elsewhere), are not our own, but come
from Christ, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.

I know many people do not think thus. They think of God as looking only
at our faults; as extreme to mark what is done amiss; as never content
with us; as always crying to men, Yes, you have done this and that well,
and yet not quite well, for even in what you have done there are blots
and mistakes; but this and that you have not done, and therefore you are
still guilty, still under infinite displeasure. And they think that they
exalt God's holiness by such thoughts, and magnify His hatred of sin
thereby. And they invent arguments to prove themselves right, such as
this: That because God is an infinite being, every sin committed against
Him is infinite; and therefore deserves an infinite punishment; which is
a juggle of words of which any educated man ought to be ashamed.

I do not know where, in the Bible, they find all this. Certainly not in
the writings of St Paul. They seem to me to find it, not in the Bible at
all, but in their own hearts, judging that God must be as hard upon His
children as they are apt to be upon their own. I know that God is never
content with us, or with any man. How can He be? But in what sense is
He not content? In the sense in which a hard task-master is not content
with his slave, when he flogs him cruelly for the slightest fault? Or in
the sense in which a loving father is not content with his child,
grieving over him, counselling him, as long as he sees him, even in the
slightest matter, doing less well than he might do? Think of that, and
when you have thought of it, believe that in this grand text St Paul
speaks really by the Spirit of God, and according to the mind of God, and
teaches not these old Corinthians merely, but you and your children after
you, what is the mind of God concerning you, what is the light in which
God looks upon you. For, if you will but think over your own lives, and
over the Catechism which you learned in your