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doctrine of justification by faith, not by works of the law, developed
in this epistle, is the record of his personal experience reduced to a
general principle. St. Paul had, on the lines of his Pharisaic
education, in the first half of his life zealously sought to be
justified by works, and had found out his mistake.

What is the real meaning of this phrase? Ordinarily we Englishmen find
it natural to appropriate St. James' 'common sense' language {8} about
justification rather than St. Paul's[13], and say that faith is surely
of no moral value without works or good actions, and that we can be
justified by nothing else except our conduct. Or if the Pharisees are
pointed to with their rigid ecclesiastical observances as types of men
seeking to be justified before God by the merits of their works, then,
in this sense of works, we feel that the idea of justification by such
means, apart from deeper moral effort, is one which has passed out of
our horizon. Yet if we get to the moral essence of the Pharisaic idea,
we may still find it lying very close at hand to us, even though we do
not know what a phylactery means, and are at a safe distance from
fasting twice in the week, or giving tithes of all that we acquire. A
well-to-do Englishman, of whatever class, has a strong sense of
respectability. He has a code of duty and honour which he is at pains
to observe. A soldier, a gentleman, a woman of fashion, a peasant's
wife, a schoolboy, and an undergraduate, representing not more than the
average moral levels of their different classes, will all of them make
really great sacrifices to fulfil the requirements of their respective
codes. Their conscience requires {9} this of them, and they would be
miserable in falling short of it. But their conscience is also limited
to it. They resent the claim of a progressive morality. Conscientious
within the region of the traditional and the expected, they are often
almost impenetrable to light from beyond. They are nervously afraid of
the very idea of subjecting their life to a fundamental revision in the
light of Christ's claim, or to the idea of surrender to the divine
light wherever it may lead. But this frame of mind--conscientiousness
within a limited and well-established area accepted by public opinion,
coupled with resentment at whatever completer and diviner claim may
interfere to disconcert one's self-satisfaction, and bid one begin
afresh on a truer basis--is that