own efforts. To him the only righteousness which availed
was one which was not 'my own,' but had its source in, and was imparted
by, God. The world thought of righteousness as the general designation
under which were summed up a man's specific acts of conformity to law,
the sum total reached by the addition of many specific instances of
conformity to a standard of duty. Paul had learned to think of it as
preceding and producing the specific acts. The world therefore said, and
says, Do the deeds and win the character; Paul says, Receive the
character and do the deeds. The result of the one conception of
righteousness is in the average man spasmodic efforts after isolated
achievements, with long periods between in which effort subsides into
torpor. The result in Paul's case was what we know: a continuous effort
to keep his mind and heart open for the influx of the power which,
entering into him, would make him able to do the specific acts which
constitute righteousness. The one road is a weary path, hard to tread,
and, as a matter of fact, not often trodden. To pile up a righteousness
by the accumulation of individual righteous acts is an endeavour less
hopeful than that of the coral polypes slowly building up their reef out
of the depths of the Pacific, till it rises above the waves. He who
assumes to be righteous on the strength of a succession of righteous
acts, not only needs a profounder idea of what makes his acts righteous,
but should also make a catalogue of his unrighteous ones and call
himself wicked. The other course is the final deliverance of a man from
dependence upon his own struggles, and substitutes for the dreary
alternations of effort and torpor, and for the imperfect harvest of
imperfectly righteous acts, the attitude of receiving, which supersedes
painful strife and weary endeavour. To seek after a righteousness which
is 'my own,' is to seek what we shall never find, and what, if found,
would crumble beneath us. To seek the righteousness which is from God,
is to seek what He is waiting to bestow, and what the blessed receivers
blessedly know is more than they dreamed of.

But Paul looked for this great gift as a gift in Christ. It was when he
was 'found in Him' that it became his, and he was found 'blameless.'
That gift of an imparted life, which has a bias towards all goodness,
and the natural operation of which is to incline all our faculties
towards conformity with the will of God, is bestowed when