y long to be delivered from their sins, to send them
away, to be clean and blessed by their absence--in a word to become men,
God's men; for, sin gone, all the rest is good. It was not in such
hearts, it was not in any heart that the revolting legal fiction of
imputed righteousness arose. Righteousness itself, God's righteousness,
rightness in their own being, in heart and brain and hands, is what they
desire. Of such men was Nathanael, in whom was no guile; such, perhaps,
was Nicodemus too, although he did come to Jesus by night; such was
Zacchaeus. The temple could do nothing to deliver them; but, by their
very futility, its observances had done their work, developing the
desires they could not meet, making the men hunger and thirst the more
after genuine righteousness: the Lord must bring them this bread from
heaven. With him, the live, original rightness, in their hearts, they
must speedily become righteous. With that Love their friend, who is at
once both the root and the flower of things, they would strive
vigorously as well as hunger eagerly after righteousness. Love is the
father of righteousness. It could not be, and could not be hungered
after, but for love. The lord of righteousness himself could not live
without Love, without the Father in him. Every heart was created for,
and can live no otherwise than in and upon love eternal, perfect, pure,
unchanging; and love necessitates righteousness. In how many souls has
not the very thought of a real God waked a longing to be different, to
be pure, to be right! The fact that this feeling is possible, that a
soul can become dissatisfied with itself, and desire a change in itself,
reveals God as an essential part of its being; for in itself the soul is
aware that it cannot be what it would, what it ought--that it cannot set
itself right: a need has been generated in the soul for which the soul
can generate no supply; a presence higher than itself must have caused
that need; a power greater than itself must supply it, for the soul
knows its very need, its very lack, is of something greater than itself.

But the primal need of the human soul is yet greater than this; the
longing after righteousness is only one of the manifestations of it; the
need itself is that of _existence not self-existent_ for the
consciousness of the presence of the causing Self-existent. It is the
man's need of God. A moral, that is, a human, a spiritual being, must
either be God, or one with God