and New Testament ethics, it would have been
impossible for that serious-minded emperor to say, as in his utter
self-delusion he did, to the Deity: "Give me my dues,"--instead of
breathing the prayer: "Forgive me my debts." Christianity elevates the
standard and raises the ideal of moral excellence, and thereby disturbs
the self-complacent feeling of the stoic, and the moralist. If the law and
rule of right is merely an outward one, it is possible for a man
sincerely to suppose that he has kept the law, and his sincerity will be
his ruin. For, in this case, he can maintain a self-reliant and a
self-satisfied spirit, the spirit of manhood, to the very end of his
earthly career, and go with his righteousness which is as filthy rags,
into the presence of Him in whose sight the heavens are not clean. But,
if the law and rule of right is seen to be an inward and spiritual
statute, piercing to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and
becoming a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, it is not
possible for a candid man to delude himself into the belief that he
has perfectly obeyed it; and in this instance, that self-dissatisfied
spirit, that consciousness of internal schism and bondage, that war
between the flesh and the spirit so vividly portrayed in the seventh
chapter of Romans, begins, and instead of the utterance of the moralist:
"I have kept the everlasting law, give me my dues," there bursts forth
the self-despairing cry of the penitent and the child: "O wretched man
that I am.! who shall deliver me? Father I have sinned against heaven and
before thee."

When, therefore, the truth and Spirit of God, working in and with the
natural conscience, have brought a man to that point where he sees that
all his own righteousness is as filthy rags, and that the pure and
stainless righteousness of Jehovah must become the possession and the
characteristic of his soul, he is prepared to believe the declaration of
our text: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child, he shall not enter therein." The new heart, and the right
spirit,--the change, not in the mere external behavior but, in the very
disposition and inclination of the soul,--excludes every jot and tittle
of self-assertion, every particle of proud and stoical manhood.

Such a text as this which we have been considering is well adapted to put
us upon the true method of attaining everlasting life. These few and
simple words actually