s the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Our
Lord does not draw out the whole truth, in detail. He gives only the
positive part of the answer, leaving His hearers to infer the negative
part of it. For the whole doctrine of Christ, fully stated, would run
thus: "No work _of the kind of which you are thinking_ can save you;
no obedience of the law, ceremonial or moral, can reinstate you in right
relations to God. I do not summon you to the performance of any such
service as that which you have in mind, in order to your justification
and acceptance before the Divine tribunal. _This_ is the work of
God,--this is the sole and single act which you are to perform,--namely,
that you _believe_ on Him whom He hath sent as a propitiation for sin. I
do not summon you to works of the law, but to faith in Me the Redeemer.
Your first duty is not to attempt to acquire a righteousness in the old
method, by doing something of yourselves, but to receive a righteousness
in the new method, by trusting in what another has done for you."

I. What is the _ground_ and _reason_ of such an answer as this? Why is
man invited to the method of faith in another, instead of the method of
faith in himself? Why is not his first spontaneous thought the true one?
Why should he not obtain eternal life by resolutely proceeding to do his
duty, and keeping the law of God? Why can he not be saved by the law of
works? Why is he so summarily shut up to the law of faith?

We answer: Because it is _too late_ for him to adopt the method of
salvation by works. The law is indeed explicit in its assertion, that the
man that doeth these things shall live by them; but then it supposes that
the man begin at the beginning. A subject of government cannot disobey a
civil statute for five or ten years, and then put himself in right
relations to it again, by obeying it for the remainder of his life. Can a
man who has been a thief or an adulterer for twenty years, and then
practises honesty and purity for the following thirty years, stand up
before the seventh and eighth commandments and be acquitted by them? It
is too late for any being who has violated a law even in a single
instance, to attempt to be justified by that law. For, the law demands
and supposes that obedience begin at the very _beginning_ of existence,
and continue down _uninterruptedly_ to the end of it. No man can come in
at the middle of a process of obedience, any more than he can come in