) It ignores the ineradicable taint of sin in man, and the
accumulated guilt of particular sins. A man may gloss over his inward
sinfulness, and cloak and ignore his secret sins; he {167} may live
outwardly in high reputation; but if he comes to know himself, he knows
himself as a sinner, who depends, at starting, absolutely on God for
forgiveness and 'deliverance from coming wrath.'

(3) It is quite contented to leave all mankind, except a small elect
body, out of the conditions of acceptance with God.

In substituting 'faith' for works of the law, then, as the principle of
justification, St. Paul was really 'returning to nature'; he was
realizing facts, and supplying a basis for a morality both progressive
and universal. Further, he was true to all the highest teaching of the
Old Testament, which continually finds the source and ground of sin and
failure in man's independence of God; which is averse to nothing so
conspicuously as to substituting external conformity for moral
character; which is heavy with the consciousness of sin; which humbly
expects a fuller, wider, and richer disclosure of the kingdom of God.
Finally, he was true to that deep and summary teaching of our Lord to
the Jews, 'This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath
sent.' No doubt it may still be said St. Paul argues in an
'uncritical' manner on the basis of a particular {168} text. But in
doing this he was doing as his Jewish contemporaries did; and if the
particular text is used to prove a real or true principle, who shall
complain of it?

2. And now to conciliate St. Paul and St. James. It is a satisfactory
task, for the statements which appear so contradictory admit, when they
are examined, of an easy harmony.

Let us suppose, what is highly probable, that the report of St. Paul's
teaching reached St. James at Jerusalem at second-hand, in a
fragmentary and perverted manner--perhaps as illustrated by unfortunate
specimens of its influence where it was wilfully misunderstood. 'Men
are justified before God by faith without consideration of works.' St.
James' holy and beautiful, but no doubt somewhat unphilosophical mind,
was alarmed and scandalized. By faith he understood an intellectual
quality--the acceptance of the divine truth revealed; and he points out
with the simplicity of moral common sense, that never in the Old
Testament is right belief represented as the ground of acceptance with
God without the right cond