The Spirit's Abolition of the Sense of Merit

“Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” — GAL, iii, 2,

reiae HAT Paul asks is really this, “Did %, the Spirit come to you through a sense of past attainment or through the sense of future expectancy?” “Did it come from the pride of work already done, or did it rise in the humble hope that strength would be given for work yet to do?” Let us try to understand Paul’s meaning. What was your first proof that you had received the spirit of poetry? Was it when you looked back on the wretched verses of your boyhood and pronounced them very good? No; that was a proof that you had mot the spirit. of poetry. But it was when you stood before the judgment seat of John Milton and saw the books opened — the ‘Paradise Lost” and the “Comus” and the “Lycidas,” when you

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felt that in the blaze of their glory your own works were burned for evermore, when there rose within your humbled soul the hope that one day you might be allowed to catch some faintest far off gleam of that poetic vision, it. was then and only then that the spirit of poetry was yours. You received that spirit when you found your past works to be vile.

Son of man, Thou hast robbed me of my glory. Before I saw Thee I was proud of my past works; my ideal was low and I was easily satisfied. But one day it was said to me “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by,” and I went out to see Thee. I saw Thee by that vision of the soul which men call faith, and that instant I died. I fell to the earth broken and blinded and the rags of my self-righteousness were consumed by the brightness of Thy coming. Yesterday I strutted through the temple and cried, “Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men;” to-day I beat upon my breast and say, “Unclean, unclean; Lord, be merciful to mea sinner.” And yet I am nearer to Thee now than I. was then; I would not go back to yesterday. It is light and not darkness that reveals my distance from Thee. It is the rise of the Star of Bethlehem that tells me Thou art in advance of me, going on before. It is the height of my new ideal which prevents me from being satisfied; it is the jealousy of my enlarging love that will not let me say ‘Well done.” O Sun of Righteousness whose healing wings begin by overshadowing me, O spotless Lamb whose glory crucifies my pride, O Pearl of great price before whose flashing radiance my gold indeed is dim, the shadow and the cross and the dimness are all from Thee. It is Thy Spirit within me that has taught me Thy height above me; my despair of myself is born of faith in Thee.