The Standard of Righteousness
By Arthur V. Fox
We must examine ourselves by a proper standard. To find standards by which to try our intellectual treasures is easy. But what is the standard of morals? The common measure of character to-day is not a safe standard. Tares and wheat grow together till the harvest, but the angel-reapers will make a fearful separation in the day that shall burn as an oven. A man without a wedding garment may seat himself at the supper of the Gospel; but detection, exposure, and confusion await him at the inspection of the guests. Not a few will say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name?" to whom the Judge will reply, "Depart from Me," "I never knew you." Nor is sincerity the standard of innocence. We may unintentionally err through ignorance; but this ignorance may be culpable. It certainly is so if it is owing to a neglect of our own faculties or of our means of information. The subject is bound to obey the government. This obligation involves the duty of inquiring into the law. If the law has not been placed within his reach, or if he is unable, with all the aid he can obtain, to understand it, he is exonerated from obedience; otherwise, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Suppose a criminal objects to receiving sentence, because he did not know the law. The judge would respond, "It was your duty to know it; and where knowledge is duty, ignorance is crime." Paul was sincere when he consented to the death of Stephen, and breathed out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord; but was he innocent? He might have known better. We may sincerely desire to do right, yet err because of deficient sensibility of conscience. You ask, "If my moral sense fails to admonish me of obligations, am I not absolved from them?" This depends upon the question whether you have previously obeyed all its monitions. Conscience owes its power, in a great measure, to the treatment it receives. Where, then, is the standard by which we are to try our morals? — It is the law of God. It is easy to show that if this is not the standard, there is none. What is this law? — The one given amid the thunders of Sinai — a law which relates not merely to the overt act, but requires purity in the inner man, claiming him a homicide who merely hates his brother. And while it broadens before our vision so as to sweep the compass of the moral world, it narrows to enter the breast and span the incipient thought of the most solitary man. It is in substance, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Whoever will examine his heart or life by the law thus explained, will see the appalling truth, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. Thus the law will be a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.