(6) Goodness. — There is a first and second goodness. Man is born into a garden, as that story runs. Eight impulses, per- ceptions that the good is better and more beautiful than the bad — these are not wanting in the early, the unregenerate life. And yet that life is unregenerate. It must be born again. Those good impulses, that mere sense of the beauty of goodness, that ignorance of vice, are not the true strength of the moral man, in which he can resist temptation and really grow to God. That fails. He dies out of that ; and, once out of that, he never can go back to it again. The angels and the flaming sword are at the
1 J. C. Eyle, The Christian Race, 51.
* W. J. Dawson, The Empire of Love^ 115.
ST. JOHN III. 5 179
gate, to keep any man who has been innocent, and feinued, from ever returning to innocence again.
^ There is a natural goodness ; there is also a relative good- ness. Some men are naturally good-tempered ; it costs them nothing to be amiable ; it would be difficult for them to be severe even in the judgment of wrong, — they would excuse it, or wink at it, or in some way escape the duty of branding it. And some are constitutionally more generous than others. They like to give ; they like to lighten burdens, and to help the blind and the weak over difficult roads. This, indeed, is beautiful, charming, as are also other wild flowers often found in hedge-rows or in rocky places.^
^ The very first mark of regeneration is straightness. Oh, for a revival of Divine righteousness in our business circles ! oh, for a revival of Divine righteousness in our ecclesiastical dealings with money ! oh, for a revival of Divine righteousness in our family lives ! The first mark that God gives is not any inward ecstasy, is not any peculiarity of feeling, is not the singing of hymns, and saying Hallelujah ; the first mark of regeneration is that you are straight inside and straight outside. He that doeth righteousness, hath been born of God.^
(7) Progress. — When we are born again it is not only to a position but a power, not only to give us a technical right to certain promises and possessions, but to enable us to enter upon them and to use them. There is, indeed, a new creation in us — a power that never existed before ; and one which, though it may be very small at first, still does exist, and will go on growing and growing day by day, until it assumes a real and vigorous proportion which all our enemies " shall not be able to gainsay nor resist."
H Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men : it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jeru- salem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal : it is easier.^
^ J. Parker. ^ G. C. Grubb, Unsearchable Riches, 29.
» G. K. Chesterton, OHhodoxy, 193.
i8o A NEW BEGINNING
^ The soul's whole life is in progress, in the eternal search, the quest of the Grail. .
Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost in an endless sea —
Glory of virtue to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong, — Nay but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she : Give her the glory of going on and still to be.
The wages of sin is death; if the wages of virtue be dust Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly ?
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove or to bask in a summer sky; Give her the wages of going on and not to die.
/ This " going on " is the life of the soul. It is the essential thing in Christian character, which is not a possession of finished qualities, but a stern self-government under the will of God to the end of the widest service and an unending attainment.^
^ One of the most interesting aspects of the life of St. Francis
^ is, in fact, the continual development revealing itself in him. He is one of the small number to whom to live is to be active, and to be active is to make progress. There is hardly any one except St. Paul in whom is found to the same degree the devouring need of being always something more, always something better.^
Our course is onward, onward into light: What though the darkness gathereth amain, Yet to return or tarry, both are vain. How tarry, when around us is thick night? Whither return? what flower yet ever might, In days of gloom and cold and stormy rain, Enclose itself in its green bud again. Hiding from wrath of tempest out of sight? Courage — we travel through a darksome cave; But still as nearer to the light we draw. Fresh gales will reach us from the upper air. And wholesome dews of heaven our foreheads lave, The darkness lighten more, till full of awe We stand in the open sunshine unaware.^