50 Faith Works Character. CHAP. 



would have been judged worthy of death by an 

 earthly tribunal. This warning has the same signifi- 

 cance as His reply, when, on an earlier occasion, the 

 disciples asked which of them was to be greatest in 

 the kingdom of heaven ; and the Lord answered, 

 "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little 

 child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of 

 heaven." 1 And when the two sons of Zebedee 

 asked for the chief places in the kingdom, He told 

 the disciples, " Whosoever would be first among you 

 shall be (i.e. let him be) your servant." 2 



But in what sense is it true that length of service 

 and quantity of work go for nothing in the Divine 

 sight 1 Are patient trial and endurance to have no 

 reward? are they to be, in the eternal world, as 

 though they had never been ? It cannot be so. It 



is true that 



Heaven rejects the lore 

 Of nicely calculated less or more. 3 



But it is also true that "by works is faith made 

 perfect " " is made perfect," not only in the sense 

 of "passes into action and becomes manifest," but in 

 the deeper sense that when right works are done, 

 not legally or mechanically but in a spirit of faith, 

 they pass into character ; and character is formed for 

 eternity. For all, however, " boasting is excluded " ; 

 for "we are not under law but under grace." 4 



To sum up our conclusions. In each of these 



1 Matt, xviii. 1, 4. 2 Matt. xx. 27. 



3 Wordsworth. 4 Rom. iii. 27 and vi. 14. 



