WHAT should we say of that criminal, who upon being brought in guilty, and upon being condemned to death, stood up and inquired what good things the law of the land expected from him, for those good things he would do in order that he might live? A madman, we should say, or madly insensible to his condition. The sentence of death passed, it is too late to speak of meriting life by future good deeds.
Yet apply this to things spiritual. Every day men are saying, "What shall I do? How shall I keep the law?" God, the Judge, has declared all the world guilty before Him. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." (Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19).) It is all too late to talk of meriting life by works, too late by near two thousand years. It is mad unbelief thus to speak, unbelief in the word of God—"guilty.”