Self-Righteousness Destroyed

worlddic.com

Galatians 2:16

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ…

The squirrel in his wire cage, continually in motion but making no progress, reminds me of my own self-righteous efforts after salvation, but the little creature is never one-half so wearied by his exertions as I was by mine. The poor chiffonier in Paris trying to earn a living by picking dirty rags out of the kennel, succeeds far better than I did in my attempts to obtain comfort by my own works. Dickens's cab-horse, which was only able to stand because it was never taken out of the shafts, was strength and beauty itself compared with my starveling hopes propped up with resolutions and regulations. Wretches condemned to the galleys of the old French kings, whose only reward for incessant toils was the lash of the keeper, were in a more happy plight than I when under legal bondage. Slavery in mines where the sun never shines must be preferable to the miseries of a soul goaded by an awakened conscience to seek salvation by its own merits. Some of the martyrs were shut up in a dungeon called Little-ease; the counterpart of that prison-house I well remember. Iron chains are painful enough, but what is the pain when the iron enters into the soul? Tell us not of the writhings of the wounded and dying on the battle-field; some of us, when our heart was riddled by the artillery of the law, would have counted wounds and death a happy exchange. O blessed Saviour, how blissful was the hour when all this horrid midnight of the soul was changed into the day-dawn of pardoning love!

worlddic.com