HERALDS OF GOD
ministerial office, Paul himself reminds us trenchantly in another passage. Read the fourth chapter of First Corinthians, and you will see the apostle's irony flashing like a rapier against the self-display, the acceptance of adulation, and all the stratagems of a latent egotism which too often have intruded themselves into the service of the Lord. Two hundred years ago, William Law in his Serious Call laid it down flatly that to serve Christ self-importantly is to be both a thief and a liar: "It has the guilt of stealing, as it gives to ourselves those things which belong only to God; and it has the guilt of lying, as it is the denying the truth of our state, and pretending to be something that we are not."
This, certainly, is true Biblical teaching. "Who maketh thee to differ from another? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" Imagine a poor dauber setting his amateurish efforts alongside a Raphael or a Titian: "Yes, it is rather good, that work of mine!" What are our best words for Christ compared with the Christ of whom we speak? What is our uttermost of devotion in the presence of that blazing holiness? "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," all our anxious concern "Did I preach well to-day?" is dust and ashes in the presence of the Cross: that every mouth may be stopped before God.
Observe that there are three contributory factors here. The first we have noted already. It is the magnitude of the task. To build something of the New Jerusalem in your own parish and field of labour,
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