inward spirit, is a pharisaical virtue which may appear strict, but which draws forth from Our Lord the just reproach: ‘ This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’ [1] This is false justice. But what can we say of those who have not even this exterior virtue and exactness, but that they are worse than the Jew and the Pharisee?
The second defect of Mosaic Justice, as St Paul says, is that ' not knowing the justice of God’ — by which He makes us just — ‘and seeking to establish their own’ — that is, thinking they are virtuous of themselves — they ‘ have not submitted themselves to the justice of God.’ [2] They have, in fact, fancied that they did good by their own strength instead of acknowledging that it was God who worked in them.
St Paul had once practised this kind of virtue — but see how he afterwards speaks of it: [3] ‘According to the justice that is in the law, conversing without blame.’ Observe those words ‘ without blame ’; one would think that perfection could not be carried further, and yet at once he adds: ‘ But the things that were gain to me ’ (according to the Law) ‘the same I have counted loss for Christ. Furthermore, I count all
