ABSTRACT
ONE of the distinctions oftenest made at the present day is between religion and morality. There never was a time when the authority of morality was more readily acknowledged, at least in theory; there never was a time when religion was called more frequently and imperiously to stand on the defensive. We turn to the poets or philosophers for moral inspiration: we leave the Bible unread. It is seldom recognised that there is one ideal common to all the Biblical writings; that ideal is Righteousness. In Biblical language, Righteousness is, broadly speaking, right conduct in the eyes of God; hence we can speak of the Righteousness of God himself, as well as of the Righteousness of man. Righteousness is indeed ordinarily associated with the Old rather than the New Testament; but neither Amos nor Isaiah is a more passionate exponent of the nature and obligation of Righteousness than is S. Paul; there is hardly a page of S. Paul’s writings but glows with some vindication, some enforcement, of its claims. And S. Paul only echoes the spirit of the teaching of Jesus.
