unaffected.  Jesus has a deeper view of sin, a stronger psychology, than these, nor does he, like some quick thinkers of to-day, put sin down to a man’s environment, as if certain surroundings inevitably meant sin.  Jesus is quite definite that sin is nothing accidental—­it is involved in a man’s own nature, in his choice, it comes from the heart, and it speaks of a heart that is wrong.  When we survey the four groups, it comes to one central question at last:  Has a man been in earnest with himself about God’s dealings with him?  Hardness and lust make a man play the fool with human souls whom God loves and cares for—­a declaration of war on God himself.  Wilful self-deception about God needs no comment; to shilly-shally and let decision slide, where God is concerned, is atheism too.  In a word, what is a man’s fundamental attitude to God and God’s facts?  That is Jesus’ question.  Sin is tracked home to the innermost and most essential part of the man—­his will.  It is no outward thing, it is inward.  It is not that evil befalls us, but that we are evil.  In the words of Edward Caird, “the passion that misleads us is a manifestation of the same ego, the same self-conscious reason which is misled by it,” and thus, as Burns puts it, “it is the very ‘light from heaven’ that leads us astray.”  The man uses his highest God-given faculties, and uses them against God.

But this is not all.  Many people will agree with the estimate of Jesus, when they understand it, in regard to most of these classes; perhaps they would urge that in the main it is substantially the same teaching as John the Baptist’s, though it implies, as we shall see, a more difficult problem in getting rid of sin.  Jesus goes further.  He holds up to men standards of conduct which transcend anything yet put before mankind.  “Be ye therefore perfect,” he says, “even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).  When we recall what Jesus teaches of God, when we begin to try to give to “God” the content he intended, we realize with amazement what he is saying.  He is holding up to men for their ideal of conduct the standard of God’s holiness, of God’s love and tenderness.  Everything that Jesus tells us of God—­all that he has to say of the wonderful and incredible love of God and of God’s activity on behalf of his children—­he now incorporates in the ideal of conduct to which men are called.  John’s conceptions of righteousness grow beggarly.  Here is a royal magnificence of active love, of energetic sympathy, tenderness, and self-giving, asked of us, who find it hard enough to keep the simplest commandments from our youth up (Mark 10:20).  We are to love our enemies, to win them, to make peace, to be pure—­and all on the scale of God.  And that this may not seem mere talk in the air, there is the character and personality of Jesus, embodying all he asks of us—­bringing out new wonders of God’s goodness, the ugliness and evil of sin, and the positive and redemptive beauty of righteousness.