Dead Works

Dead works are works performed by one whose life is separated from the life of God. When anything is separated from its source, there must be death. Separate the stream from its fountain, and there is death; separate the branch from the tree, and there is death; separate the body from the soul, and there is death; separate the soul from God, and there is death. There may be natural life, but there is spiritual death. The intellect lives; the will lives; the heart lives; the conscience lives; instrumental faculties of action are all alive; but all the works to the production of which they combine, not being instinct with the love of God, are dead works.

It must of course be admitted that the affections of many who are blind and deaf and dumb to God are towards father or mother, wife or child, brother or sister, or friend, all enchanting vivacity and tenderness; but human excellence, parted from God, is like the fabled flower which, according to the Rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of Paradise. Severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden,— sad while charming, beautiful, but dead. Thus separated, men may have the quality of manliness, but not of godliness; towards one another there may be melting love, heroic daring, unbending justice, most magnificent generosity; but, whatever they may be with regard to men, with regard to God they are dead. Alienated from His life, even good works are dead works— dead while they live, dead as the dead leaves on the dead bough parted from its parent stem. — Stanford.