There is much true blessing to the soul in every step of obedience, for obedience is the fruit of faith; and faith puts us into living association and communion with God himself. Looking at obedience in this light, we can easily see how distinctly it is marked off, in every feature of it from legality. This latter sets a man with the entire burden of his sins on him to serve God by keeping the law; hence the soul is kept in constant torture, and so far from running in the path of obedience, it has not even taken the very first step. True obedience, on the contrary, is simply the manifestation or outflow of a new nature communicated in grace. To this new nature God graciously imparts precepts for its guidance; and it is perfectly certain that the divine nature guided by the divine precepts can never by any possibility resolve itself into legality. What constitutes legality is the old nature taking up God's precepts and essaying to carry them out. To attempt to regulate man's fallen nature by God's pure and holy law, is as useless and absurd as any thing can be. How could fallen nature breathe an atmosphere so pure? Impossible. Both the atmosphere and the nature must be divine. But not only does the blessed God impart a divine nature to the believer, and guide that nature by his heavenly precepts, he also sets before it suited hopes and expectations. Thus, in Abraham's case, "_The God of glory_ appeared unto him." And for what purpose? To set before his soul's vision an attractive object,--"a land that _I_ will show thee." This was not compulsion but attraction. God's land was in the judgment of the new nature,--the judgment of faith, far better than Ur or Charran: and albeit he had not seen the land, yet, inasmuch as it was God's land, faith judged it to be worth having, and not only worth having, but also fully worth the surrender of present things. Hence we read, "by faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive as an inheritance obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went." That is to say, "he walked by faith, not by sight." Though he had not seen with his eyes, he believed with his heart, and faith became the great moving spring in his soul. Faith rests on a far more solid ground than the evidence of our senses, and that is the word of God. Our senses may deceive us, but God's word never can.