CHRIST’S teaching of the lawyer, whom He not only told to look for the way of salvation in the law, but commended for finding it there, and enjoined to keep it as the condition of salvation: “This do, and thou shalt live.” The fact is, the way of salvation has always been the same, since man became a sinner. Eternal life has always been a free gift in CHRIST. Not for their merits or deservings does GOD love men; not by their own inventions or labours do they procure acceptance. The precious blood of CHRIST shed (in effect) before the foundation of the world, has ever been the fountain for sin; the intercession of CHRIST has ever been the means of reconciliation; the grace of CHRIST’S sanctified human nature applied by the Holy Spirit has ever been the leaven of regeneration, of conversion, of perfection in holiness and fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light. But GOD has never been indifferent to the way in which men receive His free gifts. He at first created man for His own glory, and He has redeemed, and would sanctify him for His glory. He made man to love Him, to depend on Him, to render Him the grateful homage of a free-will service, to reflect His own glorious attributes of holiness and love. The sin of Adam and Eve was not that they ate of a particular fruit reserved from them, but that they frustrated the end for which they were created; that they found not their delight in the way of GOD’S will; that they chose for themselves out of Him; that they doubted His truth, gave themselves over to the influence and dominion of another lord. They would have sinned as greatly, as hatefully, had they scrupulously refrained from the deed of sin, but in their hearts longed after it, and in their hearts murmured against the restriction, and disputed the importance or the justice of it. And so the holiness of pardoned man does not consist in the mere mechanical, servile, or selfish rendering of outward obedience, in the number of enjoined things which he does, and the number of forbidden things which he avoids; but in the inward love and gratitude which he feels towards GOD, in his filial reverence of his Heavenly Father, in his delight to carry out GOD’S known will, and his anxiety to learn more, that he may do more of it, in his heart’s beating, so to speak, in unison with GOD’S heart, and his life’s reflecting GOD’S light and love.