devotion, and to practice it. Thus, I say, the Jews were dealt with from Moses to CHRIST, and then men were bidden to put away childish things—the Spirit being given to raise them above childishness—and henceforth to render enlarged, enlightened, loving service to GOD. They were not released from reverence and submission: very few commandments hitherto observed were repealed, save those that were typical and ceremonial, and which, of course, gave way to the antitype and to the new ritual of Christianity; but henceforth, they were told, GOD would not be pleased with mere literal obedience: Do what you did before, but do it in the spirit, and carry it farther, and search about to see whether your own hearts and minds cannot regulate your lives in things not prescribed. Indeed, all this had been told them before, as the quotation of the lawyer from Deuteronomy alone would suffice to show; but it was not so strictly required of them as it is of us, because allowance was made for their childish want of spiritual comprehension, and because the perfection of obedience was postponed till the full strength was given to render it, as well as the enlightened mind to understand it. In Gospel times the law is spiritualised, the observance of the commandments is extended beyond the outward life, to the very thoughts and desires. To covet is to steal, to lust is to commit adultery, to hate is to murder! Hence, while in one sense, our obedience is easier, because we render it under the influence of enlightened minds and kindled feelings, of love and gratitude—whereas, the Jew was perpetually crossing and driving himself to keep a law which had no other recommendation to him than that its observance preserved him from immediate chastisement—in other respects, our obedience is not only more imperatively necessary, because our privileges and responsibilities are greater, but it must be more precise, because any wilful deviation from it—in us who are of a mature and enlightened age—will surely indicate an unloving heart; and he that has no love has no spiritual life! This, after all, is the distinction between the good works of the Jew and those of the Christian; not that the former sought salvation on account of them, while the latter makes them but the tribute of praise and love for salvation—for the Jew believed that he was saved by ordinances, not by works—but that the Jew’s was the enforced obedience of slavish fear, while the Christian’s is the spontaneous expression of filial love. If the Christian were perfect in moral perception, he would be a law to himself, and would need but little of a written law; but not being thus perfect, he finds his greatest help to glorify GOD, in the studying and following of the Mosaic laws, which are samples and specimens furnished by GOD, of acceptable works, and which, moreover, are a standard whereby he may measure, not so much how near, as how far he is, from doing the whole will of GOD.