If I tell my child to remain in the house when he wishes to go out, he may obey; but it is not a law of liberty to him-he restrains his will. But if I afterward say, Now go where you wish to go, he obeys, and it is a law of liberty, because his will and the command are the same, they run together.
The will of God was for Jesus a law of liberty; He came to do His Father's will, He desired nothing else. Blessed state! It was perfection in Him, a blessed example for us. The law is a law of liberty when the will, the heart of man, coincides perfectly in desire with the law imposed upon him-imposed, in our case, by God -the law written in the heart. It is thus with the new man as with the heart of Christ. He loves obedience, and loves the will of God, because it is His will, and as having a nature which answers to what His will expresses, since we partake of the divine nature-in fact it loves that which God wills. J. N. D.
True religion is shown by love in the heart, and by purity-keeping himself unspotted from the world. It thinks of others, of those who are in distress, in need of protection, and the help and support of love-as widows and orphans. The truly religious heart, full of the love of God, and moved by Him, thinks, as God does, upon sorrow, weakness, and need. It is the true christian character.