Our rationality tells us that obedience is naught
unless we love to obey, but an inward conviction of the soul--may we not
call it the voice of God?--entreats us, saying, "this do, and thou shalt
live." If, in the ardor of our faith, we can forget our rationality, and
cry, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief"; and if we force
ourselves to do that which we are commanded, though at first it may
appear to us an act purely external and dead, we shall soon find, that,
if planted in darkness, it is still a living seed, and the Lord will
water it till it shall spring into a growth of beauty that our hearts
will cleave to with delight.
The first obedience of the soul that has entered upon the way of
regeneration is hardly less ignorant than that of the little child who
obeys his parent without comprehending the use or propriety of his
commands; and, like that of the little child, it consists in abstaining
from doing that which is wrong, rather than in doing that which is
right. As the child grows older, he can look back upon those commands
and understand them; and then he is filled with gratitude and love
towards his parent for putting them upon him. So he who seeks to love
the Lord must obey first, and understand afterward,--must keep the
commandments ere he can know the doctrines,--must abstain from doing
wrong before the Lord can implant in his heart the love of doing right.
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