And so the requirement of the Gospel which we call faith has in it quite as much of the element of obedience as of the element of trust.  And the presence of that element is just what makes the difference between a sham and a real faith.  ’Faith which has not works is dead, being alone.’  A faith which is all trust and no obedience is neither trust nor obedience.

And that is why so many of us do not care to yield ourselves to the faith that is in Jesus Christ.  If it simply came to us and said, ’If you will trust Me you will get pardon,’ I fancy there would be a good many more of us honest Christians than are so.  But Christ comes and says, ’Trust Me, follow Me, and take Me for your Master; and be like Me,’ and one’s will kicks, and one’s passions recoil, and a thousand of the devil’s servants within us prick their ears up and stiffen their backs in remonstrance and opposition.  ‘Submit’ is Christ’s first word; submit by faith, submit in love.

That heart obedience, which is the requirement of Christianity, means freedom.  The Apostle draws a wonderful contrast in the context between the slavery to lust and sin, and the freedom which comes from obedience to God and to righteousness.  Obey the Truth, and the Truth, in your obeying, shall make you free, for freedom is the willing submission to the limitations which are best.  ’I will walk at liberty for I keep Thy precepts.’  Take Christ for your Master, and, being His servants, you are your own masters, and the world’s to boot.  For ’all things are yours if ye are Christ’s.’  Refuse to bow your necks to that yoke which is easy, and to take upon your shoulders that burden which is light, and you do not buy liberty, though you buy licentiousness, for you become the slaves and downtrodden vassals of the world and the flesh and the devil, and while you promise yourselves liberty, you become the bondsmen of corruption.  Oh! then, let us obey from the heart that mould of teaching to which we are delivered, and so obeying, we shall be free indeed.

‘THY FREE SPIRIT’

   ’The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made
   me free from the law of sin and death.’—­ROMANS viii. 2.

We have to distinguish two meanings of law.  In the stricter sense, it signifies the authoritative expressions of the will of a ruler proposed for the obedience of man; in the wider, almost figurative sense, it means nothing more than the generalised expression of constant similar facts.  For instance, objects attract one another in certain circumstances with a force which in the same circumstances is always the same.  When that fact is stated generally, we get the law of gravitation.  Thus the word comes to mean little more than a regular process.  In our text the word is used in a sense much nearer the latter than the former of these two.  ’The law of sin and of death’ cannot mean a series of commandments; it certainly does not mean the Mosaic law.  It must either be entirely figurative, taking