40 Possibility of habitual Obedience. CHAP. 



for which there was much provocation and excuse, 

 but his unfilial feeling towards his father, for which 

 there was none. He was no doubt a true and obedient 

 son : his boast, " I never transgressed a commandment 

 of thine," remained uncontradicted, and was evidently 

 true. But from our Christian point of view the 

 question must arise, How is this possible 1 How can 

 any man say that he never transgressed a command- 

 ment of his heavenly Father? As the wise king 

 said, " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I 

 am pure from my sin 1 " T or, as the same thought 

 has been expanded by Matthew Arnold 



What mortal, when he saw, 

 Life's voyage done, his Heavenly Friend, 

 Could ever yet dare tell Him fearlessly : 

 I have kept uninfringed iny nature's law : 

 The inly written chart Thou gavest me 

 To guide me, I have kept by to the end ? 



The difficulty, however, disappears if we are 

 satisfied to use words in a way that is sanctioned by 

 Scripture, and not to insist on the most definite 

 theological sense of every word. What is meant is 

 not perfect obedience, for this is attained by none, 

 but constant habitual obedience, which is attained by 

 many. The apostle who says, "If we say that we 

 have no sin, we deceive ourselves," says a little 

 farther on, "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not." 2 

 That is to say, no one is sinless, but he that abides in 

 Christ does not abide in sin. 



1 Proverbs xx. 9. 2 1st Epistle of John i. 8 and iii. 6. 



