He intensified it all, and His Commandment is far harder to flesh and
blood than any commandments that were ever given. But for all that, the
yoke that He lays upon our necks is, if I may so say, padded with
velvet; and the burden that we have to draw behind us is laid upon
wheels that will turn so easily that the load is diminished, inasmuch as
for Duty He substitutes Himself and says to us, 'If ye love Me, keep My
Commandments.'

So, dear brethren! here is a very easily applied, and a very
far-reaching test for us who call ourselves Christians: Does our love
and does our trust culminate in practical righteousness? We are all
tempted to make too much of the emotions of the religious life, and too
little of its persistent, dogged obedience. We are all too apt to think
that a Christian is a man that believes in Jesus Christ. 'Justification
by faith alone without the works of the law' used to be the watchword of
the Evangelical Church. It might be so held as to be either a blessed
truth or a great error, and many of us make it an error instead of a
blessing.

On the other hand, there is only one way by which righteousness can be
attained, and that is: first by faith and then by love. Here are three
steps: 'we have known and believed the love that God hath to us'; that
is the broad, bottom step. And above it 'we love Him because He first
loved us,' that is the central one. And on the top of all, 'herein is
our love made perfect that we keep His Commandments.' They that trust
are they also who love Thy Name, and they who trust through love are,
and only they are, the righteous.