re or less of a
religious character. Thus religious obedience is, as it were, a spirit
dwelling in us, extending its influence to every motion of the soul;
and just as healthy men and strong men show their health and strength
in all they do (not indeed equally in all things, but in some things
more than in others, because all actions do not require or betoken the
presence of that health and strength, and yet even in their step, and
their voice, and their gestures, and their countenance, showing in due
measure their vigour of body), so they who have the true health and
strength of the soul, a clear, sober, and deep faith in Him in whom
they have their being, will in all they do, nay (as St. Paul says),
even whether they "eat or drink[1]," be living in God's sight, or, in
the words of the same Apostle in the text, live in ceaseless prayer.

If it be said that no man on earth does thus continually and perfectly
glorify and worship God, this we all know too well; this is only saying
that none of us has reached perfection. We know, alas! that in many
things all of us offend. But I am speaking not of what we _do_, but of
what we _ought to do_, and must aim at doing,--of _our duty_; and, for
the sake of impressing our duty on our hearts, it is of use to draw the
picture of a man perfectly obedient, as a pattern for us to aim at. In
proportion as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Saviour, so
shall we approximate to Him in obedience, who is our great example, and
who alone of all the sons of Adam lived in the perfection of unceasing
prayer.

Thus the meaning and reasonableness of the command in the text is shown
by considering it as a natural duty, religion being no accident which
comes and goes by fits and starts, but a certain spirit or life.

2. Now, secondly, I will state all this in the language of Scripture;
that is, I will confirm this view of our duty, which natural reason
might suggest, by that other and far clearer voice of God, His inspired
word.

How is religious obedience described in Scripture? Surely as a certain
kind of life. We know what life of the body is; it is a state of the
body: the pulse beats; all things are in motion. The hidden principle
of life, though we know not how or what it is, is seen in these outward
signs of it. And so of the life of the soul. The soul, indeed, was
not possessed of this life of God when first born into the world. We
are born with dead souls; that is, d