As I have been saying, it is sadly far ahead of the experience-of crowds of so-called Christians. There are still great numbers of professing Christians, and I doubt not that I speak to some such, on whose hearts only a very few of the syllables of God's will are written, and these very faintly and blotted. But remember that the fundamental idea of this whole context is that of a covenant, and a covenant implies two parties, and duties and obligations on the part of each. If God is in covenant with you, you are in covenant with God. If He makes a promise, there is something for you to do in order that that promise may be fulfilled to you.
What is there to do? First, and last, and midst, keep close to Jesus Christ. In the measure in which we keep ourselves in continual touch with Him, will His law be written upon our hearts. If we are for ever twitching away the paper; if we are for ever flinging blots and mud upon it, how can we expect the transcript to be clear and legible? We must keep still that God may write. We must wait habitually in His presence. When the astronomer wishes to get the image of some far-off star, invisible to the eye of sense, he regulates the motion of his sensitive plate, so that for hours it shall continue right beneath the unseen beam. So we have to still our hearts, and keep their plates--the fleshy tables of them--exposed to the heavens. Then the likeness of God will be stamped there.
Be faithful to what is written there, which is the Christian shape of the heathen commandment--Do the duty that lies nearest thee; so shall the next become plainer.' Be faithful to the line that is written,' and there will be more on the tablet to-morrow.
Now this is a promise for us all. However blotted and blurred and defaced by crooked, scrawling letters, like a child's copy-book, with its first pot-hooks and hangers, our hearts may be, there is no need for any of us to say despairingly, as we look on the smeared page, What I have written I have written.' He is able to blot it all out, to take away the hand-writing '--our own--that is against us, nailing it to His Cross,' and to give us, in our inmost spirits, a better knowledge of, and a glad obedience to, His discerned and holy will. So that each of us, if we choose, and will observe the conditions, may be able to say with all humility, Lo! I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, yea! Thy law is within my heart.'
