But should any one plead human infirmity to exculpate himself from not loving God, it is not to be forgotten that he who demands our love "pours into our hearts by the Holy Ghost" the fervour of his love, [1] " and this good Spirit our Heavenly Father gives to those that ask him." [2] " Give what thou commandest," says St. Augustine, " and command what thou pleasest." [3] As then, God is ever ready by his divine assistance to sustain our weakness, especially since the death of Christ the Lord, by which the prince of this world was cast out; there is no reason why we should be disheartened by the difficulty of the undertaking; to him who loves, nothing is difficult. [4]
To show that we are all laid under the necessity of obeying the Law is a consideration, which must possess additional weight in the enforcement of its observance; and it becomes the more necessary to dwell on this particular in these our days, when there are not wanting those who, to the serious injury of their own souls, have the impious hardihood to assert that the observance of the Law, whether easy or difficult, is by no means necessary to salvation. This wicked and impious error the pastor will refute from Scripture, by the authority of which they endeavour to defend their impious doctrine. What then are the words of the Apostle? " Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." [5] Again, inculcating the same doctrine, he says: "A new creature, in Christ, alone avails;" [6] by a "new creature," evidently meaning him who observes the commandments of God; for, as our Lord himself testifies in St. John, he who observes the commandments of God loves God: " If any one love me," says the Redeemer, " he will keep my word." [7] A man, it is true, may be justified, and from wicked may become righteous, before he has fulfilled by external acts each of the divine commandments; but no one who has arrived at the use of reason, unless sincerely disposed to observe them all, can be justified.
Finally, to leave nothing unsaid that may be calculated to induce to an observance of the Law, the pastor will point out how abundant and sweet are its fruits. This he will easily accomplish by referring to the eighteenth psalm, which celebrates the praises of the divine Law, amongst which its highest eulogy is, that it proclaims more eloquently the glory and the majesty of God than even the celestial orbs, which by their beauty and order, excite the admiration of the most barbarous nations, and compel them to acknowledge and proclaim the glory, the wisdom, and the power of the Creator and Architect of the universe. "The Law of the Lord" also "converts souls:" knowing the ways of God and his holy will through the medium of his Law, we learn to walk in the way of the Lord. It
