Obedience Entire by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 29, 1908

Obedience Entire.

By Editor

[The following excellent paragraphs are selected from Rev. Charles G. Finney’s lecture on “Obedience Entire.” We regret that our space will not permit the publishing of the lecture in full, for the paragraphs that we quote are but a sample of the excellence of the whole production.]

THE government of God accepts nothing as virtue but obedience to the law of God.

But it may be asked, Why state this proposition? Was this truth ever called in question? I answer that the truth of this proposition, tho apparently so self-evident that to raise the question may reasonably excite astonishment, is generally denied. Indeed, probably nine-tenths of the nominal church deny it. They tenaciously hold sentiments that are entirely contrary to it and amount to a direct denial of it. They maintain that there is much true virtue in the world, and yet that there is no one who ever for a moment obeys the law of God; that all Christians are virtuous, and that they are truly religious, and yet not one of earth obeys the moral law of God; in short, that God accepts as virtue that which, in every instance, comes short of obedience to His law. And yet it is generally asserted in their articles of faith that obedience to moral law is the only proper evidence of a change of heart. With this sentiment in their creed, they will brand as a heretic, or as a hypocrite, any one who professes to obey the law, and maintain that men may be, and are pious, and eminently so, who do not obey the law of God. This sentiment, which every one knows to be generally held by those who are styled orthodox Christians, must assume that there is some rule of right, or of duty, besides the moral law; or that virtue, or true religion, does not imply obedience to any law.

God has never proclaimed any other rule of duty, and should He do it, it could not be obligatory. The moral law did not originate in His arbitrary will. He did not create it, nor can He alter it, or introduce any other rule of right among moral agents. Can God make anything else right than to love Him with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves?—Surely not. Some have strangely dreamed that the law of faith has superseded the moral law. But we shall see that moral law is not made void, but is established by the law of faith. True faith, from its very nature, always implies love or obedience to the moral law; and love or obedience to the moral law always implies faith. As has been said on a former occasion, no being can create law. Nothing is, or can be, obligatory on a moral agent but the course of conduct suited to his nature and relations. No being can set aside the obligation to do this. Nor can any being render anything more than this obligatory. Indeed, there can not possibly be any other rule of duty than the moral law. There can be no other standard with which to compare our actions, and in the light of which to decide their moral character.