"And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God"
(Acts 16:25).
What can turn the statutes into songs, take the sting out of the commandments, make the will of God a delight? When it is all transfigured by the glory of love. Love inspires obedience to law, and makes it easy. If we see law not as something external, an obligation imposed on us from without, a despotism against which we cannot rebel, and to which we can only sullenly submit; if we see law as the law of our own life, the fruit of the tenderest and highest love, the commandments are seen not to be grievous, and obedience becomes sweet and natural. We know the difference between obedience dictated by fear and obedience dictated by love. When we are brought into a personal relation to God and enter into fellowship with Him, we realise that even in the making of our own moral life, in the creating of our own character, we are fellow-workers with God. We desire the same end as He does, and it is the best end.
The love of Christ is the great instrument of sanctification; for it breeds in us a passion to do God's will and keep His commandments. 'Ye are complete in Him,' says St. Paul. He fills out our incompleteness, and for the first time we feel that we are truly ourselves, and for the first time really possess our souls, and are in harmony with the great end of our existence. When our heart is enlarged we can run in the way of God's commandments. Life breaks out into music and light.
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Hugh Black was a Scottish-American theologian and author.
Black was born on March 26, 1868 in Rothesay, Scotland. He received a Master of Arts degree from Glasgow University in 1887, and studied divinity at Free Church College in Glasgow from 1887 until 1891. Black was ordained in 1891 and became associate pastor at St. George's Free Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh in 1896, where he worked with Alexander Whyte.
Black emigrated to the United States in 1906 to accept the position of chair of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Yale University in 1908 and from Princeton University and Glasgow University in 1911, and later accepted a position of pastor of the First Congregational Church in Montclair, New Jersey. Black retired from Union Theological Seminary in 1938.
Black also authored numerous books and sermons.