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‘The relation of any particular injunction to the whole life of the soul is the relationship, I think, of the artist to the particular rules and laws that govern what he is doing. Take, for example, the realm of music. A man may play a piece of great music quite accurately; he may make no mistakes at all. And yet it may be true to say of him that he did not really play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. He played the notes correctly, but it was not the Sonata. What was he doing? He was mechanically striking the right notes, but missing the soul and the real interpretation. He wasn’t doing what Beethoven intended and meant. That, I think, is the relationship between the whole and the parts. The artist, the true artist, is always correct. Even the greatest artist cannot afford to neglect rules and regulations. But that is not what makes him the great artist. It is this something extra, the expression; it is the spirit, it is the life, it is “the whole” that he is able to convey. There it seems to me is the relationship of the particular to the general in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot divorce, you cannot separate them. The Christian, while he puts his emphasis upon the spirit, is also concerned about the letter. But he is not concerned only about the letter, and he must never consider the letter apart from the spirit.’
‘It cannot be said too often that law-keeping can never be the means of sanctification, but it will certainly be the result… The new life of the believer, expressed in a new and active obedience, is itself freedom. “For freedom did Christ set us free.” “Oh how I love Thy law,” cries the Christian. Love now binds him in a manner that legalism never could; but this “bondage” is liberty itself. Love obligates him to an obedience to the will of God from which he has no desire to be released, and this is perfect freedom. As the liberty of a railway train is that it should keep to the track, and to jump the rails would bring nothing but disaster, so the believer, constrained by the love of God will run in the way of his commandments (Psalm 119:32). The Christian now does as he likes, but he has such a new and powerful set of likes that he is held to his Lord and Master in mightier ways than ever he had been held in his slavery to sin. His spiritual freedom is such as the musician experiences when the scales and exercises have become easy, and work has turned to play. The rules are lost in the delight of musical satisfaction.’
