The Law Written in the Heart

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 29, 1882,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON.

After those days, says the Lord, I will put My Law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts."

Jeremiah 31:33.

LAST Lord's-Day morning [GOD'S NON-REMEMBRANCE OF SIN–NO. 1685] we
spoke of the first great blessing of the Covenant of Grace, namely, the
full forgiveness of sins. Then we dilated with delight upon that
wonderful promise, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
more," I hope our consciences were pacified and our hearts filled with
wonder as we thought of God's casting behind His back all the sins of
His people, so that we could sing with David, "Bless the Lord, O my
soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O
my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your
iniquities."

This great blessing of pardoned sin is always connected with the
renewal of the heart. It is not given because of the change of heart,
but it is always given with the change of heart. If God takes away the
guilt of sin, He is sure, at the same time, to remove the power of sin.
If He puts away our offenses against His Law, He also makes us desire,
in the future, to obey the Law of God. In our text we observe the
excellence and dignity of the Law of God. The Gospel has not come into
the world to set aside the Law. Salvation by Grace does not erase a
single precept of the Law, nor lower the standard of justice in the
smallest degree–on the contrary, as Paul says–we do not make void the
Law through faith, but we establish the Law.

The Law is never honored by fallen man till he comes from under its
condemning rule, walks by faith and lives under the Covenant of Grace.
When we were under the Covenant of Works, we dishonored the Law, but
now we venerate it as a perfect display of moral rectitude. Our Lord
Jesus has shown to an assembled universe that the Law is not to be
trifled with and that every transgression and disobedience must receive
a just recompense of reward, since the sin which He bore on our account
brought upon Him, as our innocent Substitute, the doom of suffering and
death. Our Lord Jesus has testified, by His death, that even if sin is
pardoned, yet it is not put away without an expiatory Sacrifice. The
death of Christ rendered more honor to the Law than all the obedience
of all who were ever under it could have rendered! And it was a more
forcible vindication of eternal justice than if all the redeemed had
been cast into Hell.

When the Holy One smites His own Son, His wrath against sin is evident
to all. But this is not enough. The Law is, in the Gospel, not only
vindicated by the Sacrifice of Christ, but it is honored by the work of
the Spirit of God upon the hearts of men. Whereas under the Old
Covenant, the commands of the Law excited our evil natures to
rebellion–under the Covenant of Grace we consent unto the Law, that it
is good, and our prayer is, "Teach me to do Your will, O Lord." What
the Law could not do because of the weakness of the flesh, the Gospel
has done through the Spirit of God! Thus the Law is held in honor among
Believers and though they are no more under it as a Covenant of Works,
they are, in a measure, conformed to it as they see it in the life of
Christ Jesus, and they delight in it after the inward man.

Things required by the Law are bestowed by the Gospel. God demands
obedience under the Law–God works obedience under the Gospel. Holiness
is asked of us by the Law–holiness is worked in us by the Gospel so
that the difference between the economics of Law and Gospel is not to
be found in any diminution of the demands of the Law, but in the actual
giving unto the redeemed that which the Law exacted of them–and in the
working in them that which the Law required. Notice, beloved Friends,
that under the Old Covenant, the Law of God was given in a most
awe-inspiring manner and yet it did not secure loyal obedience. God
came to Sinai and the mountain was altogether on a smoke because the
Lord descended upon it in fire–and the smoke ascended as the smoke of
a furnace–the whole mountain quaked greatly!

So terrible was the sight of God manifesting Himself on Sinai that even
Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Out of the thick darkness
which covered the sublime summit, there came forth the sound of a
trumpet, waxing exceed-

ingly loud and long, and a Voice proclaimed, one by one, the 10 great
statutes and ordinances of the moral Law. I think I see the people at a
distance, with bounds set about the mountain, crouching with abject
fear and, at last, entreating that these words might not be spoken to
them any more! So terrible was the sound of Jehovah's voice, even when
He was not declaring vengeance, but simply expounding righteousness,
that the people could not endure it any longer–and yet no permanent
impression was left upon their minds–no obedience was shown in their
lives!

Men may be cowed by power, but they can only be converted by love. The
sword of justice has less power over human hearts than the scepter of
mercy. Further to preserve that Law, God Himself inscribed it upon two
tables of stone and He gave these tablets into the hands of Moses. What
a treasure! Surely no particles of matter had ever been so honored as
these slabs which had been touched by the finger of God and bore on
them the legible impression of His mind! But these Laws on stone were
not kept–neither the stones nor the Laws were reverenced. Moses had
not long gone up into the mountain before the once awe-struck people
were bowing before the golden calf, forgetful of Sinai and its solemn
Voice–and making for themselves the likeness of an ox that eats
grass–and bowing before it as the symbol of the Godhead!

When Moses came down from the hill with those priceless tablets in His
hands, He saw the people wholly given up to base idolatry and, in his
indignation, he dashed the tablets to the ground and broke them in
pieces, as well he might when he saw how the people had spiritually
broken them and violated every Word of the Most High! From all this I
gather that the Law is never really obeyed as the result of servile
fear. You may preach up the anger of God and the terrors of the world
to come, but these do not melt the heart to loyal obedience. It is
necessary, for other ends, that man should know of God's resolve to
punish sin, but the heart is not, by that fact, won to virtue. Man
revolts yet more and more–so stubborn is he that the more he is
commanded, the more he rebels!

The Decalogue upon your Church walls and in your daily service has its
ends, but it can never be operative upon men's lives until it is also
written on their hearts. Tables of stone are hard and men count
obedience to God's Law to be a hard thing–the Commands are judged to
be stony while the heart is stony–and men harden themselves because
the way of the precept is hard to their cold minds. Stones are
proverbially cold and the Law seems a cold, chill thing, for which we
have no love as long as the appeal is to our fears. Tablets of stone,
though apparently durable, can readily enough be broken and so can
God's Commandments–and so they are, indeed, broken every day by us.
Those who have the clearest knowledge of the will of God, nevertheless
offend against Him. As long as they have nothing to keep them in check
but a servile dread of punishment, or a selfish hope of reward, they
yield no loyal homage to the statutes of the Lord!

At this time I have to show you the way in which God secures to Himself
obedience to His Law in quite another fashion–not by thundering it out
from Sinai, nor by engraving it upon tablets of stone–but by coming in
gentleness and infinite compassion into the hearts of men and there,
upon fleshy tables, inscribing the Commands of His Law in such a manner
that they are joyfully obeyed and men become the willing servants of
God! This is the second great privilege of the Covenant–not second in
value, but in order–"who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all
your diseases." It is thus described by Ezekiel–"And I will put My
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall
keep My judgments, and do them."

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we have it in another form and we read it
thus–"Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new
Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not
according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
because they continued not in My Covenant, and I regarded them not,
says the Lord. For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into
their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a
God, and they shall be to Me a people."

This is so inestimably precious that you who know the Lord are longing
for it and it is your great delight that it is to be worked in you by
the Sovereign Grace of God! We shall, first of all, look at the
tablets– "I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts." Secondly, at the writing. Thirdly, at the Writer and,
fourthly, at the results which come of this wondrous writing. O that
the Spirit who has promised to lead us into all the Truths of God may
now illuminate us!

I. First, I invite your attention to THE TABLETS upon which God writes
His Law– "I will put My Law in their inward parts." Just as once He
put the two tables into the ark of gopher wood, so He will put His holy
Law into our in-

ward nature and enclose it in our thoughts and minds and memories and
affections, as a jewel in a case. Then He adds, "And I will write it in
their hearts." Just as the Holy Words were engraved upon stone, so
shall they now be written in the heart, in the handwriting of the Lord,
Himself. Mark that the Law is written not on the heart, but in the
heart, in the very texture and constitution of it, so that into the
center and core of the soul, obedience shall be infused as a vital
principle!

Thus, you see, the Lord has selected for His tablets that which is the
seat of life. It is in the heart that life is to be found, a wound,
there, is fatal. Where the seat of life is, there the seat of obedience
shall be. In the heart, life has its permanent palace and perpetual
abode–and God says that, instead of writing His Holy Law on stones
which may be left at a distance–He will write it on the heart, which
must always be within us. Instead of placing the Law upon phylacteries
which can be bound between the eyes but may easily be taken off, He
will write it in the heart, where it must always remain. He has bid His
people write His Laws upon the posts of their doors and upon their
gates, but in those conspicuous places they might become so familiar as
to be unnoticed. The Lord, Himself, now writes them where they must
always be noted and always produce effect.

If men have the precepts written in the abode of their life, they live
with the Law and cannot live without it. It is a wonderful thing that
God should do this. It displays infinitely greater wisdom than if the
Law had been inscribed on slabs of granite or engraved on plates of
gold. What wisdom is this, which operates upon the original spring of
life, so that all that flows forth from man shall come from a
sanctified fountainhead! Observe next, that not only is the heart the
seat of life, but it is the governing power. It is from the heart, as
from a royal metropolis, that the imperial commands of the man are
issued by which hand and foot, eye and tongue and all the members are
ordered. If the heart is right, then the other powers must yield
submission to its sway and become right, too.

If God writes His Law upon the heart, then the eyes will purify their
glances, the tongue will speak according to rule, the hands will move
and the feet will travel as God ordains. When the heart is fully
influenced by God's Spirit, then the will and the intellect, the memory
and the imagination and everything else which makes up the inward man,
comes under cheerful allegiance to the King of Kings! God Himself says,
"Give me your heart," for the heart is the key of the entire position.
Hence the supreme wisdom of the Lord in setting up His Law where it
becomes operative upon the entire man. But before God can write upon a
man's heart, it must be prepared. It is most unfit to be a writing
tablet for the Lord until it is renewed. The heart must, first of all,
undergo erasures.

What is written on the heart, already, some of us know to our deep
regret. Original sin has cut deep lines, Satan has scored his horrible
handwriting in black letters and our evil habits have left their
impressions. How can the Lord write there? No one would expect the Holy
God to inscribe His Holy Law upon an unholy mind! The former things
must be taken away, that there may be clear space upon which new and
better things may be engraved. But who can erase these lines? "Can the
Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you,
also, do good, that are accustomed to do evil." The God who can take
away the spots from the leopard and the blackness from the Ethiopian,
can also remove the evil lines which now deface the heart!

As the heart must undergo erasure, it must also experience a thorough
cleansing, not of the surface only, but of its entire fabric. Truly,
Brothers and Sisters, it was far easier for Hercules to purge the
Augean stables than for our hearts to be purged, for the sin that lies
within us is not an accumulation of external defilement, but an inward,
all-pervading corruption! The taint of secret and spiritual evil is in
man's natural life. Every pulse of his soul is disordered by it. The
eggs of all crimes are within our being–the accursed virus, from whose
deadly venom every foul design will come–is present in the soul. Not
only tendency to sin, but sin, itself, has taken possession of the soul
and blackened and polluted it through and through till there is not a
fiber of the heart unstained with iniquity! God cannot write His Law in
our inward parts till, with water and with blood, He has purged us.

Tablets on which the Lord shall write must be clean, therefore the
heart on which God is to engrave His Law must be a cleansed heart. It
is a great joy to perceive that from the Person of our Lord,
heart-cleansing blood and water flowed so that the provision is equal
to the necessity! Blessed be the name of our gracious God! He knows how
to erase the evil and to cleanse the soul through His Holy Spirit's
applying the work of Jesus to us! In addition to this, the heart needs
to be softened, for the heart is naturally hard and, in some men, it
has become harder than an adamant stone! They have re-

sisted God's love till they are impervious to it–they have stood out
obstinately against God's will till they have become desperately set on
mischief and nothing can affect them.

God must melt the heart, must transform it from granite into flesh–and
He has the power to do it! Blessed be His name, according to the
Covenant of Grace, He has promised to work this wonder and He will! Nor
would the softening be enough, for there are some who have a tenderness
of the most deceiving kind. They receive the Word of God with joy. They
feel every expression of it, but they speedily go their way and forget
what manner of men they are. They are as impressible as the water, but
the impression is as soon removed, so that another change is needed,
namely, to make them retentive of that which is good–otherwise you
might engrave and re-engrave–but, like an inscription upon wax, it
would be gone in a moment if exposed to heat.

The devil, the world and the temptations of life would soon erase out
of the heart all that God had written there if He did not create it
anew with the faculty of holding fast that which is good. In a word,
the heart of man needs to be totally changed, even as Jesus said to
Nicodemus, "You must be born again." Dear Hearers, we preach to you
that whoever believes in Christ has everlasting life and we speak
neither more, nor less, than the Truth of God when we say so! But yet,
believe us, there must be as great a change in the heart as if a man
were slain and made alive again! There must be a new creation, a
resurrection from the dead–old things must pass away–and all things
must become new. God's Law can never be written upon the old natural
heart–there must be a new and spiritual nature given–and then, upon
the center of that new life, upon the throne of that new power within
our life, God will set up the proclamation of His blessed will and what
He commands shall be done.

So, then, you see these tablets are not so easily written upon, as
perhaps we first thought. If God is to write the Law upon the heart,
the heart must be prepared, and in order to being prepared, it must be
entirely renewed by a miracle of mercy, such as can only be worked by
that Omnipotent hand which made both Heaven and earth.

II. Secondly, let us pass on to notice THE WRITING. "I will put My Law
in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." What is this
writing? First, the matter of it is the Law of God. God writes upon the
hearts of His people that which is already revealed. He inscribes there
nothing novel and unrevealed, but His own will which He has already
given us in the Book of the Law. He writes upon the heart, by gracious
operation, that which He has already written in the Bible by gracious
Revelation. He writes not philosophy, nor imagination, nor superstition
nor fanaticism, nor idle fancies. If any man says to me, "God has
written such-and-such a thing on my heart," I reply, " Show it to me in
the Bible," for if it is not according to the other Scriptures, it is
not a Scripture of God!

A fancy as to a man's being a Prophet, or a prince, or an angel may be
on a man's heart, but God did not write it there, for His own
declaration is, "I will write My Law in their hearts," and He speaks
not of anything beyond. The nonsense of modern pretenders to prophecy
is no writing of God–it would be a dishonor to a sane man to ascribe
it to Him! How can it be of the Lord? He here promises to write His own
Law on the heart, but nothing else. Be content to have the Law written
on your soul and wander not into vain imaginings lest you receive a
strong delusion to believe a lie. Observe, however, that God says He
will write His whole Law on the heart–this is included in the words,
"My Law."

God's work is complete in all its parts and beautifully harmonious. He
will not write one command and leave out the rest as so many do in
their reforms. They become indignant in their virtue against a
particular sin, but they riot in other evils. Drunkenness is to them
the most damnable of all transgressions, but covetousness and
uncleanness they wink at! They denounce theft and yet defraud! They cry
out against pride and yet indulge envy! Thus they are partial and do
the work of the Lord deceitfully. It must not be so! God does not set
before us a partial holiness, but the whole moral Law! "I will write My
Law in their hearts." Human reforms are generally lopsided, but the
Lord's work of Grace is balanced and proportionate. The Lord writes the
perfect Law in the hearts of men because He intends to produce perfect
men.

Mark, again, that on the heart there is written not the Law toned down
and altered, but, "My Law"–that very same Law which was, at first,
written on the heart of unfallen man. Paul says of natural men, that
"they show the work of the Law written in their hearts." There is
enough of the Light of God left on the conscience to condemn men for
most of their iniquities. The original record of the Law upon man's
heart at his creation has been injured and almost obliterated by man's
fall and his subsequent transgressions, but the Lord, in renewing the
heart, makes the writing fresh and vivid, even the writing of the first
principles of righteousness and truth.

But to come a little closer to the matter–what does the Scripture mean
by writing the Law of God in the heart? The writing, itself, includes a
great many things. A man who has the Law of God written in his heart,
first of all, knows it. He is instructed in the ordinances and statutes
of the Lord. He is an illuminated person and no longer one of those who
knows not the Law and is cursed. God's Spirit has taught him what is
right and what is wrong. He knows this by heart and, therefore, can no
longer put darkness for light, and light for darkness. This Law, next,
abides upon his memory. When he had it only upon a tablet, he must
necessarily go into his house to look at it, but now he carries it
about with him in his heart, and knows, at once, what will be right and
what will be wrong. God has given him a touchstone by which he tries
things.

He finds that "all is not gold that glitters," and all is not holy
which pretends to that character. He separates the precious from the
vile and does this habitually, for his knowledge of God's Law and his
memory of it are attended by a discernment of spirit which God has
worked in him, so that he quickly discerns what is according to the
mind of God and what is not. Now this is a great point, for some things
are commonly done by men which they will even defend and say that there
is no wrong in them. But, according to the Divine rule, they are
utterly unjust. God's people judge these things and take no pleasure in
them. A sacred instinct warns the Believer of the approach of sin. Long
before public sentiment has proclaimed a hue and cry against
questionable practices, the Christian man, even if deluded, for a
while, by current custom, yet feels a trembling and an uneasiness. Even
if he consents outwardly–being overborne by general opinion–a
something within protests and leads him to consider whether the matter
can be defended. As soon as he detects the evil, he shrinks from it. It
is a grand thing to possess a universal detector, so that, go where you
may, you are not dependent upon the judgment of others and, therefore,
are not deceived as multitudes are. This, however, is only a part of
the matter, and a very small part comparatively.

The Law is written on a man's heart, further than this, when he
consents unto the Law that it is good. It is when his conscience, being
restored, cries, "Yes, that is so, and ought to be so! That command by
which God has forbidden a certain course is a proper and prudent
command–it ought to be enjoined." It is a hopeful sign when a man no
longer wishes that the Divine commands were other than they are, but
confirms them by the verdict of his judgment. Are there not men who in
their anger wish that killing were not murder? Are there not others who
do not steal, but yet wish they might take their neighbors' goods? Are
there not many who wish that fornication and adultery were not vices?
This proves that their hearts are depraved!

But it is not so with the regenerate, they would not have the Law
altered for any reason! Their vote is with the Law. They regard it as
the guardian of society, the basis on which the peace of the universe
can, alone, be built, for only by righteousness can any order of things
be established. If we could possess the wisdom of God, we would make
just that Law which God has made, for the Law is holy, just, good and
promotes man's highest advantage! It is a great thing when a man gets
as far as that. But, furthermore, there is worked in the heart, by God,
a love to the Law as well as a consent to it–such a love that the man
thanks God that He has given him such a fair and lovely representation
of what perfect holiness should be–that He has given such measuring
lines by which he knows how a house is to be built in which God can
dwell. Thus thanking the Lord, his prayer, desire, longing, hungering
and thirsting are after righteousness, that he may, in all things, be
according to the mind of God.

It is a glorious thing when the heart delights itself in the Law of the
Lord and finds, therein, its solace and pleasure. The Law is fully
written on the heart when a man takes pleasure in holiness and feels a
deep pain whenever sin approaches him. Oh, my dear Friend, the Lord has
done great things for you when every evil thing is obnoxious to you!
Even though you fall into sin through the infirmity of your flesh, yet
if it causes you intense agony and sorrow, it is because God has
written His Law in your heart! Even though you cannot be as holy as you
want to be, yet if the ways of holiness are your pleasure–if they are
the very element in which you live as much as the fish lives in the
sea–then you are the subject of a very wonderful change of heart!

It is not so much what you do, as what you delight to do, which becomes
the clearest test of your character. Many strictly religious people who
go to and fro to Church and Chapel would be uncommonly glad if they did
not feel bound to do so. Is not their public worship a dead formality?
A great many people have family prayers and private prayers who wish
they could be rid of the nuisance. Is there any religion in bodily
exercises which are burdensome to the heart? Nothing is acceptable to
God until it is acceptable to yourself–God will not receive your
sacrifice unless you offer it will-

ingly! How contrary this is to the notion of many, for they say, "You
see I deny myself by going so many times to a place of worship and by
private prayer, therefore I must be truly religious." The very reverse
is far nearer the truth! When it becomes a misery to serve God, then,
indeed, the heart is far away from spiritual health, for when the heart
is renewed, it delights to worship and serve the Lord!

Instead of saying, "I would omit prayer if I could," the regenerate
mind cries, "I wish I could be always praying." Instead of saying, "I
would keep away from the assembly of God's people if I could," the
newborn nature wishes, like David, to dwell in the House of the Lord
forever! This is a great evidence of the writing of the Law upon the
heart, when holiness becomes a pleasure and sin becomes a sorrow. When
this is done, what great things God has done for us! The main point of
the whole, is this, that whereas our nature was once contrary to the
Law of God so that whatever God forbade we at once desired, and
whatever God commanded we, therefore, began to dislike, the Holy Spirit
comes and changes our nature and makes it congruous to the Law–so
that, now, whatever God forbids we forbid and whatever God commands,
our will commands!

How much better to have the Law written upon the heart than upon
tablets of stone! If anybody should enquire how the Lord keeps the
writing upon the heart, legible, I should like to spend a minute or two
in showing the process. How the Holy Spirit first writes the Law on the
heart, I cannot tell. The outward means are the preaching of the Word
and the reading of it. But how the Holy Spirit directly operates on the
soul, we do not know–it is one of the great mysteries of Grace. This
much we know within ourselves, that whereas we were blind, now we see
and, whereas we abhorred the Law of God, we now feel an intense delight
in it! We also know that the Holy Spirit worked this change, but how He
did it remains unknown. That part of His holy office which we can
discern is done according to the usual laws of mental operation. He
enlightens by knowledge, convinces by argument, leads by persuasion,
strengthens by instruction and so forth.

So far, also, we know that one way by which the Law is kept written
upon a Christian's heart is this–a sense of God's Presence. The
Believer feels that he could not sin with God looking on. It would need
a brazen face for a man to play the traitor in the presence of a
king–such things are done "under the rose," as men word it–but not
before the monarch's face! So the Christian feels that he dwells in
God's sight and this forbids him to disobey. The eye of the Heavenly
Father is the best monitor of the child of God. Next, the Christian has
a lively sense within him of the degradation which sin once brought
upon him. If there is one thing I never can forget, personally, it is
the horror of my heart while I was yet under sin. God revealed my state
to me. Ah, Friends, the old proverb that a burnt child dreads the fire
has an intensity of truth about it in the case of one who has ever been
burnt by sin so as to be driven to despair by it! He hates it with a
perfect hatred and, by that means, God writes the Law upon his heart.

But a sense of love is a yet more powerful factor. Let a man know that
God loves him, let him feel sure that God always did love him from
before the foundations of the world, and he must try to please God. Let
him be assured that the Father loved him so much as to give His
only-begotten Son to die that he might live through Him and he must
love God and hate evil. A sense of pardon, of adoption and of God's
sweet favor, both in Providence and in Grace must sanctify a man. He
cannot willfully offend against such love! On the contrary, he feels
himself bound to obey God in return for such unsearchable Grace and
thus, by a sense of love, does God write His Law upon the hearts of His
people!

Another very powerful pen with which the Lord writes is to be found in
the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we see Jesus spit upon,
scourged and crucified, we feel that we must hate sin with all the
intensity of our nature. Can you count the purple drops of His
redeeming blood and then go back to live in the iniquity which cost the
Lord so dear? Impossible! The death of Christ writes the Law of God
very deeply upon the central heart of man. The Cross is the crucifier
of sin. Besides that, God actually establishes His holy Law in the
throne of the heart by giving us a new and heavenly life. There is,
within a Christian, an immortal principle which cannot sin because it
is born of God and cannot die! It is the living and incorruptible Seed
which lives and abides forever! In regeneration there is imparted to us
a something altogether foreign to our corrupt nature–a Divine
principle is dropped into the soul which can neither be corrupted nor
made to die–and by this means the Law is written on the heart. I do
not pretend to explain the process of regeneration, but for certain, it
involves a Divine life implanted by the Holy Spirit.

Once more, the Holy Spirit, Himself, dwells in Believers. I pray you,
never forget this marvelous doctrine, that as truly as ever God dwelt
in human flesh in the Person of the God-Man Mediator, so truly does the
Holy Spirit dwell in the

bodies of all redeemed men and women who have been born again! And by
the force of that indwelling, He keeps the mind forever permeated with
holiness, forever subservient to the will of the Most High!

III. Now we turn, for just a minute, to think of THE WRITER. Who is it
that writes the Law in the heart? It is God, Himself! "I will do it,"
He says. Note, first, that He has a right to write His Law in the
heart. He made the heart–it is His tablet–let Him write there
whatever He wills. As clay in the hands of the potter, so are we in His
hands. Note, next, that He, alone, can write the Law in the heart. It
will never be written there by any other hand. The Law of God is not to
be written in the heart by human power. Alas, how often have I
expounded the Law of God and the Gospel of God, but I have got no
further than the ears–only the living God can write in the living
heart! This is noble work, angels, themselves, cannot attain to it!
"This is the finger of God."

As God, alone, can write there, and must write there, so He, alone,
shall have the Glory of that writing when once it is perfected. When
God writes, He writes perfectly. You and I make blots and errors–there
needs to be a list of itemized errors at the end of every human piece
of writing! But when God writes, blots or mistakes are out of the
question! No holiness can excel the holiness produced by the Holy
Spirit when His inward work is fully completed! Moreover, He writes
indelibly. I defy the devil to get a single letter of the Law of God
out of a man's heart when God has written it there! When the Holy
Spirit has come with all the power of His Divinity and rested on our
nature–and stamped into it the life of holiness–then the devil may
come with his black wings and all his unhallowed craftiness, but he can
never erase the eternal lines!

We bear in our hearts the marks of the Lord God Eternal and we shall
bear them eternally! Written rocks bear their inscriptions long, but
written hearts bear them forever and ever! Does not the Lord say, "I
will put My fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me"?
Blessed be God for those immortal principles which forbid the child of
God to sin!

IV. I wish to finish by noticing THE RESULTS of the Law being thus
written in the heart. I hope while I have been preaching about it, many
of you have been saying, "I hope that the Law will be written in my
heart." Remember that this is a gift and privilege of the Covenant of
Grace and not a work of man. Dear Friends, if any of you have said, "I
do not find anything good in me, therefore I cannot come to Christ,"
you talk foolishly! The absence of good is the reason why you should
come to Christ to have your needs supplied. "Oh, but if I could write
God's Law in my heart I would come to Christ." Would you? What would
you need Christ for? But if the Law is not written on your heart, then
come to Jesus to have it so written!

The New Covenant says, "I will put My Law in their inward parts and
will write My Law in their hearts." Come, then, to have the Law thus
inscribed within! Come just as you are, before a single line has been
inscribed. The Lord Jesus loves to prepare His own tablets and write
every letter of His own Epistles–come to Him just as you are, that He
may do all things for you! What are the results of the Law being
written in the hearts of men? Frequently the first result is great
sorrow. If I have God's Law written in my heart, then I say to myself,
"Ah me, that I should have lived a lawbreaker so long! This blessed
Law, this lovely Law, why I have not even thought of it, or if I have
thought of it, it has provoked me to disobedience! Sin revived and I
died when the Commandment came." We wring our hands and cry, "How could
we be so wicked as to break so just a Law? How could we be so willful
as to go against our own interests? Knew we not that a breach of the
Commandment is an injury to ourselves?" Thus we are in bitterness as
one that is in bitterness for the death of his first-born. I do not
believe God has ever written His Law on your hearts if you have not
mourned over sin. One of the earliest signs of Grace is a dew upon the
eyes because of sin.

The next effect of it is there comes upon the man a strong and stern
resolve that he will not break that Law again, but will keep it with
all his might. He cries out with David, "I have sworn and I will
perform it, that I will keep Your righteous judgments." His whole heart
says, when reading the precepts of the Lord–"Yes, that is what I ought
to be, that is what I wish to be and that is what I will be, according
to the will of God." That strong resolve soon leads to a fierce
conflict, for another law lifts up its head, a law in our members–and
that other law cries, "Not so quick, there! Your new Law which has come
into your soul to rule you shall not be obeyed! I will be master!"

He who is born within us to be our king finds the old Herod ready to
slay the young child. The lust of the eyes and the lust of the
flesh–the pride of life–each one of these swears warfare against the
new Monarch and the fresh power that is come into the heart. Some of
you know what this struggle means. It is a very hard fight, with some,
to keep from

actual sin. Have you not, when troubled with a quick temper, had to put
your hand to your mouth to stop yourself from saying what you used to
say, but what you never wish to say again? Have you not often gone
upstairs to get alone, feeling that you would soon slip if the Lord did
not hold you up? How wise to get alone with God and cry to Him for
help! How prudent to watch day and night against evil!

Certain braggers talk about having got beyond all that. I should be
glad to think that there are such Brethren–but I should need to keep
them in a glass case to show them round, or in an iron safe where
thieves could not get at them! I conceive it to be a snare of the devil
to imagine that you are beyond the need of daily watchfulness! For my
own part, I have not passed beyond conflict and struggle. I bear
testimony that the battle grows more stern every day! Those of God's
people with whom I associate, I still find fighting and wrestling.
Sometimes I know the devil does not roar, but I am more afraid of him
when he is quiet than when he rages. Of the two, I would sooner he
would roar, for a roaring devil is better than a sleeping devil.
Whenever he gives way, he only gives an inch to take a mile–and
whenever you begin to say to yourself, "My corruptions are all dead. I
now have no tendencies to sin," you are in awful peril!

Poor Soul, you do not know what you are talking about! God send you to
school and give you a little of His Light and you will sing another
tune, I am sure, before long! These are the incidental results–when
the Lord writes the Law in the heart, strifes and struggles are common
within the man–for holiness strives for the mastery. But does not
something better than this come of the Divine heart-writing? Oh, yes!
There comes actual obedience. The man not only consents to the Law,
that it is good, but he obeys it! And if there is anything which Christ
commands, no matter what it is, the man seeks to do it–not only wishes
to do it, but actually does it! And if there is anything that is wrong,
he not only wishes to abstain from it, but he does abstain from it. God
helping him, he becomes upright, righteous, sober, godly, loving and
Christ-like–for this it is which the Spirit of God works in him! He
would be perfect were it not for the old lusts of the flesh which
linger, even in the hearts of the regenerate.

Now the Believer feels intense pleasure in everything that is good. If
there is anything right and true in the world, he is on the side of it.
If there are defeats to the Truth of God, he is defeated. But if the
Truth of God marches on, conquering and to conquer, he conquers and
takes and divides the spoil with joy! Now he is on God's side; now he
is on Christ's side; now he is on truth's side; now he is on holiness'
side and a man cannot be that without being a happy man! With all his
struggles, all his weeping and all his confessions, he is a happy man
because he is on the happy side. God is with him and he, by God's
Grace, is with God–and so he must be blessed!

As this proceeds, the man becomes more and more prepared to dwell in
Heaven. He is changed into God's image from Glory to Glory even as by
the Spirit of the Lord. Our fitness for Heaven is not a thing that will
be clapped upon us in the last few minutes of our life, just as we are
going to die, but the children of God have a meetness for Heaven as
soon as ever they are saved–and that meetness grows and increases till
they are ripe and then, like ripe fruit, they drop from the tree and
find themselves in the bosom of their Father God! God will never keep a
soul out of Heaven half a minute after it is fully prepared to go there
and so, when God has fitted us to be partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in His Light, we shall enter at once into the joy of our
Lord.

My Brothers and Sisters, I feel I have talked feebly about one of the
most blessed subjects that ever occupied the thoughts of man–how God's
Law shall be kept, how it shall be honored, how holiness shall come
into the world–and we shall no longer be rebellious. Herein let us
trust in our Lord Jesus, who is to us the Surety of that Covenant of
which this is one great promise–"I will put My Law in their inward
parts, and in their hearts will I write it." God do so to us, for
Christ's sake. Amen.
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Stand Fast