Love and Duty – Charles Spurgeon

MEN will do far more from love than we might dare to ask as a matter of duty. Napoleon’s soldiers frequently achieved exploits under the influence of fervid attachment for him, which no law could have required them to attempt. Had there been cold-blooded orders issued by some domineering officer, who said, “You shall do this, and you shall do that,” they would have mutinied against such tyranny, and yet when the favorite little corporal seizes the standard, and cries, “Come on!” they will rush even to the cannon’s mouth, out of love to the person of their gallant leader. This is the difference between the law and the gospel. The law says, “You shall, or you shall be punished;” but the gospel says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have forgiven all your trespasses; now my love shall sweetly constrain you, and the influence of inward principle shall guide you in my ways, my law shall be written, not upon stone, but upon the fleshy tablets of your hearts.” The old covenant in all that it did only provided precepts; but the gospel provides the power to keep the precept. The old law appealed to the selfishness of our corrupt nature; the gospel appeals to the nobler instincts of a heaven-born life. The law drove us, but the gospel draws us. The law came behind us with its dog and stick, as our drovers do from the cattle markets; but the gospel goes before us, as the Eastern shepherd before his sheep, and we cheerfully follow where the gospel leads the way. This is the difference, then, between the old law and its inability to sanctify us, and the gospel and its wonderful power to purify.