O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. (Isa. 48, 18.)
The many promises and threatenings of the Bible had one end in view, viz: obedience. Prophet and poet wept over the fate of a people, because of its disobedience. David declares "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law."
Psa. 119, 136. Isaiah, surrounded by a night of moral gloom, laments the want of fidelity; for obedience, to the prophet, meant moral science— adherence to the ten commandments. This is the "early rain" or first lesson in the ascension from mortality to immortality.
Obedience, in the mortal sense of it, is forced compliance with unloved duty; is grim, compulsory, slavish: in Science, it is acting upon the "higher staging built for diviner claims," and is cheerful, spontaneous, free. Obedience means emancipation, and institutes the beginning of it. It is the "salt" perpetuating good works which "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
Rom. xii. 2. It leads to the Mount of clear vision; for "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
Prov. xxix. 18; Science and Health, 6, 5. All the angel messages in remote, Scriptural days came only to the faithful toilers. Who are the faithful? Those possessing that which renders faithful, obedient—true expressions of Principle. Zacharias, walking in all the commandments blameless, sees the glory preceding the birth of Christ; Paul, obedient to the heavenly vision, does not "frustrate the grace of God;" and Jesus, "the Way-shower and pattern," "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
Phil. ii. 8. They all "hearkened to the commandments"—were conscious of Truth's presence.
