Note (return) — Rev. ANDREW LEE, A.M. (continued 3)

These are unequivocal evidences that partial obedience, though dictated by the servile principle of fear, is preferable, in divine estimation, to allowed disobedience. God makes a difference in his treatment of people here, on this account: suspends his judgments, and mitigates somewhat of their severity, where he sees this kind of relenting in sinners. If God doth this here, is there not reason to believe that he will do it hereafter: The rules of divine administration are doubtless uniform in time and eternity. Where he gives a comparative preference here, he will do the same hereafter. So we observe our Savior noting things commendable in some who did not belong to his kingdom. When the young ruler who came to inquire what he should do to inherit eternal life, declared that he had kept the commandments from his youth up, he was viewed with comparative approbation.—"Then Jesus beholding him, loved him." It is not conceivable that his partial conformity to the divine law had not made him to differ from those who had allowedly disregarded it—that his character was as bad as theirs—though he soon made it evident that the one thing needful was not found upon him. [54]