authority, gives such a command, requires that obedience be yielded to it. If he give another command, the sum of which is, I will not have you to obey me, he contradicts himself; nay, contradicts the nature of the command, which consists in an obligation to obedience. 5. 'Tis the highest absurdity imaginable, that a creature shall, by its sin, obtain exemption from the authority of the Creator, and be no longer bound to obey him. If this is true, the first of all deceivers spoke truth, that men, by eating of the forbidden fruit, would become as God. Whoever is exempted from the authority of the Creator, is under the authority of none, is at his own disposal; in fine, is God. For to be at one's own disposal, is to be God. Ah! how ridiculous is this. XI. The third argument is no less weak. For, 1. The sum of the law is, to love God with all the heart, mind, and strength, and our neigbour as ourselves. As this is reasonable in itself, so it cannot but be proposed as such by God to man; since conscience itself, even that of the most abandoned, will bear witness with God to the reasonableness of this. What? Is it not certain, that God is the chief good; consequently the most amiable? Can he be unwilling, that any should acknowledge him as the chief good; that is, what he really is, and what he cannot but be? Is he not the supreme majesty? Can he be unwilling to be honored as such, with the most submissive reverence? 2. Arminius urges, that the law also commands us to trust in God. It does so, say I; for what can be more right, what more becoming, than that man, even a sinner, should be bound to believe the testimony of God; should give him this glory, namely, that he alone both can and will justify the ungodly that he should seek him even when angry; hunger and thirst after his righteousness; and willing. ly endeavour to be for his glory; namely, that God may be glorified and admired in him by his justification and glorification by free grace; and that he should : neither neglect the salvation, which God has most surely revealed, and neither despise nor reject the Saviour? This is to trust in God and will any pious person ever doubt the probability, nay even of the most infallible certainty of this, that man under the curse of God till now, is not obliged to this? 3. He will still urge, that when he speaks of trusting in God, he means thereby that full assurance of mind, whereby one holds God to be his God; that at least this is also enjoined by the law. We are to consider this more distinctly. When the law enjoins us to take God for our God, if it is to be understood in this sense, viz. to take him for our Creator, Preserver, Lawgiver, and Supreme Lord, it enjoins this absolutely and without distinction upon all men. But if we understand it thus, to take him for our saving good, this is enjoined upon none, but in that method which the revealed will of God prescribes. And this is the way either that man can obtain the salvation of God by a most perfect personal obedience, which was proposed to Adam in innocence, and is now impossible for the sinner; or that sinful man be converted, and united by faith to Christ; then examine himself, whether he be in the faith and in Christ; which being discovered, he may then indeed glory and exult in God his saving good which way is now proposed in the gospel. But the law enjoins us to embrace every truth by faith, which God either has revealed, or shall reveal, and so to walk as it is agreeable to that truth. But the law has no where enjoined the impenitent sinner, to look upon God as the God of his salvation. Nay, the law, as it was given to Adam himself, enjoined him to believe the contrary. And thus I imagine I have fully dispatched the quaint subtleties of Arminius; that it is of immutable right, that man, even under sin and guilt, is still under obligation to obey the law. XII. We must proceed a step further, and shew, that man, even after the breach of the covenant, con tinues bound not only to obedience, but to a perfect performance of duty. Paul said of those who are without the covenant of grace, that they are debtors to do the whole law. Nor can it be otherwise. For the law of the covenant, as to the natural precepts, is immutable, being the transcript of the image of God, which is no less immutable than God himself. For if the image, which had the nearest resemblance is changed, and yet continues still to resemble its archetype, or original, the archetype itself must also neces-: sarily be changed. But the law of the covenant did undoubtedly require perfect obedience. XIII. Moreover, if we imagine any abatement and relaxation of the law after sin, we are to conceive that God addressed sinful man after this manner; "I formerly commanded thee to esteem me as the supreme truth, thy chief good, and thy sovereign Lord, and consequently to assent, with the fullest assurance of faith, to all my precepts, to love me with all thy soul, and all thy powers, and esteem nothing preferable to that which is acceptable to me, to employ thy all in my service, at all times and in all things to be at my command and beck, and never venture on any thing, that is not agreeable to my will. But now, since thou hast once presumed to shew thyself disobedient, I am satisfied, that, for the future, thou esteem me indeed to be the truth, but not that which cannot deceive; to be thy good, but not the chief; to be thy Lord, but not the supreme; and I allow thee to doubt of some of my testimonies, to love other things besides and above me; to place thy happiness in other things than my favor; in fine, so to depend on me in some things, that in other things thou mayest act at thy own discretion." If all these be absurd and unworthy of God, as they certainly are; 'tis also absurd and unworthy of God, to abate and relax any thing of his law. But if these general propositions are of immutable truth; that as God is the chief good, he is at all * Gal. v. 3. times and by all persons to be beloved with the whole heart; as he is the supreme Lord, none can ever, under any pretence, act lawfully but according to his command; now the most perfect performance of every duty, must be the manifest consequence of all this. XIV. Again, to perform duty perfectly, as every one will allow, is better than to do it in a slight manFor all the goodness of duty consists in its agreement with the rule and directory of it. There must therefore be a certain rule, enjoining that perfec tion, which is a greater degree of goodness. If such a rule has been prescribed by God, it must certainly bind men to conform themselves to it. XV. The conscience of man, attending to himself cannot but assent to these things. For elucidating this point, I shall subjoin two excellent passages, one from Epicteus, the other from the Emperor Julian. The former speaks thus.* "Having found a rule, let us keep it inviolably, and not extend so much as a finger beyond it.". The latter thus, Orat. i. "There is an ancient law given by him, who first taught mankind philosophy, and which runs thus: that all who' have an eye to virtue and to honesty, ought, in their words and actions, in society, and in all the affairs of this life, both small and great, to have a regard to honesty." The law therefore of the old covenant still continues, binding all mankind, without exception, to a perfect performance of duty. XVI. The second thing, which we said, sect. 2. was immutable in the covenant of works, was this; that eternal life was not obtainable on any other condition, but that of perfect obedience: which is hence invincibly proved; "because, by virtue of this general rule, it was necessary for Christ to be made under the law,† and fulfil all righteousness, and that for this end, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled ‡ But if this righteousness had not been sacred and ivio * Dissert. lib. ii. c. 11. †Gal. iv. 4. Rom. viii. 4. lable, Christ would have been under no necessity to submit to the covenant of the law, in order to merit eternal life for his people. This therefore is evident, that there ought to be a merit of perfect obedience, on which a right to eternal life may be founded. Nor is it material, whether that perfect obedience be performed by man himself, or by his surety. XVII. The third thing which we affirmed as an unchangeable truth, regards the penal sanction; for the immutable and indispensable justice of which we insisted above by so many arguments, chap. v. sect. 18. & seq. so that there is no occasion to add any thing further. * XVIII. Since then these three things, the law, the promise, and the threatening, constitute the entire nature of the covenant, as proposed by God, if these stand on a firm footing, it seems to follow, that man has indeed, on his part, broken the covenant, but that no abrogation of the covenant is made on the part of God. But, on duly weighing the matter, we must acknowledge some abrogation even on the part of God. This may be evidently inferred from the substitution of the new covenant of grace. For thus the apostle has taught us to reason. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. For though the abrogation of the old does not necessarily infer the substitution of a new; yet the substitution of a new does certainly import the abrogation of the old. It is indeed true, that the apostle, in that place, does not speak precisely of the covenant of works, but of the old œconomy of the covenant of grace, which he says is abrogated. Yet we properly build on his reasoning, which we both may and ought to apply also to this subject; namely, that every substitution of a new covenant supposes the abrogation of an old one. XIX. That abrogation on the part of God consists in this, that God has declared, that no man can, by * Heb. viii. 13.. |