Blake - Houston-Packer Collection BT155 .B53 1653

48 The Covenant of Works Cha p.8 The Sove- relgnty of God is held up. i. In keeping up his Coni- mandments. God knows God in Chrifl to be his Lord ; we are redeemed,not to licentioufneffe, not to a fiate of manumifììon from the com- mand of God, but to ferve in righteoufnele and true holineffe all the dayes of our life, Luke r, i4. It can be no part of our Chriflian freedome to be from under the Sovereignty of heaven. This. So- vereignty ofGod is two wayes held forth unto us. Firft, In keep- ing up hiscommandments, the power and vigour of his precepts. Secondly, In his exercife of difcipline of chafhifement and corre- idion. For the firft, God in the dayes of the Gofpel keeps up the pourer and authority of his Law ; the Obligation of it is flill in force to binde the confciences of beleevers. And when I fpeak thus of the Obligation of the Law, I hope I fcarce need to tell you in what fenfe;I do not take the Law,not in the lar. geft fenfe for any doctrine, inítruc$ ion, or ordinance of any kinde whatfoever. Men have their Lawes and .Directories : I have to deale with the Law of God: neither do I take it for the whole of the Word of Godzall his will revealed in his Word, as Ifa. 2.3. The Law fhall {go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from 7erufalém.Nor yet as it is taken for all the Scripture of théOldTe -` filament, In the Law it it written by men of other tongues, and by o- ther languages 1 Will freak, to this people, t Cor. 14.2 t.. Nor yet for the five books of C &'ofes, rilll rnufi be fulfilled that waa Writ- ten in the Law of Mofes, 24.44. Neither do I here under - ítand theCeremonial Law,which flood up as a partition between Jew and Gentile, Ephef, 2.14. All that did binde the Jewes, and was not of force from God with the Gentiles, is taken off from Chriftians. There was a confef lion of guilt; a beafl needed not to have been (lain, if they had been innocent; this held them un- der hopes that there was a facrifice to take away fin impofed on the Jewes till the time of reformation, Heb. 9. 10. An Appen- dix to the firfi Table fitted to the Jewes flare and condition as a fhadow of good things to come, Heb. io. J. Nor yet the Judici- all Law given to order the Common - wealth or State, farther then fo much of it as was of nature, and then binding the Gentiles. It is the Moral Law that I meane, that Law which was obligatory, not only to the Jeives, but Gentiles, for breach of which they fuf- fered, I evit. 18, 27, 2S. Neither do I undérftand the Moral Law as a Covenant,i on obfervation of which life was expelled and might be claimed. This is utterly inconfiflent with the Gofpel. If

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