THE COMMANDS OP GOD. --- most ofour ensuing arguments, I shall not here insist upon them. I shall only add twothings in general: (1.) That God hath no design, for his own glory, in us, or by us, in this world or unto eternity; that there is no especial communion that we can have with him-by Jesus Christ, nor any capacity for us to enjoy him, but holi- ness is necessary unto it, as a means unto its end. (2.) These present ends of it, under the gospel, are such, as that God doth no less indispensibly require it of us now, than he did when our justification was proposed as the end ofit. They are such in brief, as God upon the account of them, judgeth meet to command us to be holy in all manner of holiness, which, what obligation and necessity it puts upon us so to be, we are now to inquire. Sect. l0. (First,) The first thing considerable in the command of God, to this purpose, is the authority wherewith it is accompanied. It is indispensibly neces- sary that we should be holy, on the account of the au- thority of God's command. Authority, wherever it is just, anti exerted in a due and equal manner, carried'. along with it an obligation unto obedience. Take this away, and you fill the whole world with disorder. If the authority of parents, masters, and magistrates, did not oblige children, servants, and subjects, unto obe- dience, the world could not abide one moment out of hellish confusion. God himself maketh use of this ar- gument in general, to convince men of the necessity of obedience. " A son honoureth his father, and a ser- ., vent Iris master; ifI then be a father, where is mine u honour, and if I be a master, where is my fear, saith « the Lord of hosts unto you priests, who despise my < name?" Mal. i. 6. If, in all particular relations, where there is any thing ofsuperiority, which bath the least parcel of authority accompanying it, obedience is expected and exacted; is it not due to me, who haveall authority, of all sovereign relations in me towards you? And there are two things that enforce the obligation from the command on this consideration, Jus ionyerandi, and Yis exequendi, both comprised in that of the apostle James, chap. iv. ver. 12. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. I. He who commands us to be holy, is our sovereign lawgiver; he that hath absolute power to prescribe unto us what laws he pleaseth. When commands come from them who have authority, and yet are themselves also 361 of the honour and holiness of the gospel on this suppo- sition? Must it not be looked on as a doctrine less holy than that of the law? For whereas the law required ab- solute perfect sinless holiness unto our justification, the gospel admits of that to the same end, on this supposi- tion, whichis everyway imperfect, and consistent with a multitude ofsins and failings? What can be spoken more to the derogation of it? Nay, would not this indeed make Christ the minister of sin, whichour apostle rejects with somuch detestation? Gal. ii.17. For to say, that he bath meritedthat our imperfect obedience, attended withmany and great sins, for there is no man that liveth and sin- neth not,) should be accepted unto our justification, in- stead ofperfect and sinless obedience required under the law, is plainly to make him the minister of sin, or one thatbath acquired some liberty for sin, beyond whatever the law allowed. And, thus, upon the whole matter, both Christ and the gospel, in whom, and whereby, God unquestionably designed to declare the holiness and righteousnessof his own nature, much more glori- ously than ever he had done any other way, should be the great means to darken and obscure them: for in and by them, onthis supposition, God must be thought and is declared) toaccept ofa righteousness unto ourjustifica- tion, unspeakably inferior untowhat he required before. Sect. 9. It must be granted therefore, that the endof gospel-commands, requiring the obedience of holiness in us, is not, that thereby, or thereon, we should be justified. God bath therein provided another righteousness for that end, which fully, perfectly, ab- solutely answers all that the law requires; and, on some considerations, is far more glorious than what the law either did or could require. And hereby bath he exalt- ed more than ever the honour of his own holiness and righteousness, whereofthe external instrument is the gospel, which is also therefore mostholy. Now, this is no other but the righteousness of Christ imputed unto us; for he is the endof the law for righteousness unto them that do believe, Rom. x. 4. But God hath now appointed other ends unto our holiness, and so unto his command of it, under the gospel, all of them con- sistent with the nature of that obedience which he will accept of us, and such as we may attain through the power of grace, and so all of them offering new encour- agementsas well as enforcements unto our endeavours after it. But, because these ends will be subject of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=