SECTION' II. 113 Then immediately he proceeds to give our young querist an answer to his question, If thou wilt enter into life keep the com- mandments. The young man, again seems to have his former designs in his eye, when he asks " which commandment he should keep ?" As if he shoùld say, " Is it any one particular commandment or commandments of Moses that I must keep ; and if I have kept them, is thereany new commandment thou will giveme, whereby eternal life will be insured to me ?" Our Lord replies, Keep the common commandments of the law," Thouknowest them," as Mark x. 17. It is not by observ- ing any one command and neglecting the rest, but the way to enter into life is obedience to all the commandments, for I ant not come to break or dissolve the law of God, but to confirm or fu?/ it ; Mat. v. 17-19. And though our Lord Jesus mentions only those of the second table, and the duties towards men, yet we must suppose lie means inclusively all the rest ; for he saith in Mat. v. 19. Whosoever shall teach men to break the least of the commandments of the law, shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, shall have no place there. Our Saviour dotli not give a dispensation to neglect duties toward God, by mentioning only the duties toward our neighbour; but the reasons why he mentions them seem chiefly these two : 1. Because these duties to their neighbours were those which the Pharisees, who boasted'of their own righteousness, more particularly neglected, while they pretended to much devotion and worship of God in all the forms of his appointment : And therefore our Lord insists-particularly upon these commands that relate to our fellow-creatures, to spew him that these were as ne- cessary a part . of his duty, as all the more pompous- services of God in his temple. 2. Because it might be more easy for his own conscience to convince him of the neglect of these moral and relative duties towards his fellow- creatures, than of his neglect of religious du- ties towards God : And our Saviour thought when he had named these, he had named commandments enough to shew him the imperfection of his righteousness : Therefore he did not proceed to mention them all. And it may be noted, that our Lord reckons up these com- mands not in their exact order, nor exactly in the words of the Old Testament, but with a more loose and negligent wayof re- peating them, because he spoke to a man that was supposed to know them already : Thou knowest all the commandments which I refer-to, even the commands of the moral law, Do not kill, do not steal, ce. SecT. ILThe Sense of Christ's Answer. Now the great and important question comes naturally into sight VOL. In what sense did our Saviour speak these words to the Y Iu. R
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