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THE MORAL LAW

AS A RULE OF CONDUCT TO BELIEVERS.

My dear Brother,

A LETTER TO A FRIEND,

You requested me, when I was at W-d, to give you my reasons in the brief compass of a letter, for considering The Moral Law as the Rule of Conduct to Believers. It is painful that a question of this nature should ever have been started among professing Christians; but this, and other things of the kind, are permitted, that they who are approved may be made manifest.

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You do not wish me, my dear brother, to encounter the foul dogmas of our pulpit libertines; but to state a few plain scriptural evidences, which may be useful to some serious minds, who have been entangled in the mazes of their delusions. Before I proceed to this, however, it will be proper to make a remark or two in a general way.

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1st, There is no dispute on the ground of our acceptance with God. We are not justified on account of any thing inherent, whether before, in, or after believing; but merely for the sake of the righteousness of Christ, believed in and imputed to us. As a medium of life, or, as our divines commonly express it, as a covenant, believers are dead to the law, and the law to them, being united to another husband. The question is not, Whether the whole of Christian obedience be formally required in the Ten Commandments? Certainly it is not. Neither the ordinance of baptism, nor that of the supper, are expressly required by them; and there may be other duties which they do not in so many words inculcate :but the question is, Whether it be not eventually required by them? and, Whether they be not binding on believers? If we allow our Saviour to be a just expositor, the sum of the Ten Commandments is, " The love of God, with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of our neighbour as ourselves;" and this includes all the obedience that can possibly be yielded by a creature. If we love God with all our hearts, we shall comply with every positive institute and particular precept which he hath enjoined in his word; and all such compliance contains just so much obedience as it contains love to him, and no more. Let an instance of Christian obedience be produced, if it can, which is not comprehended in the general precept of love. In objecting to the perfection of the Ten Commandments, our adversaries would seem to hold with an extensive rule; but the design manifestly is to undermine th authority, and that without substituting any other com rule in the place of them. In what follows, therefo

endeavour to prove both the authority and perfection of the Jaw; or that the Commandments of God, whether we consider them as ten or two, are still binding on Christians; and vir tually contain the whole revealed will of God, as to the matter of obedience. To prove that they are binding, let any person, in the first place, read them, one by one, and ask his own conscience as he reads, Whether it would be any sin to break them? Is the believer at liberty to have other gods besides the true God? Would there be no harm in his making to himself a graven image, and falling down to worship it? Is it any less sin for a believer to take God's name in vain than for an unbeliever? Are believers at liberty to profane the Sabbath, or to disobey their parents, or to kill their neighbours, or to commit adultery, or to steal, or to bear false witness, or to covet what is not their own? Is this, or any part of it, the liberty of the gospel? Every conscience that is not seared as with a hot iron, must answer these questions in the negative,

edly, It is utterly inconsistent with the nature of moral government, and of the great designs of mercy, as revealed in the gospel, that believers should be freed from obligation to love God with all their hearts; and their neighbours as themselves. The requirement of love is founded in the nature of the relation between God and a rational creature; and cannot be made void so long as the latter exists, unless the former were to deny himself. The relation between a father and son is such, that an obligation to love is indispensable; and should the son, on having offended his father, be forgiven and restored, like the prodigal to his family, to pretend to be free on this account, were an outrage on decency. Every one must feel that his obligations, in such a case, are increased rather than diminished. In executing the great work of redemption, our Saviour invariably did honour to the law it was written in his heart. He did not ask for the salvation of his chosen at the expence of it; he laid down his life to satisfy its righteous demands. Now, the essence of true religion is for the same mind to be in us which was in Christ Jesus." Hence he prayed that they all might be one, as the Father was in him, and he in the Father, that they might be one in both. The Lawgiver and the Saviour were one; and believers must be of one mind with the former as well as the latter: bat if we depreciate the law, which Christ delighted to honour, and deny our obligatious to obey it, how are we of his mind? Rather, are we not of that mind which is "enmity against God, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed

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3dly, It was solemnly declared by our Saviour, "That he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it; yea, that Heaven and earth should pass away, but not a jot or tittle of the law should fail." A considerable part of his Sermon on the Mount is taken up in pointing out the true meaning of its particular precepts, and in enforcing them upon his disciples. To the same purpose the apostle Paul, after dwelling largely on justification by faith in Christ, in opposition to the works of the law, asks, "Do we then make void the law thro' faith? God forbid : yea, we establish the law." But if the law ceases to be binding on believers, Christ did come to destroy its authority over them; and faith does make it void in respect of them. The faith of those who set Moses and Christ at variance, has manifestly this effect; it is, therefore, in opposition to the faith taught by our Saviour and the apostle Paul.

4thly, The apostle, in 'what he writes to the Romans and the Galatians (two epistles, in which he largely explodes the idea of justification by the works of the law) enforces brotherly love as a requirement of the law. "Love one another," says he," for love is the fulfilling of the law." Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh; but, by-love, serve one another; for all the law is fulfilled in one word: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyseif §." If the liberty of the primitive Christians consisted in being delivered from an obligation to obey the precepts of the law, the reasoning of the apostle was self-contradictory: Ye are not obliged to love one another because God in his law requires it; therefore, love one another because God in his law requires it!!'

5thly, If the law be not a rule of conduct to believers, and a perfect rule too, they are under no rule, or, which is the same thing, are lawless. But if so, they commit no sin; for "where no law is, there is no transgression" and in this case they have no sins to confess, either to God or to one another; nor do they stand in need of Christ as an Advocate with the Father; nor of daily forgiveness through his blood. Thus it is, that, by disowning the law, men utterly subvert the gospel. I am aware that those who deny the law to be the rule of a believer's conduct, some of thein, at least, will not pretend to be lawless. Sometimes, they will profess to make the gospel their rule; but the gospel, strictly speaking, is not a rule of conduct, but a message of grace, providing for our conformity to the rule previously given. To set aside the moral law as a rule, and to substitute the gospel in its place, is making -the gospel a new law; and affords a proof how Antinomian

+ See Mat. v. 17–48. Gal. viii. 13, 14.

↑ Rom. iii. 34.

Rom. xlii. 8-10.

ism and Neonomianism, after all their differences, can occasionally agree. The Scriptures teach us, that " by the law is. the knowledge of sin *; which clearly implies, that there is no sin but what is a breach of that rule. Hence sin is defined "the transgression of the law t. But if sin be the transgression of the law, the authority of the law must be still binding; for no crime or offence attaches to the breach of a law which is abrogated or repealed; nor can it be known by such a law how much any man hath sinned, or whether he hath sinned at all. Moreover, if there be no sin but what is a transgression of the law, there can be no rule which is not compre. hended in that law, binding on men.

6thly, The apostle writes as if there were no medium between being under the law to Christ, and without law. If we be not the one, we are the other. Paul does not say he was under a law, but the law to Christ; which implies that Christ has taken the precepts of the moral law as the first principles of his legislative code. Believers, therefore, instead of being freed from obligation to obey it, are under greater obligations than any men in the world to do so. To be exempt from this, is to be without a law, and, of course, without sin; in which case we might do without a Saviour, which is utterly subversive of all religion. I have been told, that believers are not to be ruled by the law, but by love; and that it is by the influence of the Spirit that they are moved to obedience, rather than by the precepts of the law. To this I answer, 1st, If a believer be ruled by love, in such a way as to exclude obligation, this is the same thing as if a sou should say to his father, I have no objection to oblige you, Sir: I will do your business from love; but I will not be commanded! That is,-what he pleases he will do, and no more. No parent could bear such an answer from a child; and how can we suppose that God will bear it from us! "If I be a father, where is my honour?"-2. The question is not, what moves or causes obedience, but what is the rule of it? It is allowed, that all true obedience is caused by the influence of the Holy Spirit; but that to which he influences the mind was antecedently required of us: "He leadeth us in the way that we should go."3. If the influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind be made the rule of obligation, and that influence be effectual, it will follow that believers are without sin; for whatever they are effectually influenced to do, they do; and if this be all they are obliged to do, then do they comply with their whole duty, and so are sinless. Thus, methinks, we have arrived at a state of sinless perfection by a sort of back way! But, let us not deceive ourselves: God is not mocked; what soever a man soweth that shall he also GAIUS,

reap!"

Rom, iii, 20.

t John iii. 4.

t1 Cor. ix. 21.

A SPEECH,

SUPPOSED TO BE MADE BY THE BIBLE.

FROM the days of Constantine, Emperor of Rome, down to the present, my character in Europe has been held in high estimation. Indeed, I have been acknowledged by all, to be the only true teacher of religion. Notwithstanding this complaisance, the treatment I have received from many has been worse than unpolite. People of opposite sentiments, have not only whispered among their own circles, but proclaimed it to the world, that I support them both. Such double conduct I detest: but as few, comparatively, consulted me, many adopted all the false and ruinous tenets propagated in my name.

The Roman Pontiff acquired excessive temporal power by gradual encroachments. He and his associates formed, as they said, a religion founded on my instructions; and sent out emissaries, in all directions, to compel men, by fire and faggot, to confess their inventions to be my truths.

As I had pourtrayed this ecclesiastical monster with great accuracy, and warned the world of his approach, they soon viewed me with a jealous eye. At length I was laid under the severest restrictions, being enjoined never to address any people in the language they understood. As no nation spoke Latin after the overthrow of the Roman empire by the northern barbarians, they assigned to me that language. However, they would not have been highly displeased, though I had spoken French in Holland, and Dutch in France.

Finding that even this barbarity did not wholly prevent me from teaching truth to the nations, they laid me under an embargo, till they had made such incisions and alterations upon my tongue, that I could hardly utter a sentence intelligibly. Indeed, they pared my tongue with such ingenuity, that, in spite of myself, I appeared to speak in favour of superstition and absurdity. For example, when I attempted to say," Jacob worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff,"→ it always sounded to the hearer, as if I had said, "Jacob worshipped the top of his staff;" which made many suppose there had been an image of Enoch carved on the top, to which he paid religious honour. But as I had always been accustomed to give a distinct and certain sound, many perceived the wounds I had received in the house of my pretended friends, and likewise the effect it had on my articulation. The moment they perceived it, they condemned the cruelty and knavery of Rome; but these, my advocates, were silenced by a rod of iron the old way of answering arguments. In a few ages, men lost the remembrance of my fair character;' and Rome had the effrontery to assure the world I was become such a mystic, that no mortal but herself could under8 Z

XII.

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