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ry. And therefore he has a just title to the homage and obedience of all his creatures.

5. Because he is our good and gracious Benefactor, from whofe bountiful hand all our mercies do flow. It is in him that we live, move, and have our being. Our health, ftrength, time, and all bleffings fpiritual or temporal, that we enjoy, are the fruits of his goodnefs and providential care. Now, this lays ftrong ob ligations upon us to ferve and obey him. We find the Lord aggravating the rebellion of the Jews from the care he had taken in bringing them up, and their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, If. i. 2. I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against me. Which clearly implies, that the benefits he had beftowed upon them were ftrong obligations to an ingenuous obfervance of him; and we find him threatening to deprive them of the bleffings he had bestowed upon them, and to bring great diftrefs upon them for the neglect of this duty, Deut. xxviii. 47. &c.

6. Lastly, Because he is our Governor and fupreme Lawgiver. He is a Lawgiver to all, to irrational as well as rational creatures. The heavens have their ordinances, Job xxxviii. 33. All the creatures have a law imprinted on their beings, but rational creatures have divine statutes infcribed on their hearts, as Rom.ii. 14. 15. When the Gentiles which have not the [written] law, do by nature the things contained in the law, thefe ba ving not the law, are a law unto themselves: which fhew the work of the law written in their hearts. And they have laws more clearly and fully fet before them in the word, The fole power of making laws does originally refide in God, Jam. iv. 12. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to fave and to destroy. He only hath power to bind the confcience. And therefore to him obedience is due from all to whom he has prescribed laws.

I come now to deduce fome inferences.

Inf 1. Does God require from men obedience to his revealed will? Then in whatfoever ftate a man is, he owes obedience to the will of God; and therefore in the faddeft of sufferings, even in hell, men properly fin against God. For this obedience is founded on the natural dependence of the creature on its Creator, and the creature can no more be free of it than it can be a God to itself. Much more God's exalting men in the world gives them no allowance to be vile. Whatever mens ftate be, God requires of them obedience to his will therein; and they are rebels if they with-hold it, and shall be dealt with as fuch accordingly.

2. The doing of what God does not command can be no acceptable service or obedience to God. Our duty to God is not to be measured by our imaginations, but by the revealed will of God. Therefore when men make those things to be duties which no revelation from the Lord makes to be fo, the Lord may well fay, Who hath required thefe things at your hand? Nothing but what is commanded of God can lawfully be the object of our duty.

3. Those who never heard the gofpel, will not be condemned for their not believing it; for the revelation of God's will muft go before our actual obligation to do it, Rom. ii. 12. As many as have finned without law [that is, the written or revealed law of God] fhall alfo perish without law. This ought to ftir up all who bear the Chriftian name, to be vigorous and lively in obeying God, particularly the great command of believing in the name of his Son: as confidering, that whofoever doth not so obey and believe the gofpel, fhall be damned, Mark xvi. 16.

4. All men are allowed for themselves to examine the will of their fuperiors, whether in church or ftate, to fee whether it be not against the will of God; and if it be fo, not to obey it, 1 Cor. x. 15. The Bereans were commended for io doing, Acts xvii. 11. There is a difference betwixt fubjection and obedience. Thefe VOL. II, 3 B

two may be separated in our dealings with men that are our fuperiors; we may and mult refufe obedience to them in evil actions, while fubjection to them remains in other things. Thus the apoftles fhewed subjection to the Jewish rulers, while they refused to obey their unlawful commands, Acts iv. 8. 9. 19. God alone is Lord of the confcience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, when they in any refpect clash with his written word. To obey mens unlawful commands, is to fin against God. But in our relation to God, we owe him both fubjection and obedience in all things.

5. Let us remember then that we owe a duty to God, and that is, that we obey his will. Let us therefore lay out ourselves to do his will, and give that fincere, conftant, tender, ready, univerfal, and perfect obedience to him in all things, which he requires, looking for acceptance with God through the merits and mediation of Chrift; praying to him, that he may gracioufly forgive all our acts of difobedience, and cover our very imperfect and finful obedience with the perfect and complete obedience of his Son, who fulfilled all righteoufnefs in the room of his people.

6. Lastly, Let believers be excited to yield this obedience to the will of God, as they have the moft noble encouragement thereto, namely, That whatever God requires of them as an article of duty, there is a promife of ability and ftrength for the performance thereof contained in his word. Thus he fays, Ezek. xxxvi. 27. I will cause you to walk in my ftatutes, and ye hall keep my judgements, and do them. The Lord puts no piece of fervice in the hands of his people, but he will afford them fufficient fupplies of grace for the doing thereof. Let them not then decline any duty he lays before them.

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For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, thefe, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which fhew the work of the law written in their hearts, their confcience alfe bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accufing or elfe excufing one another.

T

HE apoftle here fhews three things. 1. That

the Gentiles have not the law, that is, the law of Mofes, or written law. They want the fcriptures, 2. That yet they have a law within them, they are a law to themselves; they have the natural law, which for fubftance is all one with the moral law. Only it is lefs clear and diftinct, and wants the perfection of the moral law written; feveral points thereof being, through the corruption of nature, obliterated in it. 3. How they have it. It is not of their own making, nor by tradition, but they have it by nature derived from Adam: The work of that law is written in their hearts; it is deeply intcribed there, and cannot be erafed; it is fuch a work as tells them what is right and what wrong; fo their confciences by virtue thereof excufe their good actions, and accuse the evil.

Now, this natural law is nothing elfe but the rubbish of the moral law left in the heart of corrupt man: from whence we gather, that the moral law in its perfection was given to Adam in innocence, while we fee the remains of it yet with thofe of his poiterity, who have not the advantage of the written law. The doctrine arifing from the words is,

DocT. "The rule which God at firft revealed to 'man for his obedience, was the moral law.".

First, It is here fuppofed, that man always was and is under a law for being a rational creature, capable of obeying the will of God, and owing obedience to his Creator by virtue of his natural dependence upon

him, he behoved to be under a law. The beafts are not capable of government by a law, because of the imperfection of their nature: fo thofe that will be lawlefs, feeing they cannot lift up themselves to the throne of God, who has no fuperior, they do in effect caft down themselves to the condition of beafts, whofe appetite is all their rule. Indeed all the creatures are fubjected to laws fuitable to their various natures. Every thing has a law imprinted upon its being. The inanimate creatures, fun, moon, and flars, are under the law of providence, and under a covenant of night and day. Hence it is faid, Pfal. cxlviii. 6. He hath established them for ever and ever, he hath made a decree which shall not pass. They have their courfes and appointed motions, and keep to the juft points of their compafs. Even the fea, which is one of the moft raging and tumultuous creatures, is fubjected to a law." God hedges it in as it were with a girdle of fand, faying to it, Hitherto halt thou come, but no further and here fhall thy proud waves be stayed, Job xxxviii. 11. But much more are rational crea tures fubject to a law, feeing they are capable of elec tion and choice. Man eipecially, being a rational creature, is capable of and fitted for government by a law; and feeing he is an accountable creature to God, he must needs be under a law,

Queft. How could man be under a law, before the law was given by Mofes, for we are told, that the law was given by Mofes, but grace and truth came by Jefus Chrift, John i. 17.?

Anf. Before the law was given at Sinai, all the race of Adam had a law written in their hearts, even the light of reafon, and the dictates of natural confcience, which contained thofe moral principles concerning good and evil which have an effential equity in them, and the meafures of his duty to God, to himfelf, and to his fellow creatures. This was published by the voice of reafon, and, as the apoftle fays, Rom. vii. 12. was holy, juft, and good: Holy, as it enjoins things

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