pleasant yoke. Sin against the knowledge of the law is therefore called, a going back from the commandment of God's lips, Job xxiii. 12; a casting of God's word behind them, Psal. 1. 17, as a contemptible thing, fitter to be trodden in the dirt than lodged in the heart. Nay, it is a casting it off as an abominable thing, for so the word a signifies; "Israel hath cast off the thing that is good," Hos. viii. 3: an utter refusal of God; "As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken." Jer. xliv. 16. In the slight of his precepts his essential perfections are slighted. In disowning his will as a rule, we disown all those attributes which flow from his will, as goodness, righteousness, and truth. As an act of the Divine understanding is supposed to precede the act of the Divine will, so we slight the infinite reason of God. Every law, though it proceeds from the will of the lawgiver, and does formally consist in an act of the will, yet it presupposes an act of the understanding. If the commandment be holy, just, and good, Rom. vii. 12; if it be the image of God's holiness, a transcript of his righteousness, and the efflux of his goodness; then in every breach of it dirt is cast upon those attributes which shine in it, and a slight of all the regards he has to his own honour, and all the provisions he makes for his creature, This atheism or contempt of God, is more taken notice of by God than the matter of the sin itself: as a respect to God in a weak and imperfect obedience, is more than the matter of the obedience itself, because it is an acknowledgment of God; so a contempt of God in an act of disobedience, is more than the matter of disobedience. The creature stands in such an act not only in a posture of distance from God, but defiance of him: it was not the bare act of murder and adultery which Nathan charged upon David, but the atheistical principle which spirited those evil acts. The despising the commandment of the Lord was the venom of them. 2 Sam. xii. 9, 10. It is possible to break a law without contempt; but when men pretend to believe there is a God, and that this is the law of God, it shows a contempt of his majesty: men naturally account God's laws too strict, his yoke too heavy, and his limits too strait; and he that lives in a contempt of this law, curses God in his life. How can they believe there is a God, who despise him as a Ruler? How can they believe him to be a Guide, that disdain to follow him? To think we firmly believe a God without living conformable to his law, is an idle and vain imagination. The true and sensible notion of a God cannot subsist with disorder and an affected unrighteousness. This contempt is seen, In any presumptuous breach of any part of his law. Such sins are frequently called in Scripture rebellions, which are a denial of the allegiance we owe to him. By a wilful refusal of his right in one part, we root up the foundation of that rule he doth justly challenge over us: his right is as extensive to command us in one thing as in another: and if it be disowned in one thing, it is virtually disowned in all, and the whole statute book of God is contemned. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Jam. ii. 10. A willing breaking one part, though there be a willing observance of all the other points of it, is a breach of the whole, because the authority of God, which gives sanction to the whole, is slighted. The obedience to the rest is dissembled: for the love, which is the root of all obedience, is wanting; for "love is the fulfilling of the law." Rom. xiii. 10. The rest are obeyed because they cross not carnal desire so much as the other, and so it is an observance of himself, not of God. Besides, the authority of God, which is not prevalent to restrain us from the breach of one point, would be of as little force with us to restrain us from the breach of all the rest, did the allurements of the flesh give us as strong a diversion from the one, as from the other; and though the command that is transgressed be the least in the whole law, yet the authority which enjoins it is the same with that which enacts the greatest. And it is not so much the matter of the command, as the authority commanding which lays the obligation. 1 Claud. This is also seen in the natural averseness to the declarations of God's will and mind, which way soever they tend. Since man affected to be as God, he desires to be boundless; he would not have fetters, though they be golden ones, and conduce to his happiness; though the law of God be a strength to them, yet they will not; "In returning shall be your strength, and you would not." Isa. xxx. 15. They would not have a bridle to restrain them from running into the pit, nor be hedged in by the law, though for their security: as if they thought it too slavish and low-spirited a thing to be guided by the will of another. Hence man is compared to a wild ass, that loves to snuff up the wind in the wilderness at her pleasure, rather than come under the guidance of God. Jer. ii. 24. From whatsoever quarter of the heavens you pursue her, she will run the other. The Israelites could not endure what was commanded, Heb. xii. 20, though, in regard of the moral part, agreeable to what they found written in their own nature; and to the observance whereof they had the highest obligations of any people under heaven, since God had by many prodigies delivered them from a cruel slavery; the memory of which prefaced the decalogue; "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Exod. xx. 2. They could not think of the rule of their duty, but they must reflect upon the grand incentive of it in their redemption from Egyptian thraldom. Yet this people were cross to God, which way soever he moved: when they were in the brick-kilns, they cried for deliverance; when they had heavenly manna, they longed for their onions and garlick. In Numb. xiv. 3, they repent of their deliverance from Egypt, and talk of returning again to seek the remedy of their evils in the hands of their most cruel enemies; and would rather put themselves into the irons, whence God hath delivered them, than believe one word of the promise of God for giving them a fruitful land. But when Moses tells them God's order, that they should turn back by the way of the Red sea, ver. 25, and that God had confirmed it by an oath, that they should not see the land of Canaan, ver. 28, they then run cross to this command of God, and instead of marching towards the Red sea, which they had wished for before, they will go up to Canaan, as in spite of God and his threatening: "We will go to the place which the Lord hath promised," ver. 40; which Moses calls a transgressing the commandment of the Lord, ver. 41. They would presume to go up, notwithstanding Moses's prohibition, and are smitten by the Amalekites. When God gives them a precept, with a promise to go up to Canaan, they long for Egypt; when God commands them to return to the Red sea, which was nearer to the place they longed for, they will shift sides and go up to Canaan. And when they found they were to traverse the solitudes of the desert, they took pet against God; and instead of thanking him for the late victory against the Canaanites, they reproach him for his conduct from Egypt, and the manna wherewith he nourished them in the wilderness. They would not go to Canaan, the way God had chosen, nor preserve themselves by the means God had ordained. They would not be at God's disposal, but complain of the badness of the way, and the lightness of manna, empty of any necessary juice to sustain their nature. They murmuringly solicit the will and power of God to change all that order which he had resolved in his council, and take another, conformable to their vain, foolish desires. And they signified thereby that they would invade his conduct, and that he should act according to their fancy; which the psalmist calls a tempting of God, and limiting the Holy One of Israel. Psa. lxxviii. 41. To what point soever the declarations of God stand, the will of man turns the quite contrary way. Is not the conduct of this nation the best then in the world for discovery of the depth of our natural corruption; how cross man is to God: and that charge God brings against them, may be brought against all Numb. xxi. 4, 5. and Daille Serm. 1 Cor. x. Ser. 9. p. 234, 235. 40. men by nature, that they despise his judgments, and have a rooted abhorrence of his statutes in their soul, Lev. xxvi. 43. No sooner had they recovered from one rebellion, but they revolted to another. So difficult a thing it is for man's nature to be rendered capable of conforming to the will of God. The carriage of his people is but a copy of the nature of mankind, and is written for our admonition, 1 Cor. x. 11. From this temper men are said to make void the law of God, Psal. cxix. 126; to make it of no obligation, an antiquated and moth-eaten record. And the pharisees, by setting up their traditions against the will of God, are said to make his law of none effect, to strip it of all its authority, as the word signifies, Matt. xv. 6. ἡκυρώσατε. Again, we have the greatest slight of that will of God which is most for his honour and his greatest pleasure. It is the nature of man, ever since Adam, to do so. God "desired mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of himself more than burnt offering; but they, like men, (as Adam,) have trangressed the covenant," invaded God's rights, and not let him be Lord of one tree. Hos. vi. 6, 7. We are more curious observers of the fringes of the law, than of the greater concerns of it. The Jews were diligent in sacrifices and offerings, which God did not urge upon them as principles, but as types of other things, but negligent of the faith which was to be established by him: holiness, mercy, pity, which concerned the honour of God, as Governor of the world, and were imitations of the holiness and goodness of God, they were strangers to. This is God's complaint. Isa. i. 11, 12, 16, 17. We shall find our hearts most averse to the observation of those laws which are eternal and essential to righteousness; such that he could not but command, as he is a righteous Governor; in the observation of which, we come nearest to him and express his image most clearly; as those laws for an inward and spiritual worship, a supreme affection to him. God in regard of the righteousness and holiness of his nature, and the excellency of his being, could not command the contrary to these. But this part of his will our hearts most swell against, our corruption doth most snarl at; whereas those laws which are only positive, and have no intrinsic righteousness in them, but depend purely upon the will of the Lawgiver, and may be changed at his pleasure, (which the other, that have an intrinsic righteousness in them, cannot,) we better comply with, than that part of his will that doth express more the righteousness of his nature, Psal. 1. 6. 17. 19; such as the ceremonial part of worship, and the ceremonial law among the Jews. We are more willing to observe order in some outward attendances and ostentatious devotions, than discard secret affections to evil, crucify inward lusts and delightful thoughts. A hanging down the head like a bulrush is not difficult, but the breaking the heart like a potter's vessel to shreds and dust, (a sacrifice God delights in, whereby the excellency of God and the vileness of the creature is owned) goes against the grain. To cut off an outward branch is not so hard as to hack at the root. What God most loathes, as most contrary to his will, we most love: no sin did God so severely hate, and no sin were the Jews more inclined unto, than that of idolatry. The heathen had not changed their gods, as the Jews had changed their glory. Jer. ii. 11. And all men are naturally tainted with this sin, which is so contrary to the holy and excellent nature of God. By how much the more defect there is of purity in our respects to God, by so much the more respect there is to some idol within or without us to humour, custom, or interest. Never did any law of God meet with so much opposition as Christianity, which was the design of God, from the first promise to the exhibiting of the Redeemer, and from thence to the end of the world. All people drew swords at first against it: the Romans prepared yokes for their neighbours, but provided temples for the idols those people worshipped. But Christianity, the choicest design and most delightful part of the will of God, never met with a kind entertainment at first in any place. Rome, that entertained all others, persecuted this with fire and sword, though sealed by greater testimonies from heaven, than their own records could report in favour of their idols. And we run great hazards, and expose ourselves to more trouble to cross the will of God than is necessary to the observance of it. It is a vain charge men bring against the divine precepts, that they are rigorous, severe, and difficult; when, besides the contradiction to our Saviour, who tells us his yoke is easy and his burden light, they thwart their own calm reason and judgment. Is there not more difficulty to be vicious, covetous, violent, cruel, than to be virtuous, charitable, kind? Doth the will of God enjoin that which is not conformable to right reason, and secretly delightful in the exercise and issue? And, on the contrary, what doth Satan and the world engage us in, that is not full of molestation and hazard? Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own consciences, and resist our own light, and commence a perpetual quarrel against ourselves, as we ordinarily do when we sin ? They in the prophet would be at the expense of thousands of rams, and ten thousand rivers of oil, if they could coinpass them; yea, would strip themselves of their natural affection to their first-born to expiate the sin of their soul, rather than do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, Mic. vi. 6-8; things more conducive to the honour of God, the welVOL. I.-15 |