3. Christ hath repeated and owned the matter of it in the gospel, and made it his command to his disciples.

Q. 3. Is there nothing in the ten commandments proper to the Israelites ?

A. Yes: 1.The preface, "hear, O Israel ;" and "that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' 2. The stating the seventh day for the Sabbath, and the strict ceremonial rest commanded as part of the sanctifying of it.

Q. 4. How doth Christ and his Apostles contract all the law into that of love?

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A. God, who as absolute Lord, owneth, moveth, and disposeth of all, doth, as sovereign Ruler, give us laws, and execute them, and, as Lord and Benefactor, giveth us all, and is the most amiable object and end of all: so that as to love and give is more than to command, so to be loved is more than as a commander to be obeyed: but ever includeth it, though it be eminently, in its nature, above it. So that, 1. Objectively, love to God, ourselves, and others, in that measure that it is exercised wisely, is obedience eminently, and somewhat higher, 2. And love, as the principle in man, is the most powerful cause of obedience, supposing the reverence of authority and the fear of punishment, but is somewhat more excellent than they. A parent's love to a child makes him more constant and full in all that he can do for him, than the commands of a king alone will do. In that measure that you love God, you will heartily and delightfully do all your duty to him; and so far as you love parents or neighbours, you will gladly promote their honour, safety, chastity, estates, rights, and all that is theirs, and hate all that is against their good. And as parents will feed their children, though no fear of punishment should move them; so we shall be above the great necessity of the fear of punishment, so far as God and goodness is our delight."

Q. 5. How should one know the meaning and extent of the commandments?

A. The words do plainly signify the sense: and according to the reasonable use of words, God's laws being perfect, must be thus expounded.*

1. The commanding of duty includeth the forbidding of the

contrary.

Mark xii. 30, 33; Rom. xiii. 9, 10; 1 Cor. xiii.; Tit. iii.4; Rom. v. 5, and viii. 39; 1 John iv. 16; John xiv. 23.

* 2 Tim. i. 7; 1 John iv. 17, 18; Gal. v. 14.

"Psalm i. 2, 3, and exix.

* Matt. vii. 12; Phil. ii. 14, and iii. 8; 1 Cor. xiv. 26.

2. Under general commands and prohibitions, the kinds and particulars are included which the general word extendeth to.

3. When one particular sin is forbidden, or duty commanded, all the branches of it, and all of the same kind and reason are forbidden or commanded.

4. Where the end is commanded or forbidden, it is implied that so are the true means as such.

5. Every commandment extendeth to the whole man, to our bodies and all the members, and to the soul and all its faculties respectively.

6. Commands bind us not to be always doing the thing commanded. Duties be not at all times duty: but prohibitions bind us at all times from every sin, when it is indeed a sin.

7. Every command implieth some reward or benefit to the obedient, and every sin of omission or commission is supposed to deserve punishment, though it be not named."

8. Every command supposeth the thing commanded to be no natural impossibility, (as to see spirits, or to dive into the heart of the earth, to know that which is not intelligible, &c.) But it doth not suppose us to be morally or holily disposed to keep it, or to be able to change our corrupt natures without God's

grace.

9. So every command supposeth us to have that natural freedom of will which is a self-determining power, not necessitated or forced to sin by any: but not to have a will that is free from vicious inclinations: nor from under God's disposing power.'

10. The breach of the same laws may have several sorts of punishment by parents, by masters, by magistrates, by the church; on body, on name, on soul, in this life, by God; and, finally, heavier punishment in the life to come.

11. The sins here forbidden, are not unpardonable, but by Christ's merits, sacrifice and intercession, are forgiven to all true penitent, converted believers.

CHAP. XXXIII.

Of the Preface to the Decalogue.

Q. 1. WHAT are the parts of the Decalogue?

A. 1. The constitution of the kingdom of God over men de

y Mal. iii. 14.

* Rom. v.ii 6-8; Jer. xiii. 23.

scribed. And, 2. The administration, or governing laws of his kingdom.

Q. 2. What words express the constitution of God's kingdom?

A. "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

Q. 3. What is the constitution here expressed?

A. 1. God, the Sovereign. 2. Man, the subject. 3. The work of God, which was the next foundation or reason of the mutual relation between God and man, as here intended.a

Q. 4. What is included in the first part, of God's sove reignty?

A. 1. That there is a God, and but one God in this special sense. 2. That the God of Israel is this one true God, who maketh these laws. 3. That we must all obey him.

Q. 5. What is God, and what doth that word here mean? A. This was largely opened in the beginning. Briefly to be God is to be a Spirit, infinite in being, in vital power, knowledge, and goodness, of whom, as the efficient cause, and through whom as the Governor, and to whom as the end, are all things else; related to us as our Creator, and as our absolute Owner, our supreme Ruler, and our greatest Benefactor, Friend, and Father.

Q. 6. What words mention man as the subject of the kingdom?

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A. Hear, O Israel," and "Thy God that brought thee," &c. Q. 7. What relations are here included?

A. That we, being God's creatures and redeemed ones, are, 1. His own. 2. His subjects, to be ruled by him. 3. His poor beneficiaries, that have all from him, and owe him all our love.

Q. 8. What do the words signify " that brought thee out of the land of Egypt?"

A. That besides the right of creation, God hath a second right to us as our Redeemer. The deliverance from Egypt was that typical one that founded the relation between him and the commonwealth of Israel. But as the Decalogue is the law of Christ, the meaning is, I am the Lord thy God, who redeemed thee from sin and misery by Jesus Christ." So that this signifieth the nearest right and reason of this relation between God and man. He giveth us his law now, not only as our Creator,

* Mal. ii. 10; Matt. xix. 17; Mark xii. 32; Jer. vii. 23; John xx. 17. Matt. xxviii. 19; Rom. xiv. 9; John v. 22, and xvii. 2, 3.

but as our Redeemer, and as such we must be his willing subjects, and obey him.

Q. 9. Are all men subjects of God's kingdom?

A. 1. All are subjects as to right and obligation.

2. All that profess subjection as professed consenters.

3. And all true hearty consenters are his sincere subjects, that shall be saved.

God the Creator and Redeemer hath the right of sovereignty over all the world, whether they consent or not. But they shall not have the blessing of faithful subjects without their own true consent, nor of visible church members without professed consent. But antecedent mercies he giveth to all.

Q. 10. Why is this description of God's sovereignty, and man's subjection, and the ground of it, set before the commandments?

A. Because, 1. Faith must go before obedience. He that will come to God and obey him, must believe that God is God, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Heb. xi. 6.) And he that will obey him as our Redeemer, must believe that we are redeemed by Jesus Christ, and that he is our Lord and King. 2. And relations go before the duties of relation and our consent foundeth the mutual relation. 'The nature and form of obedience is, to obey another's commanding will, because he is our rightful Governor. No man can obey him formally whom he taketh not for his Ruler. And subjection, or consent to be governed, is virtually all obedience.

Q. 11. But what, if men never hear of the Redeemer, may they not obey God's law of nature?

A. They may know that they are sinners, and that the sin of an immortal soul deserveth endless punishment: and they may find, by experience, that God useth them not as they deserve, but giveth many mercies to those that deserve nothing but misery; and that he obligeth them to use some means in hope for their recovery, and so that he governeth them by a law (or on terms) of mercy: and being under the first edition of the law of grace, though they know not the second, they ought to keep that law which they are under, and they shall be judged by it.

Q. 12. How, then, doth the christian church, as Christ's kingdom, differ from the world without, if they be any of his kingdom too?

John xvii.3, and xiv. 1, 2; Gal. iii. 16; Jos. xxiv. 18; John xx. 28.

A. As all the world was under that common law of grace which was made for them to Adam and Noah, and yet Abraham and his seed were only chosen out of all the world as a peculiar, holy nation to God, and were under a law and covenant of peculiarity, which belonged only unto them; so, though Christ hath not revoked those common mercies given to all by the first edition of the law of grace, nor left the world ungoverned and lawless, yet he hath given to Christians a more excellent covenant of peculiarity than he gave the natural seed of Abraham, and hath elected them out of the world to himself, as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light." (1 Pet. ii. 9.)

Q. 13. It seems, then, we must take great heed that we make not Christ's kingdom either less or greater than it is?

A. To make it greater than it is, by equalling those without the church, or church hypocrites with the sincere, doth dishonour God's holiness, and the wonderful design of Christ in man's redemption, and the grace of the Spirit, and the church of God, and obscureth the doctrine of election, and God's peculiar love, and tendeth to the discomfort of the faithful, and even to infidelity.

And to make Christ's kingdom less than it is, by denying the first edition of the law of grace made to all, and the common mercies given to all, antecedently to their rejection of them, doth obscure and wrong the glory of God's love to man, and deny his common grace and law, and feigneth the world either to be under no law of God, or else to be all bound to be perfectly innocent at the time when they are guilty, and either not bound at all to hope and seek for salvation, or else to seek it on the condition of being innocent, when they know that it is impossible, they being already guilty and it maketh the world, like the devils, almost shut up in despair; and it leaveth them as guiltless of all sin against grace, and the law of grace, as if they had none such and it contradicteth the judgment of Abraham, the father of the faithful, who saw Christ's day; for he thought that even the wicked city of Sodom had fifty persons so righteous as that God should have spared the rest for their sakes, to say nothing of Job, Nineveh, &c. In a word, the ungrounded extenuating the grace of Christ, and the love d Psalm cxlv. 9.