Of the Commandments
Exodus 20:6 And keep my Commandments.
Love and obedience, like two sisters, must go hand in hand: indeed this is a good evidence of our loving God (John 14:21): If you love me, keep my Commandments. Probatio dilectionis est exhibitio operis. The son that loves his father will obey him; obedience pleases God (1 Samuel 15:22): To obey is better than sacrifice. In sacrifice only a dead beast is offered, in obedience a living soul. In sacrifice only a part of the fruit is offered; in obedience fruit and tree and all. A man offers up himself to God. Keep my Commandments. It is not said, God shows mercy to thousands of them that know his Commandments, but that keep them. The knowing of God's Commandments, without keeping them, does not entitle any to mercy. The commandment is not only a rule of knowledge, but of duty. God gives us his Commandments, not only as a landscape to look upon, but as his will and testament, which we are to perform. A good Christian is like the sun, which does not only send forth light, but goes its circuit round the world. So he has not only the light of knowledge, but goes his circuit too, and moves in the sphere of obedience.
Question: In what manner must we keep God's Commandments?
Answer 1: Our keeping the Commandments must be fiducial. Our obedience to God's commands must Profluere à Fide, spring from faith, therefore it is called the obedience of faith (Romans 16:26). Abel by faith offered up [illegible], a better sacrifice than Cain (Hebrews 11:4). Faith is a vital principle, without it all our services are Opera Mortua, dead works (Hebrews 6:1). Faith does meliorate and sweeten our obedience, and make it come off with a better relish. Question: But why must faith be mixed with obedience to the Commandment? Answer: Because faith eyes Christ in every duty, and so both the person and offering are accepted. The high priest under the law laid his hand upon the head of the beast slain, which did point to the Messiah (Exodus 29:10). So faith in every duty lays its hand upon the head of Christ. His blood does expiate the guilt, and the sweet odors of his intercession perfume our works of obedience (Ephesians 1:6). He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
2. Our keeping the Commandments must be uniform. We must make conscience of one Commandment as well as another (Psalm 119:6): Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all your Commandments. Every Commandment has a Ius divinum, the same stamp of divine authority upon it: and if I obey one precept, because God commands, by the same reason I must obey all. Some obey the commands of the first table, but are careless in the duties of the second: and so, è contra. Physicians have a rule, when the body sweats in one part, but is cold in another, it is a sign of a distemper. So when men seem zealous in some duties of religion, but are cold and frozen in another, it is a sign of hypocrisy. We must have respect to all God's Commandments. Question: But who can keep all Commandments? Answer: There is a fulfilling of God's commands, and a keeping them: though we cannot fulfill all, yet we may be said to keep them in an evangelical sense. We may facere, though not perficere: we keep the Commandments evangelically. First, where we make conscience of every command: though we come short in every duty, yet we dare not neglect any duty. Second, our desire is to keep every Commandment (Psalm 119:5): O that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. What we want in strength, we make up in will. Third, we grieve that we can do no better. When we fail, we weep: we prefer bills of complaint against ourselves, and judge ourselves for our failings (Romans 7:24). Fourth, we do elicere conatum, we endeavor to obey every Commandment (Philippians 3:14): I press toward the mark. We strive as in an agony, and if it lay in our power we would fully comport with every Commandment. Fifth, when we fall short, and are unable to come up to the full latitude of the law, we look to Christ's blood to sprinkle our imperfect obedience; and with the grains of his merits cast into the scales to make it pass current. This is in an evangelical sense to keep all the Commandments; and though it be not to satisfaction, yet it is to acceptation.
3. Our keeping God's Commandments must be willing (Isaiah 1:19): If you be willing and obedient. God was for a free will-offering (Deuteronomy 16:10). David will run the way of God's Commandments (Psalm 119:32), that is, freely and cheerfully. The lawyers have a canon, Adverbs are better than adjectives; it is not the Bonum but the Bene; not the doing much, but the doing well. A musician is not commended for playing long, but for playing well: it is obeying God willingly that is accepted: Virtus nolentium nullum est. The Lord hates that which is forced, it is rather a paying a tax than an offering. Cain served God grudgingly, he brought his sacrifice, not his heart. To obey God's Commandments unwillingly, is like the devils who came out of the men possessed at Christ's command, but with reluctancy and against their will (Matthew 8:29). Obedientia praeest, and à est non timore poenae, sed amore Dei. Good duties must not be pressed or beaten out of us, as the waters came out of the rock, when Moses smote it with his rod, but must freely drop from us as myrrh from the tree, or honey from the comb. If a willing mind be wanting, there wants that flower which should perfume our obedience, and make it a sweet smelling savor to God. That we may keep God's Commandments willingly, let these things be well weighed.
First, our willingness is more esteemed than our service. Therefore David counsels Solomon, not only to serve God, but with a willing mind (1 Chronicles 28:9). The will makes sin to be worse, and it makes duty to be better. To obey willingly, shows we do it with love: and this crowns all our services.
Second, there is that in the law-giver, as may make us willing to obey the Commandments, namely, God's indulgence to us.
First, God does not require the Summum jus, as absolutely necessary to salvation. He expects not perfect obedience, only requires sincerity. Do but act from a principle of love, and aim at honoring God in your obedience, and it is accepted.
2. In the times of the Gospel a surety is admitted. The law would not favor us so far, but now God does so indulge us, that what we cannot do of ourselves, we may do by proxy. Jesus Christ is a surety of a better testament (Hebrews 7:22). We fall short in everything, but God looks upon us in our surety, and Christ having fulfilled all righteousness, it is as if we had fulfilled the law in our own persons.
3. God gives strength to do what he requires. The law called for obedience, but though it required brick it gave no straw. But in the Gospel, God with his commands gives power (Ezekiel 18:31). Make a new heart. Alas it is above our strength, we may as well make a new world (Ezekiel 36:26). I will give you a new heart. God commands us to cleanse ourselves (Isaiah 1:16). Wash, make yourself clean. But who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? (Job 14:4). Therefore the [reconstructed: Precept] is turned into a promise (Ezekiel 36:25). From all your filthiness will I cleanse you. When the child cannot go, the nurse takes it by the hand (Hosea 11:3). I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms.
3. There is that in God's commandments which may make us willing, they are not burdensome.
1. For first a Christian (so far as he is regenerate) consents to God's commands (Romans 7:16). [illegible]. I consent to the law, that it is good. What is done with consent is no burden. If a virgin gives her consent, the match goes on cheerfully. If a subject consent to his prince's laws (as seeing the equity and rationality in them) then they are not irksome. A regenerate person in his judgment approves, and in his will consents to God's commandments, therefore they are not burdensome.
2. God's commandments are sweetened with joy and peace. Cicero questions whether that can properly be called a burden, which one carries with delight and pleasure. Utrum onus appellatur quod laetitia fertur. If a man carries a bag of money given him, it is heavy, but the delight takes off the burden. When God gives inward joy, that makes the commandment delightful (Isaiah 56:7). I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. Joy is like oil to the wheels, which makes a Christian run in the way of God's commandments; so that it is not burdensome.
3. God's commandments are advantageous. 1. The commandments are preventive of evil; a curb-bit to check us from sin. What mischiefs should we not run into, if we had not affliction to humble us, and the commandment to restrain us? God's commandments are to keep us within bounds. The yoke keeps the beast from straggling. We are to be thankful to God for precepts; had not he set his commandments as a hedge or bar in our way, we might have run to hell and never stopped.
2. There is nothing in the commandment but what is for our good (Deuteronomy 10:13). To keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command you for your good. 1. God commands us to read his word, and what hurt is in this? God bespangles the word with promises: as if a father should bid his son read his last will and testament, wherein he makes over a fair estate to him. God bids us pray: and he tells us, if we ask, it shall be given (Matthew 7:7). Ask power against sin, ask salvation and it shall be given. If you had a friend who should say, Come when you will to me, I will supply you with money: would you think it a trouble to visit that friend often? God commands us to fear him (Leviticus 25:43). But fear your God. And there is honey in the mouth of this command (Luke 1:50). His mercy is upon them that fear him. God commands us to believe, and why so? Believe and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31). Salvation is the crown set upon the head of faith. Good reason then we obey God's commands willingly, they are for our good, they are not so much our duty as our privilege.
3. God's commandments are ornamental; Omnia quae praestari jubet Deus, non onerant nos sed ornant, Salvian. God's commandments do not burden us but adorn us. It is an honor to be employed in a king's service: and so to be employed in God's, by whom kings reign. To walk in God's commandments proclaims us to be wise (Deuteronomy 4:5-6). Behold I have taught you statutes: keep, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom. And to be wise is an honor: I may say of every commandment of God, as (Proverbs 4:9). It shall give to your head an ornament of grace.
4. The commands of God are infinitely better than the commands of sin; these are intolerable. Let a man be under the command of any lust, how does he tire himself! What hazards does he run to the endangering his health and soul that he may satisfy his lust (Jeremiah 9:5). They weary themselves to commit iniquity. And are not God's commandments more equal, facile, pleasant, than the commands of sin? Chrysostom says truly, [illegible]. To act virtue, is easier than to act vice: temperance is less troublesome than drunkenness: meekness is less troublesome than passion and envy. There is more difficulty in the contrivance and pursuit of a wicked design, than in obeying the commandments of God. Hence a sinner is said to travel with iniquity (Psalm 7:14). A woman while she is in travail, is in pain, to show what pain and trouble a wicked man has, in bringing forth sin. Many have gone with more pains to hell, than others have to heaven. This may make us obey the commandments willingly.
5. Willingness in obedience makes us resemble the angels. The Cherubim, types representing the angels, are described with wings displayed, to show how ready the angels are to serve God. God no sooner speaks the word, but they are ambitious to obey. How are they ravished with joy, while they are praising God! In heaven we shall be [illegible], as the angels; by our willingness to obey God's commandments, we shall be like them here. This is that we pray for, that God's will may be done by us on earth, as it is in heaven: is it not done willingly there? We must keep God's commandments constantly (Psalm 106:3). Blessed is he who does righteousness at all times. Our obedience to the command must be as the fire of the altar which never went out (Leviticus 13:6). It must be as the motion of the pulse, always beating. The wind blows off the fruit; our fruits of obedience must not be blown off by the wind of persecution (John 15:16). I have chosen you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
Use. It reproves them who live in a willful breach of God's commandments, in malice, uncleanness, intemperance; they walk antipodes to the commandment. To live in a willful breach of the commandment, is
First, against reason. Are we able to stand it out against God (1 Corinthians 10:22)? Do we provoke the Lord, are we stronger than he? Can we measure arms with God? Can impotency stand against omnipotency? A sinner in acting sin, acts against reason.
Secondly, it is against equity. We have our being from God, and is it not equal we should obey him who gives us our being? We have all our subsistence from God, and is it not fitting that as God gives us our allowance, we should give him our allegiance? If a general gives his soldier pay, he is to march at his command, so that to live in the breach of his commands, is against equity.
Thirdly, it is against nature. Every creature in its kind, obeys God's laws. First, animate creatures obey him; God spoke to the fish, and it set Jonah ashore (Jonah 2:10). Second, inanimate creatures: the wind and the sea obey him (Mark 4:41). The very stones, if God give them a commission, will cry out against the sins of men (Habakkuk 2:11). The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. None disobeys God but man and the Devil, and can we find none to join with else?
Fourthly, it is against kindness. How many mercies have we to allure us to obey! Miracles of mercy; therefore the apostle joins these two together, disobedient and unthankful (2 Timothy 3:2). And this dyes a sin of a crimson color. And as the sin is great, for it is a contempt of God, a hanging out of the flag of defiance against God — and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft — so the punishment will be proportionable. Such cut themselves off from mercy. God's mercy is for them that keep his commandments, but no mercy to them that live in a willful breach of them. All God's judgments set themselves in battle array against the disobedient. First, temporal judgments (Leviticus 26:15-16). Second, eternal: Christ comes in flames of fire to take vengeance on them that obey not (2 Thessalonians 1:8). Such as break the golden chains of God's commands, God has iron chains to hold them, chains of darkness, in which the devils are held (Jude 6). As long as there is eternity, God has time enough to reckon with all the willful breakers of his commandments.
Quest. How shall we do to keep God's commandments?
Response. Beg the Spirit of God. We cannot do it in our own strength; the Spirit must work in us both the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], to will and to do (Philippians 2:13). When the lodestone draws, the iron moves; when God's Spirit draws, then we run in the way of God's commandments.
