The Measures of Christian Obedience, Book 3 · Chapter 7
CHAP. VII. Of the two remaining pretences for a partial Obedience.
The CONTENTS.
The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others, is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence. An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence. The vanity of it, and the danger of disobeying through it. A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion, age, and way of life. A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence. The vanity of it, and the danger of sinning through it. No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age. Nor from our way of life. Nor from our natural temper and complexion. So that this integrity of the object is excusable upon no pretence. It was always required to mens acceptance.
ANother pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the allowed transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others, is the serving of their necessities; because those instances of disobedience, wherein they indulge themselves, are only such sinful arts, compliances and services, as are necessary to relieve their want and indigence.
They are in great streights, and deep poverty; and since God has not provided conveniencies, nor it may be necessaries for them; they think that they may be allowed to be their own Guardians, and to use any means within their own compass whereby they can make provision for their own selves. For they are born with the same appetites and indigencies as other men, and some way or other they must satisfie and supply them. And this they cannot do if in all things they must religiously obey, and keep themselves intirely innocent. They must lye and overreach, cheat and cozen, if not pilfer and steal, to get maintenance. And they must also use wicked arts and sinful compliances to get favour. For not having of their own wherewith to relieve the wants, to comfort the weaknesses, and to appease the cravings of their natures; they must be beholden, and cannot help it, to the good will and kind charity of others. And other men are proud and humorous, acted by self-will and vicious interests; and will therefore reach out no help to them unless they please them, and do any, or all such things as they would have them do. They must lye and dissemble, fawn and flatter, drink and swear, bear them company in their sins, and serve their vicious interests, and boggle at no sort of sinful arts and disobedient compliances; or else they are not for their turn, nor must expect to feel any effects of their kindness.
This is the hard fate, and the great temptation of a poor and indigent condition. They who labour under it, are brought thus into a seeming necessity of many sins, because they cannot otherwise provide for their own maintenance and appetites. For God has made their nature subject to several wants; and he has made their condition low, so that they are unable to relieve themselves in any comfortable degree, but must depend, as for that, either upon the fraud and overreaching cunning of their own wits, or upon the good will of others: and his Providence has placed them among such Neighbours, whose kindness and good will they cannot purchase, but at the cost of their Vertue and Obedience. And therefore if in this hard Case they disobey, they hope that he will excuse it. Their necessity they think will bear them out, so long as all their transgressions are only to provide for themselves, and for the competent satisfaction of their own appetites where his Providence has left them unprovided.
This is the wicked arguing and disobedient practice of men of a soft and delicate Religion. They will obey God in any thing, where they must not disoblige their appetites; but no further than they will suffer them. They are Servants of their own Bellies in the first place, and God shall have just so much, but no more, than they can spare him. For they will live easily, and want for nothing in this world, as well as be for ever happy in the next: and if God will allow them both these, then they are for him; but otherwise they have nothing to say either to him or his Religion. For they will not endure to serve a man of sorrows, to follow Christ in wants, to be subjects to that Sovereign who has no temporal rewards wherewith, even in this life, to recompence their service. They will serve God just so long as he will suffer them to serve themselves and their own appetites; but if his service doth not provide them all supplies, or crosses the satisfaction of these, they beg of him that he would excuse them. In other things they will serve him, if that will content him; but here charity must begin at home, and if they disobey, he must give them a dispensation.
But God will not endure to be thus undervalued, and served in the second place. He can in no wise bear to have the world and our fleshly appetites set above him; to see them served, and himself sleighted: because by this means we do not honour, but debase; not serve, but renounce him. For he can be no faithfull servant of God, who loves any thing better than his master; nor is he truly united unto Christ, who can be drawn to disobey him by any temptation. If we love any thing in the world then, though never so dear to us, better than him, we are utterly unworthy of him, and must never hope to be the better by him. For he that loveth father or mother, son, or daughter, more than me, saith he, is not worthy of me, Mat. 10.37. Nay, he that hateth not these, and all things else when they stand in competition with my service; that hateth not, I say not barely his worldly goods, and rich neighbours, but even his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple, Luk. 14.26.
If any cravings of our own flesh then cannot be satisfied without disobedience, we must not seek to pleasure, but subdue; nor endeavour to fulfill, but to deny them. And if any wants or losses are brought so close to us, that we cannot avoid them without breach of duty; they are the burden of the Cross imposed upon us, and, unless we would cast off all relation to Christ, we must not shun them. For whosoever doth not bear his Cross, sayes our Saviour, when Gods Providence layes it upon his shoulders, and come after me even then when he must suffer under it; he cannot be my disciple, Luk. 14.27.
This God peremptorily and indispensably exacts of us; and there is all the reason in the world why he should. For he will infinitely recompence in the next world, either the want, or loss of all those things which for his sake, we are content to be without in this. Heaven and eternal life will be an abundant, and incomparably surpassing compensation; all the wants and sufferings of this present time being, as St Paul sayes, utterly unworthy to be compared with that Glory, which shall then be revealed in us, Rom. 8.18.
Let no man therefore disobey Gods Laws for the love of the world, for the supplying of his wants, and the satisfaction of his appetites; and yet for all that perswade himself that God will own him, and connive at his disobedience. For in doing so, he plainly renounces God, and sets the World above him; he makes his Duty truckle to his Interest; he slights obedience, and submits to a temptation. He does the work of sin for the interest which tempts to it; and that will certainly bring upon him that death, which God has established for the wages of it.
Thirdly, A third pretence whereby men justifie to their own souls the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others; is, because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves, are only such as are sins of temper and complexion, age, or way of life.
Sometimes mens place and way of life is a continual temptation to some particular sin; and if they may but have leave to indulge that, they will abandon every other. The Courtier takes himself obliged by the fashion of his place to lies and dissimulation, ostentation and vanity, to sinfull compliances, and faithless engagements, to promise all, but to perform nothing. The Merchant in pursute of his gain, serves the end of his trade by fraud and dishonesty. He accounts it a piece of his Art to over-reach, to defraud customes, to vend false wares, and set exacting prices. The Lawyer thinks it a part of his profession to encourage strife, and foment difference; the malice and revenge, the wrath and bitterness, the slanders and evil-speakings, the strife and contentions which are other mens sins, are his livelihood. These sins, being ever before them, are alwayes a snare to them; for they are continually importuned by them▪ and it must be a toilsome pains, and an uninterrupted watchfulness which can preserve them from being either won, or wearied into the commission of them. And since obedience in these instances is a thing which they can so very hardly spare; they hope that God in mercy will not exact it; but will graciously accept them upon their service in other particulars, although here they continue to disobey him.
Other sins men are invited and importunately tempted to by their age and condition, their particular temper, and complexion. Lust and rashness are the vices of youth, as craft and covetousness are of the gray hairs. Some sins are rooted in mens very natures; for some are naturally inclined to be passionate and hasty, some to be peevish, and others to be malicious and revengefull. The temper of their bodies hurries on some to lust and intemperance, some to turbulency and fierceness, and others to slavish fears, and sinfull compliances. Nay, a sharp and long affliction will sometimes embitter even a good nature, and make it habitually sowr and fretfull, peevish and morose. So that mens very natural temper, their age, and condition prove many times an uninterrupted sollicitation to some sin or other, and they alwayes fall, by being alwayes under the power of their temptation.
Now when men find that some sins have got thus near to them, and have taken such deep root in their way of life, nay, in their very natures; since they will not be at the pains to reform and amend, they expect that God should be so gracious as to dispense with them. As for all the instances of this kind, he must abate them, seeing they will not perform them; his pardoning goodness must supply all the defects of their sloth. For God and they must still be agreed, and therefore because they cannot well abandon some of their darling lusts, and bosom sins for his sake; the compliance must fall on his side, and he must desert and cancel all those severe and grating Laws to serve and pleasure them. They will obey him most willingly in all other things; only in these they beg that he would excuse them: they will do any thing else for his sake, which doth not contradict their beloved sin, and never displease him, but when they cannot otherwise fulfill and pleasure it.
Thus, for instance, the Covetous man will obey in keeping back from drunkenness and whoredom, from ambition, and profuseness, and all other sins which are expensive: But as for those other duties of suffering loss our selves rather than defrauding and over-reaching others, of a contented mind, and contempt of the world, of alms and beneficence, and all the chargeable expressions of an active love, and an operative charity: here he stands upon his points, and chooses to dispute rather than to perform; to article rather than to obey.
The peevish and angry man will readily keep the commands of Justice and Temperance; he will neither spoil his neighbours Goods, nor wrong his Bed, nor pamper and defile his own body; he will do any thing, which either ministers to his reigning lust, or which doth not contradict and make against it. But then as for the commands of meekness and patience, of long-suffering and forgiveness, of speaking well, and doing good to enemies, of passing over provocations and peaceableness, and all other instances of pardoning, and forgetting injuries; in these God must excuse him, for his dear lust opposes them, and he can not, he will not serve him in the practice of them.
Some who are of a tractable and submissive, of a soft and governable temper, will observe readily all those duties which their constitution has made easie, and which their natural genius enclines them to. They will be constant performers of all the cheap, because agreeable duties of submission to Governours, and obedience to publick Constitutions, of uniformity in worship, of honour and observance of the Laws and establishments, and of all things belonging to the Churches Vnity and outward peace. But as for the severities of an inward and hearty Religion, in mortification and self-denial, in paring off all sinfull lusts, and exorbitant desires, in patience, and taking up the Cross, and in all other hard instances of duty and a holy life: here they withdraw their service, because they must contradict their natures, and go against their ease; and set themselves, not to obey these Laws, but to evacuate or evade them.
Whereas others, who are of a temper more severe, but withall of a querulous and restless, a busie, and ungovernable spirit, will keep off from atheism and prophaneness, from idolatry and witchcraft, and other heinous impieties; from drunkenness and revellings, from fornication and adultery, from oppression, and fraud, and other alike gross and notorious instances of injustice and immorality. For all these their strict temper can easily avoid; they have no great temptation to them, and are therefore able without much pains to abstain from them. But then as for those other sins, which agree with the bent and inclination of their busie and ungovernable humour; they will still indulge themselves in the practice of them, for all they are of an equal guilt, although indeed of a more spiritual and refined nature. For they will strive to weary laws, to vilifie and contemn, to undervalue and disparage Governours; they will permit themselves to be overswayed by spite and malice, by wrath and bitterness, by envy and emulation, by strife and sidings; to be drawn aside into censoriousness, and evil-speakings, into the raising and spreading of uncharitable, and envious, yea, false, and slanderous reports: they will be forward to magnifie themselves, to publish their own praise, and to boast of their own actions and attainments; but withall to detract and lessen, to shame and disparage others.
Thus will even these men, who make the fairest appearance of abominating all impious and ungodly, all immoral and debauched actions, halt still in their obedience, and think to please God, not by a perfect and entire, but a partial and a maimed service. For their Conversion goes but half way, not from sin to righteousness, but from some sorts of sin to some others. All the alteration that their Religion has wrought in them, is not a forsaking of sin, but an exchange of it; a turn from what is more easily left, to a more liberal practice of that which they find it hard to part with; a remove from grosser, and more scandalously fleshly sins, to other more spiritual and refined, but still as deadly and damnable transgressions.
And thus by all these instances it appears, that when men have got some sins that are close and pleasing, such as their temper and complexion, their age, or condition, or way of life, has endear'd to them so far, as that even for Gods sake they will not part with them; their recourse is presently to some more cheap and easie instances of obedience, that they may attone for them. And the same might be shewn in all other instances of a partial and a maimed service. In all things they will obey God no further than their beloved sins will suffer them, but as they yield to the Law in other things, so must the Law yield to them in these; for neither God nor their Sin shall rule alone, but the service shall be shared between them, and both shall enjoy a divided empire.
But this is a most damnably delusive, and a desperately false pretence. For whatsoever fond conceits men who Love, and are resolved not to let go their sins, may please themselves withall: yet God, when he comes to judge us, will accept of nothing less than an entire obedience. All his Laws are established under the pains of death, and he will exact all that he has required, whatever, at that day, be our concern in it. For he comes not then, as a corrupted party, to judge for us, to make his own Laws bend and bow to serve our Interests, and to cancel and disanull all such among them as make against us. No, he comes, as an upright and even Judge, to execute all his Laws, but not to destroy any; he comes to inflict what his Gospel threatens, and his sentence will then be what it sayes, not what we can bear. So that if we have wilfully disobeyed, and have not repented, whether in one instance or in many; we must undergo the punishment of our disobedience. For God is a friend to no Vice, neither one nor other, but he alwayes forbids, and he will most severely punish every one. And as for all these pretences, whether that of our age, or our way of life ▪ or of our very natural temper and inclination it self; there will be no shelter or excuse in any of them to bear us out in any.
There is no protection to any sin from our Age; for no young man may pursue lusts because they are youthful, but is bound to fly and avoid them, as those things which war against, and would destroy his soul, 2 Tim. 2.22. Gods Laws make no distinction of young or old, but the same Duties are the Rule for both their practices; and the same rewards or punishments will be returned indifferently to them both upon their obedience or transgressions.
There is no justifiable Plea for any sin from our way of life; for a constant aforeign.practice or trade of sin, as St John says, can be no mans employment, but his who is born of the Devil, and must inherit under him, 1 John 3.8. But the way of life whereunto God calls us, is a way of piety and obedience. He has given us his own Laws for the way which we are to walk in, and in that alone it is that we can escape death, and obtain salvation.
Nay so far is any thing in the world from sheltring us under the service of any one sin, that even that, which may have the highest pretence to it of all things else whatsoever, viz. our very natural temper and inclination, is no excuse to us if it makes us continue in any disobedience. If any thing in the world could be a just defence for the practice of any sin, surely this must. For our Nature is not of our own chusing; and therefore its effects ought least of all to be charged on us, seeing they least of all proceed from us, but are in great degrees determined to our hands before we have any power either to will, or to refuse them. But such is the purity and strictness of Christ's Gospel, that it indispensably requires us to conquer sin, not only where it makes no opposition, but even where it has the greatest strength, and the highest force of all. For if our very Nature draw us on to disobey, it enjoins us under all our hopes of Heaven not to submit to it, but to bPsal. 18.22, 23.strive against it so long till we vanquish and subdue it. For if we would be judged to be Christ's Disciples at the last Day, we must deny our selves, Matth. 16.24. As we hope to live, we must not perform and fulfil, but kill and cCol. 3.5.mortifie those deeds whereto we are hurried on by the temper of our Bodies, Rom. 8.13. We must renounce and forsake all sin, although never so dear and useful to us, before Christ's Gospel will acquit, or he will save us. If a lust so dear to thee as thy right eye offend thee, or dforeign.cause thee to offend; pluck it out, says our Saviour, and cast it from thee: or if one so useful to thee as thy right hand; cut it off likewise, and cast it from thee: and that for no less reason than this, Because it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members should in this manner perish, than that thy whole body should be cast for ever into Hell fire, Matth. 5.29, 30.
Thus vain and helpless are all these excuses and pretensions, under which men endeavour to shelter themselves in the indulged transgression of some Laws, whilst they obey in others. For whether their pretence be the saving of their Religion from times of persecution, or the serving of their necessities in times of want, or the satisfying of their own natural temper and inclination; we see that none of them can justifie their indulged allowance of any one sin, nor serve any other turn than to delude them to their own destruction.
But whosoever would obey to his own salvation, must obey in every instance, and continue wilfully to transgress in none. He must never hope to please God by performing nothing but what he lists himself. No, every particular Law of God, as we saw above, is bound upon us by all our hopes of Heaven, and under the pains of Hell; so that we cannot transgress in any, and yet be safe: but that obedience which can secure us, is nothing less than performing in every instance.
For this third sort of integrity, viz. that of the Object, or performing all and every of those Laws which God has given us, both is, and always was, indispensably required to life and pardon since the world began.
Thee have I seen righteous before me, said God to Noah, because Noah did according to ALL that the Lord commanded him, Gen. 7.1, 5. And in the repetition of the ten Commandments, Deut. 5. O that they would fear me, says God to the Jews, and keep eExod. 23.21, 22.all my Commandments always, that it might be well with them for ever, ver. 29. It is nothing less than our obeying in all, which God declares that he will accept; and upon nothing less than their performing all, that good men have hoped to be accepted. Then shall I not be ashamed, saith the Psalmist, when I have respect unto fPsal. 119.2, 3.all thy Commandments, Psal. 119.6, 7. Those persons to whom the Lord doth good and shews kindness, are only the upright in heart. But as for them, who although they are right as to the main, do yet turn aside in some things to their crooked ways, he will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity, Psal. 125.4, 5.
And as this integrity in doing the whole will of God, was required of Noah before the Law, and of the Jews under it; so is it likewise exacted every whit as strictly of us Christians under the Gospel. For the obedience of that Covenant, whereinto Christ commissions his Apostles to baptize Converts, is nothing below an intire obedience. Go, says he, and baptize all Nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Matth. 28.19, 20. And this is no more than what he himself had preached before, in his own Sermon upon the Mount. For of the Moral Law and the Prophets, (which he came to confirm and establish) and also of his own Law, (which he came then to publish and proclaim) he affirms plainly, That the observance of it in every particular is necessary to the attainment of God's favour and eternal life. He that breaks the very least of these Commandments, shall be called least (or shall be least, or none at all, which is the sense of the Hebrew Phrase) in the Kingdom of Heaven, Matth. 5.17, 18, 19. And agreeably to this Pattern, and this Commission, the Apostles themselves, when they came afterwards to discharge their Office, did most strictly require it, and most severely threaten all those in whom it was wanting. Let us cleanse our selves, says St Paul, from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord, as we hope to attain those good things which he has promised, 2 Cor. 7.1. There is no remedy, but we must either do this or dye. For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against, not only some, but all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, Rom. 1.18. The Curse takes place upon the transgression in any instance. For the threatning is not barely to some one, or to some few Laws; but to the whole Code which comprehends them all: so that if we transgress any one, the Covenant is broken, and the penalty takes place. For whosoever shall keep the whole Law besides, saith St James, and yet offend in one Point, that subjects him to all the evil, and he is guilty of, or obnoxious to that punishment which is appointed for the wages of all, James 2.10.
As for this integrity of the object therefore, or mens obedience to the whole will of God; we see that in all times and ages it was necessary unto life, and indispensably required to salvation. For neither the Sons of the Patriarchs, nor the Subjects of Moses, nor the Servants of Christ; no Professors of any true Religion in the World were ever accepted upon any service less than intire, upon any obedience that was maimed and defective. But so much as he thought fit to enjoin, God always exacted of men that they should perform; so that if they did not obey in all, they should certainly be condemned as if they had done nothing.
So that as for this third sort of integrity, viz. our obedience to the whole will of God, or to all the particular Laws forementioned, which is the integrity of the Object; it, as well as both the former, is plainly necessary to our acceptance, and to render our obedience available to our salvation.
And thus at last it appears what that integrity is, which will render our obedience to all the particular Laws of God above recounted acceptable in God's sight. For it is nothing less than an obedience of the whole man, to the whole Law, and that not for some short, but for our whole time, and to the end of our lives. He who thus intirely obeys, cannot, as was before observed, be other than sincere; and he who obeys sincerely and uprightly has all that God requires of him, enough to support his hopes, and to secure his happiness. Sincerity and uprightness is neither more nor less than is exacted of us; without them we shall surely dye, but through them we cannot miss of being happy eternally.