Use 1st. This indicts such who live in a contradiction to this text: they have cast off the yoke of obedience, Jer. xliv. 16, "As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the obedience! It is possible the action may be right, and not the heart, 2 Chron. xxv. 2, "Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord," but not with a perfect heart. Two things are chiefly to be eyed in obe-name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto dience, the principle and the end: a child of thee." God bids men pray in their family,— God though he shoots short in his obedience, they live in the total neglect of it: he bids yet he takes a right aim. them sanctify the sabbath,-they follow their pleasures on that day: God bids them abstain from the appearance of sin, they do not abstain from the act, they live in the act of revenge, in the act of uncleanness. This is a high contempt of God; it is rebellion, and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. A. 5. Obedience must be in and through Christ, Eph. i. 6, “He made us accepted in the beloved." Not our obedience, but Christ's merits, procure acceptance; we must, in every part of worship, tender up Christ to God in the arms of our faith; unless we serve God thus, in hope and confidence of Christ's merits, we do rather provoke God, than please him. As, when king Uzziah would offer incense without a priest, God was angry with him, and struck him with leprosy, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16, so when we do not come to God in and through Christ, we offer up incense to God without a priest; and what can we expect but severe rebukes? A. 6. Obedience must be constant, Ps. cvi. 3, "Blessed is he who doth righteousness at all times." True obedience is not like a high colour in a fit, but it is a right sanguine; it is like the fire on the altar, which was always kept burning, Lev. vi. 13. Hypocrites' obedience is but for a season; it is like plastering work, which is soon washed off; but true obedience is constant; though we meet with affliction, we must go on in our obedience, Job xvii. 9, "The righteous shall hold on his way." We have vowed constancy; we have vowed to renounce the pomp and vanities of the world, and to fight under Christ's banner to death. When a servant hath entered into covenant with his master, and the indentures are sealed, then he cannot go back, he must serve out his time there are indentures drawn in baptism, and in the Lord's supper the indentures are renewed and sealed on our part, that we will be faithful and constant in our obedience, therefore we must imitate Christ, who became obedient to the death, Phil. ii. 8. The crown is set upon the head of perseverance, Rev. ii. 26, 28, "He that keeps my words unto the end, to him will I give" "the morning star." QUEST. Whence is it that men do not obey God? They know their duty yet do it not? ANS. 1. The not obeying of God is for want of faith, Isa. liii. 1, Quis credidit? "Who hath believed our report?" Did men believe sin were so bitter that hell followed at the heels of it, would they go on in sin? Did they believe there were such a reward for the righteous that godliness were gain, would they not pursue it? But they are atheists, not fully captivated into the belief of these things; hence it is they obey not. This is Satan's master-piece,-his draw-net by which he drags millions to hell, by keeping them in infidelity; he knows, if he can but keep them from believing the truth, he is sure to keep them from obeying it. A. 2. The not obeying God is for want of self-denial. God commands one thing, and men's lusts command another, and they will rather die than deny their lusts; now, if lust cannot be denied, God cannot be obeyed. Use 2d. Obey God's voice. This is the beauty of a Christian. QUEST. What are the great arguments or incentives to obedience? ANS. 1. Obedience makes us precious to God; we shall be his favourites, Exod. xix. 5, "If ye will obey my voice, ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people ;” you shall be my portion, my jewels, the apple of mine eye, “I will give Egypt for thy ransom," Isa. xliii. 3. A. 2. There is nothing lost by obedience. To obey God's will is the way to have our will. 1. Would we have a blessing in our estates, let us obey, Deut. xxviii. 1, 3, "If how to do good, but did it not; therefore your blood is upon your own head. thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord, to do all his commandments, blessed shalt thou be in the field: blessed shall be thy basket and thy store." To obey, is the best way to thrive in our estates.-2. Would we have a blessing in our souls, let us obey, Jer. vii. 23, "Obey my voice, and I will be your God." My Spirit shall be your guide, sanctifier, and comforter, Heb. v. 9, "Christ became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." While we please God, we please ourselves; while we give him the duty, he gives us the dowry. We are apt to say, as Amaziah, 2 Chron. xxv. 9, "What shall we do for the hundred talents?" You see you lose nothing by obeying; the obedient son hath the inheritance settled on him. Obey, and you shall have a kingdom, Luke xii. 32, "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Use 3d. What a sin disobedience is! 1st, It is an irrational sin. (1.) We are not able to stand it out in defiance against God, 1 Cor. x. 22, "Are we stronger than he?" Will the sinner go to measure arms with God? He is the Father Almighty, who can command legions: if we have no strength to resist him, it is irrational to disobey him. (2.) It is irrational, as it is against all law and equity: we have our daily subsistence from God; in him we live and move, is it not equal, that as we live by him, we should live to him? that ás God gives us our allowance, so we should give him our allegiance? 2dly, It is a destructive sin, 2 Thess. i. 7, 8, "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from QUEST. What means shall we use that we may obey? ANS. 1. Serious consideration. Consider, God's commands are not grievous: he commands nothing unreasonable, 1 John v. 3. It is easier to obey the commands of God than sin; the commands of sin are burthensome; let a man be under the power of any lust, how doth he tire himself? What hazards doth he run, even to the endangering of his health and soul, that he may satisfy his lusts? What tedious journeys did Antiochus Epiphanes take in persecuting the Jews? Jer. ix. 5, "They weary themselves to commit iniquity ;" and are not God's commands more easy to obey? Chrysostom saith, virtue is easier than vice, temperance is less burthensome than drunkenness. Some have gone with less pains to heaven, than others have to hell.-Consideration 2. God commands nothing but what is beneficial, Deut. x. 12, 13, "O Israel, what doth the Lord require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and to keep his statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good!" To obey God, is not so much our duty as our privilege; his commands carry meat in the mouth of them. He bids us repent: and why? that our sins may be blotted out, Acts iii. 19. He commands us to believe: and why? that we may be saved, Acts xvi. 31. There is love in every command: as if a king should bid one of his subjects dig in a gold mine, then take the gold to himself. A. 2. Earnest supplication. Implore the help of the Spirit to carry us on in obedience: God's Spirit makes obedience easy and delightful. If the load-stone draw the iron, now it is not hard for the iron to move: if God's Spirit quicken and draw the heart, now it is not hard to obey. When a gale of the Spirit blows, now we go full sail in heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that obey not the gospel." He who refuseth to obey God's will in commanding, shall be sure to obey his will in punishing. The sinner, while he thinks to slip the knot of obedience, twists the cord of his own damnation; he perisheth without excuse; he hath no plea or apology obedience. Turn that promise into a prayer, to make for himself, Luke xii. 47, "The ser- Ezek. xxxvi. 27, "I will put my Spirit within vant which knew his lord's will, but did it not, you, and cause you to walk in my statutes." shall be beaten with many stripes." God The promise encourageth us,—the Spirit will say why did you not obey? You knew enables us to obedience. OF LOVE. THE rule of obedience being the moral | ANS. 1. If it be a sincere love, we must law, comprehended in the Ten Command-love God with all our heart in the text, ments, the next question is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [Heb. QUEST. XLII. What is the sum of the Becol leuauca] with all thy heart." God will Ten Commandments? ANS. The sum of the Ten Commandments is, to love the lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. have the whole heart; we must not divide our love between God and sin; the true mother would not have the child divided, nor will God have the heart divided; it must be the whole heart. A. 2. We must love God propter se,-for himself, for his own intrinsic excellencies; we must love him for his loveliness. Meretricius est amor plus annulum quam sponsum amare; "It is a harlot's love, to love the portion more than the person." Hypocrites love God because he gives them corn and wine: we must love God for himself, for those shining perfections which are in him. Gold is loved for itself. Deut. vi. 5, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." The duty called for is love, yea, the strength of love, "with all thy heart:" God will lose none of our love. Love is the soul of religion, and that which goes to the right constituting a Christian; love is the queen of the graces; it shines and sparkles in God's eye, as the precious stones did on the breast-plate of Aaron. QUEST. 1. What is love? ANS. It is a holy fire kindled in the affec-must love God, quoad posse,—as much as tions, whereby a Christian is carried out we are able. Christians should be like serastrongly after God as the Supreme Good. phims burning in holy love; we can never love God so much as he deserves; the angels in heaven cannot love God so much as he deserves. QUEST. 2. What is the antecedent of love to God? A. 3. We must love God with all our might (in the Hebrew text our vehemency). We ANS. The antecedent of love is knowledge: the Spirit shines upon the understanding, and discovers these orient beauties in God,—his wisdom, holiness, mercy,—and these are the lenocinium, the loadstone to entice and draw out love to God. Ignoti nulla cupido, such as know not God cannot love him; if love," 1 Thess. i. 3. Mary Magdalene loved the sun be set in the understanding, there must needs be night in the affections. QUEST. 3. Wherein doth the formal na- whom we love. ture of love consist? A. 4. Love to God must be active in its sphere; love is an industrious affection, it sets the head a-studying for God,-hands aworking,-feet a-running in the ways of his commandments,—it is called "the labour of Christ, and poured her ointments on him. A. 5. Love to God must be superlative. God is the quintessence of beauty, a whole paradise of delight; and he must have a priority in our love. Our love to God must be above all things besides, as the oil swims we must love God above Great is the love to relations: there is a story in the French Acade ANS. The nature of love is in delighting in the object: Complacentia amantis in amato, AQUIN. This is our loving God, our taking delight in him, Ps. xxxvii. 4, "Delight thyself also in the Lord;" as a bride above the water; delights herself in her jewels. Grace chang-estate, relations. eth a Christian's aims and delights. QUEST. 4. How must our love to God be my, of a daughter, who, when her father was qualified? condemned to die by hunger, gave him suck with her own breasts. But our love to God must be above father and mother, Matt. x. 37. We may give the creature the milk of our love, God must have the cream; the spouse keeps the juice of her pomegranates for Christ, Cant. viii. 2. gold without the influence of the sun: there can be no golden joy in the soul without God's sweet, presence and influence. A. 3. The third visible sign: he who loves God, hates that which would separate between him and God, and that is sin. Sin A. 6. Our love to God must be constant, makes God hide his face; it is like an incenlike the fire the Vestal virgins kept in Rome, diary which parts chief friends; therefore the which did not go out. Love must be like the keenness of a Christian's hatred is set against motion of the pulse, it beats as long as there | sin, Ps. cxix. 128, "I hate every false way.” is life, Cant. viii. 7, " Many waters cannot Antipathies can never be reconciled; one canquench love ;" not the waters of persecution. not love health but he must hate poison; so we Eph. iii. 17, "Rooted in love." A branch cannot love God but we must hate sin, which withers that doth not grow on a root; that would destroy our communion with him. love may not die, it must be well rooted. QUEST. 5. What are the visible signs of our love to God? ANS. 1. If we love God, then our desire is after him, Isa. xxvi. 8, "The desire of our soul is to thy name." He who loves God, breathes after communion with him, Ps. xlii. 2, "My soul thirsteth for the living God." Persons in love desire to be often conferring together; he who loves God, desires to be much in his presence; he loves the ordinances, they are the glass where the glory of God is resplendent; in the ordinances we meet with him whom our souls love, we have God's smiles and whispers, and some foretastes of heaven. Such as have no desire after ordinances, have no love to God. A. 2. The second visible sign: he who loves God cannot take contentment in any thing without him. A hypocrite who pretends to love God, give him but corn and wine, and he can be content without God: but a soul fired with love to God, cannot be without him; lovers faint away, if they have not a sight of the object loved. A gracious soul can want health, but not want God, who is the health of his countenance, Ps. xliii. 5. If God should say to a soul that entirely loves him, take thy ease, swim in pleasure, solace thyself in the delights of the world, but thou shalt not enjoy my presence,'-this would not content the soul. Nay, if God should say, 'I will let thee be taken up to heaven, but I will retire into a withdrawing-room, and thou shalt not see my face,'-this would not content the soul, it is a hell to want God. The philosopher saith there can be no A. 4. The fourth visible sign is sympathy; friends that love do grieve for the evils which befall each other. Homer describing Aga memnon's grief when he was forced to sacrifice his daughter, brings in all his friends weeping with him, and accompanying him to the sacrifice in mourning; lovers grieve together; if we have true love in our heart to God, we cannot but grieve for those things which grieve him, we shall lay to heart his dishonours,-the luxury, drunkenness, contempt of God and religion, Ps. cxix. 136, "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes," &c. Some speak of the sins of others, and make a laughing at them: sure they have no love to God, who can laugh at that which grieves his Spirit. Doth he love his father, who can laugh to hear him reproached? A. 5. The fifth visible sign: he who loves God, labours to render him lovely to others; he not only admires God, but speaks in his praises, that he may allure and draw others to be in love with God. She that is in love will commend her lover: the love-sick spouse extols Christ, she makes a panegyrical oration of his worth, that she might persuade others to be in love with him, Cant. v. 11. His head is as the most fine gold. True love to God cannot be silent; it will be eloquent in setting forth God's renown; no better sign of loving God, than by making him appear lovely, and so drawing proselytes to him. A. 6. The sixth visible sign: he who loves God, weeps bitterly for his absence. Mary comes weeping, "They have taken away the Lord," John xx. 2. One cries, my health is gone; another, my estate is gone; but he who is a lover of God, cries out, ours, when we pretend love to him, but will endure nothing for his sake? Use 1st. What shall we say to them who have not a drachm of love in their hearts to God? They have their life from him, yet do not love him. God spreads their table every day, yet they do not love him; sinners dread God as a judge, but do not love him as a father. All the strength in the angels cannot make the heart love God; judgments will not do it; only omnipotent grace can make a stony heart melt in love. How sad is it to be void of love to God! When the body is cold, and hath no heat in it, it is a sign of death; he is spiritually dead who hath no heat of love in his heart to God. Shall such live with God, that doth not love him? Will God lay an enemy in his bosom? Such as will not be drawn with cords of love, shall be bound in chains of darkness. our services acceptable, it is the musk that perfumes them. It is not so much duty, as love to duty, God delights in; therefore serving and loving God are put together, Isa. lvi. 6. It is better to love him than to serve him; obedience without love is like wine without the spirit. O then, be persuaded to love God with all your heart and might! To persuade to this virgin-affection Use 2d. Let us be persuaded to love God with all our heart and might. O let us take A. 7. The seventh visible sign: he who our love off from other things, and place it loves God, is willing to do and suffer for him. upon God! Love is the heart of religion, the He subscribes to God's commands; he sub-fat of the offering; it is the grace which mits to his will. 1st, He subscribes to God's Christ inquires most after, John xxi. 15, commands: if God bids him mortify sin,-"Simon lovest thou me?" Love makes all love his enemies,-be crucified to the world, -he obeys. It is a vain thing for a man to say he loves God, and slights his commands. 2dly, He submits to God's will; if God will have him suffer for him, he doth not dispute, but obey, 1 Cor. xiii. 7, Love "endureth all things." Love made Christ suffer for us, and love will make us suffer for him. It is true every Christian is not a martyr, but he hath a spirit of martyrdom in him; he hath a dis-of love. position of mind to suffer, if God call him to it, 2 Tim. iv. 6, "I am now ready to be offered up" not only the sufferings were ready for Paul, but he was ready for the suf-bid you cut and lance yourselves, or lien in ferings. Origen choosed rather to live despised in Alexandria, than with Plotinus to deny the faith, and be great in the prince's favour, Rev. xii. 11. Many say they love God, but will not suffer the loss of any thing for him. If Christ should have said to us, I love you well, you are dear to me, but I cannot suffer for you, I cannot lay down my life for you,' we should have questioned his love very much and may not the Lord question 1. It is nothing but your love God desires. The Lord might have demanded your children to be offered in sacrifice; he might have hell awhile; but he only desires your love, he would only have this flower. Is this a hard request, to love God? Was ever any debt easier paid than this? Is it any labour for the wife to love her husband? Love is delightful. Non potest amor esse, et dulcis non esse, BERN. What is there in our love, that God should desire it? Why should a king desire the love of a woman that is in debt and diseased? God doth not want our |