2. All that God hath required of us is very righteous and just, becoming God to give, and man to receive. There is a condescency in these precepts both to God's nature and to ours. They are the copy of God's holiness, and so a fit means to bring us not only into a subjection to him, which is just, he being our creator, but into a conformity to him, which is our happiness. To prove the righteous- ness which is in God's laws, I shall produce several arguments.
[1.] Surely there is a distinction between good and evil, and all acts are not in their own nature indifferent ; that was a monstrous conceit of Carpender and others, contrary to the common sense of men. If
458 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CLV.
this were true, the chasteaess of Lucretia should not be more to be prized than the lightness of Lais, nor the virtue of Cato than the dissoluteness of Sardanapalus ; and it would be as indifFerent for u man to kill his father as his neighbour's dog, to rob in the woods as to hunt a deer or hare, to lie with his father's wife as to contract honest matrimony, to forswear and lie as to be sincere in all our words and proceedings. Now whose heart doth not rise within tliem at such an apprehension ? If this be thought to be only custom and received opinion that begets this abhorrence, I would ask, Whence cometh it that we all desire to be, if not really, yet seemingly honest ? The most wicked are offended when they are taken for such as they are , and endeavour, as much as they can, to clothe their actions with the appearance of probity and uprightness. If men were not sensible that vice were blameworthy and virtue commendable, why should such a desire so universally possess the heart of man, were there not a natural sense of good and evil, and an essential difference between the one and the other, which we are sensible of, nature itself valuing and esteeming the one, and blasting the other with severe marks of her improbation and hatred ? And I do with the more confidence urge this argument, because there is difficulty in the exercise of vir- tue, because of the conflict of the sensual appetite ; and on the other side, many delights and pleasures accompanying vice, by which it gets an easy entrance into our souls, and dominion over our desires. Why should a thing so much against the bent and hair be accounted worthy of praise, and the contrary, which hath such a compliance with our natural desires, be accounted worthy of blame ? And were there only custom and tradition for it, would men so universally conspire to decree honours for that which is contrary to their corrupt nature, and to disapprove what is suitable to it ? It cannot be. Would they desire the reputation of virtue, when their desires choose vice, and impel them to it, and hold them under it, if they were not sensible that the one hath a comeliness, and the other a turpitude in it ? Thus hypocrites do clearly attest the excellency of uprightness and honesty. Well, then, the testimonies which God hath commanded are very righteous, for they forbid those things which have a natural turpitude and indispensable sinfulness in them ; and command those things which are plainly and evidently lovely and praiseworthy : Phil. iv. 8, ' Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.'
[2.] It is such a rule and direction as men would choose if they were at their own liberty, provided they were wise, and not brutified by their inordinate passions, evil customs, and discomposure of soul ; for all such are incompetent judges. For there is nothing preserveth the rectitude of human nature, and maketh men to live as men, according to the dictates of reason, as the serious observance of this law. Break it a little, and so far a man turneth beast : so that it was well said of one, A saint or a brute. For the law is so written upon man's heart, and so connatural to his reason, that you must extinguish the nature
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of man before you can raze out all the sentiments of this law : Rom. ii. 14, 15, ' For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves ; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another.' As long as we have these hearts that we have, we cannot wholly except against the justice and equity of these laws and rules of commerce between God and his creatures. It is true, all truths are not alike evident, but they that seriously mind tlie one will be led on to the other, at least will find none contrary to such conclusions, as may be drawn from prin- ciples naturally known, and will be encouraged to go on till God reveal more to them. This is so evident, that the wiser any among the heathen are, the nearer they come to this rule, and have framed some- thing like it for the regulation of men, though with great mixtures of their own folly. The perfect discovery of man's duty God reserved to himself and his own writings, elsewhere there is but ficia rectitudo and picfajttstitia, poor counterfeits in the laws of civil nations and insti- tutions of philosophy ; sa'pientia eorum ahscondit vitia, non abscindit ; there was only a little hiding and disguising of sin that it might not appear too odious. In short, the less knowledge any nation or society of men have of this law, the more brutish and barbarous they have been, and so accounted to be by all that have known what civility and human converse mean ; and on the contrary, the more polite and civil, the nearer they come to it. Whom would you judge to be more civil, the Eomans or the Scythians ? the wise and good man, or the sot and fool ? Even among us, the more punctually any keepeth to this law, the more he differeth from others, as much as an angel from a man, or a man from a beast : ' The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour,' Prov. xii. 2G. It is clear as the sun; whether men will or nill, they must acknowledge it, and do when they are serious ; for they approve them while they hate them, wish their latter end like theirs, intrust them more than others, presume more from them than others. Out of all I conclude, that the very frame and constitution of the reasonable and immortal soul and body of man doth dictate the equity and justice of this law, and it doth result from the image of God, wherein man was created.