VER. 142.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 9
2. But much more if you consider man in his community, as he is a part of that spiritual community called a church. All societies of men from the beginning of the world have found the establishing of laws the only means to preserve themselves from ruin. There is no other way against confusion ; and would God leave that society which is of his own institution, that of which he is the head, and in which his honour is concerned, without a law ? Deut. xxxii. 9, ' The Lord's portion is his people/ which was set apart to serve him, and to he to him for a name and a praise. Surely a people that have God so near them, and are in special relation to him, have their laws by which they may be governed and preserved as to their eternal good, unless we should say God took less care for his own people than for others. This necessity is the greater because this society is spiritual ; though made up of visible men, yet combined for spiritual ends, commerce and communion with God, and that mostly in their spirits, which maketh this society the hardest to be governed, and this, the most scattered and dispersed of all societies throughout all parts of the earth, should therefore be knit together with the strongest bonds. Surely then there needeth a common law, whereby they may be united in their conjunction with Christ, the head, and one another, that it may not be broken in pieces ; and this to be given by God, that he may pre- serve his own authority and interest among them.
This law is the scripture, those sacred digests in which God hath discovered not only his wisdom and justice, but his will and imperial power, what he will have us do. The one showeth the equity, the other the necessity of our obedience ; surely this is his law or none. The church to whom the law was given, God hath constituted the keeper of its own records ; never acknowledge another ; nor can any other make any tolerable pretence.
Now, having brought the matter home, I shall show you wherein it hath the nature and force of a law, as we commonly take the word ; and here I shall —
1. Show you wherein it agrees.
2. Wherein it differs from the ordinary laws of men. 1. Wherein it agreeth.
[1.] A law is an act of power and sovereignty by which a superior declareth his will to those that are subject to him. There are two branches of the supreme power — legislation and jurisdiction ; giving the law, and governing according to the law so given. And so God's power over the reasonable creature is seen in legislation, and in the administration of his providence there is his jurisdiction. In the scrip- ture he hath given the law, and he will take an account of the observ- ance of it ; in part here, at the petty sessions ; hereafter, more fully and clearly at the day of general judgment. But for the present, here is God's power seen over the creature in appointing him such a law. God hath the greatest right and authority to command : Isa. xxxiii. 22, ' The Lord is our judge and our lawgiver.'
[2.] That there is not only direction given to us, but an obligation laid upon us. There is this difference between a law and a rule — a bare rule is for information, a law for obligation. So herein the word of God agrees with a law ; it is not only the result of God's wisdom,
10 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CLIX.
but the effect of his legislative will. He would not only help and instruct the creature in his duty, hut oblige him by his authority. Decretum necessitatem facit, exliortatio liberam voluntatem excited, saith the canonist. Exhortation and advice properly serveth to quicken one that is free, hut a decree and a law imposeth a force, a necessity upon him. So Hierome, lib. ii. contra Jovin — Ubi consilium datur operantis arbilrium est, ubi prceceptum necessilas servitutis. A counsel and a precept differ ; a precept respects subjects, a counsel, friends. The scriptures are not only God's counsel, hut his precept. There is a coactive power in his laws. God hath not left the creature at liberty to comply with his directions if he please, but hath left a strict charge upon him.
[3.] Every law hath a sanction, otherwise it were but an arbitrary direction ; the authority might be contemned unless it hath a sanction, that is, confirmed by rewards and punishments ; so hath God given his law under the highest penalties : Mark xvi. 16, ' He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned ; ' Gal. vi. 8, ' If ye sow to the flesh, of the flesh ye shall reap corruption;' Bom. viii. 13, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.' God telleth them what will come of it, and commandeth them to abstain as they will answer to God at their utmost peril. The obligation of a law, first, inferreth a fault, that is, contempt of authority ; so doth God's, as it is his law, and so it will infer a fault in us to break it ; and as we reject his counsel, it inferreth punishment, and the greater punishment the more we know of God's law : Rom. ii. 9, ' Tribulation, wrath, and anguish upon every soul that doeth evil, upon the Jew first, and also upon the Gentile.' Why the Jew first ? They knew God's mind more clearly.