First, What necessity there is of God's word, or some outward sig- nification of his will. An absolute necessity of an outward rule there is not. God might immediately reveal himself to the heart of man ; he who made the heart can stamp it with the full knowledge of his will. But the written word is best for God's honour, and for the safety of religion, and because of the weakness of our nature.
1. For the honour of God, that he should give man a rule. You
428 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVIT, [Ser. XXVII.
Icnow all creatures that God liath made, they have a rule witliout themselves, by which they are guided and directed in their operations. It is God's own privilege to bo a rule to himself. The angels have a rule, that is distinct from their essence. And in innocency, though God stamped the knowledge of his will immediately upon man's heart, that Adam's heart was as it were liis bible, yet his rule was distinguished from his essence, otherwise he could not have sinned against God. If man were his own rule there would be an imjwssi- bility of sinning, and so there would be an intrenchment upon (xod's own privilege. You know it is God's own privilege that his act is his rule, and therefore it is impossible that God should sin. Look, as when a carpenter choppeth and squareth a piece of timber, there is a line and rule without him, by which he is guided and directed: if it were to be supposed that his hand could never strike amiss, that would be his rule, he would need no line or rule without him. But this is proper to no creature, it is God's own privilege that his essence and his rule are not distinguished ; but still a man should not share with him in his peculiar privilege, therefore he hath given him a rule. Besides, if man were a rule to himself, there would be no room for rewards; there is no commendation nor praise where there is a natural necessity of doing good ; as stocks and stones are not capable of a reward for not sinning, because they cannot sin.
2. For the safety of i-eligion, now man is fallen, that he might not obtrude fancies on his neighbour : Isa. viii. 20, ' To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.' Let it be voice or oracle, all is to be measured by the outward rule which God hath given to the churcli.
3, In respect of man, to repair the defects of nature, and to satisfy the desires of nature.
[1.] To repair the defects of nature. Fallen man is brutish, and knows not how to carve out a right worship for God, or a rule of com- merce between him and us. We have not light enougli in our own liearts for such a work. You see what sorry devices of worship man frameth when he is destitute of the knowledge of God's will, and left to the workings of his own lieart. The apostle observes it of the philo- sophers, Eom. i. 22, 23 ; the wisest of heathens, when they sat abrood upon religion, it proved but a monstrous misshapen piece: 'Profess- ing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.' You see how sottish man, if left once to himself, is ready to worship a stick, or straw, or piece of red cloth, instead of God. Though the knowledge of the law of God be written on man's heart, as it was on Adam's, who was his own bible, yet it is so blurred and defaced that we cannot read the mind of God in our own heart. It is true there are some scattered fragments and relics, and some obscure characters, that will teach us something of morality and duties, to fit us for commerce between man and man, but very little to teach us how to have commerce with God. The Gentiles have the work of the law written upon their hearts: Bom. 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.
VeR. 17.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 429
nve a law unto tliemselves ; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts in the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another ;' that is, they are sensible of the necessity of external obedience, but nature goes no further. There is no article of belief, if we consider it with all its circumstances, and in that exact manner that is propounded to us in the word of God, that could ever have entered into the heart of man. x\nd therefore, since man's heart is so weak, we need a rule that we might know God's will. His works indeed declare God's glory, that indeed there is an infinite, eternal, incomprehensible power, that made all things and guides all things: Ps. xix. 1, ' The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth his handiwork ;' but they speak nothing of the fall, of the restitution by Christ, of the mystery of the Trinity, and those glorious representations that are now made of God in the scriptures ; and therefore there was a necessity in this kind to repair the defects of nature.