Use 3. To instruct us, if we would be prepared for Christ, what we must do ; we must study the law, the purity of it, and the binding force it hath on all under it.
444 SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. [SeR. IV.
1. We must be able to understand it. Christ' saith to the yonng man, ' Thou knowest the commandments ;' he appealeth to him as to one that had some knowledge of the law. Those that live in the church should not be ignorant of the commandments or law of God, but well acquainted with them. God complaineth, Hosea viii. 12, 'I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.' To be strangers to the word of God, little conversant in it, and to make little use of it, is a great affront done to God. We should acquaint ourselves not with the letter only, as little children learn it by rote, but with the sense and purpose of it.
2. Meditate often thereupon : Ps. i. 2, ' His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.' Deep and ponderous thoughts have most efficacy ; without a study of the law men are without the law while they have it : Eom. vii. 9, ' I was alive without the law once.' Who more zealous for the law than Paul? Gal. i. 14, ' I profited in the Jew's religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers ; ' but while he did not ponder of it, he was without the law.
3. Judge yourselves by it. One great use for which the moral law serveth is to bring men to a sight and sense of their sins and imper- fections, and humble them before God : Eom. vii. 7, ' I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ; ' and to undeceive them of conceits of their own goodness and righteousness. Look into thy bill, what owest thou?
4. Beg the light of the Spirit to show thee thy sin and misery: Eom. vii. 9, ' When the commandments came ; ' in the light and evidence of the Holy Spirit, ' sin revived and I died.' Men that have the letter of the law may be without the light and power of it. With- out the Spirit we guess confusedly concerning things, as the man that saw men like trees walking, and have but general, cursory, confused thouo:hts.
SEEMON IV.
And he answered, and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. — Mark x. 20.
You have heard of a necessary question propounded by a noble young man to Christ, ' What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ? ' We have spoken to Christ's answer. Now in this verse we have the young man's reply, ' All these have I observed from my youth ; ' wherein there is expressed, or pretended at least —
1. An universality of respect to the will of God, * AU these have I observed.'
2. An early beginning to do so, ' From my youth.' He was still a
VeR. 20.] SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. 445
young man, but by these words, ' from my youth/ he means, ever since I had the use of reason, as soon as I began to distinguish between good and evil, straight and crooked. Certainly this answer were good if it were true. Some goodnesss there is in it, therefore we will observe something from it ; for it is said in the next verse, when he had an- swered thus, ' Jesus, beholding him, loved him.'
First, It is good in the first respect, as an universality of obedience is pretended ; and I may drop this note —
Boct. They that would keep the commandments must observe not only one but all.
It is true of the law of God, as it belongeth to the covenant of works or to the covenant of grace.
1. As it belongeth to the covenant of works : Gal. iii. 10, * Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are w^ritten in the book of the law to do them.' Every sin, the least, is damnable by that • covenant, and deserveth a curse ; if he should omit anything required, or commit anything forbidden, the curse seizeth upon his throat. So James ii. 10, ' Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.' As one condition not observed forfeits the whole lease, therefore it concerns this legalist to make good his plea and conceit of perfection by the law, to say, ' All these things have I done.
2. But is not the covenant of grace more favourable ? No ; it gives not allowance to the least failings, but binds us to make conscience of all, as well as of some.
[1.] Because the authority is the same : Exod. xx. 1, ' God spake,* not one or two, but all these words ; they are all ratified by the great God and lawgiver ; so that the same reason that moves us to one, moves us to another also, that we do it out of conscience to God : we must * walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work,' Col. i. 10. That we should obey parents, keep the sabbath, not steal, be careful of his institutions, not worship him by an idol ; this is pleasing to God, and so is that.