2. Therefore there must be a rule of our service, and that rule is the written ivoM of God. There was a time when the word of God was not written, Heb. i. 1 ; and then God discovered his will by dreams and visions, and many other ways. But when the world was enlarged, and mankind spread further, traditions from hand to hand was not a fit means and way to deliver truths, because it was subject to corruption. God therefore would deliver his will, how he would be served, in writing ; and God sanc- tified this course, and gave credit to it, by his own example, writing his own law with his own finger. The ten commandments were written by God himself. God w^as the first preacher and the first writer. He was the first preacher : he preached the gospel to Adam in paradise ; and the first writer : the ten commandments being written by God himself. Now, we have the written word of God to be our rule, how God must be served, an exact and perfect rule. I will not speak by way of controversy. I hope we are grounded well enough, but by way of direction for a godly life. God's will is a sufficient rule.
What is requisite in a rule ?
(1.) First, A rule must be dear and open, that it may be made use of by those that are to be regulated by it. Therefore we say, The secret will of God can be no rule, because it is secret. That which is a rule must be manifest and open. Therefore the revealed will of God, that every one may see, that is our rule. We may cross God's secret will and do well ; and w.e may serve it and yet do ill. A father may pray for his child's life, and may cross the secret will of God, and yet doth well. God allows bowels in fathers. A wicked man may do according to God's secret will, and yet sin. Therefore that was not the rule of David's service, nor cannot be of ours. * Secret things belong to God ; but revealed things to us and our children,' saith blessed Moses, Deut. xxix. 29. The will of God, as it is discovered, must be the rule of our actions. A rule must be open, or else it is no rule.
(2.) Again, The rule by which we must lead our lives it must be infallible: not subject to error ; for then it cannot be the rule of our service. The word of God is an infalhble rule. It cannot deceive, because it is the word of God. Men wrote it, indeed, but it was God that dictated it. The finger writes, but the head dictates. Holy men wrote it according as they were guided by the Holy Ghost. The will of any man cannot be the rule of any man's service, further than it is agreeable to the first rule. Why ? Because it is subject to error and mistake. That which must be the con- stant rule of a man's life, it must not be as popish traditions and the like. It must be infallible. Now, the word of God is so. It is infallible. A man may err, and be a man, and a good man too; but God cannot err, and be God. The word of God cannot be false and be the word of God. Therefore it is an infallible rule.
When this is applied to any creature, it is a grand lie, and the foundation
500 KING David's epitaph.
of misery in that church. This is the first Ho in the church of Rome, that the church, consisting of a company of men, cannot err. "What a horrihle ahsurdity is this, to make the will of man the rule, that the church cannot err, that popery cannot err ! Though they err egregiously, they account rebellion service, and make traitors merit, &c.
But are our tenets subject to such gross things ? No. "We make the rule of obedience the infallible word of God, that cannot err. To attribute that of that which cannot err to that which can err, it is a horrible absur- dity. But I will not enter into controversies.
(3.) Again, That which is a rule tnust be perfect in commensuration, in measure. It must be of equal extent to all things that are to be ruled. Now the things that are to be ruled is our whole carriage and conversation. Therefore that that is the rule for a man, it must rule his thoughts, his speeches, and actions. So the word of God, it rules the whole carriage of a man. There is a proportion between the rule and all things that are to be ruled by it. All things fall under the word of God to be directed and ruled by it. It gives direction to our thoughts, to our speeches, to our actions, in our callings. It gives direction to magistrates, to ministers, to masters, to servants, to all estates and conditions in life, in death. It is exceeding large, as David saith : ' All things come to an end, but thy com- mandments are exceeding large,' Ps. cxix. 96. It is a rule that extends to all things that are to be ruled whatsoever. No other rule but God's will doth so ; for men's laws they have nothing to do with thoughts. Thought is free for them.