God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience, written in his heart, and
a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil;1 by which He bound him and all his posterity, to personal, entire, exact
and perpetual obedience;2 promised life upon the fulfilling, and
threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.3
The same law that was first written in the heart of man, continued to be
a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall,4 and delivered by God
upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first
containing our duty towards God, and the other six our duty to man.5
Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the
people of Israel ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of
worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits;6
and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties,7 all
which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation, are, by Jesus
Christ, the true Messiah and only law-giver, who was furnished with power from the Father
for that end, abrogated and taken away.8
To them also He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with
the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution; their
general equity only being of modern use.9
The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as
others, to the obedience thereof,10 and that not only in regard of the
matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave
it;11 neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much
strengthen this obligation.12
Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to
be thereby justified or condemned,13 yet it is of great use to them,
as well as to others, in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and
their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful
pollutions of their natures, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they
may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin;14
together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His
obedience: it is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that
it forbids sin; and the threatening of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and
what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse and
unallayed rigour thereof. These promises of it likewise show them God's approbation of
obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof, though not as
due to them by the law as a covenant of works; so as man's doing good, and refraining from
evil, because the law encourageth to the one and deterreth from the other, is no evidence
of his being under the law, and not under grace.15
Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it,16 the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.17
Footnotes:
1. Ge 1:27; Ecc 7:29.
2. Ro 10:5.
3. Gal 3:10,12.
4. Ro 2:14-15.
5. Dt 10:4.
6. Heb 10:1; Col 2:17.
7. 1Co 5:7.
8. Col 2:14,16-17; Eph 2:14,16.
9. 1Co 9:8-10.
10. Ro 13:8-10; Jas 2:8,10-12.
11. Jas 2:10-11.
12. Mt 5:17-19; Ro 3:31.
13. Ro 6:14; Gal 2:16; Ro 8:1; 10:4.
14. Ro 3:20; 7:7-25.
15. Ro 6:12-14; 1Pe 3:8-13.
16. Gal 3:21.
17. Eze 36:27.