but as our Redeemer, and as such we must be his willing subjects, and obey him. Q. 9. Are all men subjects of God's kingdom? A. 1. All are subjects as to right and obligation. 2. All that profess subjection as professed consenters. 3. And all true hearty consenters are his sincere subjects, that shall be saved, God the Creator aud Redeemer hath the right of sovereignty over all the world, whether they consent or not. But they shall not have the blessing of faithful subjects without their own true consent, nor of visible church members without professed consent. But antecedent mercies he giveth to all. Q. 10. Why is this description of God's sovereignty, and man's subjection, and the ground of it, set before the commandments? A. Because, 1. Faith must go before obedience. He that will come to God and obey him, must believe that God is God, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Heb. xi. 6.) And he that will obey him as our Redeemer, must believe that we are redeemed by Jesus Christ, and that he is our Lord and King. 2. And relations go before the duties of relation and our consent foundeth the mutual relation. The nature and form of obedience is, to obey another's commanding will, because he is our rightful Governor. No man can obey him formally whom he taketh not for his Ruler. And subjection, or consent to be governed, is virtually all obedience. Q. 11. But what, if men never hear of the Redeemer, may they not obey God's law of nature? A. They may know that they are sinners, and that the sin of an immortal soul deserveth endless punishment: and they may find, by experience, that God useth them not as they deserve, but giveth many mercies to those that deserve nothing but misery; and that he obligeth them to use some means in hope for their recovery, and so that he governeth them by a law (or on terms) of mercy and being under the first edition of the law of grace, though they know not the second, they ought to keep that law which they are under, and they shall be judged by it. Q. 12. How, then, doth the christian church, as Christ's kingdom, differ from the world without, if they be any of his kingdom too? © John xvii.3, and xiv. 1, 2; Gal. ii. 16; Jos. xxiv. 18; John xx. 28. A. As all the world was under that common law of grace which was made for them to Adam and Noah, and yet Abraham and his seed were only chosen out of all the world as a peculiar, holy nation to God, and were under a law and covenant of peculiarity, which belonged only unto them; so, though Christ hath not revoked those common mercies given to all by the first edition of the law of grace, nor left the world ungoverned and lawless, yet he hath given to Christians a more excellent covenant of peculiarity than he gave the natural seed of Abraham, and hath elected them out of the world to himself, as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light." (1 Pet. ii. 9.) Q. 13. It seems, then, we must take great heed that we make not Christ's kingdom either less or greater than it is? A. To make it greater than it is, by equalling those without the church, or church hypocrites with the sincere, doth dishonour God's holiness, and the wonderful design of Christ in man's redemption, and the grace of the Spirit, and the church of God, and obscureth the doctrine of election, and God's peculiar love, and tendeth to the discomfort of the faithful, and even to infidelity. And to make Christ's kingdom less than it is, by denying the first edition of the law of grace made to all, and the common mercies given to all, antecedently to their rejection of them, doth obscure and wrong the glory of God's love to man, and deny his common grace and law, and feigneth the world either to be under no law of God, or else to be all bound to be perfectly innocent at the time when they are guilty, and either not bound at all to hope and seek for salvation, or else to seek it on the condition of being innocent, when they know that it is impossible, they being already guilty: and it maketh the world, like the devils, almost shut up in despair; and it leaveth them as guiltless of all sin against grace, and the law of grace, as if they had none such and it contradicteth the judgment of Abraham, the father of the faithful, who saw Christ's day; for he thought that even the wicked city of Sodom had fifty persons so righteous as that God should have spared the rest for their sakes, to say nothing of Job, Nineveh, &c. In a word, the ungrounded extenuating the grace of Christ, and the love d Psalm cxlv. 9. of God, hardeneth infidels, and tempteth Christians to perplexing thoughts of the gospel, and of the infinite goodness of God, and maketh it more difficult than indeed it is, to see his amiableness, and consequently to glorify and love him, as the essential love, whose goodness is equal to his greatness. It is Satan, as angel of light and righteousness, who, pretending the defence of God's special love to his elect, denieth his common mercies to mankind, to dishonour God's love, and strengthen our own temptations against the joyful love of God. Q. 14. Is government and subjection all that is here included? A. No: God's kingdom is a paternal kingdom, ruling children by love, that he may make them happy. "I am the Lord thy God," signifieth 'I am thy greatest Benefactor, thy Father,' who gave thee all the good thou hast, and will give to my obedient children grace and glory, and all that they can reasonably desire, and will protect them from all their enemies, and supply their wants, and deliver them from evil, and will be for ever their sun and shield, their reward and joy, and better to them, than man in flesh can now conceive, even love itself. CHAP. XXXIV. Of the First Commandment. Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the first commandment? A. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exod. xx. 3.f Q. 2. What is the meaning of this commandment? A. It implieth a command that we do all that is due to God; which is due to God from reasonable creatures, made by him, and freely redeemed by him from sin and misery. And it for biddeth us to think there is any other God, or to give to any other that which properly belongs to him.8 Q. 3. Doth not the Scripture call idols and magistrates gods? A. Yes; but only in an equivocal, improper sense : idols are 2 Cor. vi. 16, 18; John xx. 28. Deut. v. 7, and x. 21. called gods, as so reputed falsely by idolaters; and magistrates only as men's governors under God.h Q. 4. What are the duties which we owe to God alone? A. 1. That our understandings know, believe, and esteem him as God. 2. That our wills love him, and cleave to him as God. 3. That we practically obey and serve him as God. Q. 5. When doth the understanding know, believe, and esteem him as God? A. No creature can know God with an adequate, comprehensive knowledge: but we must in our measure know, believe and esteem him to be the only infinite, eternal, self-sufficient Spirit, vital Power, Understanding, and Will, or most perfect Life, Light, and Love; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of whom, and through whom, and to whom, are all things; our absolute Owner, Ruler, and Father, reconciled by Christ; our Maker, our Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Q. 6. When doth man's will love and cleave to him as God? A. When the understanding believing him to be best, even infinitely good in himself, and best to all the world, and best to us, we love him as such; though not yet in due perfection, yet sincerely above all other things.i Q. 7. How can we love God above all, when we never saw him, and can have no idea or formal conception of him in our minds? A. Though he be invisible, and we have no corporeal idea of him, nor no adequate or just formal conception of him, yet he is the most noble object of our understanding and love, as the sun is of our sight, though we comprehend it not. We are not without such an idea or conception of God, as is better than all other knowledge, and is the beginning of eternal life, and is true in its kind, though very imperfect. Q. How can you know him that is no object of sense? A. He is the object of our understanding; we know in ourselves what it is to know and to will, though these acts are not the objects of sense, (unless you will call the very acts of knowing and willing, an eminent, internal sensation of themselves.) And by this we know what it is to have the power of understanding and willing and so what it is to be an invisible substance with such power. And as we have this true idea or Gal.iv. S; 1 Cor. viii. 5; John x. 34, 35; xvii. 3, and xiv. 1, 2; Dent. x. 12, and xxx. 16, 20; Mich. vi. 8. Psalm lxxiii. 25; cxix. 68, and cxlv. 9; Matt. xxli. 37. Matt. xix. 17; John xvii. 3. conception of a soul, so have we more easily of him, who is more than a soul to the whole world.' Q. 9. How doth the true love of God work here in the flesh? A. As we here know God, so we love him: as we know him not in the manner as we do things sensible, so we love him not in that sort of sensible appetite, as we do things sensible immediately. But as we know him as revealed in the glass of his works, natural and gracious, and in his word, so we love him as known by such revelation.m Q. 10. Do not all men love God, who believe that there is a God, when nature teacheth men to love goodness as such, and all that believe that there is a God, believe that he is the best of beings? A. Wicked men know not truly the goodness of God, and so what God is indeed. To know this proposition, 'God is most good,' is but to know words and a logical, general notion: as if a man should know and say that light is good, who never had sight; or sweetness is good, who never tasted it. Every wicked man is predominantly a lover of fleshly pleasure, and therefore no lover, but a hater, of all the parts and acts of divine government and holiness, which are contrary to it, and would deprive him of it. So that there is somewhat of God that a wicked man doth love, that is, his being, his work of creation, and bounty to the world, and to him in those natural good things which he can value: but he loveth not, but hateth God as the holy governor of the world and him, and the enemy of his forbidden pleasure and desires." Q. 11. What be the certain signs, then, of true love to God? A. 1. A true love to his government, and laws, and holy word; and that as it is his, and holy; and this so effectual, as that we unfeignedly desire to obey that word as the rule of our faith, and life, and hope; and desire to fulfil his commanding will. 2. A true love to the actions which God commandeth (though flesh will have some degree of backwardness). 3. A true love to those that are likest God in wisdom, holiness, and doing good; and such a love to them as is above the love of worldly riches, honour, and pleasure; so that it will enable us to do them good, though by our suffering or loss in a 11 Cor. xiii. 12, and ii. 3, 8, 18; John i. 18. m Exod. xx. 6; Prov. viii. 17, 21; John xiv. 15, 23. " 1 Cor. viii. 3; Rom. viii. 28; Jam. i. 12, and ii. 5; 1 John iii. 16, 17; iv. 20, and v. 3, and xiv. 23; Jude 21. |