Tracts on the Sabbath

by Unknown

11. God complaineth of the blindness of his servants, and of the deafness of his messengers that he sent, (Isa. 42:19, 20,) and their blindness and deafness appears in this, that they did not hear nor understand God's design in the gift of his Son, that it was not to destroy the law or to slight it, but to magnify it and make it honorable. Verse 2. Previously it was in tables of stone, but now in the fleshy tables of the heart; service was then done from a spirit of bondage, but now from a spirit of adoption. And in this sense I conceive the law to be magnified and made honorable, and upon this account God is well pleased for his righteousness' sake, that is, I conceive, for his Son's sake.

12. This opinion, that the whole law is abolished, doth pull up true magistracy by the roots, the office of rulers being for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. But if the statutes and judgments be not in force, there is no corporeal punishment to be inflicted upon any, though thieves, murderers, or the like; and so there is no room for the magisterial power at all, but men are left in this respect as the beasts of the field, to shift one among another as well as they can. But the Apostle saith, The law is made for the lawless and disobedient, for ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers, &c. 1 Tim. 1:9, 10. Now that this is the law of penalties, is manifest, in that it is said it was not made for a righteous man; but the ten commandments were for the righteous, for the Psalmist saith, Make me to go in the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight. O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:35, 97.

And how shall we have governors as at the first, and counsellors as at the beginning, (Isa. 1:26,) if they have no law to govern by? If any say we shall have laws from Christ, and shall not need those laws that were for the commonwealth of Israel, I answer, I know no word of God that doth give us ground to hope for any other laws of Scripture then what we have. And suppose that God should revive his work and bring his enemies under, and put opportunity into the hands of men fearing God and hating covetousness to rule the nation, and to make laws according to Scripture, what could they do if the Scripture were not their statute-book, if they should turn law-makers? Would not that be their sin, there being no warrant in the Scripture for it? And would it not bring all into confusion again, and make another Babel? For the great question which is to be resolved in the latter days, will be, Who is our statute-maker?—which the saints put out of question in Isa. 33:22, The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Statute-maker, the Lord is our King, he will save us, (and not king Omri with his statutes.) Mich. 6:16. And when the saints come to own this truth in good earnest, their opponents' tacklings will be loosed; they shall neither strengthen their masts, nor spread their sails. And Malachi tells us what laws our King hath made, which the saints are to own when the day of the Lord shall burn as an oven all the proud, and the Sun of Righteousness arise upon all that fear him; when they shall tread down the wicked with so much ease that they shall be as ashes under the soles of their feet, so that it shall be counted the Lord's doings. And in the day that the Lord shall do this, Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Mal. 4:3, 4.

I shall now endeavor to answer some objections which are usually brought against this truth, though several of them are partly answered in the grounds before mentioned. I shall therefore say the less, and begin to speak something to that Scripture in 2 Corinthians, third chapter, on which the objectors chiefly build their persuasion; and indeed at the first glance thereon, without comparing it with other Scriptures, it hath more color for such a purpose than all the Scriptures that ever I heard brought; from which Scripture this is objected, that the ten commandments were the ministration of death and the letter, and are done away.

Answer. That they were the ministration of death and of the letter is granted, for the Scripture saith so; but the Scripture doth not say that they are done away, as will appear, if we consider the drift of the Apostle. He endeavoreth to show the difference between the ministration of the spirit and of the letter, the one being a bare reading of the law, from which no life was communicated to those that heard it. The Apostle calls it the ministration of condemnation, that is, it lays open sin, and the curse for sin, but it is the gospel ministration which holds forth justification and strength against sin; not that the ten commandments in themselves were death to any—God forbid! as the Apostle saith in Rom. 7:13; but sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death; and the commandments preach death to the transgressors of them, so that they are called the ministration of death and condemnation, because man hath broken them, and so is under the curse of them, which Christ hath delivered believers from, (Rom. 3:13;) and the ministration of it is really done away, that is, as I said before, the reading of the law by a typical priesthood, which the Jews would have set up in the room and place of the ministration of the spirit. And whereas they lived under the hearing of the bare letter of the law, which gave no strength to perform, we live under the hearing of the gospel, which is spirit and life. John 6:36. But that the matter of the law, or commanding power of it, should be done away, this Scripture doth not in the least prove, but it is used in the hand of the Spirit to convince of sin. This the same Apostle proves in Rom. 7:7, where he saith, I had not known sin but by the law; I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. This will appear evident if we consider the same chapter from verse 8 to verse 14.

Obj. 2. Another Scripture is frequently urged from Acts 7:37—A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. From which it is concluded, that we are to hearken only to Christ and not to Moses.

Ans. If by hearing of Christ you mean hearing only what he spake with his own lips when he was on earth, then we are not to hear his apostles. But if you mean, by hearing of him, to hear what he spake upon earth and what he spake by his Spirit in his apostles, then why are we not to hear what he spake by his Spirit to his prophets, seeing we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ being the chief corner-stone. Eph. 21:20. And if those who are of this persuasion would be true to their principle to hear Christ, hear him what he saith in Luke 16:31—They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them; for if they will not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. And he counsels to keep the commandments, (Matt. 19:17, 18,) and reproves for the breach of them, as also for the making them void by traditions, (Matt. 15:6,) as might be made to appear by many other Scriptures. Therefore there is nothing of weight in this objection to shake the thing asserted. But for a more full answer to this objection and the former, I must needs entreat the reader to see my other book on the Sabbath.

Obj. 3. Moses was faithful over his house as a servant, so Christ is faithful over his house as a son. Now, if Christ hath not given us all the laws that we are to observe, this is to make Christ less faithful than Moses.

Ans. Doubtless Christ as a son is faithful over his house, as Moses was faithful over his house as a servant. But we are to consider, what was Moses' house, and what is Christ's house. Moses' house, I conceive, was the Tabernacle; his faithfulness did appear in that he did all things according to the pattern showed him in the Mount. Christ's house is the saints, the true tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched and not man, (Heb. 8:2, 5,) of which the other was a shadow. And as Moses as a servant gave forth ordinances for his house, so Christ as a son has given out ordinances for his house. But the ten commandments are a law which belongs to men as they are men, though they be no part of Christ's house, it being, as before proved, the law written in their very hearts.

Obj. 4. But when certain of the sect of the pharisees arose and said it was needful to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, the Apostle proves them to be tempters of God, in putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. Acts 15:5, 10.