The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

4. Our Redeemer hath improved the obligations of the moral Law, by a clearer discovery of the purity and extent of its precepts, and by peculiar and powerful Enforcements. In his Sermon on the Mount he clears it from the darkening glosses of the Pharisees, who observed the letter of the Law, but not the design of the Lawgiver. He declares that not only the gross act, but all things of the same alliance are forbidden; not only Murder, but rash Anger, and vilifying ⟨p. 338⟩words, which wound the Reputation. Not only actual pollution, but the impurity of the Eye, and the staining of the Soul with unclean thoughts, are all comprised in the prohibition. He informs them that every Man in calamity is their Neighbour, and to be relieved, and commands them to love their deadliest enemies. Briefly, He tells the multitude, that unless their Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ¹that is, the utmost that they thought themselves obliged to, they should not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Besides, our Saviour hath superadded special Enforcements to his Precepts. The Arguments to persuade Christians to be universally Holy, from Christs Redeeming them for that great end, was not known either in the Economy of Nature, or the Law: For before our lapsed state there was no need of a Redeemer, and he was not revealed during the Legal Dispensation. His Death was only shadowed forth in Types, and foretold in such a manner, as was obscure to the Jews. The Gospel urges new reasons to increase our aversion from sin, which neither Adam nor Moses were acquainted with. So the Apostle dehorts Christians from uncleanness, because their bodies are Members of Christ, ²and Temples of the Holy-Ghost, and therefore should be inviolably consecrated to purity. If the Utensils of the Temple were so sacred▪ that the employing them to a common use, was revenged in a miraculous manner; How much sorer punishment shall be inflicted on those who defile themselves, after they were sanctified by the Blood of the Covenant? The Gospel also recommends to us Love to one another,³ in imitation of that admirable Love which Christ expressed to us, and commands the highest