A29689:182
A golden key to open hidden treasures, or, Several great points that refer to…
A golden key to open hidden treasures, or, Several great points that refer to the saints present blessedness and their future happiness, with the resolution of several important questions here you have also the active and passive obedience of Christ vindicated and improved ... : you have farther eleven serious singular pleas, that all sincere Christians may safely and groundedly make to those ten Scriptures in the Old and New Testament, that speak of the general judgment, and of that particular judgment, that must certainly pass upon them all immediately after death ... / by Tho. Brooks ...
London: printed for Dorman Newman, 1675
Serious and Weighty QUESTIONS, CLEARLY And Satisfactorily Answered.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly: Partial obedience, is indeed no obedience, it is only universal obedience, that is true obedience, Exod. 24. 7. All that the Lord hath said, will we do, and be obedient. They only are indeed obedient, who have a care to do all that is commanded: For to obey, is to do that which is commanded, because it is commanded; though the thing done be commanded, yet if it be not therefore done, because it is commanded, it is no obedience. Now if this be the nature of obedience, then where obedience is indeed, it is not partial but universal; for he that doth any one thing that is commanded, because it is commanded, he will be careful to do every thing that is commanded, there being the same reason for all. They that are only for a partial obedience, they do break a sunder the bond and reason of all obedience; for all obedience is to be founded upon the Authority and will of God, because •od (who hath Authority over all his Creatures) doth will and command us to obey his voice, to walk in his Statutes; for this very reason do we stand bound to obey him; and if we do obey him upon this reason, then must we walk in all his Statutes, for so hath he commanded us; and if we will not come up to this, but will walk in what Statutes of his we please, then do we renounce his Will, as the obliging reason of our obedience, and do set up our own liking and pleasure as the reason thereof. God has so connected the duties of his Law one to another, that if there be not a conscientious care to walk according to all that the Law requires, a man becomes a transgressor of the whole Law, according to that of Saint James, chap. 2. 10. whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all, the bond of all is broken, the Authority of all is slighted, and that evil disposition, that sinful frame of heart, that works a man to venture upon the breach of one command, would make him venture upon the breach of any command, were it not for some infirmity of nature, or because his purse will not hold out to maintain it, or for shame, or loss, or because of the eyes of ⟨p. 44⟩Friends, or the sword of the Magistrate, or for some other sinister respects. He that gives himself liberty to live in the breach of any one command of God, is qualified with a disposition of heart to break them all. Every single sin contains virtually all sin in it.