Christ inviting sinners to come to him for rest

Now when a soul comes to see and understand it self to be under the law such a Law as requires things impossible to be done; this burdens the soul, & so by this means it comes to see the need it hath of Christ, and Christ calls to such to come to him: as if he should Say: So long as you continue unbelievers in your natural condition, you are under Such a covenant for ⟨p. 35⟩life, as requires that of you which you cannot possibly do and therefore there is no resting in that condition: Come therefore to me, take my yoke, my easy yoke, the other is a heavy yoke: But I will show you a way for ease and rest to your souls. That is the first.

Now when a soul comes to see and understand it self to bee under the law such a Law as requires things impossible to be done; this burdens the soul, & so by this means it comes to see the need it hath of Christ, and Christ cals to such to come to him: as if he should Say: So long as you continue unbeleivers in your natural condition, you are under Such a covenant for ⟨p. 35⟩life, as requires that of you which you cannot possibly do and therefore there is no resting in that condition: Come therefore to me, take my yoke, my easie yoke, the other is a heavy yoke: But I wil shew you a way for ease and rest to your soules. That is the first.

But though the law may require hard things, & impossible things yet it may remit in some other things. Wherefore.

2. In the second place: this is the yoke and bondage of the Law: that in every thing that it doth command, it doth require absolute perfection; accepts of nothing but absolute perfection in every thing that it doth Command; it doth not only command hard things; but whatsoever the law requires, it doth require an absolute perfection in it, or otherwise casts the Soul if there be but a failing on any particular in any degree of that which the Law requires, the Law casts the Soul by it. It requires not only that the thing should be done, but that it should be done, in a right manner; that it should be done out of a right principle, that it should be done in the perfection of degrees, to the uttermost that is required: that there should not only be a direction of our lives according to the rule, but that we come up fully to the Rule, this the law requires: Now what a miserable yoke and burden is this, for a poor soul to look upon the Law as requiring, first things that I cannot do. And secondly absolute perfection admitting of no imperfection at all: this is a heavy yoke: this neither we nor our fathers could bear: and those that come to be sensible of this, must needs be under a grievous burden, and so see a need of Jesus Christ, Christ calls those that do understand this. It is true if it were thus, and people were left without any help, and remedy, it were a sad condition; truly if christ had not come into the world to put himself under the law, we had been left thus; and all those that do not understand the Gospel, that have not had Christ preached unto them they are all thus, they are all in this Condition; they are under a law that they cannot perform, that law which doth require absolute and perfect obedience in every thing or else casts them.