1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self. When men will practise some points of Religion, and walk in the track of some Divine precepts; not because they are Divine, but because they are agreeable to their humour or constitution of nature; from the sway of a natural bravery, the Bias of a secular interest, not from an ingenuous sense of Gods Authority, or a voluntary submission to his Will: As when a man will avoid excess in drinking, not because it is dishonourable to God, but as it is a blemish to his own reputation, or an impair of the health of his body: Doth this deserve the name of an observance of the Divine injunction, or rather an obedience to our selves? Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his Charity, not with an eye to Gods precept, but in compliance with his own natural compassion, or to pleasure the generosity of his nature: The one is obedience to a mans own preservation, the other an obedience to the interest or impulse of a moral Virtue. Tis not respect to the rule of God, but the Authority of self; and at the best, is but the performance of the material part of the Divine Rule, without any concurrence of a Spiritual motive or a Spiritual manner. That only is a maintaining ⟨p. 73⟩the rights of God, when we pay an observance to his rule, without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular interest, or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood; when we will not decline his service, though we find it cross, and hath no affinity with the pleasure of our own nature: Such an obedience as Abraham manifested in his readiness to sacrifice his Son: Such an obedience as our Saviour demands in cutting off the right hand. When we observe any thing of divine order upon the account of its suitableness to our natural Sentiments, we shall readily divide from him, when the interest of nature turns it's point against the interest of Gods honour; we shall fall off from him according to the change we find in our own humours: And can that be valued as a setting up the rule of God, which must be deposed upon the mutable interest of an inconstant mind? Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of his resolution to shorten his brothers days; though he was awed by the reverence of his Father to delay it;
1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self. When men will practise some points of Religion, and walk in the track of some Divine precepts; not because they are Divine, but because they are agreeable to their humor or constitution of nature; from the sway of a natural bravery, the Byas of a secular interest, not from an ingenuous sense of Gods Authority, or a voluntary submission to his Will: As when a man will avoid excess in drinking, not because it is dishonourable to God, but as it is a blemish to his own reputation, or an impair of the health of his body: Doth this deserve the name of an observance of the Divine injunction, or rather an obedience to our selves? Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his Charity, not with an eye to Gods precept, but in compliance with his own natural compassion, or to pleasure the generosity of his nature: The one is obedience to a mans own preservation, the other an obedience to the interest or impulse of a moral Vertue. Tis not respect to the rule of God, but the Authority of self; and at the best, is but the performance of the material part of the Divine Rule, without any concurrence of a Spiritual motive or a Spiritual manner. That only is a maintaining ⟨p. 73⟩the rights of God, when we pay an observance to his rule, without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular interest, or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood; when we will not decline his service, though we find it cross, and hath no affinity with the pleasure of our own nature: Such an obedience as Abraham manifested in his readiness to sacrifice his Son: Such an obedience as our Saviour demands in cutting off the right hand. When we observe any thing of divine order upon the account of its suitableness to our natural Sentiments, we shall readily divide from him, when the interest of nature turns it's point against the interest of Gods honour; we shall fall off from him according to the change we find in our own humours: And can that be valued as a setting up the rule of God, which must be depos'd upon the mutable interest of an inconstant mind? Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of his resolution to shorten his brothers dayes; though he was awed by the reverence of his Father to delay it;
