A discourse of the true nature of the Gospel demonstrating that it is no…

That the Precepts which the Gospel employs, are not any Parts of it self, but borrowed from the Law, will be undoubted, if we consider what is their Nature and Use. They are designed as the Rule of our Actions; they instruct us what to do; they draw the Lines of our Duty, and set the Limits of our Obedience; and all this is the proper Office of the Moral Law, which it completely discharges, without calling in any Assistance. It is the eternal and unalterable Rule of Manners, and a Doctrine directing the whole Conduct of ⟨p. 43⟩Humane Life: There is no Defect in it, which it was needful to supply by another new Law; to assert that, would be to impeach the Wisdom of God as deficient, as not knowing at first all that was Good and Righteous, and necessary to be commanded to his Creatures, and to be done by them; or as so short in its Foresight, as not able to discern at the first all the Duties which Men were bound to perform in the Circumstances of their State, but was obliged afterward, taught by Experience, to supply the Failures by a new Law, or by an Addition of new Precepts suited to Man's present state of Sin, Weakness and Misery. If then the Moral Law did not comprehend in it all Precepts of Duties, it would not be God's Law, for his is perfect; he is not like short-sighted Men, who cannot foresee what the Consequences of a Law made by them may be within the Compass of one Age; nor whether Circumstances of Affairs altering, it may not prove hurtful or unnecessary; and therefore all Governments find themselves obliged to repeal old Laws, or to add some Clauses to suit them to a present Posture of Affairs, or to make new Ones to repair the Defects, to which all Humane Wisdom in her best Provisions is obnoxious, for want of a certain Foreknowledge of the Future. But who can have such a Thought of God, that these Infirmities of a Man should ever befall him in making his Laws, that he should be forced, tho not to repeal what he had made so many Ages before, yet to promulgate a new one, with additional Precepts accommodated to the present Case of his miserable Creature Man? And as it is repugnant to God's Perfections to make new Laws, so it would infer that his antiquated Law was imperfect, and so no Rule; and this would unavoidably follow, if any Duties are to be performed which it neither regulates, nor gives any direction about them.

That the Precepts which the Gospel employs, are not any Parts of it self, but borrowed from the Law, will be undoubted, if we consider what is their Nature and Use. They are design'd as the Rule of our Actions; they instruct us what to do; they draw the Lines of our Duty, and set the Limits of our Obedience; and all this is the proper Office of the Moral Law, which it compleatly discharges, without calling in any Assistance. It is the eternal and unalterable Rule of Manners, and a Doctrine directing the whole Conduct of