Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

II. ¹What that Right is, that this Obedience doth confirm.

1. 1What that Obedience is that is mentioned in the Text.

I. What that Obedience is, that gives us a •ight to Heaven.

I answer: §1¹It is not a Legal Obedience, or a perfect personal Righteousness, that now gives us this Right to Heaven; this is very plain, because to constitute this, it is necessary that there be both Original Purity in our Natures, which since the Fall is miserably vitiated and corrupted; and also a Sinless Perfection in our Lives, in the constant Observation of every Iota of the Law, both as to its Extension, and Intention; that we obey it in every part and tittle of it, and that our Obedience unto every part be raised to the highest degree of Love, Zeal, and Charity. This Title was once good, but it is now lost, by the Fall, in the common Ruin and Rubbish of Mankind; and he who hath not another Title, upon better and easier Terms, will find ⟨p. 62⟩Cherubims, and the Flaming Sword of Divine Justice, set to guard the Tree of Life from his Approaches, as once they did from guilty Adam.

I answer: §1