To root out this pernicious Error out of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ in many instances, gives the true, spiritual Sense and intention of the Law, manifesting what the Righteousness is, which the Law requires, and on what terms a Man may be justified thereby. And among sundry others to the same purpose, two things he evidently declares. (1.) That the Law in its Precepts and Prohibitions had regard unto the regulation of the heart, with all its first motions and actings. For he asserts, that the inmost thoughts of the heart, and the first motions of concupiscence therein, though not consented unto, much less actually accomplished in the outward deeds of sin, and all the occasions leading unto them, are directly forbidden in the Law. This he doth in his holy ⟨p. 433⟩Exposition of the Seventh Commandment, Ver. 27, 28, 29, 30. (2.) He declares the penalty of the Law, on the least sin, to be Hell fire, in his Assertion of causeless anger to be forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. If Men would but try themselves by these Rules and others, there given by our Saviour, it would, it may be, take them off from boasting in their own Righteousness and Justification thereby. But as it was then, so is it now also; the most of them who would maintain a Justification by Works, do attempt to corrupt the sense of the Law, and accommodate it unto their own practice. The Reader may see an eminent demonstration hereof, in a late excellent Treatise, whose title is, The Practical Divinity of the Papists discovered to be destructive of Christianity and Mens souls. The Spirituality of the Law, with the severity of its Sanction, extending it self unto the least, and most imperceptible motions of sin in the heart, are not believed, or not aright considered by them who plead for Justification by Works in any sense. Wherefore the principal design of the Sermon of our Saviour is, as to declare what is the nature of that obedience which God requireth by the Law, so to prepare the minds of his Disciples to seek after another Righteousness, which in the cause and means of it, was not yet plainly to be declared, although many of them being prepared by the Ministry of John, did hunger and thirst after it.
To root out this pernicious Error out of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ in many instances, gives the true, spiritual Sense and intention of the Law, manifesting what the Righteousness is, which the Law requires, and on what terms a Man may be justified thereby. And among sundry others to the same purpose, two things he evidently declares. (1.) That the Law in its Precepts and Prohibitions had regard unto the regulation of the heart, with all its first motions and actings. For he asserts, that the inmost thoughts of the heart, and the first motions of concupiscence therein, though not consented unto, much less actually accomplished in the outward deeds of sin, and all the occasions leading unto them, are directly forbidden in the Law. This he doth in his holy ⟨p. 433⟩Exposition of the Seventh Commandment, Ver. 27, 28, 29, 30. (2.) He declares the penalty of the Law, on the least sin, to be Hell fire, in his Assertion of causless anger to be forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. If Men would but try themselves by these Rules and others, there given by our Saviour, it would, it may be, take them off from boasting in their own Righteousness and Justification thereby. But as it was then, so is it now also; the most of them who would maintain a Justification by Works, do attempt to corrupt the sense of the Law, and accommodate it unto their own practice. The Reader may see an eminent demonstration hereof, in a late excellent Treatise, whose title is, The Practical Divinity of the Papists discovered to be destructive of Christianity and Mens souls. The Spirituality of the Law, with the severity of its Sanction, extending it self unto the least, and most imperceptible motions of sin in the heart, are not believed, or not aright considered by them who plead for Justification by Works in any sense. Wherefore the principal design of the Sermon of our Saviour is, as to declare what is the nature of that obedience which God requireth by the Law, so to prepare the minds of his Disciples to seek after another Righteousness, which in the cause and means of it, was not yet plainly to be declared, although many of them being prepared by the Ministery of John, did hunger and thirst after it.
