Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

2. The Law considers not what thou now hast, but what thou once hadst. If thou sayest, I have done my best; and what, would you have a man do more then he can do? The Law heeds not that: It considers not what thou doest, but what thou ough•st to do. It requires that thou shouldst perform obedience according to thy first strength, and that perfection once God gave thee, that all thou doest should have love for it's ground: that thou shouldst love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and strength. Mat. 22.37. Her• the Law is very imperious, like those Task-masters in Egypt, that laid burdens on the Israelites too heavy for them to bear. They had at first materials, and then they delivered in the full tale of bricks: But when the straw was taken from them, they complain of the heaviness of their burden. ⟨p. 37⟩But what's the answer? You are idle, you are idle, you shall deliver the same tale of bricks as before, Exod. 5.17. So stands the case here. It's not enough to plead, Alas! if I had strength, I would do it; but I have not strength, I cannot do it. But the Law is peremptory, you must do it: you are compelled by force, you shall do it. The impossibility of our fulfilling it, does not exempt us, as appears by comparing Rom. 8.3. with Rom. 7.6. although it be impossible, as the case stands, for the Law to be by us fulfilled, yet we are held under it, as appears plainly thus. If I deliver a man a stock of money whereby he may gain his own living, and be advantageous to me; and he spend it, and when I require mine own with increase, he tells me, True Sir, I received such a sum of money of you for this purpose, but I have spent it, and am disabled to pay. Will this serve the turn? will it satisfy the Creditor, or discharge the debt? No, no, the Law will have its own of him. If thou payest not thy due, thou must be shut up under it. It's otherwise under the Gospel: that accepts a man according to what he hath, not according to what he hath not. And here comes in the third point.