Morality not to be relied on for life. Or, A brief discourse, discovering the…

Hence what caution had Gospel Ministers need to use in their preaching up of moral duties? That it is their duty to preach them, and press them upon their hearers, is certain; otherwise they cannot be faithful in declaring the whole Counsel of God: and yet if they so preach them as to revive the Covenant of Works, to advance the Righteousness of man, and depreciate the Righteousness of Christ, they are far from being the Ministers of Christ, and are indeed the very betrayers of Souls to destruction, as far as in them lieth. Nor indeed do I know of ⟨p. 27⟩any thing which doth more threaten the undermining of true Christianity, and the bringing in of another Gospel, than the putting of Moral Virtues into a legal dress, and without any more ado, to commend them to us as the Graces of our Christian Religion. He who when he hath told men all the moral duties required in the Law of God, and laid them out according to the nature of them, as they were enjoined on them in the First Covenant, saith to them, this do and live, and doth not endeavour to show them that there is something more wanting, without which they are undone, will be found an enemy of Grace, and a murderer of Souls: nor would I have such a Ministers account to give in the last day for a thousand worlds.

Hence what caution had Gospel Ministers need to use in their preaching up of moral duties? That it is their duty to preach them, and press them upon their hearers, is certain; otherwise they cannot be faithful in declaring the whole Counsel of God: and yet if they so preach them as to revive the Covenant of Works, to advance the Righteousness of man, and depreciate the Righteousness of Christ, they are far from being the Ministers of Christ, and are indeed the very betrayers of Souls to destruction, as far as in them lieth. Nor indeed do I know of ⟨p. 27⟩any thing which doth more threaten the undermining of true Christianity, and the bringing in of another Gospel, than the putting of Moral Vertues into a legal dress, and without any more ado, to commend them to us as the Graces of our Christian Religion. He who when he hath told men all the moral duties required in the Law of God, and laid them out according to the nature of them, as they were enjoyned on them in the First Covenant, saith to them, this do and live, and doth not endeavour to shew them that there is something more wanting, without which they are undone, will be found an enemy of Grace, and a murderer of Souls: nor would I have such a Ministers account to give in the last day for a thousand worlds.