A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…

(2.) A sin of com••ssion is, when men do those things which are against or beside th• L•w. And indeed all that is beside it is against it; because that is a complete rule for all the actions of men. W••e men act, •ut they do not act by rule, then they do transgress, i. e, they go beside the law, it is […]. There is nothing that we can concern, our selves about, but there is a law to direct u•. Though there are things indifferent in themselves, yet there are no actions of men ultimately indifferent, but are either right or wrong; and there is a direction about the• in the word of God. W•en the law saith thus, and men do otherwise, they sin. All actions are as so many arrows that are sh••• by men, the law directs to the mark they sh••• be shot at, and tells men how they sh••ld sh••o• them. All that miss here do sin in so do […]. Now there are Three things in which th•• missing especially discovers it self. 1. WITH respect to the matter of th• action. It is then besides the law, when it thwarts the letter of it. The rule prescribes the things themselves which are to be done, the action it self is required of us, not to do this, or to do something else besides i•, is the most gross and apparent sinning of all; and this is that only which men can directly and immediately charge upon others, ordinarily. 2. IN regard of the principle from whence the action proceeds. A man may sai• in his duty, and be guilty before God of si••ing against Him, in the very action wherein he keep; most close to the letter of the law, and others cannot charge transgression upon him. We are therefore here to observe; that there is an habitual and spiritual conformity to the law, which is required of all men; which consists in the Image of God, or that righteousness and true holiness, from whence our obedience is to flw; and this was bestowed upon man in creation; and he hath lost it by his own default; but still it is hs sin that he wats it; yea the very want of it is part of his original sin, which is in all men by virtue of the apostasy, as will hereafter be made to appear. When therefore men have not a principle of Sanctification in them or do not exert it in their actions, they sin; because they fall short of the rule, which requires that entire love in every duty that is done by us, which can only commend us to God;