Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…

It can be no just Objection against this, that that Command of the Father to Christ that he should lay down his Life, was no Part of the Law that we had broken, and therefore that his obeying this Command could be no Part of that Obedience that he performed for us, because we needed that he should obey no other Law for us, but only that which we had broken or failed of obeying▪ For altho' it must be the same legislative Authority, whose Honour is repaired by Christ's Obedience, that we have injured by our Disobedience; yet there is no need that the Law that Christ obeys should be precisely the same that Adam was to have obeyed, in that Sense that there should be no positive Precepts wanting, nor any added: There was wanting the Precept about the forbidden Fruit, and there was added the ceremonial Law. The Thing required was perfect Obedience: It is no Matter whether the positive Precepts were the same, if they were equivalent. The positive Precepts that Christ was to obey, were much more than equivalent to what was wanting, because infinitely more difficult, particularly the Command that he had received to lay down his Life, which was his principal Act of Obedience, and which above all others, is concerned in our Justification. As that Act of Disobedience by which we fell, was Disobedience to a positive Precept that Christ never was under, viz. that of abstaining from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so that Act of Obedience by which principally we are redeemed, is Obedience to a positive Precept that Adam never was under, viz the Precept of laying down his Life▪ It was suitable that it should be a positive Precept that should try both Adam's and Christ's Obedience: Such Precepts are the greatest and most proper Trial of Obedience, because in them, the mere Authority and Will of the Legislator is the sole Ground of the Obligation, (and nothing in the Nature of the Things themselves;) and therefore they are the greatest Trial of any Person's Respect to that Authority and Will.

It can be no just Objection against this, that that Command of the Father to Christ that he should lay down his Life, was no Part of the Law that we had broken, and therefore that his obeying this Command could be no Part of that Obedience that he performed for us, because we needed that he should obey no other Law for us, but only that which we had broken or fail'd of obeying▪ For altho' it must be the same legislative Authority, whose Honour is repair'd by Christ's Obedience, that we have injured by our Disobedience; yet there is no need that the Law that Christ obeys should be precisely the same that Adam was to have obeyed, in that Sense that there should be no positive Precepts wanting, nor any added: There was wanting the Precept about the forbidden Fruit, and there was added the ceremonial Law. The Thing required was perfect Obedience: It is no Matter whether the positive Precepts were the same, if they were equivalent. The positive Precepts that Christ was to obey, were much more than equivalent to what was wanting, because infinitely more difficult, particularly the Command that he had received to lay down his Life, which was his principal Act of Obedience, and which above all others, is concern'd in our Justification. As that Act of Disobedience by which we fell, was Disobedience to a positive Precept that Christ never was under, viz. that of abstaining from the Tree of Knowlege of Good and Evil, so that Act of Obedience by which principally we are redeemed, is Obedience to a positive Precept that Adam never was under, viz the Precept of laying down his Life It was sutable that it should be a positive Precept that should try both Adam's and Christ's Obedience: Such Precepts are the greatest and most proper Trial of Obedience, because in them, the meer Authority and Will of the Legislator is the sole Ground of the Obligation, (and nothing in the Nature of the Things themselves;) and therefore they are the greatest Trial of any Person's Respect to that Authority and Will.