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2. This obligation, resulting from the intrinsic excellency and amiableness of the divine nature, is infinitely binding; because this excellency and amiableness is in itself infinite. Our obligation arises from his desert; but he infinitely deserves our love, because he is infinitely lovely. When any person is lovely and honourable, reason teaches us that we ought to love and honour him, and that it is wrong to dislike and despise him. And the more lovely and honourable, the greater is our obligation to love and honour him; and the more aggravatedly vile is it to treat him with contempt. Since, therefore, God is a Being of infinite dignity, greatness, glory, and excellency, hence we are under an infinite obligation to love him with all our hearts; and it is infinitely wrong not to do so. Since he is infinitely worthy to be honoured and obeyed by us, therefore we are under an infinite obligation to honour and obey him; and that with all our heart and soul, and mind, and strength. Hence,

[1] Perfect love and perfect obedience deserves no thanks at his hands. If we perfectly love him, even with all our hearts, and give up ourselves entirely and for ever to him, to do his will and seek his glory, and so cordially delight in him as to take up our full and everlasting contentment in him; yet, in all this, we do but our duty, and we do no more than what we are under an infinite obligation to do; and therefore, we deserve no thanks; Luke xvii. 9, 10. Yea, we do nothing but that in which consists our highest perfection, glory, and blessedness; and therefore, instead of deserving thanks, we ought to account it an exceeding great privilege that we may thus love the Lord, live to him, and live upon him. Psalm xix. 10.

When therefore eternal life was promised in the first covenant as the reward of perfect obedience, it was not under the notion of any thing being merited; nor did it ever enter into the hearts of the angels in heaven to imagine they merited any thing by all their love and service; for from their very hearts, they all join to say, Worthy art thou, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and praise for ever. And they deserve no thanks for their doing so, for they but own the very truth. When, therefore, sinful men, poor, hell-deserving creatures,

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think it MUCH that they should love and serve God so well, and take so great pains in religion; and are ready to think that God and man ought highly to value them for their so doing, and are always telling God and man how MIGHTY good they are; as he, Luke xviii. 11, 12. God, I thank thee, I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican; no, far from this, I am one of the best men in all the world: I fast twice in the week: I give tythes of all that I possess. This appeared to him such a MIGHTY thing, that he thought it quite worth while to tell God himself of it. Now, I say, when this is men's temper, it is a sign they neither know God, nor love him; for, if they did, they could not set so high a price upon their duties, since he is so infinitely deserving. The plain truth is, such have intolerable mean thoughts of God, and intolerable high thoughts of themselves; they are brim-full of spiritual pride and self-righteousness; and such are exceedingly hateful in the sight of God. They implicitly say that God is not infinitely glorious, and infinitely worthy of all love and honour: he does not deserve it: it is not his due; but rather, he is beholden to his creatures for it, and ought to render them many thanks for their love and service. The language of their hearts is, God has so little loveliness that it is MUCH to love him: Like a bad mother-in-law, who thinks it nothing to toil for her own children, because she loves them; but grudges every step she takes for the rest, and thinks every little a great deal, because she cares not for them: so, such men think it nothing to rise early and sit up late, to get the world; to get riches, honour, and pleasure; for they love themselves but think it MUCH to take the tenth part of the pains in religion; because they love not God. Their whole frame of mind casts infinite contempt upon the glorious majesty of heaven, to whom all honour is infinitely due, and in whose service all the hosts of heaven account themselves perfectly blessed. They feel as if they deserved to be paid for all.

True, there are glorious rewards promised in the law and in the gospel: But why? and upon what grounds? A man may be said to be rewarded in three different senses. (1.) When he receives what he strictly deserves, as an hireling receives his wages at night. But, in this sense, the angels in heaven are

not capable of a reward: for, in strict justice, they deserve nothing. Luke xvii. 9, 10. Rom. xi. 35. They are no hirelings, for God has a natural, original, underived right to them, as much as he has to the sun, moon, and stars; and these, therefore, deserve to be paid for their shining, as much as the angels do for their working. Besides, if the angels do love God, it is no more than he infinitely deserves. And further, the services of angels do not profit God, and so lay him under no obligations, any more than the birds profit the rising sun by their morning-songs, and so lay the sun under obligations to shine all day. Job xxii. 2, 3. Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect? And yet, even in this gross sense, self-righteous persons feel, at heart, as it they deserved a reward for their good duties; though perhaps they are not willing to own it. Hence, they are so apt to think it would be very hard, unjust, and cruel, if God should damn them for their past sins, notwithstanding all their good duties. Isa. lviii. 3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? But, (2.) A man may be said to be rewarded, when, although, in strict justice, he deserves nothing; yet he receives great favours at the hands of God, in testimony of the divine approbation of his person and services : And thus, the angels in heaven, though they deserve nothing, yet have eternal life bestowed upon them, as a reward to their perfect obedience, in testimony of the divine approbation. God rewards them, not because they do him any good, nor because they deserve any thing at his hands; but because he infinitely loves righteousness, and to appear as an infinite friend to this, in his public conduct, as moral Governor of the world. The most that can be said of the holiest angel in heaven, is, that he is fit to be approved in the sight of God, because he is perfectly such as God requires him to be. And now, because God loves to put honour upon virtue, and to exercise the infinite bountifulness of his nature, therefore he gives them the reward of eternal life. And thus God promises us eternal life, upon condition of perfect obedience, in the first covenant: as if God had said, "If you will love me with all

your heart, and obey me in every thing, as you are bound in duty to do; then, although you will deserve nothing, yet, as becomes a holy and good God, a kind and bountiful Governor, I will make you everlastingly blessed in the enjoyment of myself; and that in testimony of my approbation of your perfect and steady fidelity." And so, by covenant and promise, this reward would have been due, had the condition been performed. Hence, that in Rom. iv. 4. Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of DEBT. And now here self-righteous persons are wont to come in with their works, and insist upon their right, and plead the reason of things, as well as the promise. "If we do, (say they,) as well as we can, which is all that God does or can in justice require of us, surely he will accept of us: it would be cruel to cast us off his goodness and faithfulness are engaged for us." Just as if they had now made full amends for all their past sins, by their repentance and reformation; and grown to be as good as angels, by taking some little pains in religion! For the best angel in heaven does not pretend to any other title to blessedness than this; namely, that he has done as well as he can, and that this is all that God has required; and although he is an unprofitable servant, yet he depends upon the promise, the goodness and faithfulness of his bountiful Creator. Indeed, self-righteous persons may pretend to expect all for Christ's sake; and say, that what they do, only entitles them to an interest in him; but it is all mere pretence; for still they think that God is bound to give them an interest in Christ and eternal life, if they do as well as they can; and would think God dealt very hardly with them, if he did not: so that their real dependance, at bottom, is upon their own goodness, their own worth or worthiness, to make amends for past sins, and recommend them to God, and entitle them to all things; the infinite absurdity of which will be evident presently. Again, (3.) A man may be said to be rewarded, when he neither deserves any thing, nor is it fitting that his person and conduct, considered merely as they are in themselves, should be approved; but ought to be condemned, according to reason, and according to God's righteous law, they being so sinfully defective; nevertheless, such a man may be said to be rewarded,

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when, merely on the account of his interest in the righteousness and worthiness of CHRIST, his person and performances are accepted, and peculiar favours shown him. And in this way are believers accepted, according to the covenant of grace, and entitled to the reward of eternal life: Phil. iii. 8, 9. Eph. i. 6. 1 Pet. ii. 5. Now, those who look for a reward in this way, will be so far from thinking it MUCH, which they have done for God, that they will for ever set all down for nothing, and worse than nothing,* their best duties being so sinfully defective; and judge themselves worthy of hell every day, and every moment. And all their dependance will be on Christ's worthiness, and the free grace of God through him: Luke xviii. 13. Rom. iii. 24. And all that is said in the New Testament about God's rewarding the believer's good works, being viewed in this light, gives not the least countenance to a self-righteous spirit, but militates directly against it. And, indeed, if we were as perfect as the angels in heaven, it appears from what has been said, that we should deserve no thanks. It is impudent, therefore, and wicked; it is contemptuous; and, in a sort, blasphemous, and most God-provoking, for a proud, conceited Pharisee, to feel as he does in his self-righteous frames. And God might expostulate with such an one in this manner : 66 What, is there so little loveliness in me? And is it so great,

so hard, so self-denying, to love

* Worse than nothing. NOTE. I do not mean, that an imperfect, and very defective conformity to the law is worse, and more odious in God's sight, than no conformity at all; but only, that there is more odiousness than amiableness in such defective services and that, therefore, we are, in the sight of God, on their account, more proper objects of hatred and punishment, than of love and reward, if considered merely as in ourselves, without any respect to our relation to Christ: so that, in point of recommending ourselves to God, we do, by our best duties, thus considered, rather discommend ourselves in his sight; and, in this sense, they are worse than nothing : they are even so far from paying our constant dues, that, in the sight of God, they constantly run us into debt. We are infinitely to blame in our best frames and best duties, and have not any thing in them, which tends, in God's sight, in the least degree, to counterbalance our blame. But if any are desirous to see this point fully explained and proved, and all objections answered, I refer them to Mr. Edwards' excellent discourse on justification by faith alone.

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