Jul 11
15
The unbearable yoke that they were going to tempt God with, by galling the neck of the disciples, was first, the needfullness of circumcision: Secondly, a command to keep the law of Moses; and it is called tempting God, because it was a reflection cast upon His work who had purified their hearts by faith, and sent His spirit to govern and lead them into all truth, as if the Holy Ghost was not sufficient to make them obedient, nor God’s purifying their hearts a sufficient purification, nor faith a sufficient rule, without yoking them with the killing letter as the only rule of life. And as it was then, so it is now; every man that refuses to tempt God, and that will not bring forth this yoke, and that does not affirm that the killing letter is the living man’s only rule of life, is an Antinomian, a licentious person, a man in errors, one that makes void the law; and is cried down by every blind watchman, though they cannot bring one text to prove that the believer is under the law as a rule of life nor one text that calls Moses’ law the believer’s rule of life; nor one text from God’s book to overthrow this doctrine, this everlasting gospel: Paul says, they know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
If it be urged that the command, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, is still a yoke upon the believer’s neck; it is answered, the believer is not under the law, but under grace; not an heir of wrath, nor of the commandments, but an heir of promise and he is to take the commandment to the promise, which belongs to the better covenant; and he will find that God has promised to circumcise his heart, and that he shall love the Lord that he may live. Paul makes a difference between the commandment and Christ, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee,” is in a promise, and is better than a command: they shall love me is safer and better than do love me; it comes from the better covenant, established upon better promises than conditional ones, and is sure to all the chosen seed.