no where meddles with the Civil Rights of Government, but only bids us be obedient to the higher Powers, without determining the higher Powers in any other Senfe than the Powers in Being; which one might reasonably expect itshould do, had it intended to have them appointed not according to the different Conftitutions of different Nations, but according to fome other Rule.

But to proceed: Should the Gospel make void the Law, i' would not only make void itself, as going contrary to its own Rule, but it would alfo make void the great Law of Nature; and fo cut off likewife the only Rule of the Gentiles, by abrogating that Law, which God gave both Jews and Gentiles, to enable them to diftinguish between Right and Wrong. And what fort of Religion must that be, that tends to destroy human Nature, and rafe out all Footsteps of Good and Evil? Not that which comes from above certainly; and yet it must be the Religion of those who make void the Law thro' Faith Twere much better after this Rate to be

SERM.

VII.

left

SERM. left to a State of Nature, than to be cheated VII. out of our Morality under the Pretence of a higher Difpenfation. What would Socrates or Plato think of that Religion, that fhuts out all good Actions, and provides nothing in their Stead, but a bare Affent of the Mind to a certain Set of Propofitions, without being any further concerned about them. If the Gofpel-Freedom were a Liberty not from the Bondage of the Law, but of doing what is right in our own Eyes, it would be fuch a Dispensation, as no good Man would think it worth his while to trouble himself about, or to exchange his Morality for: It being a Difpenfation only to remove us from one Bondage to another, from the Bondage of the Law to the Bondage of Sin. A Religion, thus built upon a Defect of Moral Goodness, has no Foundation in Nature, or Reafon to fupport it.

II. Having proved that the Gospel does not make void the Law, I come now, Secondly, to prove, that it confirms and establishes it.

Our bleffed Saviour tells the Jews, who

thought

thought He came into the World to be a SERM. temporal Prince; and therefore entertained VII. little elfe in their Minds but Pride and Ambition, grounded upon their Expectations of a conquering Meffiah, who should free them from the Bondage of the Roman Yoke, and make them Mafters of the World, (which Thoughts must have been founded upon a Suppofition, that they were to be difpenfed with, as to their Obligation to the Duties of the Moral Law) I fay he tells them, in order to root out all Thoughts of that kind, that He was not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them.

Our Saviour was fo great an Encourager of the Moral Law, that almost every thing he said had a Tendency to advance it, but not in the leaft to exclude, or make it void. If under the Gofpel-Difpenfation the Law is not only preferved entire, but improved, and carried to a greater Height, and made more perfect than it was before; if the Gospel takes off the thin Cloathing of the Letter, and explains it in a Sense more worthy the Divine Legiflator, and more agreeable even to it felf, than the T

SERM. Interpretations of the Jewish Doctors VII. would admit of, then it is plain, that the Gospel does not only not make void the Law, but establish and confirm it. It comes not to us indeed, like Bernice and Agrippa, in great Pomp and Magnificence, as before; but when we have examined what Improvements the Gofpel has made upon it, we shall fee it in the more beautiful Garments of Holiness and Purity.

In the firft Commandment, the Jews are taught to have the Lord for their God, and to have none other befides Him. The Gospel teaches us the fame, but adds mightily to it, by informing us, that the putting too great a Value upon the things of this Life is a having other Gods befides Him; and therefore the giving up our felves to the Love of Riches is called the ferving of Mammon, which we can't do, and obey God at the fame time, because it is a putting that Truft in Mammon, that is due only to the true God; and is as much a fetting up of other Gods, as that was, when the Ifraelites worshipped Baalim and Afhtaroth, and the Gods of

Aram

Aram and Sidon Hence it is, that the
Apoftle calls Covetoufnefs, Idolatry.

The Second Commandment teaches them what they are to obferve, as to the Manner of worshipping God; that they should not do it under any Representation what foever. This too is much improved by the Gospel, which teaches us that it must not be done in a ritual figurative Manner, which after all was the greatest Pitch of Worship they could attain to under the Law, but in Spirit, and in Truth; and gives us a clearer Notion of the Divine Being, and of his wonderful Love to his Creatures, difcovered in the furprizing Method of our Redemption.

teaches

The Third Commandment them not to take the Name of the Lord their God in vain; and is much established and improved by the Gofpel, when it teaches us, not only not to take the Name of God in vain by fwearing falfely by him, but that in our ordinary Communication we fhould not fwear at all; nay we are not fo much as to fwear by Heaven, for it is God's Throne, nor by the Earth, for it is his Footstool.

And we are further told

SERM.

VII.