1. The reason of this query I acquainted the reader with before. These men, seeking for a righteousness, as it were, by the works of the law,' and not daring to lay it upon that which the apostle doth so often expressly reject, they strive to relieve themselves with this, that our Saviour hath so dealt with the law as here is expressed; so that to yield obedience to it now, as mended, perfected, and reformed, must needs be sufficient to our justification.

2. Two things are here affirmed to be done by the Lord Christ in reference to the "law of Moses," as it is called,-that is, the moral law, as is evident by the following instances given to make good the assertion,-first, That he perfects it; secondly, That he corrects it: and so a double imputation is laid on the law of God, (1.) Of imperfection; (2.) Of corruption, that needed amendment or correction.

Before I proceed to examine the particular instances whereby the man attempts to make good his insinuation, the honour of God and his law requires of us that it be vindicated from this double calumny, and demonstrated to be neither imperfect nor to stand in need of correction:

1. For its perfection, we have the testimony of God himself expressly given thereunto: Ps. xix. 7, "The law of the LORD is PERFECT, converting the soul;" it is the "perfect law of liberty," James i. 25; yea, so perfect as that God hath forbidden any thing to be added to it or to be taken from it, Deut. xii. 32.

2. If the law wants perfection, it is in respect of its essential parts, or its integral parts, or in respect of degrees. But for its essential parts, it is perfect, being, in matter and form, in sense and sentence, divine, holy, just, good, Rom. vii. 12. For its integrals, it compriseth "the whole duty of man," Eccles. xii. 13; which doing he was to live. And for the degrees of its commands, it requireth that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls, and our neighbours as ourselves; which our Saviour confirms as a rule of perfection, Matt. xxii. 36-40.

3. If the law of God was not perfect, but needed correction, it is either because God could not or would not give a perfect and complete law. To say the first is blasphemy; for the latter, there is no pretence for it. God giving a law for his service, proclaiming his wisdom and holiness to be therein, and that if any man did perform it, he should live therein, certainly would not give such a law as, by its imperfection, should come short of any of the ends and purposes for which it was appointed.

4. The perfection of the law is hence also evinced, that the precepts of Christ, wherein our obedience requires us to be perfect, are the same and no other than the precepts of the law. His new commandment of love is also an old one, 1 John ii. 7, 8, which Christ calls 1 'Ne le ipywv vóμev, Rom. ix. 32.

his new commandment, John xiii. 34; and the like instances might be multiplied. Neither will the instance of Mr B. evince the contrary, which he argues from Matt. v.; for that Christ doth not in that chapter correct the law, nor add any new precept thereunto, but expounds and vindicates it from the corrupt glosses of the scribes and Pharisees, appears,—

(1.) From the occasion of the discourse, and the proposition which our Saviour makes good, establisheth, and confirmeth therein, which is laid down, verse 20, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." In pursuit of this proposition, he manifesteth what their righteousness was, by examining their catechism upon the commandments, and the exposition they made therein of them. It is not the righteousness of the law that our Saviour rejects, and requires more in his disciples, but that of the Pharisees, whom he everywhere called hypocrites. But for the law, he tells them a tittle of it shall not pass away, and he that keeps it shall be called great, or be of great esteem, in the kingdom of God; and the good works that our Saviour then required in his disciples are no other but those that were commanded in the law.

(2.) The very phraseology and manner of speech here used by our Saviour manifests of whom and concerning what he speaks: "Ye have HEARD that it was SAID to THEM OF OLD TIME;"- "Ye have heard," not "Ye have read." "Ye have heard it of the scribes and Pharisees out of Moses' chair; they have told you that it was thus said." And, "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old;" not "that it was written, that it was written in the law," the expression whereby he citeth what was written. And, "It was said to them of old," the common pretence of the Pharisees, in the imposing their traditions and expositions of the law. "It is the tradition of the elders; it was said to them by such and such blessed masters of old."

(3.) Things are instanced in that are nowhere written in the law, nor ever were; as that, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy;" which is so remote from the law as that the contrary is directly commanded, Lev. xix. 18; Exod. xxiii. 4, 5; Prov. xx. 22. To them who gave this rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy," doth Christ oppose himself. But those were the scribes and Pharisees in their corrupt glosses, from which God's law is vindicated, not in itself before corrupted.

(4.) Whose sayings Christ rejects, their sayings he did not come to fulfil; but he came to fulfil and accomplish the law: and therefore it is not the law and the sentence thereof that he rejects in that form of speech, "But I say unto you."

Before I come to the consideration of the particular instances given by Mr B., a brief consideration of what is offered to this purpose by

Smalcius, in his Racovian Catechism, may be premised. His first chapter, about the prophetical office of Christ, is "De præceptis Christi, quæ legi addidit;"" Of the precepts of Christ, which he added to the law." And therein this is his first question and answer:

Q. What are the perfect commands of God revealed by Christ?

A. Part of them is contained in the precepts given by Moses, with those which are added thereunto in the new covenant; part is contained in those things which Christ himself prescribed.1

The commands of God revealed by Jesus Christ are here referred to three heads:-1. The ten commandments given by Moses; for so that part is explained in the next question, where they are said to be the decalogue. 2. The additions made by Christ thereunto. 3. His own peculiar institutions.

1. As to the first, I desire only to know how the ten commandments were revealed by Jesus Christ. The catechist confesseth that they were given to Moses, and revealed by that means; how are they, then, said to be revealed by Christ? If they shall say that he may be said to reveal them because he promulged them anew, with new motives, reasons, and encouragements, I hope he will give us leave to say also that what he calls " a new commandment" is not so termed in respect of the matter of it, but its new enforcement by Christ. We grant Christ revealed that law of Moses, with its new covenant ends, as he was the great prophet of his church, by his Spirit, from the foundation of the world; but this Smalcius denies.

2. That Christ made no new additions to the moral law hath been partly evidenced from what hath been spoken concerning the perfection thereof, with the intention of our Saviour in that place, and those things wherein they say these additions are found and do consist, and shall yet farther be evinced from the consideration of the particulars by them instanced in.

3. It is granted that our blessed Saviour did, for the times of the new testament, institute the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper, in the room of them which, together with their representation of the benefits which believers receive by him, did also prefigure him as to come. But,-(1.) These are no new law, nor part of a new law, with a law design in them. (2.) Though there is an obedience in their performance yielded to God and Christ, yet they belong rather to the promises than the precepts of Christ; to our privilege, before, unto our duty.

In the progress of that catechist, after some discourse about the ceremonial and judicial law, with their abolition, and his allowance of magistrates among Christians notwithstanding (which they do

"Quænam sunt perfecta mandata Dei per Christum patefacta?-Pars eorum continetur in præceptis a Mose traditis, una cum iis quæ sunt eis in novo fœdere addita; pars vero continetur in iis quæ peculiariter ipse Christus præscripsit."

upon condition they shed no blood, for any cause whatever), he attempts in particular to show what Christ added to the moral law in the several precepts of it. And to the first he says that Christ added two things:-1. In that he prescribed us a certain form of prayer; of which afterward, in the chapter designed to the consideration of what Mr B. speaks to the same purpose. 2. That we acknowledge himself for God, and worship him; of which also in our discourse of the kingly office of Christ. To the second, he says, is added in the New Testament, not only that we should not worship images, but avoid them also; which is so notoriously false, the avoiding of images of our own making being no less commanded in the Old Testament than in the New, that I shall not insist thereon. The residue of his plea is the same with Mr B.'s from Matt. v., where what they pretend shall be considered in order.

To consider, then, briefly the particular instances. 1. The first is in reference to the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." This the Pharisees so interpreted as that if a man kept himself from blood and from causing the death of another, he was righteous as to the keeping of this commandment. Our Saviour lets his disciples know that there is a closer and nearer sense of this law: "I say unto you, in the exposition of this commandment, that any rash anger, anger without a cause, all offence given proceeding from thence, in light, vilifying expressions, such as 'Raca,' much more all provoking taunts and reproaches, as 'Thou fool,' are forbidden therein, so as to render a man obnoxious to the judgment of God, and condemnation in their several degrees of sinfulness;" as there were amongst themselves several councils, according to several offences,-the judgment, the council, and utter cutting off as a child of hell. Hence, then, having manifested the least breach of love or charity towards our brother to be a breach of the sixth commandment, and so to render a man obnoxious to the judgment of God in several degrees of sin, according as the eruptions of it are, he proceeds in the following verses to exhort his disciples to patience, forbearance, and brotherly love, with readiness to agreement and forgiveness, verses 23-26.

1

2. In the next place, he proceeds to the vindication and exposition of the seventh commandment, verse 27, "Thou shalt not commit adultery;" which the Pharisees had so expounded as that if a man kept himself from actual uncleanness, however loosely he lived, and put away his wife at his pleasure, he was free from the breach thereof. To give them the true meaning and sense of this com-, mandment, and farther to discover the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, he lets them know,

(1.) That the concupiscence of the heart or inordinate desire of

1 See a full and clear exposition of this place by Dr Lightfoot, in his preface to the "Harmony of the Gospels."

any person is the adultery here no less forbidden than that of actual uncleanness, which the law made death. And certainly he must needs be as blind as a Pharisee who sees not that the uncleanness of the heart and lust after woman was forbidden by the law and under the old testament.

(2.) As to their living with their wives, he mentions, indeed, the words of Moses, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorcement," but opposeth not himself thereunto at all, but only shows that that permission of divorce is to be interpreted according to the rule and instruction given in the first institution of marriage (as afterward, on another occasion, he explains himself, Matt. xix.), and not that men might therefore, for every cause that they would or could pretend, instantly put away their wives, as the Pharisees taught men to do, and as Josephus, one of them, testifies of himself that he did: "I put away my wife," saith he, “because she did not please me." "No," saith our Saviour; "that permission of Moses is not to be extended beyond the just cause of divorce, as it is by the Pharisees, but made use of only in the case of fornication," verses 31, 32; and he thereupon descends to caution his disciples to be careful and circumspect in their walking in this particular, and not be led by an offending eye or hand (the beginning of evil) to greater abominations, verses 28-30.

3. In like manner doth he proceed in the vindication of the third commandment. The scribes and Pharisees had invented or approved of swearing by creatures, the temple, altar, Jerusalem, the head, and the like; and thereupon they raised many wicked and cursed distinctions, on purpose to make a cloak for hypocrisy and lying, as you may see, Matt. xxiii. 16-19. "If a man swear by the temple, it is nothing, he is not bound by his oath; but if he swear by the gold of the temple, he is obliged." In like manner did they distinguish of the altar and the gift. And having mixed these swearings and distinctions in their ordinary conversation, there was nothing sincere or open and plain left amongst them. This wicked gloss of theirs (being such as their successors abound withal to this day) our blessed Saviour decries, and commands his disciples to use plainness and simplicity in their conversation, in plain affirmations and negations, without the mixture of such profane and cursed distinctions, verses 34-37, which that it was no new duty, nor unknown to the saints of the old testament, is known to all that have but read it.

4. In matter of judgment between man and man, he proceeds in the same manner. Because the law had appointed the magistrate to exercise talionem in some cases, and to take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, the blind Pharisees wrested this to countenance private men in revenging themselves, and pursuing them who had injured them with a hostile mind, at least until the sentence of the