ver. 1, 2, for the strictness of his law; which Grotius understands of the law of Moses, and all the rites of it; but meant certainly of the evangelical law of Christ, the psalm being a prophecy of him.

If a man be willing to comply with any law of God, it is as it prohibits some outward carnal sins; but the more spiritual the law, the more averse the heart. The more spiritual the law is, the more doth indwelling sin exercise its power, and endeavour to increase our slavery; The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. Rom. 7. 14. The apostle there intimates, that our carnality, our slavery to sin, the enmity of our hearts to God, is best discerned by comparing man with the spirituality of the law. The Jews were much for sacrifices, and very diligent in them, which were but the skirts of the law, and which God did not principally require at their hands; but for holiness, mercy, piety, and other duties most valued by God, they were mere strangers unto them. Men will grant God the lip, and the ear, but deny him that which he most calls for, viz. the heart. The more earnestly conscience doth at any time urge the law, the more furiously will the flesh act against it. But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. Rom, 7. 8. Like as the boisterous waves, which roar most at that bank or rock which forbids their progress; or like wind, which pent within the narrow compass of the earth, grows more violent.

Had not God commanded some things so strictly, they had not been broken so frequently. God's righteous laws, which are intended to check our corruptions, are occasions to enrage them; as the vapour in a cloud ends in a tearing clap of thunder when it meets with opposition. We shall find our hearts most averse from the observation of those laws which are eternal and essential to righteousness, which God could not but command, as he is a righteous governor; in the observance of which we come nearest to

Hatred of Conscience.

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him, and express his image more illustriously. As those laws for an inward and spiritual worship of God, the loving God with all our heart and soul; God cannot in regard of his holiness and righteousness, command the contrary to this. These our hearts most swell at; those our corruptions most oppose, whereas those laws that are only morally positive, or those that are only positive, and have no intrinsic righteousness in them, but depend purely upon the will of the Lawgiver, and may be changed at pleasure, (which the other that have an intrinsic righteousness cannot :) such as the ceremonial part of worship, and the ceremonial law among the Jews; these we can comply better with, than with those laws which have an essential righteousness in them, and express more in them the righteousness of God's

nature.

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4. Man hates his own conscience, when it puts him in mind of the law of God. Man cannot naturally endure a quick and lively practical thought of God and his law, and is an enemy to his own conscience, for putting him in mind of God. This is evidenced by our stifling of conscience, when it doth dictate any practical conclusions from the law, and would stamp suitable impressions upon the soul. As it is an evidence of an enmity in one man against another, when he cannot bear his company, nor endure to hear him speak; so it is an evidence of an enmity to God, when a man cannot endure to listen to that which is in himself, and more intimate with him than any friend he hath, for the wholesome and necessary advice it gives him as God's viceroy in him. Which is not an enmity to conscience itself, or to its act of self-reflection, but to the matter of it as it is God's vicegerent and representative, and bears the marks of his authority in it, and presseth the holy law of God upon the mind and heart.

Because in other cases this self reflecting act of conscience is welcome, and is cherished, where it doth

not act in a way of sovereignty derived from God, but suitable to natural affections. As suppose a man hath in a passion struck his child that caused some great mischief to him, his conscience reflecting upon him afterwards, will be welcome, and shall work some tenderness in him, which it shall not do in the more spiritual concerns of God, but shall rather be loathed by him as a busy-body. And by such frequent oppositions of conscience, this enmity does so far prevail, that the sovereignty of conscience seems to be quite cashiered, insomuch that it ceaseth with any efficacy to spur on the soul to good, or withdraw it from evil; and being overpowered by sinful habits, its commands grow weak, and it sits labouring like a magistrate that cannot stem the tide of ill manners in a commonwealth: it enjoins as if it had no mind to be observed. It is upon this account that men oftentimes cannot endure to hear any gracious discourses of God, because they excite unwelcome reflections in their own consciences; which instead of reforming them, do more distemper them; as the sweetest perfumes affect a weak head with aches.

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Now since men hate their own consciences for putting them in mind of God's laws, it is clear that they hate God himself, because conscience is God's officer in them since they would destroy the memorials and prints of God in the conscience; since they would destroy God's commissioner for doing his work, they would destroy God himself. The apostle therefore calls disobedience to the light of nature, a contention; To them that are contentious, and obey not the truth, Rom. 2. 8, pideias, that act out of contention; it must be a contention against conscience, the light of nature, and consequently against God; for the apostle in that chapter speaks of disobedience to the light of nature; they obey not the truth, out of contention against it, and against God, who has published that truth, and had imprinted it on their souls as a guide to them; for God hath put into man

Man sets up another Law.

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a conscience as his deputy, to have a command over him, and to keep up his prerogative as a Lawgiver in him.

And as the disowning the principles of the christian doctrine, after a taste and profession, is a crucifying of Christ; Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame, Heb. 6. 6; and a real acting that in spirit upon his doctrine, which the Jews did upon his body; it being an accounting him an impostor, and disowning all the excellency of his person and offices; and an implicit assertion, that there is nothing in him worthy their desire; and this crucifying iaurois, (it may be in themselves, as well as to themselves) in themselves the common works of Christ upon them, was in effect the killing of his person; so by the rule of proportion, every sin against conscience, and blotting out common principles, is not only a contention against God, but an interpretative destroying of him, and putting God to shame, who is the engraver of those principles, and that law of nature in man.

5. Man sets up another law in him, in opposition to the law of God. A sinner looks upon God as too severe a task-master, and his laws as too hard a yoke; as though God were cruel and injurious to the liberty of his creature, and envied man of well being, and a due pleasure; God knows that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, Gen. 3. 5. It was the old charge the devil brought against God to Eve, and the same impressions he makes still upon the minds of those children of disobedience, in whom he works, and fills them with unjust reflections upon God. Man having this conceit wrought in him, will be a law to himself, and will frame a rule subservient to his own ends; But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, Rom. 7. 23; which is called the law of sin, and is set up in a warlike and authoritative opposition against the law of God in the mind, νόμον ἀντισρατενομενον. This law of

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sin is nothing else but the setting up our own corrupt appetite and will against God. As corrupt reason is opposed to gospel, so corrupt will is opposed to law.

Sin having set up this law, makes it the measure and rule of righteousness, and measures also the righteousness of God's law, by this law of its own framing; nay, measures the holiness and righteousness of God himself by it. This is horrible, to make God's law no holier than our own, and to square God's holiness and righteousness according to our conceptions; as if God's holiness were to be tried by our measures, and judged by our corruption; Thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself, Psa. 50. 21. This men do when they plead for sins as little, as venial, as that which is below God to take notice of; because they themselves think it so, therefore God must think it so too. Man with a giant-like pride, would climb into the throne of the Almighty, and establish a contradiction to the will of God by making his own will, and not God's, the square and rule of his actions. This principle commenced, and took date in paradise, when Adam would not depend upon the will of God revealed to him, but upon himself, and his own will, and thereby make himself as God.

This is the hereditary disease of all his posterity, to affect an independency, and leave God's directions, to be his own guide. And this is the great controversy that has been ever since between God and man, whether he or they shall be God; whether his reason or truths, or their reason; his will or theirs, be of most force. Just as the dispute was between Pharaoh and God, who should be God; whether the. great Jehovah, or a petty king of Egypt. And what saith the psalmist? they say of their tongues, Our tongues are our own, who shall controul us? but more truly the language of men's hearts, our wills are our own, who shall check us? This is the thing God con