Further, to
love God and keep the law, are better than to sin and break it; and
seeing men lost heaven by sin, how should they get it again but by
working righteousness? Besides, God is righteous, and will therefore
bless the righteous. O the holiness of the law! It mightily swayeth
with reason when a man addicts himself to religion. The light of
nature teaches that sin is not the way to heaven; and seeing no word
doth more condemn sin, than the words of the ten commandments, it
must needs be therefore the most perfect rule for holiness.
Wherefore, says reason, the safest way to life and glory is to keep
myself close to the law. But though the law indeed be holy, yet the
mistake as to the matter in hand is as wide as the east from the
west; for therefore the law can do thee no good, because it is holy
and just; for what can he that has sinned expect from a law that is
holy and just? Naught but condemnation. "There is one that accuseth
you, even. Moses in whom ye trust."
Here is the poison; to set this law in the. room of a Mediator, as
those do who seek to stand just before God thereby. And then nothing
is so dishonorable to Christ, nor of so soul-destroying a nature as
the law; for that, thus placed, has not only power when souls are
deluded, but power to delude by its real holiness, the
understanding, conscience, and reason of a man; and by giving the
soul a semblance of heaven, to cause it to throw away Christ, grace,
and faith.
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