Sect. 7. — Slavish fear and servile hope are not the springs of true obedience.
Sect. 7. — Slavish fear and servile hope
are not the springs of true obedience.
Nom. But sir, I ask you: would you not have believers avoid evil for fear of hell, and do good for hope of heaven?
Evan. No, indeed, I would not have any believer do either one or the other; for so far as they do so, their obedience is but slavish. And therefore, though when they were first awakened and convinced of their misery, and set one foot forward to go on in the way of life, as with the Prodigal, they would be hired servants. Yet when, by the eye of faith, they see the mercy and indulgence of their heavenly Father in Christ, running to meet them and embrace them; I would have them, as with the Prodigal, talk no more of being hired servants, Luke 15.17. I would have them so wrestle against doubting, and so exercise their faith, as to believe that by Christ, they are “delivered from the hands of their enemies,” — the law, sin, wrath, death, the devil, and hell — “that they may serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of their lives,” Luke 1.74, 75. And I would have them so believe God’s love toward them in Christ, that thereby they may be constrained to obedience.
Nom. But, sir, you know that our Saviour says, “Fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” Mat. 10.28. And the apostle says, “We shall receive from the Lord the reward of the inheritance,” Col. 3.24.
And is it not said, that “Moses looked for the recompense of reward”? Heb. 11.26.
Evan. Surely the intent of our blessed Saviour in that first Scripture, is to teach all believers that when God commands one thing, and man another, they should obey God and not man,Act 5.29 rather than intending to exhort them to avoid evil for fear of hell. And as for those other Scriptures you alleged, if you mean reward, and the means to obtain that reward, in the Scriptural sense, then that is another matter. But I thought you meant it in our common sense, and not in the Scriptural sense.
Nom. Why sir, I ask you, what difference is there between reward, and the means to obtain the reward, in our common sense, and in the Scriptural sense?
Evan. Why, in our common sense, reward is what is conceived to come from God, or to be given by God. This is imagining heaven under carnal notions, beholding it as a place where there is freedom from all misery, and fulness of all pleasures and happiness, and it is to be obtained by our own works and doings. But reward in the Scriptural sense, is not so much what comes from God, or is given by God, as what lies in God — the full fruition of God himself in Christ. God says to Abraham, “I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward,” Gen. 15.1; and “Whom do I have in heaven but you?” says David; “and there is none on earth that I desire besides you,” Psalm 73.25; and “I shall be satisfied when I awake with your likeness,” Psalm 17.15. And the means to obtain this reward is not by doing, but by believing — by “drawing near with a true heart, in the full assurance of faith,” Heb. 10.22; and so indeed, it is given freely. And therefore you are not to conceive of that reward which the Scripture speaks of, as if it was the wages of a servant, but as the inheritance of sons.
And when the Scripture seems to induce believers to obedience by promising this reward, you are to conceive that the Lord speaks to believers as a father does to his young son: Do this or that, and then I will love you. Whereas we know that the father loves the son first, and so does God. And therefore this is the voice of believers: “We love him, because he first loved us,” 1John 4.19. The Lord pays them, or at least he gives them a sure earnest of their wages, before he asks them to work. And therefore the contest of a believer (according to the measure of his faith) is not, what will God give me? But, what will I give God? “What will I render to the Lord for all his goodness? For your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in your truth,” Psalm 116.12, and 26.3.
Nom. Then, sir, it seems that holiness of life, and good works, are not the cause of eternal happiness, but only the way there?
Evan. Do you not remember that our Lord Jesus himself says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”? John 14.6. And does not the apostle say to the believing Colossians, “As you have received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk in him”? Col. 2.6. That is, as you have received him by faith, so go on in your faith, and by his power walk in his commandments. So that good works, as I conceive it, may be called a believer’s walking in the way of eternal happiness, rather than the way itself. But however it is conceived, we may assuredly conclude this: that the sum and substance both of the way, and of walking in the way, consists in receiving Jesus Christ by faith, and in yielding obedience to his law, according to the measure of that receiving.”