CHAPTER V: What goodness, and of what kind, is to be acknowledged to be in this light from God vo
that light, and so the subjection of the rest of the faculties is such as of subjects to their natural prince; but, on the other case, it is a subjection as to a foreigner or invader. And this difference, as to that part of it, conscience, viz., its government, is clear from what hath been said. For if one faculty only rules over the rest, when their bent remains contrary to its laws, this government must needs be extrinsecal; as also, if it be but a legal government in the main and fundamental constitution of it. I shewed (out of Rom. 7:1–3) that the law in the conscience is compared to the husband, and the heart of man to the wife. Indeed, for his title over the heart, it is a natural jurisdiction, for it was once by nature. But take the condition of the heart of such a man, now corrupt with sin, it is a cruel government.
They are man and wife indeed; but so contrary, that there is a vexatious life between this couple. He offers to do his duty, and makes motions to this and unto that, but she is averse, and the motions to the contrary often become the stronger thereby: Rom.
7:6, 'The motions of sin which were by the law,' that is, begotten on the heart as children by a husband, 'did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.' Conscience in unregenerate men finds all in the heart armed against it; but grace hath created an interest in the heart throughout, and made a party for itself, so as it fights not alone. Conscience in the end, as a severe governor, comes to be
'imprisoned,' Rom. 1:18, 'in unrighteousness;' for men are all weary of its yoke, and rise up against it, and are glad when it is stopped or seared.
CHAPTER V
What goodness, and of what kind, is to be acknowledged to be in this light from God, vouchsafed to natural conscience, though it doth fall short of true grace.
That light which is in a natural conscience being from God, who is the Father of all lights, it must needs have a goodness in it. For as all that ever God made at first was good (Gen. 1:31, 'God saw all that he had made was good'), so all that ever God shall make must be good: 1
Tim. 4:4, 'Every creature of God is good.' The very letters of the law, written on tables of stone, were good in this sense, much more the same, though but literally written on men's consciences. Let me say it: all the actings and stirrings of conscience of men in hell, as they are from God and the Spirit of bondage, they are good with this kind of goodness.
2. It hath that further goodness which the outward letter of the law, considered as distinct from the spiritual part thereof, may be said to have.
Four things are to be explained.
I. That there is a literal part of the law, and a spiritual part.
II. That it is the spiritual part that constitutes the law holy.
III. That the light of the law in an unregenerate man's conscience is but literal, not spiritual; and so is but the shadow and picture of true knowledge of the law, as it is spiritual.
IV. It will be necessary to explain what goodness is in the literal part severed from the spirit, above what is common to all other creatures.
The three first I shall intermingledly handle together, because they are in a great part the subject of that 7th chapter of the Romans, where he treats of the light and dominion of the law in and over a man unregenerate, and the difference of it from that which is in a regenerate man.
I. You may observe Paul putting this difference between the law, as dwelling in his heart or conscience, when an unregenerate Jew and Pharisee, and in himself when renewed and become a regenerate
Christian: Rom. 7:6, 'But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.' He sets forth the difference of the two states, and termeth the one, 'serving in the oldness of the letter,' but that of regeneracy is 'in the newness of the spirit.' The oldness of the letter is not simply the law of Moses in itself, as delivered to them of old (as some interpret it out of Mat.
5:23), but it is that knowledge and light of the law, and a frame of heart accompanying it in the old man, or in a man's unregenerate estate, which is called the state of old things, 2 Cor. 5:17, which passeth away. And the newness of the spirit is the light of the same law, for the substance of it, and that frame of heart accompanying it, as it is in the new man, which is created in good works.
II. You may observe the spirit, or spiritual part of the law, hath a more transcendent goodness than the bare letter of, if you will suppose the one severed from the other; as in an unregenerate man's light they are actually severed. This will appear from Rom. 7:12, 'The law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.' Here you have a goodness of holiness; the law is holy and good, that is, good with that kind of goodness. Now, what is it in the law that renders it good with this goodness of holiness? It is the spiritualness, the spirit of it. Therefore, ver. 14, by way of application, this other epithet is added, 'The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.' Thus, in his regenerate estate, he discerned and discovered the difference of things. He in these words, comparing that spiritual light (which he now when a Christian had) with his own old frame of heart, and the remainder thereof in him in part; and all the excellency, or the best goodness thereof, he now brings to the spiritual knowledge and light of the law, which as a Christian he now had obtained; which therefore by way of emphasis and difference, he thus utters, 'We know the law:' that is, by the light which is spiritual. We now have found that former estate and frame of heart to be, and to have been, but flesh. And then he says in ver. 18, 'I know' (still he speaks in the style of that his new spiritual light he now had attained of the law)
'that in my flesh dwells no good thing,' whatever I have judged
aforetime of what was in my flesh, in the state of unregeneracy. And whereas it might be said unto Paul, Yea, but was not, and is not now the natural light of the law in your conscience, and the impressions you have had from the law then, were they not good things, and are not the remainders of them such still? Oh, but (says Paul) they all fell short of the goodness of holiness that ought to be in them, viz., of that goodness which the spirit of the law requires. The law is holy, spiritual, and good. But no such good thing was to be found in my flesh. And the reason of this is, because that even the letter of the law itself, as given by God (if you would suppose it severed from that wherein the spirit of the law, or wherein the holiness of it consists, and is as the soul thereof) commandeth many outward duties, as to pray, fast; yet if the spiritual part were taken out and concealed, which is to perform them in a spiritual manner, with holy affections of love to God, joy in God, and with holy aims and ends for God and his glory, so as to sanctify him in the heart: in this case, even these very commandments alone, as so considered, could not be said to be good, with a goodness of holiness. Nay, so considered, they are but the carcass of the law. And as the body without the soul is dead, so would these commandments or duties, performed thus only according to the letter, be but the dead letter of the law; for the spirit that should inspire them with that which is their proper life, would be still wanting. So that as we may say of the body, when dead, that it is good indeed with the goodness that is common to other creatures, but not with that goodness which is proper to a man, much less that is proper to a holy man (the proper and primary subject of which is the soul of a man, which is now gone and departed), so is it here. And in analogy to this notion, the works or actions of men, when they are conformed but to that outward part of the law, and the duties thereof, are termed in Scripture but the carcass of duties: 1 Tim. 4:8,
'Bodily exercise profiteth nothing' (so here he compareth the outward performance), but the inward part, the spiritual part, in the words afore, he termeth 'godliness,' in opposition or distinction from the other godliness,* and as that which is the soul, the life, and form of holy duties, and constitutes them such. Yea, and in the like allusion he termeth such performances 'dead works,' which men use
to perform from that old legal conscience; and for the taking away the guilt of which, and withal to inspire their consciences with a new principle to serve the living God, a man needs the blood of Christ:
Heb. 9:14, 'The blood of Christ shall purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.'
You see what account the outward part of the law hath (severed from the spirit of it) in this supposition made. Now, it is certain, de facto, that that light which is in the consciences of men in their natural condition, though never so much raised, doth fall short of or is severed from the spirit, or spiritual genuine tincture, or shrine of the law (by the rule of this proposition), and so is not indeed the true, proper, real light of the law, and so can no more be called the law written in the heart, than, as I said, bodily exercise, or a carcass, can properly be termed a man, or a picture the man himself of whom it is the picture. This is evident from what Paul acknowledgeth of himself, whilst he was a legal illuminate, or a Pharisee, in that same chapter,
Rom. 7. Is it not strange you should hear Paul say of himself that whilst he was a Pharisee he was without the law? But so he expressly speaks: Rom. 7:9, 'I was alive without the law once.' He speaks of his former estate under the light of the oldness of the letter, of which he had spoken, ver. 6. What! is Paul without the law? Why, his skill and knowledge therein was his greatest excellency; and if he were versed in anything, he was in the law. Yea, but, says Paul, it was not the law, it was but the carcass of it, which lay buried in my understanding.
'And when the commandment came,' says he—the commandment, that is, that which is only and properly the commandment, and which is the spirit of it, when it came—'sin revived, and I died.' It is a like phrase of speech as when it is said of a dead carcass raised from the dead, 1 Kings 17:22, 'that the soul of the child came in,' or that 'the spirit of life entered in,' Rev. 11:11; so here a new spiritual light of the law came in, and informed that former light his conscience had in the oldness of the letter, and this he calls the commandment; and then he saw the difference to be such as hereupon he says now, and not afore, 'the commandment came,' and now, and not before, says
he, 'I know the law is spiritual, but I am carnal,' and 'there dwells no good in my flesh,' as in the following verses he cries out.
III. The light of the law in an unregenerate man's conscience is but literal, the shadow, the carcass of the true knowledge of the law. This
I touched on in the former assertions; but further, my text here speaks correspondently to this. He doth not say here of the Gentiles, that the law is written in their hearts, but only the τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου, the work, or rather the effect of the law; but it is not affirmed that the law is written there. It is but the carcass of the law and conscience; whilst according to that light it urgeth the duty to be done, and yet by motives short of the spiritual end, it bringeth forth but a dead work, a dead child, something only of the law, as the text hath it. As itself, and the best light thereof, is but a dead letter of the law, so the work or birth thereof exceeds not the life or kind of the principle or work it came forth of, which the apostle, if not under this similitude, yet in the thing itself, holds forth in that forementioned
Heb. 9:14, 'He shall purge your consciences from dead works, to serve the living God.' Where, 1, he conjoins these two, conscience and dead works. Conscience is the cause or principle, works are the effect; for conscience is the cause of all actions or works that pretend to any goodness in us. 2. He speaks of what our consciences are by nature, and in our natural condition, and of itself, and so it would over be the producer of dead works, which the living God would not accept, as not suited or proportioned to him, as he is the living God.
3. Our consciences therefore need the blood of Christ to purge them, as well from that defilement that is in them (which causeth them still naturally to miscarry, and to bring forth none but dead works) as well as to purge away the guilt of sins, whereof it is the proper and only receptacle. 4. That the blood of Christ is thus applied, that conscience, being purged and renewed, may be enabled for time to come to bring forth living works, or fruit to the living God, as formerly; for so far as it remains unregenerate it brings forth none but dead works; conscience, whether good or bad, being in all states one eminent principle of either.
Now, to draw up what has been said, and so to join what is yet to follow to what hath gone before. As the outward precepts of the law itself, if in supposition severed from the spirit of the law, are not properly the law, but only the carcass and shadow of it, and so have not the proper genuine goodness of the law in them; so answerably the light of natural conscience in natural men, which directs only unto this carcass of bodily exercise, and wants that which is the life and spirit of the law, is but the shadow thereof. And therefore such are the works thence issuing, they are all but 'dead works,' and works of the flesh, performed in the 'oldness of the letter.'
Now, to draw forth this thread of analogy yet further, as the Scripture gives us the clue and line, you may find, Rom. 2:20, that this light of conscience and knowledge in the law, which the highest in the form of that Pedagogy, or school of the Jews, attains to (that were unregenerate), was but μόρφωσιν τῆς γνώσεος, 'a form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law.' I termed it even now the picture or shadow of the law; and this expression here answers for it, it being spoken as in opposition to the truth and real spiritual knowledge of the law, as the very letter of the words imports, μόρφωσιν τῆς ἀληθέιας ἐν τῷ νόμῳ, the form or appearance of that which is the truth, reality, or spirit of the law. There are three things to be considered: 1. The truth of the law; 2. The knowledge of that truth; 3.
That the light a carnal Jew had was but the form, or μόρφωσις, of the knowledge of the truth which is in the law. Some have understood this word, 'form of the knowledge,' to signify no more than that system or method of knowledge which the learned Jews had in the law drawn into a form, such as scholars have in other arts and sciences. And that which seemed to afford strength to this notion as the sole support of it, is that (2 Tim. 1:13) the sum or substance of that doctrine Paul had delivered to Timothy, as a teacher of others, is called 'a form of wholesome words.' And Paul here speaks of those that were teachers of the Jews, that boasted in that knowledge. But let it be considered,
1. That the word here is not the same with that used there: it is μόρφωσις here, it is ὑποτύπωσις there, which latter is an artificial draught or sampler, either serving for doctrine or practice, whereby to teach others or a man's self to work by. It is not drawn from painters' pictures only, but from patterns or examples, and things lively acted. And so interpreters make it to be the subject of vehement exhortation in Paul to Timothy, to be both a real 'pattern in life,' as well as a teacher in doctrine, according as he had presented an example or platform of both unto him.
But 2. Moreover, then, Rom. 2, the word is μόρφωσις, the vizor, the mask, the appearance, the outward form, of what is the truth, reality, or substance, and so holds affinity with that phrase, 2 Tim. 3:5,
'Having a form of godliness' (it is the same word), 'denying the power thereof;' and so it is opposed to the reality, power, or substance of godliness, whereof this is the shadow, the appearance.
3. Now, parallel these two places, and you will find that, as the words, so the scope is the same. His scope here is to unmask the best of the unregenerate Jews, in respect of what they most prided themselves in, viz., the knowledge and light their consciences had of the law. And he accordingly sets himself to speak by way of diminution or derogation, that the best of their knowledge, though such as had the system of the whole law in it, was but the shadow, the outward form, in respect of what was true knowledge, and the real truth of the law, the spiritualness and holiness that was in it; even as in Timothy he terms the outward profession of godliness in the lives of hypocrites, or the impressions of it on their wills, but a 'form of godliness,' severed from, and in opposition to, 'the powers' thereof. Truth and form are opposed in the one, power and form in the other. Now, if the light and knowledge, in the understandings and consciences of the best of the Jews, was but in this sense the form of knowledge, and the mere outward picture or shadow of the truth in the law, and so utterly differing from the spirituality of that law, then the dim light in the Gentiles (whom in the 13th and 14th verses he spake of) is so much more. And then this is the result of all,
that the light both of the one and other, and so of all men unregenerate, doth fall short of that real goodness or holiness that is in the law, because it is but the shadow of the truth of it.
IV. I proceed now to the fourth proposition or query, namely, What further goodness this light of the law and word hath in natural men, more than is common to other creatures?
1. It would seem to have more, because it is the picture of the law, which in every part thereof hath a transcendent goodness, above what is in other creatures.
2. So as to give the goodness it hath what title or term you please, essentially short of holiness, and that goodness that is in the law, as it is spiritual and good, there will be found a moral goodness in it, which, according to the rate or exchange of philosophy, is above that which is merely natural, or the common goodness of other creatures.
Such we grant it to be; but add withal, that still men do but afford thereby an evidence to condemn themselves the more deeply for having abused it, and for having been unholy under it.
3. It is no dissonancy to truth to say that there is, if not a middle kind of goodness, yet an excellency above that which is natural or common to all creatures, and this other of holiness. As, for example, there is an image of God in man, in the substance and natural faculties of the soul, that it is a spirit, and hath his understanding, will, and sovereignty over the creatures. There is a likeness to God, which is not found in other creatures; which (as may be inferred from Gen. 9:6) continues in a man now fallen, and for which God there puts that valuation upon the life of a man above that of a beast, or any other creature, and in comparison of which the goodness that is in man's nature substantially (though now fallen) hath the peculiar honour to be called the 'image of God;' whereas other creatures are but vestigia, or footprints, and no way the image. There is a transcendent goodness, which yet still is short and void of the image of God, which consists in true holiness, which man hath utterly lost,
though he was at first created in it, Col. 3:3 compared with Eph.
4:24. Now so it is with these impresses of the law on conscience.
Yea, 4. I shall acknowledge further, that these beams of light are a more excellent image of God than that natural or substantial image spoken of, and that because they are the shadows and impresses of his law and divine will, and so are more worth than all the substance or faculties of man's soul considered apart from them; yet still I may say comparatively of them, as Paul speaks of the old literal covenant,
Heb. 10:1, 'They are but the shadow, and not the very image of the reality of the things' of the law.
And the light of that similitude which was struck out of Scripture will help to clear this farther goodness that is in it above that which is natural; and yet relieve no man in his thoughts that it is holiness, or any degree of it. You have heard that it is the form or outward picture of the truth of the law. Now, as in a picture, there may be considered a double truth and goodness, the one natural in the colours laid, which are the materials of it, especially when they are true and good colours of their kind; the other truth in the picture is artificial, as it is a true picture of that which it represents, which is by so much the more esteemed true and good, by how much it is more like unto him for whom it is the picture: so this form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law, hath a natural goodness in it, which is in all creatures. It hath also a further goodness, it resembles the law, and shadows forth the things thereof, which yet is short, far short of that truth and goodness of holiness, or of the spirit that is in the law itself, or of that pure light thereof which is in the conscience of a man regenerate.
And it ordinarily falls out, that as pictures represent but the outwards, so this shadow of the law in natural conscience represents only the outwards of the law, the things to be done, the letter of the law (as the apostle, Rom. 2:27, speaks), but there is a life, a spirit, a soul in the law written in the heart of a regenerate man, which this reacheth not, till God shall breathe it in, as he did a soul into Adam's body, which was formed first. The holy word and law consists of letter and spirit (as was said), which letter severed from the spirit is