requires fear, his goodness thankfulness, his faithfulness trust,
his truth belief, so his sovereignty, in the nature of it, demands
obedience: as it is most fit he should rule, in regard of his
excellency, so it is most fit we should obey him in regard of his
authority: he is our Lord, and we his subjects; he is our Master, and
we his servants; it is righteous we should observe him, and conform to
his will: he is everything that speaks an authority to command us, and
that can challenge an humility in us to obey. As that is the truest
doctrine that subjects us most to God, so he is the truest Christian
that doth, in his practice, most acknowledge this subjection; and
as sovereignty is the first notion a creature can have of God, so
obedience is the first and chief thing conscience reflects upon the
creature. Man holds all of God; and therefore owes all the operations
capable to be produced by those faculties to that Sovereign Power that
endowed him with them. Man had no being but from him; he hath no motion
without him; he should, therefore, have no being but for him; and
no motion but according to him: to call him Lord, and not to act in
subjection to him, is to mock and put a scorn upon him (Luke vi. 46):
“Why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?” It
is like the crucifying Christ under the title of a King. It is not
by professions, but by observance of the laws of a prince, that we
manifest a due respect to him: by that we reverence that authority
that enacted them, and the prudence that framed them.
This doctrine affords us motives to obey, and directs us to the manner
of obedience.
{b464} 1st. Motives to obey,
(1.) It is comely and orderly. Is it not a more becoming thing to
be ruled by the will of our Sovereign than by that of our lusts?――to
observe a wise and gracious Authority, than to set up inordinate
appetites in the room of his law? Would not all men account it a
disorder to be abominated, to see a slave or vassal control the just
orders of his lord, and endeavor to subject his master’s will to his
own? much more to expect God should serve our humor rather than we be
regulated by his will. It is more orderly that subjects should obey
their governors, than governors their subjects; that passion should
obey reason, than reason obey passion. When good governors are to
conform to subjects, and reason veil to passion, it is monstrous!
the one disturbs the order of a community, and the other defaceth
the beauty of the soul. Is it a comely thing for God to stoop to our
meanness, or for us to stoop to his greatness?
(2.) In regard of the Divine sovereignty, it is both honorable and
advantageous to obey God. It is, indeed, the glory of a superior to
be obeyed by his inferior; but where the sovereign is of transcendent
excellency and dignity, it is an honor to a mean person to be under his
immediate commands, and enrolled in his service. It is more honor to be
God’s subject than to be the greatest worldly monarch; his very service
is an empire, and disobedience to him is a slavery. It is a part of
his sovereignty to reward any service done him.[1023] Other lords may
be willing to recompense the service of their subjects, but are often
rendered unable; but nothing can stand in the way of God to hinder your
reward, if nothing stand in your way to hinder your obedience (Lev.
xviii. 5): “If you keep my statutes, you shall live in them; I am the
Lord.” Is there anything in the world can recompense you for rebellion
against God, and obedience to a lust? Saul cools the hearts of his
servants from running after David, by David’s inability to give
them fields and vineyards (1 Sam. xxii. 7): “Will the son of Jesse
give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you captains of
thousands, and captains of hundreds, that you have conspired against
me?” But God hath a dominion to requite, as well as an authority to
command your obedience; he is a great Sovereign, to bear you out in
your observance of his precepts against all reproaches and violence of
men, and at last to crown you with eternal honor. If he should neglect
vindicating, one time or other, your loyalty to him, he will neglect
the maintaining and vindicating his own sovereignty and greatness.
(3.) God, in all his dispensations to man, was careful to preserve the
rights of his sovereignty in exacting obedience of his creature. The
second thing he manifested his sovereignty in was that of a Lawgiver
to Adam, after that of a Proprietor in giving him the possession of the
garden; one followed immediately the other (Gen. ii. 15, 16): “The Lord
God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it;
and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil thou shalt not eat of it,” &c. {b465} Nothing was to be enjoyed by
man but upon the condition of obedience to his Lord; and it is observed
that in the description of the creation, God is not called “Lord” till
the finishing of the creation, and particularly in the forming of man.
“And the Lord God formed man” (Gen. ii. 7). Though he was Lord of all
creatures, yet it was in man he would have his sovereignty particularly
manifested, and by man have his authority specially acknowledged. The
law is prefaced with this title: “I am the Lord thy God” (Exod. xx. 2):
authority in Lord, sweetness in God, the one to enjoin, the other to
allure obedience; and God enforceth several of the commands with the
same title. And as he begins many precepts with it, so he concludes
them with the same title, “I am the Lord,” Lev. xix. 37, and in other
places. In all his communications of his goodness to man in ways of
blessing them, he stands upon the preservation of the rights of his
sovereignty, and manifests his graciousness in favor of his authority.
“I am the Lord your God,” your God in all my perfections for your
advantage, but yet your Sovereign for your obedience. In all his
condescension he will have the rights of this untouched and unviolated
by us. When Christ would give the most pregnant instance of his
condescending and humble kindness, he urgeth his authority to ballast
their spirits from any presumptuous eruptions because of his humility.
“You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well: for so I am” (John
xiii. 13). He asserts his authority, and presseth them to their duty,
when he had seemed to lay it by for the demeanor of a servant, and had,
below the dignity of a master, put on the humility of a mean underling,
to wash the disciples feet; all which was to oblige them to perform the
command he then gave them (ver. 14), and in obedience to his authority,
and imitation of his example.
(4.) All creatures obey him. All creatures punctually observe
the law he hath imprinted on their nature, and in their several
capacities acknowledge him their Sovereign; they move according to
the inclinations he imprinted on them. The sea contains itself in its
bounds, and the sun steps out of its sphere; the stars march in their
order, “they continue this day according to thy ordinance, for all are
thy servants” (Ps. cxix. 91). If he orders things contrary to their
primitive nature, they obey him. When he speaks the word, the devouring
fire becomes gentle, and toucheth not a hair of the children he will
preserve; the hunger‑starved lions suspend their ravenous nature, when
so good a morsel as Daniel is set before them; and the sun, which had
been in perpetual motion since its creation, obeys the writ of ease
God sent it in Joshua’s time, and stands still. Shall insensible and
sensible creatures be punctual to his orders, passively acknowledge
his authority? shall lions and serpents obey God in their places?――and
shall not man, who can, by reason, argue out the sovereignty of God,
and understand the sense and goodness of his laws, and actively obey
God with that will he hath enriched him with above other creatures? Yet
the truth is, every sensitive, yea, every senseless creature, obeys God
more than his rational, more than his gracious creatures in this world.
The rational creatures since the fall have a prevailing principle of
corruption. Let the obedience {b466} of other creatures incite us more
to imitate them, and shame our remissness in not acknowledging the
dominion of God, in the just way he prescribes us to walk in. Well
then, let us not pretend to own God as our Lord, and yet act the part
of rebels; let us give him the reverence, and pay him that obedience,
which of right belongs to so great a King. Whatsoever he speaks as a
true God, ought to be believed; whatsoever he orders as a sovereign God,
ought to be obeyed; let not God have less than man, nor man have more
than God. It is a common principle writ upon the reason of all men,
that respect and observance is due to the majesty of a man, much more
to the Majesty of God as a Lawgiver.
2d. As this doctrine presents us motives, so it directs us to the
manner and kind of our obedience to God.
(1.) It must be with a respect to his authority. As the veracity of God
is the formal object of faith, and the reason why we believe the things
he hath revealed; so the authority of God is the formal object of our
obedience, or the reason why we observe the things he hath commanded.
There must be a respect to his will as the rule, as well as to his
glory as the end. It is not formally obedience that is not done with
regard to the order of God, though it may be materially obedience, as
it answers the matter of the precept. As when men will abstain from
excess and rioting, because it is ruinous to their health, not because
it is forbidden by the great Lawgiver; this is to pay a respect to
our own conveniency and interest, not a conscientious observance
to God; a regard to our health, not to our Sovereign; a kindness to
ourselves, not a justice due to the rights of God. There must not only
be a consideration of the matter of the precept as convenient, but a
consideration of the authority of the Lawgiver as obligatory. “Thus
saith the Lord,” ushers in every order of his, directing our eye to the
authority enacting it; Jeroboam did God’s will of prophecy in taking
the kingdom of Israel; and the devils may be subservient in God’s
will or providence; but neither of them are put upon the account of
obedience, because not done intentionally with any conscience of the
sovereignty of God. God will have this owned by a regular respect to it;
so much he insists upon the honor of it, that the sacrifice of Christ,
God‑man, was most agreeable to him, not only as it was great and
admirable in itself, but also for that ravishing obedience to his will,
which was the life and glory of his sacrifice, whereby the justice of
God was not only owned in the offering, but the sovereignty of God
owned in the obedience. “He became obedient unto death; wherefore God
highly exalted him” (Phil. ii. 8).
(2.) It must be the best and most exact obedience. The most sovereign
authority calls for the exactest and lowest observance; the highest
Lord for the deepest homage; being, he is, a “great King, he must have
the best in our flock” (Mal. i. 14). Obedience is due to God, as King,
and the choicest obedience is due to him, as he is the most excellent
King. The more majestic and noble any man is, the more careful we are
in our manner of service to him. We are bound to obey God, not only
under the title of a “Lord” in regard of jurisdiction and political
subjection, but under the title of a true {b467} “Lord and Master,”
in regard of propriety; since we are not only his subjects but his
servants, the exactest obedience is due to God, _jure servitutis_;
“When you have done all, say you are unprofitable servants” (Luke
xvii. 10), because we can do nothing which we owe not to God.
(3.) Sincere and inward obedience. As it is a part of his sovereignty
to prescribe laws not only to man in his outward state, but to his
conscience, so it is a part of our subjection to receive his laws into
our will and heart. The authority of his laws exceeds human laws in the
extent and riches of them, and our acknowledgment of his sovereignty
cannot be right, but by subjecting the faculties of our soul to the
Lawgiver of our souls; we else acknowledge his authority to be as
limited as the empire of man; when his will not only sways the outward
action, but the inward motion, it is a giving him the honor of his
high throne above the throne of mortals. The right of God ought to be
preserved undamaged in affection, as well as action.
(4.) It must be sole obedience. We are ordered to serve him only;
“Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. iv. 10): as the only Supreme Lord,
as being the highest Sovereign, it is fit he should have the highest
obedience before all earthly sovereigns, and as being unparalleled by
any among all the nations, so none must have an obedience equal to him.
When God commands, if the highest power on earth countermands it, the
precept of God must be preferred before the countermand of the creature.
“Whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than
unto God, judge ye” (Acts iv. 18, 19). We must never give place to the
authority of all the monarchs in the world, to the prejudice of that
obedience we owe to the Supreme Monarch of heaven and earth; this would
be to place the throne of God at the footstool of man, and debase him
below the rank of a creature. Loyalty to man can never recompense for
the mischief accruing from disloyalty to God. All the obedience we are
to give to man, is to be paid in obedience to God, and with an eye to
his precept: therefore, what servants do for their masters, they must
do “as to the Lord” (Col. iii. 23); and children are to obey their
parents “in the Lord” (Eph. vi. 1). The authority of God is to be eyed
in all the services payable to man; proper and true obedience hath God
solely for its principal and primary object; all obedience to man that
interferes with that, and would justle out obedience to God, is to be
refused. What obedience is due to man, is but rendered as a part of
obedience to God, and a stooping of his authority.
(5.) It must be universal obedience. The laws of man are not to be
universally obeyed; some may be oppressing and unjust: no man hath
authority to make an unjust law, and no subject is bound to obey an
unrighteous law; but God being a righteous Sovereign, there is not one
of his laws but doth necessarily oblige us to obedience. Whatsoever
this Supreme Power declares to be his will, it must be our care to
observe; man, being his creature, is bound to be subject to whatsoever
laws he doth impose to the meanest as well as to the greatest: they
having equally a stamp of Divine authority {b468} upon them. We are
not to pick and choose among his precepts: this is to pare away part
of his authority, and render him a half sovereign. It must be universal
in all places. An Englishman in Spain is bound to obey the laws of that
country wherein he resides: and so not responsible there for the breach
of the laws of his native country. In the same condition is a Spaniard
in England. But the laws of God are to be obeyed in every part of the
world; wheresoever Divine Providence doth cast us, it casts us not
out of the places where he commands, nor out of the compass of his
own empire. He is Lord of the world, and his laws oblige in every part
of the world; they were ordered for a world, and not for a particular
climate and territory.
(6.) It must be indisputable obedience. All authority requires
readiness in the subject; the centurion had it from his soldiers; they
went when he ordered them, and came when he beckoned to them (Matt.
viii. 9). It is more fit God should have the same promptness from his
subjects. We are to obey his orders, though our purblind understanding
may not apprehend the reason of every one of them. It is without
dispute that he is sovereign, and therefore it is without dispute that
we are bound to obey him, without controlling his conduct. A master
will not bear it from his slave, why should God from his creature?
Though God admits his creatures sometimes to treat with him about the
equality of his justice, and also about the reason of some commands,
yet sometimes he gives no other reason but his own sovereignty, “Thus
saith the Lord;” to correct the malapertness of men, and exact from
them an entire obedience to his unlimited and absolute authority. When
Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac, God acquaints him not with the
reason of his demand till after (Gen. xxii. 2, 12), nor did Abraham
enter any demur to the order, or expostulate with God, either from his
own natural affection to Isaac, the hardness of the command, it being,
as it were, a ripping up of his own bowels, nor the quickness of it
after he had been a child of the promise, and a Divine donation above
the course of nature. Nor did Paul confer with flesh and blood, and
study arguments from nature and interest to oppose the Divine command,
when he was sent upon his apostolical employment (Gal. i. 16). The more
indisputable his right is to command, the stronger is our obligation to
obey, without questioning the reason of his orders.
(7.) It must be joyful obedience. Men are commonly more cheerful
in their obedience to a great prince than to a mean peasant; because
the quality of the master renders the service more honorable. It is
a discredit to a prince’s government, when his subjects obey him with
discontent and dejectedness, as though he were a hard master, and
his laws tyrannical and unrighteous. When we pay obedience but with
a dull and feeble pace, and a sour and sad temper, we blemish our
great Sovereign, imply his commands to be grievous, void of that peace
and pleasure he proclaims to be in them; that he deserves no respect
from us, if we obey him because we must, and not because we will.
Involuntary obedience deserves not the title: it is rather submission
than obedience, an act of the body, not of the mind: a mite of
obedience with cheerfulness, is better {b469} than a talent without
it. In the little Paul did, he comforts himself in this, that with
the “mind he served the law of God” (Rom. vii. 25); the testimonies of
God were David’s delight (Ps. cxix. 24). Our understandings must take
pleasure in knowing him, our wills delightfully embrace him, and our
actions be cheerfully squared to him. This credits the sovereignty of
God in the world, makes others believe him to be a gracious Lord, and
move them to have some veneration for his authority.
(8.) It must be a perpetual obedience. As man is a subject as soon
as he is a creature, so he is a subject as long as he is a creature.
God’s sovereignty is of perpetual duration, as long as he is God; man’s
obedience must be perpetual, while he is a man. God cannot part with
his sovereignty, and a creature cannot be exempted from subjection; we
must not only serve him, but cleave to him (Deut. xiii. 4). Obedience
is continued in heaven, his throne is established in heaven, it must be
bowed to in heaven, as well as in earth. The angels continually fulfil
his pleasure.
7. _Exhortation._ Patience is a duty flowing from this doctrine. In
all strokes upon ourselves, or thick showers upon the church, “the
Lord reigns,” is a consideration to prevent muttering against him, and
make us quietly wait to see what the issue of his Divine pleasure will
be. It is too great an insolence against the Divine Majesty to censure
what he acts, or quarrel with him for what he inflicts. Proud clay doth
very unbecomingly swell against an infinite superior. If God be our
Sovereign, we ought to subscribe to his afflicting will without debates,
as well as to his liberal will with affectionate applauses. We should
be as full of patience under his sharper, as of praise under his more
grateful, dispensations, and be without reluctancy against his penal,
as well as his preceptive, pleasure. It is God’s part to inflict, and
the creature’s part to submit.
This doctrine affords us motives, and shows us the nature of patience.
1. Motives to it.
(1.) God, being Sovereign, hath an absolute right to dispose of all
things. His title to our persons and possessions is, upon this account,
stronger than our own can be; we have as much reason to be angry with
ourselves, when we assert our worldly right against others, as to be
angry with God for asserting the right of his dominion over us. Why
should we enter a charge against him, because he hath not tempered us
so strong in our bodies, drawn us with as fair colors, embellished our
spirits with as rich gifts as others? Is he not the Sovereign of his
own goods, to impart what, and in what measure, he pleaseth? Would
you be content your servants should check your pleasure in dispensing
your own favors? It is an unreasonable thing not to leave God to the
exercise of his own dominion. Though Job were a pattern of patience,
yet he had deep tinctures of impatience; he often complains of God’s
usage of him as too hard, and stands much upon his own integrity; but
when God comes, in the latter chapters of that book, to justify his
carriage towards him, he chargeth him not as a criminal, but considers
him only as his vassal. He might have found flaws enough in Job’s
carriage, {b470} and corruption enough in Job’s nature, to clear the
equity of his proceeding as a judge; but he useth no other medium to
convince him, but the greatness of his Majesty, the unlimitedness of
his sovereignty, which so appals the good man, that he puts his finger
on his mouth and stands mute with a self‑abhorrency before him, as a
Sovereign, rather than as a Judge. When he doth pinch us, and deprive
us of what we most affect, his right to do it should silence our lips
and calm our hearts from any boisterous uproars against him.
(2.) The property of all still remains in God, since he is sovereign.
He did not divest himself of the property when he granted us the use;
the earth is his, not ours; the fulness any of us have, as well as the
fulness others have. After he had given the Israelites corn, wine, and
oil, he calls them all _his_, and emphatically adds _my_, to every one
of them (Hos. ii. 9). His right is universal over every mite we have,
and perpetual too; he may, therefore, take from us what he please. He
did but deposit in our hands for awhile the benefits we enjoy, either
children, friends, estate, or lives; he did not make a total conveyance
of them, and alienate his own property, when he put them into our hands;
we can show no patent for them, wherein the full right is passed over
to us, to hold them against his will and pleasure, and implead him if
he offer to re‑assume them: he reserved a power to dispossess us upon
a forfeiture, as he is the Lord and Governor. Did any of us yet answer
the condition of his grant? it was his indulgence to allow them so long;
there is reason to submit to him, when he re‑assumes what he lent us,
and rather to thank him that he lent it so long, and did not seize upon
it sooner.
(3.) Other things have more reason to complain of our sovereignty over
them, than we of God’s exercise of his sovereignty over us. Do we not
exercise an authority over our beasts, as to strike them when we please,
and merely for our pleasure; and think we merit no reproof for it,
because they are our own, and of a nature inferior to ours? And shall
not God, who is absolute, do as much with us, who are more below him
than the meanest creatures are below us? They are creatures as well as
we, and we no more creatures than they; they were framed by Omnipotence
as well as we; there is no more difference between them and us in the
notion of creatures. As there is no difference between the greatest
monarch on earth, and the meanest beggar on the dunghill, in the notion
of a man; the beggar is a man, as well as the monarch, and as much a
man; the difference consists in the special endowments we have above
them by the bounty of their and our common Creator. We are less, if
compared with God, than the worst, meanest, and most sordid creature
can be, if compared with us. Hath not a bird or a hare (if they had a
capacity) more reason to complain of men’s persecuting them by their
hawks and their dogs? but would their complaints appear reasonable,
since both were made for the use of man, and man doth but use the
nature of the one to attain a benefit by the other? Have we any reason
to complain of God if he lets loose other creatures, the devouring
hounds of the world, to bite and afflict us? We must not open our lips
against him, nor {b471} let our heart swell against his scourge, since
both they and we were made for his use, as well as other creatures for
our; this is a reason to stifle all complaints against God, but not
to make us careless of preventing afflictions, or emerging out of them
by all just ways. The hare hath a nature to shift for itself by its
winding and turning, and the bird by its flight; and neither of them
could be blamed, if they were able, should the one scratch out the eyes
of the hounds, and the other sacrifice the hawk to its own fury.
(4.) It is a folly not to submit to him. Why should we strive against
him, since he is an unaccountable Sovereign, and “gives no account of
any of his matters?” (Job xxxiii. 13.) Who can disannul the judgment
God gives? There is no appeal from the supreme court; a higher court
can repeal or null the sentence of an inferior court, but the sentence
of the highest stands irreversible, but by itself and its own authority.
It is better to lower our sails, than to grapple with one that can
shoot us under water; to submit to that Sovereign whom we cannot subdue.