Quest. XCI., XCII.

QUEST. XCI. What is the duty that God requireth of man?

ANSW. The duty which God requireth of man, is, obedience to his revealed will.

QUEST. XCII. What did God at first reveal unto man as the rule of his obedience?

ANSW. The rule of obedience revealed to Adam in the estate of innocency, and to all mankind in him, beside a special command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was, the moral law.

Having, in the former part of the Catechism, been led to consider what we are to believe concerning God, and those works of nature and grace, wherein he has displayed his glory to man, whether considered as created after his image, or having lost it by sin, and afterwards redeemed, and made partaker of those blessings that are consequent thereupon; we are now to consider him as under an indispensable obligation to yield obedience to God. They who have received most grace from him, are laid under the strongest ties and engagements hereunto; accordingly we may observe,

I. That, obedience is due from man to God. This results from the relation we stand in to him as creatures;[196] who ought to say with the Psalmist, O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, Psal. xcv. 6. and particularly when considered as intelligent creatures, having excellencies superior to all others in this lower world, whereby we are rendered capable, not only of subserving the ends of his providence, but performing obedience, as subjects of moral government: But if we are redeemed, justified, and sanctified, and made partakers of all the blessings that accompany salvation; this obligation to duty, is greater than that of all others, as the apostle says, Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s, 1 Cor. vi. 2. And this may be considered, not only as our duty, but our highest wisdom; as it is said, The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil, is understanding, Job xxviii. 28. hereby, in some measure, we answer the end for which we came into the world. And it is our interest, inasmuch as it is conducive to, and inseparably connected with our present and future blessedness: Nevertheless we are to be very sensible that this is out of our own power, as our Saviour says, Without me ye can do nothing, John xv. 5. Therefore we should exercise a constant dependence on him, who works in his people both to will and to do, of his own good pleasure. We might here consider the nature and properties of that duty and obedience which we owe to God.

1. If it be such as we hope God will accept or approve of, it must proceed from a renewed nature, and as a consequence thereof, from a principle of love to God, as a reconciled Father; not from a slavish fear and dread of his wrath, as a sin-revenging Judge. Thus the Psalmist says, There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared, Psal. cxxx. 4.

2. It ought to be without the least reserve, as containing a ready compliance with whatever he commands; and hereby we ought to approve ourselves to him, as our sovereign Lord and Law-giver, and consider that we are under his all-seeing eye; and accordingly his glory is to be assigned as the highest end of all we do.

3. It ought to be performed with constancy; and therefore it doth not consist barely in a sudden fit of devotion, arising from the dictates of an awakened conscience, or the dread we have of his wrath, when under some distressing providence; but it ought to be the constant work and business of life. And,

4. When we have done or suffered most for God, we are not only to consider ourselves as unprofitable servants, Luke xvii. 10. as our Saviour expresses it; but we must lament our imperfections, and be deeply humbled for the iniquities that attend our holy things; inasmuch as there is not a just man upon earth that doth good, and sinneth not, Eccles. vii. 20.

II. In order to our yielding obedience, it is necessary that God should signify to us, in what instances he will be obeyed, and the manner how it is to be performed; otherwise it would rather be a fulfilling our own will than his. None but those who are authorized hereto, and receive what they impart to us by divine inspiration, can, without the boldest presumption, assume this prerogative to themselves, so as to prescribe to us a rule of duty to God; and therefore it follows, that this obedience must be to his revealed will. The secret purposes of God are the rule and measure of his own actings; but his revealed will is the rule of our obedience. Secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed, belong unto us and to our children, Deut. xxix. 29.

III. The will of God, as thus made known to us, is called a Law: Which, that we may farther understand, let us consider, that a law is the decree or revealed will of a sovereign, designed to direct and govern the actions of his subjects, and thereby to secure his own honour and their welfare. And if this be applied to the law of God, we must consider him as our Lord and Sovereign, whose will is the rule of our actions; and he being infinitely wise and good, is able and inclined to direct us in those things that are conducive to his own honour and our safety and happiness; and this he has been pleased to do, and accordingly has given us a law as the rule of life.

The laws of God are either such as take their rise from his holy nature, and accordingly our obligation to yield obedience thereto, proceeds not only or principally from the command of God, but from their being agreeable to his divine perfections, which must be assigned as the reason of his prescribing them as matter of duty. These are all reducible to what we call, in general, the law of nature; which, because it is agreeable to the dictates of reason, it is called, by way of eminency, The moral law. Thus when we consider ourselves as creatures, we are led to confess that we are subject to God, and therefore bound to obey him; and when we think of him as a God of infinite perfection, this obedience must be agreeable thereunto; and because he is a Spirit, it must be performed in a spiritual manner; and as he is a holy God, he is to be worshipped with reverence and holy fear. Thus far we are induced to yield obedience by the law of nature.

But, on the other hand, there are many laws relating to the circumstances or manner in which God will be worshipped, which are founded in his sovereign will; and these we call positive laws. Of this kind was that law given to our first parents, not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; and, doubtless, there were many other laws given to them relating to their conduct of life, and mode of worship, though they are not particularly mentioned in that short history we have of the state of man before the fall. As for the moral law, it is said, in one of the answers we are explaining, to have been revealed to Adam in his state of innocency, and to all mankind in him. Its being revealed to man, must be supposed to be a less proper way of speaking; inasmuch as that method of discovery is more especially applicable to positive laws; and therefore I would rather chuse to express it as it is in a foregoing answer[197], by God’s writing his laws in the hearts of our first parents, or impressing the commands of the moral law on their nature; so that by the power of reasoning, with which they were endowed, they might attain to the knowledge thereof. So that man, by the light of nature, knew all things contained in the moral law.

As to what is farther said in this answer, that the moral law was given to man in innocency; that has been considered elsewhere. And as all mankind were represented by him, so we are to understand those words, that it was given to all mankind in him. But these things have been insisted on in another place, as also what relates to his being prohibited from eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I shall pass it over, and proceed to speak more particularly concerning the moral law, together with the use thereof to all sorts of men.

Footnote 196:

“It may be asked, Is there no reason or nature of things? Yes; as certainly as there are things. But the nature and reason of things, considered independently of the divine Will, or without it, have no more obligation in them, than a divine worship considered independently of, and without any regard to the existence of God. For the Will of God is as absolutely necessary to found all moral obligation upon, as the existence of God is necessary to be the foundation of religious worship. And the fitness of moral obligations, without the Will of God, is only like the fitness of a religious worship without the existence of God.

And it is as just to say, that he destroys the reason of religion and piety, who founds it upon the nature and existence of God, as to say, he saps the foundation of moral obligations, who founds them upon the Will of God. And as religion cannot be justly or solidly defended, but by shewing its connexion with, and dependance upon, God’s existence; so neither can moral obligations be asserted with strength and reason, but by shewing them to be the Will of God.

It may again be asked, Can God make that fit in its self, which is in its self absolutely unfit to be done?

This question consists of improper terms. For God’s Will no more makes actions to be fit in themselves, than it makes things to exist in, or of themselves. No things, nor any actions, have any absolute fitness, and in themselves.

A gift, a blow, the making a wound, or shedding of blood, considered in themselves, have no absolute fitness, but are fit or unfit according to any variety of incidental circumstances.

When therefore God, by his Will, makes any thing fit to be done, he does not make the thing fit in its self, which is just in the same state considered in its self, as it was before; but, it becomes fit for the person to do it, because he can be happy, or do that which is fit for him to do, by doing the Will of God.

For instance, the bare eating a fruit, considered in its self, is neither fit nor unfit. If a fruit be appointed by God for our food and nourishment, then it is as fit to eat it, as to preserve our lives. If a fruit be poisonous, then it is as unfit to eat it, as to commit self-murder. If eating of a fruit be prohibited by an express order of God, then it is as unfit to eat it, as to eat our own damnation.

But in none of these instances is the eating or not eating, considered in its self, fit or unfit; but has all its fitness, or unfitness, from such circumstances, as are entirely owing to the Will of God.

Supposing, therefore, God to require a person to do something, which, according to his present circumstances, without that command, he ought not to do, God does not make that which is absolutely unfit in itself, fit to be done; but only adds new circumstances to an action, that is neither fit nor unfit, moral nor immoral in itself, but because of its circumstances.

To instance, in the case of Abraham required to sacrifice his son. The killing of a man is neither good nor bad, considered absolutely in its self. It was unlawful for Abraham to kill his son, because of the circumstances he was in with regard to his son. But when the divine Command was given, Abraham was in a new state; the action had new circumstances; and then it was as lawful for Abraham to kill his son, as it was lawful for God to require any man’s life, either by sickness, or any other means he should please to appoint.

And it had been as unlawful for Abraham to have disobeyed God in this extraordinary command, as to have cursed God at any ordinary calamity of providence.—

Again, it is objected, If there be nothing right or wrong, good or bad, antecedently and independently of the Will of God, there can be no reason, why God should will, or command one thing, rather than another.

It is answered, first, That all goodness, and all possible perfection, is as eternal as God, and as essential to him as his existence. And to say, that they are either antecedent or consequent, dependent or independent of his Will, would be equally absurd. To ask, therefore, whether there be not something right and wrong, antecedent to the Will of God, to render his Will capable of being right, is as absurd, as to ask for some antecedent cause of his existence, that he may be proved to exist necessarily. And to ask, how God can be good, if there be not something good independently of him, is asking how he can be infinite, if there be not something infinite independently of him. And, to seek for any other source or reason of the divine Goodness, besides the divine Nature, is like seeking for some external cause, and help of the divine omnipotence.

The goodness and wisdom, therefore, by which God is wise and good, and to which all his works of wisdom and goodness are owing, are neither antecedent, nor consequent to his Will.—”

HUMAN REASON.

Footnote 197:

See Quest. xvii.