command be such as cannot be obeyed, without being damned to eternal death; then it were madness to obey it, and the counsel of our Saviour takes place ( Matt. 10:28), “Fear not those that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.” All men therefore that would avoid, both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted, for disobedience to their earthly sovereign, and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come, for disobedience to God, have need be taught to distinguish well between what is, and what is not necessary to eternal salvation.
All that is “necessary to salvation,” is contained in two virtues, “faith in Christ,” and “obedience to laws.” The latter of these, if it were perfect, were enough to us. But because we are all guilty of disobedience to God’s law, not only originally in Adam, but also actually by our own transgressions, there is required at our hands now, not only “obedience” for the rest of our time, but also a “remission of sins” for the time past; which remission is the reward of our faith in Christ. That nothing else is necessarily required to salvation, is manifest from this, that the kingdom of heaven is shut to none but to sinners; that is to say, to the disobedient, or transgressors of the law; nor to them, in case they repent, and believe all the articles of Christian faith necessary to salvation.
The obedience required at our hands by God, that accepteth in all our actions the will for the deed, is a serious endeavour to obey Him; and is called also by all such names as signify that endeavour. And therefore obedience is sometimes called by the names of “charity” and “love,” because they imply a will to obey; and our Saviour himself maketh our love to God, and to one another, a fulfilling of the whole law: and sometimes by the name of “righteousness”; for righteousness is but the will to give to everyone his own; that is to say, the will to obey the laws: and sometimes by the name of “repentance”; because to repent implieth a turning away from sin, which is the same with the return of the will to obedience. Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfil the commandments of God, or repenteth him truly of his transgressions, or