Law, not understood of the Jews. The summe of the Law is Rom. 10.4.
Deut. 10.12
Calv. on Deut. 10.12.faith or love, and both these carry the same sence, because though Moses make mention of love, and Paul of faith, yet that love doth comprehend faith, and this faith doth contain love. Certainly, Rom. 14.23.Whatsoever is not of faith is sinne, even all works, though good in shew, and for substance seeming agreeable to the rule of the Law, if they issue not from faith, they are vaine and hypocriticall, if they be not quickned and enlivened by faith, they are but the carkasse of a good worke. And then if God command not faith in the Law in some sort, why doth he command other things, which without it are frivolous? Our best works are unsavoury before God, if they be not seasoned with faith: Heb. 11.6.For without faith it is impossible to please God. Therefore the Lord in Covenant commanding the observation of his Law, exacteth faith also, without which the Law cannot be obeyed in an acceptable manner. For when the Law is spirituall, and commandeth true worship and invocation, how can it be observed without faith? Would the Lord have the Israelites remaining in infidelity to observe the Law? Or did he ever allow man since the fall of Adam, to come or have accesse unto him, but only in the name of a Mediatour? Or was life and salvation ever promised to man since the fall, but upon condition of faith in the Messiah? Indeed the condition of obedience, which God requireth and man promiseth, is the chiefest thing urged in the Law: but free and gracious pardon, wherein consisteth the happinesse of the Saints is therein promised and proclaimed. They under the old Testament lightly following the letter, mistooke the meaning, not looking to the end of that which was to be abolished, whereunto Moses had an eye under the vaile. For they perceived not so well the grace intended by the legall Testament, which the perfection of the morall Law, whereof they could not but faile, should have forced them to seeke; and the imperfection of the typicall Law, which made nothing perfect, should have led them to find: but they generally rested in the worke done, as was commanded by either Law, when as themselves were unable to do the one, and the other was in it self as unsufficient to help them.
Fourthly, after the giving of the Law a Covenant betwixt God and Israel was Deut. 4.31
Exod. 24.3,4.established by mutuall and willing consent, the people promising to obey and doe whatsoever the Lord com-manded.
