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DECALOGUE DOD AND HIS SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BESTSELLER

 

A Four Hundredth Anniversary Appreciation

 

St Antholin’s Lecture, 2004

 

 

"Decalogue" Dod …

 

 

The first thirty years

 

John Dod was born in around 1549 near Malpas in Cheshire, the youngest of seventeen children.[1]  In the mid-1560s he went up to Jesus College, Cambridge where he was elected a scholar and, some years later, a fellow. He was known as a learned man, witty and cheerful, and an accomplished Hebraist. His performance at one public disputation prompted a number of visiting Oxford scholars to invite him to become a member of their university. He declined the invitation.

 

We know little of Dod's early spiritual life but at some point while a fellow at Jesus a false accusation was brought against him of having defrauded the college of a sum of money due from one of his pupils.  Dod fell into a severe fever and while ill  "his sins came upon him like armed men and the tide of his thoughts was turned."[2]  Dod was cleared of the charge and he thereafter began to preach at a weekly lecture set up by the godly of Ely.

 

It was around this time that the incident of the Sermon on Malt occurred. As recounted by the DNB, Dod "had preached strongly at Cambridge against the drinking indulged in by the students and had greatly angered them. One day some of them met 'Father Dod' as he was called, passing through a wood, seized him, and set him in a hollow tree, declaring that he should not be released until he had preached a sermon on a text of their choosing. They gave him the word 'malt' for a text and on this he preached, beginning, 'Beloved, I am a little man, come at a short warning to deliver a brief discourse, upon a small subject, to a thin congregation and from an unworthy pulpit', and taking each letter as a division of his sermon." 

 

Whilst at Cambridge, Dod became a part of Laurence Chaderton's group[3] and thus acquainted with and a friend of such key figures in the Elizabethan puritan movement as Thomas Cartwright, Arthur Hildersham, Richard Greenham, and William Whitakker.  He was given the responsibility, along with Hildersham, of taking care of Cartwright's papers after his death and, indeed, preached Cartwright's funeral sermon. Cartwright himself had referred to Dod as "the fittest man in the land for the pastoral function … able to speak to any man's capacity … and never out of the pulpit."[4] 

 

 

Ministry at Hanwell and beyond

 

In 1585, perhaps upon Dod's marriage to his first wife Anne, step-daughter of Richard Greenham and sister of the later renowned sabbatarian Nicholas Bownde[5],  Chaderton recommended Dod to Sir Anthony Cope, patron of St Peter's, Hanwell in Oxfordshire. Cope was, in Knappen's words, "collecting a fine assortment of Puritan ministers"[6] and in addition to bringing Dod to Hanwell, he secured, at around the same time, the appointment of Robert Cleaver as minister of nearby Drayton.[7]   Here Dod was to serve for almost twenty years and the shape and character of his ministry at Hanwell and in subsequent pastorates led Haller to make the remarkable claim that "no one probably did more than he to fix by personal influence and example the way of life and style of preaching followed for generations by the rank and file of the Puritan ministry."[8]

 

Certainly his ministry made a great impact upon many people and in many ways. At his funeral sermon it was said that he gave himself at Hanwell to "much fasting and prayer and as his seed-time was painful, so his harvest was gainful, hundreds of souls being converted to his ministry."[9]  A number of local ministers, resenting the popularity of Dod's preaching forbade their parishioners to go to hear him. Instead, perhaps, they went to the weekly lecture at Banbury, (a town which, according to Collinson, was fast-becoming a "by-word for puritanism") where Dod was one of four lecturers.[10] Others included Robert Cleaver and, later, Robert Harris and Henry Scudder.  Dod was influential in knitting together a community of clergy in the area and himself took tutees at his own household seminary.[11]

 

 

Preaching

 

Dod's preaching was all that the puritans looked for. It was godly, learned, plain, pithy, affectionate and practical.  His method was typical and formative of puritan preaching:

 

John Dod … would stand up to preach with nothing more in his hand than 'the Analisis of his Text, the proofs of Scripture for the Doctrines, with the Reasons and Uses.' … His manner was to begin by 'opening a verse or two, or more at a time, first clearing the drift and connection, then giving the sense and interpretation briefly, but very plainly, not leaving the text untill he had made it plain to the meanest capacity.'  Next he cleared and exemplified the doctrines by reference to scripture itself, the preacher, 'opening his proofs, not multiplying particulars for oppressing memory, not dwelling so long as to make all truth run though a few texts.' Finally he spoke 'most largely and very home in application, mightily convincing and diving into mens hearts and consciences, leaving them little or nothing to object against it'.[12]

 

His main themes were so clear that he became known as "Faith and Repentance" Dod.  His directness was such that on one occasion "a person being … enraged at his close and awakening doctrine, picked a quarrel with him, smote him in the face and dashed out two of his teeth."  At this, "this meek and lowly servant of Christ, without taking the least offence, spit out the teeth and blood into his hand, and said, 'See here, you have knocked out two of my teeth without any just provocation; but on condition I might do your soul good, I would give you leave to dash out all the rest'."[13]  And his insight into souls was so searching that "some said he must have had spies and informers at work for him." His reply, we are told was "that the Word of God was searching, and that if he was shut up in a dark Vault, where none could come at him, yet allow him but a Bible and a candle, and he should preach as he did."[14]

 

Others were less appreciative and yet, again, his response tells us much about the man, his priorities and his character:

 

When someone complained at the length of his sermons, his rejoinder was that if 'Gentlemen will follow hounds from seven in the morning till four or five in the afternoon, because they love the cry of dogs, … we should be content though the Minister stood above his hour.'  And he added, 'methinks it is much better to hear a Minister preach than a kennel of hounds to bark'.[15]

 

His preaching was not, however, his whole ministry. After sermon any who wished to could go back to his house to eat and to rehearse and further apply the sermon.  Dod loved to be with people and he loved to talk. He became known for his pithy sayings and later in the seventeenth century broadsides of "Dod's Droppings" were widely sold, providing biblical counsel, almanac style for generations to come.

 

Dod was also ready at all times to meet with needy souls. Haller, following Clarke, describes his practice:

 

His habit was to use the church edifice itself for his pastoral study … There perplexed souls would find him and "if he thought them bashful, he would meet them and say, 'Would you speak with me?' And when he found them unable to state their question, he would help them out with it, taking care to find the sore: But would answer and deal so compassionately and tenderly, as not to discourage the poorest soul from coming again.[16]

 

 

Physician of souls and godly guide

 

Indeed, over the years at Hanwell and afterwards, Dod "built up a national reputation as a godly guide."[17] On several occasions he helped dying believers to assurance.  After early failures in which Dod declared that 'the Devill's rhetoricke taught her against herself', Dod and Thomas Hooker between them even brought the famously melancholic Joan Drake of Esher out of her spiritual distress before her death in 1625, something which John Preston, James Ussher, Richard Sibbes and Ezekiel Culverwell had all attempted without success.[18] 

 

Dod became a good friend of John Preston, and it was after Dod persuaded him that "English preaching was like to work more and win more souls to God" that Preston declined to become the Lady Margaret Divinity Professor at Cambridge.[19]  Later, in July 1628 and knowing that he had little time left to live, Preston asked to be taken to Fawsley in order to receive dying comfort from Dod. A few days later Dod preached Preston's funeral sermon.[20]

 

His counsel was sought by several puritans as they tried to make up their minds in the 1630s whether or not to leave the country for New England. In 1633 he dissuaded George Hughes and John Ball from doing so. John Cotton and Thomas Hooker, on the other hand received a different reply. Dod explained that he believed it was legitimate to leave although as an elderly man he did not intend to do so himself: 'When Peter was young he might gird himself and go whither he would; but when he was old and unfit for travel, then indeed God called him rather than to suffer himself to be girt of others, and lead along to prison and death'.  Cotton expressed concern for the congregations of those pastors who left and Dod at once replied, 'That the removing of a minister was like the draining of a fish pond: the good fish will follow the water, but eels, and other baggage fish, will stick in the mud.'[21]

 

 

Nonconformist but no separatist

 

Collinson describes Dod as a "nonconformist within the Church of England" and in this sense he is the typical early English puritan.

 

When Simeon Ashe and John Wall wrote a commendatory epistle for one of [Samuel] Clarke's earliest ventures, in December 1649, they expressed interest in the further publication of the 'characters' of such as Preston, Sibbes, Dod and Hildersham who all their lives had 'kept a due distance from Brownistical separatism and were zealously affected towards the Presbyterial  Government of the Church'.[22]

 

His zeal for presbyterial government is unsurprising given his membership of Chaderton's group and his closeness to Cartwright back in the 1570s.  Another indication of his nonconformity was his setting up of three benches at St Peter's, Hanwell for the reception of the elements of the Lord's Supper (this so that the elements would not be received kneeling).[23]  Three times he was suspended from the ministry and on numerous other occasions he was cited. In 1616 he approved of Henry Jacob gathering a covenanting church in Southwark.[24]

 

Moreover, Webster tells us

 

There is a small hint of the practice of particular church discipline in the refusal of John Dod to read out in church the sentence of the ecclesiastical court on a fornicator of his flock because the young man had already taken penance before his fellow parishioners before he had been examined by the archdeacon in 1633.[25]

 

And yet, for all this, Dod was no separatist.  Spurr refers to a communication of 1637 in which,

 

A group of thirteen English nonconformist clergy, headed by the aged Dod and Cleaver, wrote to the New England clergy … reminding them that when they had all lived in the same kingdom, they had jointly 'maintained the purity of worship against corruptions, both on the right hand and on the left'. But now they had heard that their brethren in New England taught that set prayers were unlawful, and the godly should not 'join in prayer' or 'receive the sacraments' where such a 'stinted liturgy is used'. Did not this lend support to their opponents' charges that 'nonconformists in practice are separatists in heart?'[26]

 

Dod would have none of it. Nonconformist in practice he certainly was and he suffered for it. Separatist in heart he emphatically was not, looking as he did for reform of the national church according to the Word of God.  

 

 

After Hanwell

 

In January 1604, Dod, along with another thirty or so puritan ministers held private meetings alongside the Hampton Court Conference.  The outcome of the Conference itself was a great disappointment to the puritan party and over the next few years around three hundred ministers lost their livings. That Dod and Cleaver feared exactly this is clear from the Epistle Dedicatory of A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Tenne Commandements, dated September 1604.  They give three reasons for dedicating the work to their patron, Sir Anthony Cope, and all three reasons have some foreboding about them:

 

First, to testifie our unfained thankfulnesse for all the singular favours, which we have received at your hands, for the space of these twentie yeares. Wherein you have alwayes shewed yourselfe as willing to ayde and defend us in our just cause, as you were carefull to make choice of us, at our first entrance into our places.

 

Secondly, because we know not how soone we shall finish the dayes of our Ministerie, we thought it our dutie to give some taste, and to leave some testimony thereof unto the world, to witnesse your godly desire to discharge the trust committed unto you, and our faithfull endevours to performe the dutie belonging unto us.

 

Lastly, for that having formerly heard whatsoever is here set downe in writing, and also having throughly knowne the manner of our doctrine and conversations, you are best able even of your owne knowledge, to make our defence to any that shall unjustly except against us.

 

Their anxieties were justified. Shortly afterwards, Dod was suspended from his living by Bishop Bridges of Oxford.  For some while he remained in the area, supporting his successor, Robert Harris, later Master of Trinity Oxford and member of Westminster Assembly,  and also preparing works on the Proverbs for publication.  The first of these was issued in 1606 and Dod states simply, "We are now more willing to make some work for the press because we have no employment in the pulpit."[27]

 

Taking into account what has already been said about Dod's preaching ministry and his counsel to many seeking godly guidance, the story of the next forty years is quickly told.  He held positions in Fenny Compton in Warwickshire and then in Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire between 1607 and 1611, being 'silenced' by Archbishop Abbott in 1611.  Little is known of the next twelve years of his life beyond the publication of a series of books on the Proverbs with Cleaver.

 

In 1624, however, he was settled as Rector of Fawsley in Northamptonshire under the protection of Sir Richard Knightley, the Puritan squire of Fawsley Hall.  His preaching and lecturing, his cure of souls, his encouragement of godly learned ministers and his writing continued over the next twenty years. At over ninety years old he wrote to Lady Mary Vere and offered if he 'might any way be helpful to your Ladyship to resolve you of any doubts or questions in your heart, I should be glad ere my departure, now at hand, to do you any service this way.'[28]  In August 1645, at around 95 years of age, he died.

 

 

Dod's Stature

 

Little man though he was, Dod was a giant.  Collinson, possibly the foremost living scholar of Elizabethan puritanism calls him, simply, "the great John Dod".[29]  Numerous writers refer to him as a "puritan patriarch".  By personal contact and involvement he was at the heart of English puritanism from the 1570s right through until the 1630s. Thomas Cartwright, Arthur Hildersham, Richard Greenham, Laurence Chaderton, William Gouge, Ezekiel Culverwell, William Perkins, John Preston, Richard Sibbes, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker: the list of those who honoured him as personal friend and leader of the movement itself reads like a roll-call of puritan greats. Archbishop Ussher declared, "Whatever some affirm of Mr Dod's strictness, and scrupling some ceremonies, I desire that when I die my soul may rest with his."[30]  Further, by personal example and influence he advanced the cause of a learned and godly ministry and of biblically mature personal religion as few others have done in the history of this nation. And in his best-selling book, Dod's Decalogue, he provides us with classic puritan practical divinity, the pure embodiment of the genre, and a powerful example of what is and what is great about English puritanism. It is to that book that we now turn. 

 

 

 

… and his seventeenth century bestseller

 

A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Tenne Commandements by John Dod and Robert Cleaver was first published in 1604 and became a publishing phenomenon of the seventeenth century.  In the Epistle Dedicatory to their patron, Sir Anthony Cope, the authors explain the circumstances which occasioned the book's publication. In 1603, some enthusiastic hearers of Dod's and Cleaver's sermons on the commandments had "published their notes (as themselves could gather them in the time of the Sermon) without our knowledge or consent, and many faults were escaped in writing and Printing which by due care and foresight might have been prevented: therefore both for our clearing, and the better satisfying of the Christian Reader, we were compelled to review and refine the whole Treatise. Wherein we have jointly laboured as near as we could to set down every thing, without addition or detraction, as it was first delivered in the public Ministry."[31]

 

The book proved to be immensely popular, running to nineteen editions over the next thirty years and, according to Collinson, making Dod and Cleaver "the most successful co-authors of the century"[32]  Other than the Bible and the Psalm-book, it was the most commonly-owned book in early Plymouth Colony[33] and in his well-known description of "the poorest or smallest library that is tolerable", Richard Baxter places "Mr Dod. on the Commandments" in his list of must-have "affectionate practical English writers".[34]

 

One of the earliest published commendations of the work combines quaintness with accuracy. William Gamage, a Welsh gentleman vicar-poet wrote two "centuries" of epigrams in 1613. One of them was for a friend who had lent him "Dod and Cleaver on the Decalogue" and ran as follows:

 

Dod with his Cleaver cleaves the stonie rocke
Of our hard harts through their laborious paine:
And plaines the way most plaine for Christ his flock,

That leads o’re hils to the celestiall plaine.
These paire of friends with thankes I send againe,
Though two in Name, in Nature yet not twaine.[35]

 

The contents of the book are easily described.  After the Epistle Dedicatory and "A Friendly Counsel to the Christian Reader" in verse, the body of the work consists of eleven sections, namely, one section on the prefatory words of Exodus 20.1-2 and then one section on each of the commandments. These sections are on average thirty pages long with the longest being the sixty-four page treatment of the fifth commandment and the shortest the nine page treatment of the tenth commandment.  The main body of the work is followed by a thirteen page catechism borrowed from another author and giving such readers as are "wearied with the larger Discourse upon the Commandments … a compendious abridgement of all the substantial points of Religion."[36]  The book closes with a versified meditation on God's name from Exodus 34, a table of "Doctrines dispersed in this Book gathered together"[37] and finally an index, "A Table of the principal things contained in this Exposition."

 

As to the genre of the book, it is that most characteristic of puritan published works, the printed sermon series and is therefore shaped by the distinctively puritan method of sermon structuring. The puritan sermon had three parts: exegetical, doctrinal and applicatory. In the first, relatively brief, exegetical part, the setting, the words and the divisions of the text would be explained. Next would follow "doctrine" and "use", sometimes just one doctrine followed by between two and five uses, and at other times a whole series of doctrines, each applied with a number of uses.  The doctrinal part would be built around and upon a didactic proposition either stated in or deduced from the text and this would then be explained, confirmed and illustrated with reasons given and objections dealt with. The uses would bring the doctrine to bear upon the lives of the hearers.  Common types of use were for trial ('where do I stand in relation to this teaching, this promise, threat, encouragement or warning?'), for reproof ('if this is true then the following beliefs and behaviours are shown to be wrong'), for consolation ('if this is true then the following people should feel encouraged'), and for consideration ('if this is true then think, think, think about what follows from it').

 

Various influences shaped this puritan method of preaching: the prophesyings of the 1570s; the spiritual brotherhood of the Cambridge circle: Chaderton, Cartwright, Hildersham, Dering, Greenham, Perkins, Ames and scores and scores of puritan ministers up and down the country who had learned pastoral ministry from these giants; the published distillation of method by Perkins and Ames (influenced by Ramus); the ease with which the method could be understood and practised; and its success in enabling hearers truly to hear the Word of God, to remember what they had learned, to think doctrinally, to see the demand of Scripture upon the details of their belief, conduct and experience and to reason with themselves and with others in accordance with Reformed divinity. And all these influences made the puritan way of handling and communicating the truth of Scripture the method for the moment, a moment, indeed, which lasted a century and more.   Dod’s Decalogue reflects just this method.

 

Ames speaks for all puritans in his assertion that “the chief scope of the Sermon … [is] the edification of the hearers.”[38] Theological innovation, unreachable exegetical certitude, man-pleasing rhetorical impressiveness were all set aside for the sake of plain declaration and powerful application of the Word. Ames again,

 

They faile therefore who stick to a naked finding out and explication of the truth … neglecting use and practice, in which Religion, and so blessedness, doth consist, [they] doe little or nothing edifie the conscience.[39]

 

There is little question but that Ames would have been well-pleased with Dod’s Decalogue. It was not original and nor was it theologically distinctive but it was an early example of its type, an example which was followed many times over in the decades ahead. It did not break new ground theologically or exegetically but neither did it stick at the level of an expository lecture. It was intended by its authors to change lives by the plain statement and direct application of the truth and, in God’s hands, it achieved this to a remarkable extent and degree in the decades after it was published.

 

It is astonishing, then, given the very great influence of this book in the seventeenth century, that it has not been reprinted since. In introducing it, therefore, I wish much more to provide a taste than an analysis. (Analysis can follow if a way can be found of getting Dod's Decalogue reprinted).  I will do this in four ways and, as much as possible, in Dod's own words.  Over the next pages, then, we will firstly, explore Dod's Decalogue as a splendid example of puritan practical divinity; secondly, comment briefly upon Dod's treatment of particular commandments; thirdly, consider the challenge to us of Dod's views about law and obedience to law as categories of Christian thinking and living; and fourthly, enjoy a sampling of gems from Dod's Decalogue leaving us, hopefully, with an appetite for more.

 

 

1.  Dod's Decalogue as an example of puritan practical divinity

 

This great work exemplifies what is best about puritan practical divinity in a hundred ways.  Here are just seven.

 

1) Human life, as well as Christian theology, is the "art of living to God"[40]

 

The puritan vision of Christian discipleship was, quite simply, God-centred. A life of communion with God and service to him is a life of utmost blessedness and yet the focus of attention must be God himself rather than the blessedness. Our confidence comes from him, from his greatness and perfection:

 

This must teach us earnestly to seek his love and favour, which if we have, nothing can hurt us: For in him we live, move, and have our being. Having his love, we have all power, wisdom, and counsel on our side. If he be perfect in himself, and all creatures have what ever they have, from him, what need we fear (he being with us) what all the creatures can do against us?  Seeing that all their power is derived from him, and used at his direction.[41]

 

This sense of the greatness and the reality of God brings boldness:

 

We may learn not to be afraid or ashamed to stand for [the commandments], as also to practise them in our lives, though the atheists and profane sinners of the world mock and scoff at us never so much for the same. For what need we be ashamed to maintain those words which God himself was not ashamed in his own person to speak?[42]

 

This serves therefore exceedingly to condemn their dastardliness, that are afraid to keep the Sabbath, or to do any other religious duty, because they should be counted and called Puritans. But is it not better that men should hate us without cause than that God should have a quarrel against us upon a just cause?  Is it not much better that they should scoff at us for good, than that God should plague us for evil?[43]

 

And confidence:

 

Nothing has any power to do a man any good but God.[44]  

 

Furthermore, the whole of life is to be lived in the knowledge that God not only sees all that we do but also that he is dealing with us in all things.  In avoiding rash anger, for example, the Christian must,

 

labour to get wisdom always and in every thing to behold God's providence, to see his hand ruling every thing and to persuade ourselves that all things come to pass according to his purpose and direction …: and then we shall not so soon fret against men … though it be unjust with men, yet it is just with God and though we have not deserved it at their hand and so they wrong us, yet we have deserved that at God's hands and much more too: he does us no wrong at all though he appoints such evil instruments to afflict us.[45]

 

One of the keys lessons of God’s unchangeableness is that the record of God’s dealings with people in the pages of Scripture can be directly applied to our own lives.[46] God afflicts and prospers, blesses and curses, delays and delivers now as he did in Scripture times.  This is not naïve; if anything, and so soon in the early modern period, Dod has moved through suspicion to the second naïvete. He knows that God is exalted and majestic but this grounds rather than undermines a confidence that he is intimately involved with human beings in the details of their lives. He knows that reading providence is no easy task, that the righteous are afflicted for a variety of reasons and that the human heart is deceitful beyond knowledge but this leads him to humility in interpreting how God deals with men and women rather than to abandoning the belief that he does so.

 

Thus, life with our eyes towards God is life as life should be.

 

 

2) The gravity of spiritual matters requires that we be in earnest about them

 

The matters of eternity weigh more heavily than the transient. Only a fool would prefer stubble to gold or value a dumb beast more highly than a human soul.  How, for example, should one decide where to live?

 

This also serves much for the reproof of them that only look to their bodies and present estate, without any regard to their souls: and therefore whithersoever their commodities lead them there they plant themselves.  Be the towns or families never so superstitious, that is not respected, so that gain and honour may arise to them from thence, there they will dwell, and there they will match their children.[47] 

 

And we therefore argue from the greater to the lesser to comfort ourselves in temporal affliction:

 

Has he removed the tyranny of sin, which would have damned our souls and cannot he give us refreshing from the misery of our bodies?  If God deliver from sin, death and hell, never faint, as though he could not, or would not rid us from outward afflictions. If he have overcome the greater, the lesser shall not withstand him. If God grant us freedom from those things that are simply evil (as sin is) and the cause of all ills then it is easier to succour us against those which are medicines against evil and are often turned into blessings.[48]

 

Self-examination

 

If the teachings of Scripture are true then one cannot be too serious about spiritual realities. It is vital that individuals know where they stand spiritually and self-examination is a key means to this which puritan preachers constantly urged upon their hearers. For example, Dod tells us that since obedience is rendered by those who know God to be their God, this raises the question as to how a person is to know whether or not he or she is the Lord's. To find out, self-examination is necessary in order to seek certain marks. Dod lists several:

 

So that, if God the Father has regenerated us, and Christ has killed our sins; and the holy Ghost has made us ashamed of them, to confess them, likewise if it work in us love, and patience, and moderation of our affections, and make us able to pray to God, then God is our God, and this will make us obey: but if this be shaken, all is shaken: for this is the foundation of all obedience.[49]

 

And in describing them more fully it becomes clear that attention must be given to spiritual experience as well as to outward conduct:

 

Also God the Son, Christ Jesus, where he comes, he kills sin, he abates our lust and worldliness, and works a fresh spring of grace and holiness: but if we feel no work of death in us to mortify our sin, then how can we know that he died for us?[50]   

 

Particular circumstances, too, will prompt self-examination. For example,

 

 … when we see that God does not bless us according to his promises made to those that keep his commandments, then we must examine our selves diligently concerning our obedience to this his law, whether we live not in some sin, or whether some old sin lie not in us, which has never been repented of. Wherefore, when he strikes us, we must begin to examine our obedience.[51]

 

 

Universal obedience

 

Spiritual seriousness shows itself not only in self-examination but in endeavours after universal obedience. After all, if the Ten Commandments are the demands of God, obedience must be universal. 

 

Whence it is to be learned, that whosoever will have any true comfort by his obedience to God's law, must not content himself to look to one, or two: but must make conscience, and have a care to keep them all and every one.[52]

 

Partial obedience is insincere because in reality it is serving self rather than recognising the loving authority of God. And partial obedience is also unstable:

 

And this was Herod's case, he did many things according to John' preaching, and did hear him gladly, and for some other commandments was reasonably willing to be ruled: but for the seventh he must needs have a dispensation; and he kept this resolution that let all the preachers in the world say what they could, he would not be brought to leave his incest, nor to part with his brother's wife. Therefore we see how soon he fell to break, first the third commandment, in swearing sinfully to that light and wanton woman, to give her whatsoever she should ask, and then also he grew to persecute John and cut off his head: so, taking liberty to himself to break the seventh commandment, he cast off all care and regard of the rest.[53]

 

A further aspect of this universal obedience and earnestness about spiritual realities is, of course, the famed puritan concern for detail, the response to the charge that puritans were "precisians" being, simply, "I serve a precise God".  Dod expresses this concern too.  On the tenth commandment:

 

The least motion after the least thing of our neighbour's is sin  … there is nothing so small but it is something … though the matter be small wherein one offends, yet it is not a small matter to offend God.[54]

 

And he proves that "the first motion and inclination of the heart to any sin … is a sin"  because

 

… these lusts break God's commandments, and are against the law of charity, and come from an evil cause, and bring with them such evil effects, therefore the least evil imagination arising in the heart, without any agreement of the mind to put it into practice, is sin, and deserves the curse of God.[55]

 

 

3)  The presentation of Christian truth must be Scripture-saturated