Keep me from falsehood, let Thy law
With me in grace abide;
The way of faithfulness I choose,
Thy precepts are my guide.

I cleave unto Thy truth, O Lord;
From shame deliver me;
In glad obedience I will live
Through strength bestowed by Thee.¹

The law of God addresses the world and the life of every in­dividual directly or indirectly.

Protestant theologians have written much about the various applications or uses of the law in the life of soci­ety at large and in the individual lives of both the Christian and the unbeliever. Classic Protestant theol­ogy posits a threefold use of the law: the usus primus ("first use"), or civil use of the law in the life and affairs of state and society; the usus secundus ("second use"), or evangelical use of the law as a teacher of sin in the experience or process of conversion unto God; and the usus tertius ("third use"), or didactic use of the law as a rule of thankful obedience on the part of the Christian. ² It is this last or third use of the law that inspired the prayer of the psalmist cited above, for he knows that only God's law can direct him as he endeavors to live "in glad obedience" as a child of God.

The Civil Use of the Law⤒🔗

The first use of the law is its func­tion in public life as a guide to the civil magistrate in the prosecution of his task as the minister of God in things pertaining to the state. The magistrate is required to reward the good and punish the evil (Romans 13:3, ­4). Nothing could be more essential to this work than a reliable standard of right and wrong, good and evil. No better standard can be found than the law of God.

Here the Protestant Re­formers were in complete accord. Concerning the re­straint of sin, Martin Luther writes in his Lec­tures on Galatians (3:19), "The first understanding and use of the Law is to restrain the wicked ...This civic restraint is extremely necessary and was instituted by God, both for the sake of public peace and for the sake of preserving everything, but especially to prevent the course of the Gospel from being hindered by the tumults and seditions of wild men." ³ John Calvin concurs:

The ... function of the law is this: at least by fear of punishment to restrain certain men who are un­touched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats in the law. But they are restrained not because their inner mind is stirred or affected, but because, being bridled, so to speak, they keep their hands from outward activity, and hold inside the depravity that otherwise they would wantonly have indulged.⁴

The civil use of the law is rooted thor­oughly in the Scriptures (most specifi­cally in Romans 13:1-7) and in a real­istic doctrine of fallen human nature. The law teaches us that the powers that be are ordained of God in order to administer justice — justice which necessarily includes being a terror to the workers of iniquity. The powers that be bear the sword; they possess a divinely conferred right of punish­ment, even of ultimate, capital pun­ishment (vv. 3-4).

This first use of the law, however, serves not only to prevent society from lapsing into chaos; it also serves to promote righ­teousness: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (1 Timothy 2:1-2). The "higher powers" must not only strive to intimidate evil, but also to provide a peaceable context in which the gospel, godliness and honesty may prosper. This duty compels the state, the Reformers believed, to preserve certain rights, such as free­dom of worship, freedom to preach and freedom to observe the Lord's Day.

The implications of the first use of the law for the Christian are inescap­able: He must respect and obey the state so long as the state does not command what God forbids or for­bid what God commands. In all other cases, civil disobedience is unlaw­ful. To resist authority is to resist the ordinance of God, "and they that re­sist shall receive to themselves dam­nation" (Romans 13:2). This is critical to affirm in our day when even Chris­tians are prone to be swept along with a worldly spirit of rebellion and contempt for authority. We need to hear and heed what Calvin writes:

The first duty of subjects toward their magistrates is to think most honorably of their office, which they recognize as a jurisdiction bestowed by God, and on that account to esteem and reverence them as ministers and represen­tatives of God.... (Even) in a very wicked man utterly unworthy of all honor, provided he has the pub­lic power in his hands, that noble and divine power resides which the Lord has by his Word given to the ministers of his justice and judgment.⁵

Of course, this does not imply that the believer forfeits his right to criti­cize or even condemn legislation which strays from the principles of Scripture. It does mean that a significant part of our "adorning the doctrine of God" involves our will­ing subjection to lawful authority in every sphere of life — be it in the home, school, church or state.

The Evangelical Use of the Law⁶ ←⤒🔗

Wielded by the Spirit of God, the moral law secondly serves a critical function in the experience of conver­sion. It disciplines, educates, con­victs, curses. The law not only exposes our sinfulness; it also con­demns us, pronounces a curse upon us, declares us liable to the wrath of God and the torments of hell. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10). The law is a hard taskmaster; it knows no mercy. It terrifies us, strips us of all our righteousness, and drives us to the end of the law, Christ Jesus, who is our only acceptable righteousness with God. "Wherefore the law was our school­master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24). Not that the law itself can lead us to a saving knowledge of God in Christ. Rather, the Holy Spirit uses the law as a mirror to show us our impotence and our guilt, to shut us up to hope in mercy alone, and to induce repentance, creating and sus­taining the sense of spiritual need out of which faith in Christ is born.

Here, too, Luther and Calvin see eye-to-eye. ⁷Typical of Luther's writ­ings are his comments on Galatians 2:17:

The proper use and aim of the Law is to make guilty those who are smug and at peace, so that they may see that they are in danger of sin, wrath, and death, so that they may be terrified and despair­ing, blanching and quaking at the rustling of a leaf (Leviticus 26:36) ... If the Law is a ministry of sin, it fol­lows that it is also a ministry of wrath and death. For just as the Law reveals sin, so it strikes the wrath of God into a man and threatens him with death. ⁸

Calvin is no less intense: (The law) warns, informs, con­victs and lastly condemns every man of his own righteousness ... After he is compelled to weigh his life in the scales of the law, laying aside all that presump­tion of fictitious righteousness, he discovers that he is a long way from holiness, and is in fact teeming with a multitude of vices, with which he previously thought himself undefiled ... The law is like a mirror. In it we con­template our weakness, then the iniquity arising from this, and finally the curse coming from both — just as a mirror shows us the spots on our face.⁹

This convicting use of the law is also critical for the believer's sanc­tification, for it serves to prevent the resurrection of self-righteousness — that ungodly self-righteousness which is always prone to reassert it­self even in the holiest of saints. The believer continues to live under the law as a lifelong penitent.

This chastening work of the law does not imply that the believer's justifica­tion is ever diminished or annulled. From the moment of regeneration, his state before God is fixed and irrevo­cable. He is a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). He can never re­vert to a state of condemnation or lose his sonship. Nevertheless, the law exposes the ongoing poverty of his sanctification on a daily basis. He learns that there is a war within him, so that when he would do good, evil is present with him (Romans 7:21). He must repeatedly condemn himself, deplore his wretchedness and cry daily for fresh applications of the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin (Romans 7:24; 1 John 1:7, 9).

Obedience: The Third Use of the Law←⤒🔗

The Didactic Use of the Law←↰⤒🔗

The third or didactic use of the law addresses the daily life of the Christian. In the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, the law instructs the believer how to express gratitude to God for deliverance from all his sin and misery (Q. 2). The third use of the law is a subject that fills a rich chapter in the history of Reformation doctrine.

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)←↰⤒🔗

The history of the third use of the law begins with Philip Melanchthon, Luther's co­worker and right-hand support. Already in 1521 Melanchthon had planted the seed when he affirmed that "believers have use of the Decalogue" to assist them in mortifying the flesh. ¹⁰ In a formal sense he increased the number of functions or uses of the law from two to three for the first time in a third edition of his work on Colossians pub­lished in 1534 ¹¹ — two years be­fore Calvin produced the first edition of his Institutes. Melanchthon argued that the law coerces (first use), terrifies (second use), and requires obe­dience (third use). "The third reason for retaining the Decalogue," he writes, "is that obedience is required." ¹²

By 1534 Melanchthon was using the forensic nature of jus­tification as bedrock for establishing the necessity of good works in the believer's life. ¹³ He argued that though the believer's first and primary righ­teousness was his justification in Christ, there was also a sec­ond righteousness — the righ­teousness of a good conscience which, notwithstanding its im­perfection, is still pleasing to God since the believer himself is in Christ.¹⁴ The conscience of the believer, made good by di­vine declaration, must continue to use the law to please God, for the law reveals the essence of God's will and provides the framework of Christian obedi­ence. He asserted that this "good conscience" is a "great and necessary godly consola­tion." ¹⁵ As Timothy Wengert as­serts, he was no doubt encour­aged to emphasize the connec­tion between a good con­science and good works by his desire to defend Luther and other Protestants from the charge that "they deny good works without at the same time robbing the conscience of the gospel's consolation. He thus devised a way to speak of the necessity of works for the be­liever by excluding their neces­sity for justification." ¹⁶  Wengert concludes that by arguing from the necessity of knowing how we are for­given, to the necessity of obeying the law, and to the necessity of knowing how this obedience pleases God, Melanchthon managed to place law and obedience at the center of his theology. ¹⁷

Martin Luther (1483-1546)←↰⤒🔗

Unlike Melanchthon, who went on to codify the third use of the law in the 1535 and 1555 editions of his major work on Christian doctrine,¹⁸ Luther never saw a need to embrace formally a third use of the law. Lutheran scholars, however, have debated at length over whether Luther actually taught in fact, though not in name, a third use of the law.¹⁹ Suffice it to say, Luther advocated that though the Christian is not "under the law," this ought not be understood as if he were "with­out the law." For Luther, the believer has a different attitude to the law. The law is not an obligation, but a delight. He is joyfully moved towards God's law by the Spirit's power. He conforms to the law freely, not because of the law's demands, but be­cause of his love for God and His righteousness. ²⁰ Since in his experi­ence the law's heavy yoke is replaced by the light yoke of Christ, doing what the law commands becomes a joyous and spontaneous action. The law drives sinners to Christ through whom they "become doers of the law."²¹ Moreover, because he re­mains sinful, the Christian needs the law to direct and regulate his life. Thus Luther can assert that the law which serves as a "stick" (i.e. rod — second use) God uses to beat him to Christ, is simultaneously a "stick" (i.e. cane — which Calvin would call the third use) that assists him in walking the Christian life. This em­phasis on the law as a "walking-stick" is borne out implicitly by his expo­sition of the ten commandments in various contexts — each of which in­dicates that he firmly believed that the Christian life is to be regulated by these commandments. ²²

Luther's concern was not to deny sanctification nor the law as a guid­ing norm in the believer's life; rather, he wished to emphasize that good works and obedience to the law can in no way make us acceptable with God. Hence he writes in The Freedom of the Christian, "Our faith in Christ does not free us from works, but from false opinions concerning works, that is, from the foolish presumption that justification is ac­quired by works." And in Table Talk he is quoted as saying, "Whoso has Christ has rightly fulfilled the law, but to take away the law altogether, which sticks in nature, and is writ­ten in our hearts and born in us, is a thing impossible and against God." ²³

John Calvin (1509-1564)←↰⤒🔗

What Melanchthon began to de­velop in the direction of a God-pleasing righteousness in Christ and Luther left somewhat undeveloped as a joyous action and a "walking-stick," Calvin fleshed out as a full-fledged doctrine, teaching that the primary use of the law for the be­liever is as a rule of life. Though Calvin borrowed Melanchthon's ter­minology, "third use of the law" (ter­tius uses legis), and probably gleaned additional material from Martin Bucer,²⁴  he provided new contours and content to the doctrine and was unique among the early Reformers in stressing that this third function of the law as a norm and guide for the believer is its "proper and prin­cipal" use. ²⁵

Calvin's teaching on the third use of the law is crystal clear. "What is the rule for life which (God) has given us?" he asks in the Genevan Cat­echism, and replies, "His law." Later in the same catechism, he writes:

(The law) shows the mark at which we ought to aim, the goal towards which we ought to press, that each of us, according to the measure of grace be­stowed upon him, may endeavour to frame his life according to the highest rectitude, and, by constant study, continually ad­vance more and more.²⁶

Calvin wrote definitively of the third use of the law already in 1536 in the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion:

Believers... profit by the law be­cause from it they learn more thoroughly each day what the Lord's will is like ... It is as if some servant, already prepared with complete earnestness of heart to commend himself to his master, must search out and oversee his master's ways in or­der to conform and accommo­date himself to them. Moreover, however much they may be prompted by the Spirit and ea­ger to obey God, they are still weak in the flesh, and would rather serve sin than God. The law is to this flesh like a whip to an idle and balky ass, to goad, stir, arouse it to work.²⁷

In the last edition of the Institutes, completed in 1564 just prior to his death, Calvin retains what he wrote in 1536 but stresses even more clearly and positively that believers profit from the law in two ways:

• first, here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord's will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understanding of it;

• second, by frequent meditation upon it to be aroused to obedience, be strength­ened in it, and be drawn back from the slippery path of transgression. In this way the saints must press on.

• Calvin concludes: For what would be less lovable than the law if, with importuning and threatening alone, it troubled souls through fear, and distressed them through fright? David especially shows that in the law he apprehended the Mediator, without whom there is no delight or sweetness. ²⁸

This predominantly positive view of the law as a norm and guide for the believer to encourage him to cling to God and to obey God ever more fervently is where Calvin distances himself from Luther. For Luther, the law generally denotes something negative and hostile — something usually listed in close proximity with sin, death, or the devil. Luther's dominant interest is in the second use of the law, even when he considers the function of the law in sanctifying the believer. For Calvin, as I, John Hesselink cor­rectly notes, "the law was viewed primarily as a positive expression of the will of God ... Calvin's view could be called Deuteronomic, for to him law and love are not antithetical, but are correlates." ²⁹ For Calvin, the be­liever strives to follow God's law not as an act of compulsory obedience, but as a response of grateful obedience. The law promotes, under the tute­lage of the Spirit, an ethic of grati­tude in the believer, which both encourages loving obedience and cau­tions him against sin, so that he sings with David in Psalm 19:

Most perfect is the law of God,
Restoring those that stray;
His testimony is most sure,
Proclaiming wisdom's way.

The precepts of the Lord are right;
With joy they fill the heart;
The Lord's commandments all are pure,
And clearest light impart.

The fear of God is undefiled
And ever shall endure;
The statutes of the Lord are truth
And righteousness most pure.

They warn from ways of wickedness
Displeasing to the Lord,
And in the keeping of His word
There is a great reward.³⁰

In sum, for Luther, the law helps the believer — especially in recognizing and confronting indwelling sin; for Calvin, the believer needs the law to direct him in holy living in order to serve God out of love. ³¹

The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)←↰⤒🔗

Ultimately, Calvin's view of the third use of the law won the day in Reformed theology. An early indica­tion of this strongly Calvinistic view of the law is found in the Heidelberg Catechism, composed a year or two before Calvin's death. Though the Catechism begins with an intense emphasis on the evangelical use of the law in driving sinners to Christ (Questions 3-18), a detailed exhor­tation on the prohibitions and re­quirements of the law placed upon the believer is reserved for the final section which teaches "how I shall express my gratitude to God" for de­liverance in Jesus Christ (Questions 92-115).³²

The Decalogue provides the material content for good works which are done out of thankfulness for the grace of God in His beloved Son.

The Puritans←↰⤒🔗

The Puritans carried on Calvin's emphasis on the normativity of the law for the believer as a rule of life and to arouse heartfelt gratitude, which in turn promotes genuine lib­erty rather than antinomian licen­tiousness. ³³ To cite only a few of hun­dreds of Puritan sources available on these themes: Anthony Burgess con­demns those who assert that they are above the law or that the law written in the heart by regeneration "renders the written law needless." ³⁴ Typically Puritan is Thomas Bedford's affirmation for the need of the written law as the believer's guide:

There must also be another law written in tables, and to be read by the eye, to be heard by the ear: Else ... how shall the believer himself be sure that he doth not swerve from the right way wherein he ought to walk? ... The Spirit, I grant, is the justified man's Guide and Teacher: ... But he teacheth them ... by the law and testimony. ³⁵

The Spirit's teaching results in Christians being made "friends" with the law, Samuel Rutherford quipped, for "after Christ has made agreement between us and the law, we delight to walk in it for the love of Christ." ³⁶ That delight, grounded in grateful gratitude for the gospel, produces an unspeakable liberty. Samuel Crooke put it this way: "From the command­ment, as a rule of life, (believers) are not freed, but on the contrary, are inclined and disposed, by (their) free spirit, to willingly obey it. Thus to the regenerate the law becomes as it were gospel, even a law of liberty." ³⁷

The Westminster Larger Catechism, com­posed largely by Puritan divines, provides the most fitting summary of the Reformed and Puritan view on the believer's relationship to the moral law:

Q. 97. What special use is there of the moral law to the regenerate?

A. Although they that are regen­erate, and believe in Christ, be delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so as thereby they are neither justified nor condemned; yet, besides the general uses thereof common to them with all men, it is of spe­cial use, to show them how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good; and thereby to provoke them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.³⁸

Practical Conclusions from the Third Use of the Law←⤒🔗

Biblical Character←↰⤒🔗

Several important conclusions about the Christian's third use of the law can now be drawn.³⁹ First, the third use of the law is Biblical. Old and New Testament scriptures teem with expositions of the law directed primarily at believers to assist them in the abiding pursuit of sanctification. The Psalms repeatedly affirm that the believer relishes the law of God both in the inner man and in his outward life.⁴⁰ One of the psalmists' greatest concerns is to ascertain the good and perfect will of God, and then to run in the way of His commandments. The Sermon on the Mount and the ethical portions of Paul's epistles are prime New Testament examples of the law being used as a rule of life. The directions contained in these portions of Scripture are intended primarily for those already redeemed, and seek to encourage them to reflect a theology of grace with an ethics of gratitude. In this ethics of gratitude the believer lives out of and follows in the footsteps of his Savior, who was Himself the Servant of the Lord and Law-Fulfiller, daily obeying all His Father's commandments throughout His earthly sojourn.

Contrary to Antinomianism and Legalism←↰⤒🔗

Second, the third use of the law combats both antinomianism and legalism. Antinomianism (anti=against; nomos=law) teaches that Christians no longer have any obligation toward the moral law because Jesus has fulfilled it and freed them from it in saving them by grace alone. Paul, of course, strongly rejected this heresy in Romans 3:8, as did Luther in his battles against Johann Agricola, and as did the New England Puritans in their opposition to Anne Hutchinson. Antinominians misunderstand the nature of justification by faith, which, though granted apart from works of the law, does not preclude the necessity of sanctification. And one of sanctification's most important constitutive elements is the daily cultivation of grateful obedience to the law. As Samuel Bolton graphically states: "The law sends us to the gospel, that we may be justified, and the gospel sends us to the law again to enquire what is our duty being justified." ⁴¹

Antinomians charge that those who maintain the necessity of the law as a rule of life for the believer fall prey to legalism. Now it is possible, of course, that abuse of the third use of the law can result in legalism. When an elaborate code is developed for believers to follow, covering every conceivable problem and tension in moral living, no freedom is left for believers in any area of their lives to make personal, existential decisions based on the principles of Scripture. In such a context man-made law smothers the divine gospel, and legalistic sanctification swallows up gracious justification. The Christian is then brought back into a bondage akin to that of medieval Roman Catholic canon law.

The law affords us a comprehensive ethic, but not an exhaustive application. Scripture provides us with broad principles and illustrative paradigms, not minute particularization which can be mechanically applied to every circumstance. Daily the Christian must bring the law's broad strokes to bear on his particular decisions, carefully weighing all things according to the "law and testimony" (Isaiah 8:20) while striving and praying all the while for a growing sense of Christian prudence.

Legalism and thankful obedience to God's law operate in two radically different spheres. They differ as much from each other as do compulsory, begrudging slavery and willing, joyous service. Sadly, too many in our day confuse "law" or "legal" with "legalism" or being "legalistic." Seldom is it realized that Christ did not undermine the law when He undermined legalism. Legalism is indeed a tyrant and an antagonist, but law must be our helpful and necessary friend. Legalism is a futile attempt to attain merit with God. Legalism is the error of the Pharisees: it cultivates outward conformity to the letter of the law without regard for the inward attitude of the heart.

The third use of the law steers a middle course between antinomianism and legalism. Neither antinomianism nor legalism are true to either the law or the gospel. As John Fletcher has perceptively noted, "Pharisees are no more truly legal than antinomians are truly evangelical." ⁴²  Antinomianism emphasizes Christian freedom from the condemnation of the law at the expense of the believer's pursuit of holiness. It accents justification at the expense of sanctification. It fails to see that the abrogation of the law's condemning power does not abrogate the law's commanding power. Legalism so stresses the believer's pursuit of holiness, that obedience to the law becomes something more than the fruit of faith. Obedience then becomes a constituent element of justification. The commanding power of the law for sanctification all but suffocates the condemning power of the law for justification. In the final analysis, legalism denies in practice, if not in theory, a Reformed concept of justification. It accents sanctification at the expense of justification. The Reformed concept of the third use of the law helps the believer safeguard both in doctrine and in practice a healthy balance between justification and sanctification.⁴³ Justification necessarily leads to and finds its proper fruit in sanctification. ⁴⁴ Salvation is by gracious faith alone, and yet cannot but produce works of grateful obedience.

Promotes Spontaneous Love←↰⤒🔗

Third, the third use of the law promotes love. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). God's law is a gift and evidence of His tender love for His children (Psalm 147:19-20). It is not a cruel or hard taskmaster for those who are in Christ. God is no more cruel in giving His law to His own than is a farmer who builds fences to protect his cattle and horses from wandering into roads and highways. This was vividly illustrated recently in Alberta, where a horse belonging to a farmer broke through her fence, found her way to the highway and was struck by a car. Not only the horse, but also the 17-year-old driver was killed immediately. The farmer and his family wept all night. Broken fences do irreparable damage. Broken commandments reap untold consequences. But God's law, obeyed out of Spirit-worked love, promotes joy and the rejoicing of the heart. Let us thank God for His law which fences us in to contented enjoyment of the green pastures of His Word.

In Scripture, law and love are not enemies, but best of friends. Indeed, the essence of the law is love: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40; cf. Romans 13:8-10). Just as a loving subject obeys his king, a loving son obeys his father, and a loving wife submits to her husband, so a loving believer yearns to obey the law of God. Then, as we have seen, the dedication of the entire Sabbath to God becomes not a burden, but a delight.

Promotes Authentic Christian Freedom←↰⤒🔗

Finally, the third use of the law promotes freedom — genuine Christian freedom. Today's widespread abuse of the idea of Christian liberty, which is only freedom taken as an occasion to serve the flesh, should not obscure the fact that true Christian freedom is both defined and protected by the lines drawn for the believer in the law of God. Where God's law limits our freedom, it is only for our greater good; and where God's law imposes no such limits, in matters of faith and worship, the Christian enjoys perfect freedom of conscience from all the doctrines and commandments of men. In matters of daily life, true Christian freedom consists in the willing, thankful and joyful obedience which the believer renders to God and to Christ. As Calvin wrote of the consciences of true Christians, that they "observe the law, not as if constrained by the necessity of the law, but that freed from the law's yoke they willingly obey God's will." ⁴⁵

 God's Word binds us as believers, but His alone. He alone is Lord of our consciences. We are truly free in keeping God's commandments, for freedom flows out of grateful servitude, not out of autonomy or anarchy. We were created to love and serve God above all, and our neighbor as ourselves — all in accord with God's will and Word. Only when we find this purpose back, do we find true Christian freedom. True freedom, Calvin writes, is "a free servitude and a serving freedom." True freedom is obedient freedom. Only "those who serve God are free ... We obtain liberty in order that we may more promptly and more readily obey God." ⁴⁶

I am, O Lord, Thy servant, bound yet free,
Thy handmaid's son, whose shackles
Thou hast broken;
Redeemed by grace, I'll render as a token
Of gratitude my constant praise to Thee.⁴⁷

This then is the only way to live and to die: "We are God's," concludes Calvin, "let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God's: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God's: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal."⁴⁸