Secondly, That the will of God to which our obedience is required is the revealed will of God contained in his word; whose compliance with his decree is such, that hence we learn three things tending to the execution of it:

First, That it is the condition of the word of God, and the dispensation thereof, instantly to persuade to faith and obedience.

Secondly, That it is our duty by all means to aspire to the performance of all things by it enjoined, and our fault if we do not.

Thirdly, That God by these means will accomplish his eternal decree of saving his elect; and that he willeth the salvation of others, inasmuch as he calleth them unto the performance of the condition thereof.

Now, our obedience is so to be regulated by this revealed will of God, that we may sin either by omission against its precepts or commission against its prohibitions; although by our so omitting or committing of anything the secret will or purpose of God be fulfilled. Had Abraham disobeyed God’s precept, when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, though God’s will had been accomplished thereby, who never intended it, yet Abraham had grievously sinned against the revealed will of God, the rule of his duty. The holiness of our actions consisteth in a conformity unto His precepts, and not unto His purposes. On this ground Gregory affirmeth, “That many fulfil the will of God” (that is, his intentions) “when they think to change it” (by transgressing his precepts); “and by resisting imprudently, obey God’s purpose.”

And to show how merely we in our actions are tied to this rule of our duty, St Augustine shows how a man may do good in a thing cross to God’s secret will, and evil in that which complieth with it, which he illustrates by the example of a sick parent having two children, the one wicked, who desires his father’s death, the other godly, and he prays for his life. But the will of God is he [the father] shall die, agreeably to the desire of the wicked child; and yet it is the other who hath performed his duty, and done what is pleasing unto God.  (Works of John Owen, Vol. 10, 48-49).