law. He came to be a Saviour, and not a lawgiver. Indeed he preached the law, but it was to bring men to the knowledge of sin, and to see and to feel their want of his salvation. But he preached nothing new. He only enforced the law in its spiritual nature, and in its full extent, shewing the length and breadth, the depth and height of the commandment. He would not have his people so much as entertain a thought of his coming to make a change in the moral law. "Think not, says he, that I am come to destroy "the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil "it" and he did fulfil it; for he was born under the law, and was obedient to it even unto death. The law was unalterable. It could not change, unless God's most holy mind and will could change, which is impossible, and therefore the law being broken could not remit the deserved punishment, unless some infinitely perfect obedience should be paid, and some infinitely meritorious sufferings should be undergone in the sinner's stead, by which the law might be magnified and made honourable. And the Lord Christ undertook to do this. He vouchsafed to obey and to suffer for his people, to obey the precepts, and to suffer the pains and penalties of the law. The law had indicted them, and found them guilty of disobedience. Christ came to obey for them, as it is written, "By the obedience of one "shall many be made righteous." The law had put them under the curse, and he came to redeem them from the curse of the law. The law threatened to punish them, and he came to bear their sins, and the punishment due to them in his

own body upon the tree. So that Christ came not to publish a new remedial law, but to glorify the moral law, and to demonstrate the unchangeable nature of it, since no obedience, and no sufferings, but his, which were absolutely perfect, divine and infinite, could work out such a righteousness for any one sinner, as the law required, in order to his being justified in the sight of God.

As these arguments shew that the sinner cannot of himself attain the perfect righteousness which the law demands, so do they prove that he cannot by any means in his own power escape the punishment which the law threatens. The law requires unsinning obedience, and enforces it upon those sanctions, Do this, and thou shalt live: In the day that thou transgressest, dying thou shalt surely die. These sanctions of the law are as much the mind and will of God, as the rule of the law itself. And his will is unalterable, consequently upon transgression the sanction took place, and the transgressor became subject to the first, and to the second death, which justice was bound to see inflicted upon him. What could he do in this case to deliver himself? Could he offer any thing to diviné justice, to save himself from receiving the wages of sin? No. They are his due, and he must receive them. Say, he is sorry for his sin, and weeps and mourns bitterly. What does this avail? This is only an open confession of his guilt, and an acknowledgment that heserves punishment. Suppose he amends and reforms his life. What atonement is this for his former

bad life? The law will not be satisfied with such partial obedience. But he promises never to sin for the future: If he could keep his promise, it would not satisfy the law, for what becomes of his past disobedience? One single sin cuts him off for ever from being saved by the law; and since all have sinned, consequently by the works of the broken law can no man living be justified.

This is the true state of all men by nature. They are all sinners, and they cannot be saved by the moral law. It can neither altogether nor in part justify them, and therefore it shuts them up under guilt, and leaves them without remedy, and without hope. As soon as man was fallen into this state, it pleased God to reveal that rich plan of grace and mercy, which is contained in the gospel, of which this is a short sketch.

1. The gospel is salvation from the law. It brings glad tidings for poor convinced sinners, discovering to them how their sins may be pardoned, and they may be redeemed from the curses of the broken law. It reveals to them what Christ has done and suffered to satisfy the law, and how he endured the pains and penalties of it, dying the death, to which the law had sentenced them. And the gospel calls upon them to receive the benefit of what he did and suf fered as his free gift, proposing to them, without money and without price, all the graces and blessings which, the Saviour purchased with his life and death.

2. The gospel sets forth to the convinced sinner salvation from guilt and punishment, by giving him freely as perfect a righteousness as

the law demands. It invites him to receive the righteousness of Christ, against which the utmost rigour of the law can make no objection: Because it is the righteousness of God, a divine, infinite and absolutely perfect righteousness. When this righteousness is imputed to the sinner, he is pardoned, the law ceases to accuse, conscience no longer condemns, he has peace with God, and the love of God reigns in his heart.

3. In order to receive this righteousness the gospel requires no previous qualification. The sinner is not regarded, as fit and meet to receive Christ's righteousness by any thing he himself can do. Christ freely wrought it out, and he freely gives it. The works of the law have no merit to purchase it; For it is written, "We "are justified freely by his grace through the "redemption that is in Christ Jesus." And if it be by grace, then it cannot be by any works or qualifications.

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4. But how is Christ's righteousness received, and the sinner made righteous by it at God's bar? By faith and not by works: "For to him "that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for "righteousness. Where is boasting then! It is "excluded. By what law? of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude, "that a man is justified by faith without the "deeds of the law."

5. With respect then to the sinner's acceptance and justification before God, the law and the gospel ought to be distinguished in these as well as in other respects.

According to the law salvation is by works, according to the gospel it is by grace.

The law says, Do this; but the gospel says, Believe this, and thou shalt be saved.

The law threatens to punish the sinner for the first offence, but the gospel offers him pardon for many offences.

The law leaves him under guilt and condemnation, the gospel invites him to receive pardon and salvation.

The law sentences him to death, the gospel offers him justification to life.

By the law he is a guilty sinner, by the gospel he may be made a glorious saint.

If he die under the guilt of the broken law, hell will be his everlasting portion; if he die a partaker of the grace of the gospel, heaven will be his eternal inheritance.

6. But if the law and the gospel are distinct in these and several other respects, some persons may think the law is totally repealed by the gospel: for they cannot see wherefore serveth the law, unless it be to justify a sinner. The law is unalterable. It cannot change any more than God can change. To this day it stands in full force, and not one tittle of it is repealed. It is still the revelation of God's most holy mind and will, concerning the obedience which he requires of his creatures. And if they disobey, the law immediately passes sentence and condemns them to death. While they continue careless and secure in sin, they consider not the law as the ministration of death and condemnation; and none of them see it in this light, until the Holy Spirit