Paul; "We are delivered from the law; we are not under the law, but under grace." And so saith the apostle's quotation; "I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." And what laws are these? Are they the law of Moses or the law of heathens? Nay, saith Paul, neither of them. "For [God] finding fault with them, saith, Behold the days come when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." Here is a new covenant; and, "in that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old." "The law and the prophets were until John," saith Christ: "since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it." And it is those, and only those, who feel the terrors of the moral law, and the accusations of the law of nature, that press into this kingdom.

Quot. I am under the law to Christ, saith Paul.

Answ. But what law was that, in Christ, that Paul was under? He is of age; he shall speak for himself: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Here Paul tells us, that the Holy Spirit hath a law, as the gospel is called the ministry of

the Spirit; and that this law of the Spirit is in Christ Jesus; and that the operation of it on Paul's heart made him free from the destroying power of the law of sin, and from the binding and damning power of the law of death, engraven on tables of stone: or, in other words, this law of the Spirit made Paul free from what you call natural and moral obligations; which are the ministrations of death.

Quot. For I delight in the law after the inner

man.

Answ. Paul was renewed in the spirit of his mind. The new covenant, not the old, was put into Paul's heart, and in his mind had the Lord written it and with his renewed mind he served this law of God; for Paul served in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. Being made free from the ministration of death engraven on stone, which, he says, worketh wrath, he was enabled to perform spiritual service. And, as the law of the Spirit in Christ revealed to Paul an imputed righteousness adequate to the law, and produced true holiness in Paul, which the law requires; and the love of God shed abroad in his heart, which the law calls for; Paul knew by these things that the righteousness of the law was fulfilled in him, though not by him; therefore he could do no less than love this law of the Spirit after the inner man.

Quot. What law?

The moral law.

Some

say, the law of love. And I grant it; for the mo

ral law and the law of love are synonymous terms, and mean one and the self-same thing.

Answ. If the moral law, engraven on tables of stone, is the law of love, then no great thanks can be due to him who redeemed them that were under this law; nor are we much indebted to free grace, which delivered us from it. For what yoke can be so easy as this law of love? Not the Saviour's yoke, for that is attended with a daily cross and many sips of the bitter cup, which this moral law of love doth not enjoin. I never knew till now that the moral law was ever called the law of love. God calls it a fiery law; that the fire of it was kindled in his anger; that it worketh wrath, and is the ministration of death and condemnation; that those who are of the works of it are under the curse of it; for to him that worketh the reward is reckoned of debt, which he can never pay; and which law is the strength of sin, and will imprison every such debtor till the utmost mite be paid; for "heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle of the law shall fail;" fail of its power, of its unlimited demands, or of the execution of its dreadful curses. Vain jangling, indeed! The love of God in Christ Jesus, the bond of the everlasting covenant, the first fruit of the Holy Ghost, the constraining power of the law of the Spirit, is here palmed upon the law of Moses! Grace and truth, the effects of sovereign love, came by Moses; but antinomianism and licentiousness, according to this book, came by Jesus Christ. Such publica

tions as these may serve to ease the minds of authors who envy the happiness and success of God's servants. They may serve to blacken their characters, to harden carnal professors against the grace of Christ, to stagger the minds of the simple, and to keep up the popularity of those whose emptiness God is pleased to discover to his own children; but I believe such writers will find the latter end to be bitterness.

If a man, who had transgressed the laws of his country, and who was tried and condemned to death by the same, and who should receive a free pardon from the sovereign clemency of his king at the place of execution, should ascribe his pardon to the love of the law, instead of the undeserved love of his king; and attribute his salvation from death to the law that dealt the sentence of death to him; he would not only shew the greatest ingratitude to the grace of his sovereign, but give sufficient proof that he was touched with insanity. The case is the same here. The law was added because of transgression, that sin by it might appear sin; that the offence might abound; yea, that sin might become exceeding sinful; that every mouth might be stopped by it, and the whole world become guilty before God; and that judgment might come upon all men unto condemnation. Here they all lie under the sentence of death, and are children of wrath when grace finds them. And they are pardoned; but pardon is of the new covenant, not of the old. And they are justified; but not through

the law, but through the righteousness of faith. And they are sanctified; but not through nor by the law, for God doth not minister the Spirit by the works of the law, but by the preaching of faith. And they are saved; but salvation is not of works, for by grace are we saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves. And we are glorified; but, if they that are of the law be heirs of glory, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Salvation and glorification are of sovereign love. And, according to this book, the grand source of all is to be found in the law, for that is the law of love; consequently those which be of the law must be heirs; the law must have the praise, and man's boasting must be established.

Quot. Neither Paul nor James had any idea that the moral law was abolished and done away, Answ. Nor did any real saint ever dream of the moral law being abolished, until this book appeared; which tells us that the moral law has ceased to exist as a covenant of works' which is abolishing its commanding and condemning power; and is, in effect, making it void, and doing it away.

I

say that we are redeemed from the condemning power of the law by the blood of Christ; and delivered from its commanding power, which is Do, and live, by the grace of God and the gift of righteousness. The blood of the covenant gives a satisfactory answer to the sentence of the law, by declaring me redeemed from death; and imputed righteousness gives an answer to the precept of the