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Gentile churches; and that, when he had, as on this occafion he certainly had, the strongest temptations to have been filent on that head.

He

But what he faid to Peter, the terms in which he rebuked him, and the reafons with which he fupports his rebuke, fets this yet in a stronger light; and was, at the fame time, moft proper to recover those of the Galatians who were drawn into the fnare, and to fupport and strengthen the hands of those who stood. lays the foundation of it in a fuppofition, which he well knew Peter neither would nor could deny, viz. that he lived as the Gentiles do, though he was a natural Jew, and had all the advantages the law could give; fo that nothing could be more abfurd, than for him to put the Gentiles, under a neceffity of living as the Jews do.

No body will imagine that he meant to fay, that Peter lived in the same manner the Gentiles did in their natural state, while they were without Christ, strangers to the covenants of promife, without hope, and without God in the world, as himfelf defcribes their unhappy ftate, Eph. ii. 3. They were the Chriftian Gentiles, fuch VOL. III.

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of them as had believed in Christ, he means; ftrangers indeed to the Jewish law, and expecting no manner of advantage by it; but far from being in a hopeless condition, as they were before they believed in Chrift, in whom all the promises are yea, and in him amen. In him they had all, and greatly more than the most perfect obfervers of Mofes's law had to expect by their most punctual obedience.

Thus we find himfelf explaining his meaning, verf. 18.; where it appears, that he did Peter no injury when he said, he lived as the Gentiles 'did; and said no inore than himself was very ready to acknowledge, and had acknowledged in the moft open and avowed manner. The great point, which all mankind, Jews and Gentiles, are moft deeply concerned in, was then, and ever will be, How a finner can be fecured in the pardon of fin, and acquire fuch a right to eternal life, as that he may appear with confidence before the great Sovereign Judge. The Jews, in the unhappy state the bulk of that nation was in, from the time they

had

had loft the right knowledge of the law
given to their fathers by Mofes, and the
promise made to their father Abraham,
had nothing left them but the bare letter;
where there was no promife of any thing
but the bare pardon of fin; no fecurity a-
gainst relapses, nor any affurance of any
happiness beyond the grave; which be-
trayed the fect of the Sadducees, the most
learned among them in the letter of the
law, into that Atheistical notion, that
death and the grave made a final end of
the man.
For that was the uniform tenor
of their law, leaving no room nor allow-
ance for repentance, amendment, or any
of those other falvos men have invented,
to footh themselves into foolish and
groundless hopes of, they know not what:

For it is written, Curfed is every one "who continueth not in all things writ

ten in the book of the law to do them." And fuch is the nature of that curfe, that it never leaves the unhappy subject on which it once refts, until it be abfolutely destroyed. This appears abundantly from what we have recorded in the Old-Testament history: and yet more from this, that this fame curfe of the law, is the conO 2 ftitution

1

ftitution and righteous fentence of the great fovereign of heaven and earth, and which can no more fail of its effect than the God of truth can lie. He can raise the dead finner, flain by the curfe of his law; but he has precluded himself from faving him from death. As then it is a certain, and univerfally acknowledged truth, that all have finned, and come fhort of the glory of God, it would have been a plain truth, though it had never been taken notice of before Paul faid it, "That

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by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified: but indeed the Pfalmist had said it very long before him, Pfal. cxliii. 2. "Enter not into judgement "with thy fervant; for in thy fight no "flefh living can be justified."

There is hardly a word in the Bible, (as indeed there is none of greater importance to mankind), which has occafioned more jangling and difpute than the word justify; and yet hardly can any thing be plainer than the thing meant by it. Were the text juft now quoted from the Pfalmift duly confidered, I am pretty fure it would determine the, whole affair. It is an appeal from a judgement-feat to a

throne

throne of grace; from a court of justice, where ftrict law is the rule, to a court of grace, where law has no place, but free fovereign grace and merciful kindness is the only measure thither the man who ftands condemned in law, must have his recourfe, or perifh. The mercy and goodnefs of the divine nature may give fome faint glimmerings of hope; but nothing can give any tolerable confidence, but an exprefs declaration of the fovereign, and an exprefs grant of pardon and eternal life, upon the convicted criminal's appeal to a throne of grace. Juftifying implies more than bare pardon. It fupposes a judicial procedure; according to which none can be justified, but fuch as have a right to live, and fome righteoufnefs to plead upon. "Had there been a law given that could have given life," the Apostle fays, righteousness might have been "had by a perfect conformity to that law." But he takes it for granted, that there was no fuch law; for the law of God, in whatever view we take it, condemns and curfes the finner: but the greatest finner ever was may acquire a perfect right, by the free pardon and grant of life.

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