engaging light of a rule of life in the hand of the bles sed Mediator; requiring of believers universal obedience as a testimony of their interest in and of their gratitude for his great salvation; and as an acknowledgement of their absolute subjection to his royal authority, 1 Corinth. ix. 21. Isai. xxxiii. 22. Farther, the faith of the gospel reconciles us to the law; as, in the gospel-promises, it apprehends abundant security for all that grace which is requisite to dispose and enable us to an acceptable obedience. Faith hears God in Christ saying to us, I am the Lord who sanctifieth you. I will put my laws into your inward parts, and write them on your hearts. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause ; you to walk in my statutes. My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in weakness.

4. We have no ground to believe that the Holy Spirit acts in fallen men, (particularly in adults) as a sanctifying Spirit, reconciling them to the law, otherwise than as a Spirit of faith, causing them to know and receive the gospel. We are truely reconciled to the law no farther than as we are changed into the image of the Lord Christ, by beholding his glory in the glass of the gospel; which beholding we owe to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, 2 Corinth. iii. 18. "The "beginning of the new life," says Witsius, "is not "from the preaching of the law, but of the gospel. "The gospel is the seed of our regeneration and the "law of the Spirit of life which frees us from the law "of sin and death. While Christ is preached and life "in Christ, the Spirit of Christ secretly enters into the "souls of the elect, and creates in them the principal of "spiritual life, James i. 18. Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth, Gal. iii. 2. Received ye the "Spirit by the hearing of faith ? \”

Animadversiones Irenica, cap. xv.

Mr. Bellamy, in attempting to support this opinion, makes use of some reasonings without adducing any plain testimonies of scripture; a method which is always to be suspected in treating of revealed truth. "If," says he," the Divine Law, is a holy, just, good “and glorious law, antecedent to the consideration of "the gift of Christ, then it must of necessity appear "such, to every one whose eyes are opened to see it

as it is. He who has not such a sight of the law is "spiritually blind*." Therefore, he concludes that reconciliation of heart to the law must go before the faith of the gospel.

Answer. This argument implies, that the immediate effect of regeneration is to bring us to a heartreconciling view of the law, as contradistinguished from the covenant of grace or the gospel. But as regeneration is a benefit of the covenant of grace, altogether unknown to the law or covenant of works; so the immediate effect of that benefit, when it is granted to any soul, is the opening of the eyes of the under -standing to behold the wonderful things of the covenant of grace. In John i. 12, 13. the receiving of Christ is represented as that unto which we are immediately born of God, and in Ephes. i. 19. we read of the exceeding greatness of God's power towards them that believe, according to the working of his mighty power; intimating, that whenever persons are the subjects of this Almighty operation, they are believers. Regeneration is the Father's drawing us, not to the law-covenant, Nor is that but to faith in Jesus Christ, John vi. 44. which is given in regeneration to be understood of some ability only or power to believe.

For, as Dr.'

Essay on the Nature and Glory, &c. p. 21:

Owen observes, "there is nothing mentioned in scrip "ture concerning the communicating of power remotę "or next to the mind of man, to enable him to believe "antecedently unto actual believingt.". It is true, after the first act of believing, persons have habitual or indwelling grace; which, however, is not able or sufficient to produce any spiritual act, otherwise than by the renewed effectual working of the Spirit of Christ. This working of Christ upon and with the grace, which we have received, is called his enabling us. But with persons unregenerate, and, as to the first act of faith, it is not so. God does not educe that act out of any pre-existing habit, but works it immediately. Thus it is given us on the behalf of Christ to believe on him. But how is it given us? By the power of God working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, Philip i. 29. ii. 13. Such is the regeneration which we read of in scripture; but of another regeneration, previous to this, we do not read.

Again, it may be observed, that the principle of this argument tends to make the gospel-revelation unnecessary. The law, considered antecedently to the gift of Christ, must be the covenant of works for it was only in that view that man had to do with the law antecedently to the gift of Christ. Now if, through the regenerating influence of the Spirit, men get such a view of the law-covenant, as delivers them from their enmity against God; then it will follow, that men not only may be, but actually are saved by the law or covenant of works internally revealed in their minds, or by a spiritual view of the glory of God manifested in that covenant. Thus the law of works is supposed to

† On the Spirit, book third, chap. v. sect. 36.

be, directly by itself and considered antecedently to the gift of Christ, an effectual mean of giving life to the dead soul, and of taking away the natural enmity of the heart. All this is directly contrary to those scriptures in which the law is said to have a killing, instead of a quickening effect upon fallen men, and to be the strength of sin, 1 Corinth. xv. 56. 2 Corinth. iii. Rom. vi. 5. Farther, if, according to Mr. Bellamy's supposition, men be saved by the law in some degree, why not in a greater degree? why not fully? The reconciliation of the heart to the holiness of the law, attained, according to him, by the just views of the law which the Holy Spirit gives the sinner in or immediately after regeneration, being a real salvation, the person supposed to be the subject of this work needs only an increase of these views of the law attended with the same efficacy. Where then is the necessity of the gospel of Jesus Christ or of faith in it?

The following is another of Mr. Bellamy's arguments on this head. "You can never acquiesce," says he," in the blood of Christ as honourable to God, till the law first appears glorious in your eyes. You " will rather feel the heart of an infidel in your breast."

Answer. It seems too assuming and dictatorial to say, as Mr. Bellamy does here, Unless God make the law appear glorious and amiable to the sinner in the very way that I think most proper, it is not possible for his power and grace to make it appear so to the sinner in any other way. Why may not God give the elect soul a joint view of Christ's righteousness, and of the law as magnified and made honourable by that blesséd righteousness? May not the Lord, in a work of legal conviction, give the sinner very clear and distinct,

though not heart-reconciling views of the law, as holy, just and good? May not the sinner under such a work have his mouth stopped, seeing himself shut up under the commanding and condemning power of the law covenant? May he not be brought to stand at the bar of God, stript of every plea and driven to despair? May he not thus be brought to conclude, that his salvation is utterly inconsistent with the honour of God's law and justice? This is a great work; and yet it is no more than what reprobates themselves shall be brought to, sooner or later. There is nothing in all this of regenerating or saving grace. The most agonizing convictions may be, where there is no saving conversion. But who dare deny, that the former often precede the latter; or that the awful views, which persons get, before regeneration, of the law-curse, may be of use in or after that supernatural change, both to help them to a right understanding of the gospel of Christ, and to excite them to flee for refuge to the hope set before them? Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law. By faith in Jesus Christ we give it the highest honour, both as a covenant and as a rule of life. As a covenant, it is hereby presented with a righteousness wrought out by the Son of God in our nature; which not only answers all its demands, but magnifies and makes it honourable. As a rule of life, it is regarded as the perfect standard of that conformity to God in holiness, which is promised in the covenant of grace; which constitutes a principal part of our blessedness; after which we are incessantly to aspire while here, and which we hope to attain fully hereafter, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Such views of the law, as thus magnified and made honourable in Christ, are the most effectual means of reconciling the heart to it.