and practise hypocrify against those that never meddled with them; and fhoot in fecret at those whom God has called, commiffioned, owned, and bleffed; and whofe life and conduct exceed that of their own, confcience and themfelves being judges? And, if they themselves are fo holy, fo filled with overcoming faith, fo infallible in judgment, and fo fanctified in life, how is it that they do no good in their day and generation? What fruits, or effects, appear by ocular demonstration, either in themselves or their pupils? Do they ever return in the power of the Spirit? or, is their fame ever spread abroad in any other way but by the found of their own trumpet? Do they not commit adultery while they pretend to an union with the bridegroom of the church, though they can give no account of the death of their first husband? Do they not fteal away the name of a minister of the Spirit, in whom the righteousness of the law is fulfilled, and palm him with the name of Antinomian, because he does not fay what the word of God never declared to be any one part of the confeffion of his faith? Do they not bear false witnefs when they artfully reprefent thofe as minifters of fin whom God has made minifters of righteoufnefs? Do they ftand clear in any of these things? Do they love their neighbour as themselves, when they fpeak fair to his face, wish him fuccefs, express their love to him and readiness to affift him; while, at the fame time, they are working under ground to blow all his usefulness ?

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QUOT.

QUOT. That, to the believer in the Lord Jefus Christ, the Moral Law has ceased to exift as a covenant of works, is a grand and glorious truth; and is granted on both fides of the question.

ANSW. If the law has ceafed to exift as a covenant of works to the believer in Chrift, then it can have no power over him, either to command or condemn him, seeing it hath loft its very existence. But has the law ceafed to exift as a covenant of works? Pray when did it expire? When was it, with refpect to its binding and killing power, repealed, or divested of its divine fanction? If it has loft its commanding power to do for life, and its power to condemn to death in case of disobedience, it has loft all the power it now has, or ever had. And, if the Saviour came to deprive the law of this power,' he came to destroy it; for what is a law without commanding and condemning power? This is making void the law through faith; for divefting the law of its authority can never be called establishing it. The Galatians found it no less than a yoke of bondage when they turned their back on the grace. of God, in order to make the law the perfecting end of Chrift for fanctification; which is all that this book aims at. And, for my own part, I fill find that, if I lofe fight of Jefus, and begin to live and conduct myself by that letter, inftead of walking by faith, it foon becomes a yoke of bondage to me, And, although (as fome fay) the law is in the hand'

of Chrift; yet, as many as are of the works of it are still under the curfe of it; and as many as will be found under it, even in the great day, will be judged by it; and receive the dreadful fentence of it, even from the mouth of him who magnified it, and made it honourable. It will be a fiery law in the hand of Jefus, as well as in the hand of Moses; and the fire of wrath that is kindled in it will burn to the lowest hell.

QUOT. Because the Lord Jefus is become the end of the law, both moral and ceremonial, for righteousness, to every one that believeth.

ANSW. If Chrift is the end of the law for righteousness, he is not the deftroying, but the fulfilling end. The law is ftill a yoke for the fervant, and a trap for the hypocrite: that which should have been for his welfare, by driving him to Chrift, becomes a trap, by his trufting in it; and the way that seems so right to a man is, in the end, the way of death, because life is fought by the ministration of death.

QUOT. 1 fhall not, therefore, take up any time, or employ any pains, to prove that here, because we are already agreed upon that fubject. But, that the moral law ought still to be confidered as the rule of a believer's conduct, is as great a truth. It is the eternal rule of righteousness, and is incapable of any variations.

ANSW. I believe the law to be the only rule of righteousness, and life too, to every one that is under

der it. And as fuch Chrift always used it-Whas fball I do to inherit eternal life?—What is written in the law? how readeft thou ?—This do, and thou shalt live.-If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. The law is your rule of life-do that, and thou shalt live. But the foul that hungered and thirsted after righteoufnefs he always called to himfelf, and told him to abide in him, and then he fhould bring forth much fruit; but, if he did not abide in him, he would be caft forth as a withered branch, and be fit for nothing but the fire. If the law be " incapable of any variations," according to this quotation, when did it ceafe to exift as a coyenant of works? according to the former quotation; for we are not agreed upon this palpable contradiction.

QUOT. Amongst men, the idea of a king and people fupposes also a LAW fubfifting between the parties; agreeable to which, the king is to govern, and the people to frame their actions.

ANSW. But this law is not the moral law; for, if Chrift rules his fubjects by that, according to the actions they frame, he must destroy them all together as rebels, for they all offend. But he receives gracious gifts for the rebellious (not killing precepts), that the Lord God may dwell among them. It is the law of faith that goes forth out of Zion, and the word of life that goes from Jerufalem. The Lord fhall fend the Rod of thy ftrength out of Zion: rule thou

in the midst of thine enemies. Pfal. cx. 2. But then the moral law is not the Rod of his strength; that is weak through the flesh. Chrift fays, Bind the teftimony, feal the law, among my difciples. Ifa. viii. 16. The teftimony of the gospel is received in the bond of love, and the law of faith is attended with the feal of the Spirit: The day you believed, fays Paul, ye were fealed with the holy Spirit of promife. But God does not fet this feal to the preaching of the moral law: He, therefore, that miniftereth the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doth be it by the works of the law? Gal. iii. 5. No, he doth not, Minifters of the letter are not fealed themfelves; nor does God attend their miniftry with his feal: for they are fervants of corruption; they know not what they fay, nor whereof they affirm; and therefore can confirm nothing but their own ignorance, and the bondage of their audience. And this is evident; for fome, who contend for the law, are obliged to write and read their fermons; which proves that they serve in the oldness of the letter, and not in the newness of the Spirit. Take them, reader, to the law, and to the testimony—that is, to the law of faith, and to the teftimony of the gospel; and, if they speak not according to this word of life, it is because there is no light in them.

tality are not brought to light in

Life and immortheir fouls by the

gofpel; they are under the yoke of the moral law; and the old vail is ftill upon their heart in reading the Old Teftament; which vail and yoke are done

away