away in Chrift, and an eafier yoke given. The law of faith is fo complete, that whatsoever is not done in obedience thereto, and from faith therein, is no better than rebellion and wickedness: Whatfoever is not of faith is fin.

Stand fast, reader, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made thee free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The law has lately obtained a great many names which it never bore before, and which the bond-children in the prefent age have given it.

One divine calls it the evangelized law; which implies that the covenant of works is now turned into the covenant of grace; that the minifter of the letter, by this turn, is now the minifter of the Spirit; and that he who works, his work is reckoned to be of grace; and he that worketh not, but believeth, is an Antinomian, and the reward is reckoned to him of debt. This is turning things upfide down, which is to be esteemed as potters clay. Ifa. xxix. 16.

Another divine differs from the laft; and fays, "The moral law is the legal covenant of grace;"which is as good fenfe as to talk of white charcoal, for it is no less than a contradiction in terms: and is, in effect, to say that the ministry of death is now the grace of life; the miniftration of condemnation is now the miniftration of righteoufnefs; the law that worked wrath now works love; the enmity is now

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reconciliation; the yoke of bondage is now the evangelical yoke of gospel obedience; and that which was engraven on tables of ftone is now written on the fleshly tables of the heart; and the killing letter is now the quickening Spirit.

Others differ from the latter, and tell us that "Chrift came to bring us to the law, and to enable us to keep it." Hence the law is not a fchoolmafter to bring us to Chrift, but Chrift is the fchool-master to bring us to the law; to fly from wrath is to fly from Jefus; and to fly for refuge is to go to the law for holinefs. According to which fenfe Mofes, the fervant, has more honour than the Mafter; and the house has more honour than him that built it.

Others differ from thefe; and tell us that " The law is the only rule of a believer's life;" by which he is to walk, and not by faith; by which he is to live, and not by faith; by which he is to work, and not by faith. These make void the promise of God, and make faith of none effect.

Others tell us that "Chrift came to enable believers to keep the law;" which entirely contradicts the complaint of Zion, who declares that all her righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But the old man must be dead in our days, and there can be no law in the members warring against the law of the mind now; no flesh in the believer that loves the law of fin: and, though the apoftles in many things.

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all of them offended, yet believers in this age never offend at all; which makes their obedience perfect, and the Saviour's of lefs worth.

But the authors of this book differ from all the foregoing. For we are informed (page 42) that "The moral law has ceafed to exift as a covenant of works." And, in the fame page, the law is declared to be "The eternal rule of righteousness, and is incapable of any variations." If it has ceased to be what it once was, it must have varied fome way or other. And we are likewife told that the believer is delivered from the power of fin; but that the new man of grace is overcome, and held captive, by fin.

Notwithstanding all these various changes, alterations, fluxes and refluxes, which men have made in the eternal rule of righteousness, and unalterable law of works, fure I am that heaven and earth fhall pafs away before one jot or tittle of the law fhall fail of its unlimited demands, its killing power, or its threatened vengeance, which it will most affuredly exact of, or execute on, all that are found under it, whether it be Christ the furety or the felf-righteous, who reject his fatisfaction. And I believe that the productions of fuch barren authors as thefe only ferve to shew us the truth of the Holy Ghoft's affertion, that thofe, who turn aside to vain jangling, and defire to be teachers of the law, know not what they say, por whereof they affirm.

Qur fworn enemy to the Antinomian now goes on

to

to defcribe the bands and cords that hold the King of Zion and his loyal fubjects together.

QUOT. As to his fubjects, they are under a threfeold obligation to pay the most ready, cheerful, and prompt obedience, to whatever commands he is pleased to give them. In the first place, a natural obligation; as they are not only his fubjects, but the creatures which his hands formed out of the duft.

ANSW. This was Adam's tie, but it would not hold him, much less us. Chrift's cords are of another nature he gives grace for obedience to the faith; and works in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure; and this obedience is acceptable to him but all that is extorted by the law, or that fprings from nature, or any other principle but that of his own implanted grace, is rejected, as service in the oldness of the letter, or as the eye-fervice of a hypocrite, or the drudgery of a flave, Chrift will not be served in the chains of a galley, but with the wings of a dove.

QUOT. What can be more evident, than that every creature is under a natural obligation to obey the commands of its Creator?

ANSW. But it fhould be confidered that nature has loft the use of her limbs; is wholly corrupt; and, the more fhe ftirs, the more mischief she does. Hence a divine nature is given to keep her in fubjection. Self muft be denied; flesh and blood are

not

not to be conferred with; natural reason is oppofite to faith, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God, nor are they the children of God.

QUOT. Secondly, A moral obligation; as they are not only creatures, but creatures poffeffed with rationality, grand, reasoning, thinking faculties.

ANSW. The Jewish pharifees abode by this moral obligation, and exerted their strongest faculties both in reasoning and thinking; but they always reasoned wrong, nor did they ever think right; and therefore God hid his mysteries from them. Besides, the carnal mind is enmity, and the law worketh wrath fo that no bufinefs can go on to purpose while these two are contending; until fovereign grace fubdues the latter, and delivers us from the former, in order that we may ferve God in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter; and worfhip God in the beauty of holinefs, and not with an hypocritical worship, enforced by legal threatening, or extorted by fervile fear. As for depraved Rationality, fhe very often lofes herself in divine myfteries. She muft look before fhe leaps, and comprehend the end before he begins the work. A divine warrant is not fufficient for her. I have read, in Dr. Priestley's works, of his propagating a rational Christianity; but it is visible that incomprehenfible mysteries, which are the heights of heaven, and deeper than hell (Job xi. 8), have quite drowned the doctor and all his rationality together. Strong

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