begin in the Spirit, and then go to the law, to be
made perfect by the flesh, fall from grace; Chrift
shall profit them nothing. But will the law help.
the believer, if we confider the law as a joint worker
with Chrift? No. Abide in me, and I in you; for.
without me ye can do nothing. Will this law enlarge-
the believer's heart? No: it genders to bondage;
begets fervile fear, accompanied with a train of tor-
ments, which nothing but covenant love can cast:
out. Fear bath torment. He that feareth is not
made perfect in love; for perfect love cafteth out fear.
Will this yoke make the believer abound in good
works? No. I laboured more abundantly than they all;
yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me.
Will this yoke produce self-abhorrence? No. When
God makes, or rather reveals, the new covenant to
the finner; pardons him; gives him a new heart and
a new fpirit; and by grace appears pacified toward;
him; then he remembers his own evil way, which
was not good; and loaths himfelf in his own fight,
for his iniquities. The law will never reconcile a
man to the justice of God; but pardoning mercy.
does. The terrors of the law ftir up enmity, but
grace flays it.
The motions of fin, which are by the
law, work in the members to bring forth fruit unto
death. But faith purifies the heart: The law fixes
the veil upon the finner's mind; but the gofpel
brings life and immortality to light. The law does
not exclude boafting; grace produces humility.
The law firs up enmity against God; grace fills a

man

man with enmity againft fin. The terrors of the law will make Cain cry out against his punishment; but grace makes a man cry out against himself and his wickedness. Legal convictions by the law work nothing but felf-pity; but grace works pity and compaffion to the Saviour. Under the terrors of the law a man will justify himself, and cenfure his Maker; but by grace, through Christ, a man is led to condemn himself, and justify God. God appears just, and the juftifier of him that believeth in Jefus. They that die under the law will plead their own merit at the bar of God: When faw we thee an bungred, and did not give thee meat? or thirsty, and did not give thee drink? But the faints difclaim the fruits of their faith, even though the Judge proclaims and approves them.

I know that the law calls for righteoufnefs, holiness, and love; but it is out of the fulness of Christ that all these must be received; and he that is united to Christ, and walks in union with him, walks in all thefe; for the moral law is fwallowed up in the everlasting gofpel. The merits of our Covenant Head anfwer every demand of the law for us; while the testimony of faith, and the fruits of the Spirit, give an answer to every demand of the law in us. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

If the doctrine here advanced be Antinomianifm, then let our opponents fhew us what is gospel. And, if this doctrine makes void the law, let them fhew

4

Us

1

us what doctrine that is that establishes it. And, if leading the believer from union with the Saviour to the yoke of the law, and making that his only rule of life, walk, and conduct, establishes the law; let them fhew us in what fenfe it does it. The faints' fruits of faith, and labours of love, are acceptable to God through Jefus Chrift: but, fo far are they from being a perfect righteoufnefs, according to the tenor of the old covenant, that even the righteoufnefs of Zion is but filthy rags, and the righteousness of the apostle Paul but dung and drofs; and this righteousness will never establish the law. We eftablish the law in the hand of Juftice against every infidel; and as magnified in the heart of Christ to every believer; and by imputed righteousness, and the love of the Spirit, in every child of God; and with all its requirements, and in full force, against every finner out of Chrift; and in the fouls of all the damned in hell. And, if these are not its proper bases, let our opponents fhew us any other. But making the law the believer's only rule of life establishes it no where, nor in any fenfe. Love is called the fulfilling of the law, and by imputed righteousness and the spirit of love it is fulfilled in the faint. But, if walking in the Spirit will not anfwer the demands of the law, it can hardly be thought that bringing our necks under the yoke of the letter can answer the requirements of the gospel, which calls for fervice in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. God has made ample provifion,

vifion, in the covenant of grace, both for holinefs, happiness, and good works; and furnishes us with the former to make us fruitful in the latter. For by grace are ye faved, through faith; and that not of yourfelves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, left any man fhould boaft: for we are his workmanship, created in Chrift Jefus unto good works, which God hath before ordained [prepared] that we should walk in them. Eph. ii. 8, 9, 10. For my own part, I have watched many who traduce the grace of God, as tending to licentiousness, and the preachers of it as Antinomians; and who extol themselves, and their own righteousness and good works, very highly, and make great pretenfions to the law; whofe lives are no example to good men-far from it. Nor do they always conceal their inward enmity even against the fovereignty of God himself, but often arraign it, and his juftice too, at the bar of reafon. They think the Almighty is just such an one as themselves; they hate his decrees; are envious at the objects of his choice; and spy out, in order to ridicule and bring into contempt, the liberty which they have in Chrift Jefus : and by which they plainly fhew that they have no real love to God, nor to the real children of God; and therefore their works are little worth, neither fpringing from a good root, nor directed to a good

end.

There is nothing but natural, corrupt, or vile affections, in bond children. They are strangers to the fpirituality of the law, ftrangers to the yoke of

it,

it, and to the bondage that it genders; and are haters of the power of godlinefs; and they mifreprefent others as erroneous who preach the truth, while themselves publish nothing but felf-contradictions and lies. "That the moral law has ceased to exist as a covenant of works" is a damnable falfehood. No hint of it is given in all the Bible. This is the worft branch of Antinomianifin that ever was published. Chrift is the end of the law for righteoufnefs: not only the fulfilling end, but the grand end of the law is answered in and by him. And the fame end is answered and fulfilled by a work of grace in us. We are redeemed from under the law, are delivered from the law, and are under grace, and not under the law. But the law is ftill what it ever was -an everlasting, unalterable, unrepealable law; and a covenant of works in every fenfe; and to him that works under it the reward is still reckoned of debt. But these base Antinomians, who have bereaved the law of all its power, and fo have deftroyed it, cry out-"The believer is under the law to Chrift." Then I afk wherein the child of God differs from the baftard? Is not every pharifee in the nation under the law to Chrift? Is not the Saviour the king of nations, and God of the whole earth? Has he not power over all fiefh, that he may give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him? Is not all judgment committed to him? Is he not the Judge of quick and dead? Are not all men accountable to him? Is he not the mafter of the fer