man elfe, who knows what he is doing. Nay, further, he fays plainly enough, that he could not. And what he fays of himfelf, holds true with all right Christains: for as he was, fo are they, dead to the law; and death, we know, puts an end to all connections and obligations. Thofe who read this, and the other epiftles of this apoftle where the fame fubject is treated, can have no doubt, but that it is the Ju daical law, as given by Mofes, he here fpeaks of. But here the patrons of moral government find themselves at a loss, as a great part, and, one may fay, the principal and fundamental part of it, confifts of fuch precepts as are ftrictly moral; or, what I fuppofe they mean by that term, binding all mankind at all times, and in all places; the fame which is very properly called the law of creation, and founded in that relation; or, in plain terms, their being obliged to their creator for their being, and all the enjoyments of life. If the Chriftian is dead to these commands, their whole fabrick falls at once. They therefore attempt to fplit the law into the ritual or ceremonial, and the moral; which accordingly they call P 2 the the ceremonial and moral laws; and earnestly plead, that it is only the first which the Apostle here fpeaks of, and which he fays he is dead to. And thofe on the other fide have given them great advantage, by taking up the fame diftinction and arbitrary terms, and maintaining, that what they call the moral part of Mofes's law, continues binding on all mankind, as it was given to the Ifraelites in the wildernefs of Sinai. But thofe who confider the Jewish law attentively, and the very peculiar circumftances which preceded the giving of that law, with the state of that nation after it, and compare it with the ftate of those who lived before that time, and of the other nations who were contemporary, and efpecially fince the coming of Chrift, find themfelves obliged to conclude, that, excepting that fingle nation, and those who were incorporated with them, no other whatever had any concern in that law, in whole or in part, as it was given at Sinai. Yet were they not without law. They were all under the law of creation from the time they had their being. They were, moreover, from the publication of the first promife, promife, under what the Apostle calls the law of faith, the fame that Christians are under in all refpects, except the circumftantial difference between faith in Chrift to come, and in Chrift already come. But neither of these were inforced with that terrible fanction, "Curfed is every one "that continueth not in all things written "in the law to do them," as the Sinaic law was fo that, as the Apostle says, those who lived before that time could not fin after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion, who had fuch a law given him. Nor did there need any fúch: for that one tranfgreffion bound all mankind under death by the righteous fentence of the great fovereign judge, which admits of no repeal, nor of any relief, but by his grant of grace, who raifes the dead, and can give a new and perfect life to whom he pleases. But, in the nature of the thing, it is plain, none can be thus raised and quickened, until they be dead first. The Apostle, in fome of his other epiftles, defcribes that death from which believers in Chrift are quickened, and raifed up, as confifting in trespasses and fins, Eph. ii. 1. with fome other fuch expref fions. fions. Whence occafion has been taken to conclude, that all that is faid about the old man being crucified with Christ, crucifying the flesh, with the lufts and affections of it, are no more but bold metaphors and figures of fpeech, which they tell us the eastern people were very fond of; and mean no more but the finner's forfaking his evil courfes, reforming his life, and thus becoming a new man. Το make their plan confiftent, they must make God's grant of pardon and eternal life, which Chrift is faid to convey to them by his quickening Spirit, to be likewife figurative and metaphorical; and to mean no more, but lengthening out this perishing life the children of Adam are in fome fort poffeffed of, until, by a gradual progrefs in virtue, they raife themselves to the highest perfection and dignity the human nature is capable of. And fome have carried it very far this way; but how confiftently with the accounts God himself, by his blessed Son and his apostles, hath given us of these things, thofe who will give themselves the trouble of reading them, will eafily judge. It will not furely be refufed, that fuch as was the life which our our firft father loft, fuch, at least, believers in Chrift are raifed up to; that there is a fpiritual and eternal world, of which this grofs perifhing one is but an imperfect image; that, of course, there must be a fort of life, and way of living, fuitable to that world, as the life we have from Adam fits us for living in this world; and that God himself is the very fubftance of that world, on whom all the happy inhabitants subsist. If these things be fo, (and they must be fo as certainly as that there is a God), whenever any creature, made for living in this manner, comes to be feparated and cut off from God, and of course shut out from all communication with the spiritual world, however alive to this present world, it must be really, and without any metaphor, dead, being deprived of that kind of life which can only make it capable of living as fpirits do, and must do. And as we can be furer of nothing, than that fin thus makes a feparation between the creator and the creature, it is truly, and without any figure, the death of the human fpirit; and fo much worse than what we call natural death, the death of the body, |