mere moral conduct, proceeding from worldly or selfish principles. We are said to "live in the Spirit," and "to walk in the Spirit," and to "be filled with the Spirit:" and all our heavenly wisdom, knowledge, strength, holiness, joy; all things relative to our repentance, faith, hope, love, worship, obedience, meetness for heaven, and foretastes of it, are constantly ascribed to his influences nor can we escape fatal delusions, resist temptations, overcome the world, or glorify God; except as we are taught, sanctified, strengthened, and comforted by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in all believers" as a well of water springing up into "everlasting life."

We need not then wonder at the low state into which vital christianity is fallen, when we consider how many nominal christians utterly disclaim all dependence on the Spirit, as enthusiasm: and how greatly this part of the gospel is overlooked by numbers, who are zealous for other doctrines of it. The subject, therefore, suggests to us the vast importance of owning the divine Person and whole work of the Spirit, in all our services; of praying for, that we may pray by, the Spirit;' of applying to him, and depending on him in all things; of cautiously distinguishing his genuine influences from every counterfeit, by scriptural rules; of avoiding those worldly cares, and that indolence which " quench," and all those evil tempers

'Luke xi. 13.

which "grieve, the Spirit of God;" and of giving the glory of all the good wrought in us, or by us, to him as its original Source and Author.—Thus, depending on the Mercy of the Father, the Atonement of the Son, and the Grace of the Spirit; we shall be prepared to give glory to the Triune God our Saviour, both now and for evermore.

ESSAY XV.

On the uses of the Moral Law, in Subserviency to the Gospel of Christ.

WHEN we have duly considered our situation

as fallen creatures, and those things which relate to our recovery by the mercy of the Father, the redemption and mediation of the Son, and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit; we must be convinced that "we are saved by grace, through faith;

(and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God;) "not of works, lest any man should boast:"" and under this conviction it is natural for us to enquire, "Wherefore then serveth the law?" What end does it answer? The apostle indeed introduces this question, as the objection of Judaizing teachers to the doctrines of grace: but in the present endeavour to state the uses of the law as subservient to the gospel, it is necessary to premise, that neither the ritual law, nor the legal dispensation, is meant: the former typified, and the latter introduced, the clear revelation of the gospel; and they were both superseded and rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ. The moral law alone is intended, 'Eph. ii. 8-10.

⚫ Gal. iii. 19.

which was originally written in the heart of man, as created in the image of God; was afterwards delivered with awful solemnity from mount Sinai, in ten commandments; is elsewhere summed up, in the two great commandments of loving God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves; and is explained and enlarged upon in a great variety of particular precepts, throughout the whole Scripture. This law, besides what it more directly enjoins, implicitly requires us to love, admire, and adore every discovery, which God shall ever please to make to us of his giorious perfections; cordially to believe every truth which he shall reveal and authenticate; and willingly to obey every positive institution which he shall at any time be pleased to appoint.

This law is immutable in its own nature: for it could not be abrogated, or altered, without an apparent intimation that God was not so glorious, lovely, and excellent; or so worthy of all possible honour, admiration, gratitude, credit, adoration, submission, and obedience, as the law had represented him to be; or without seeming to allow, that man had at length ceased to be under those obligations to God, or to stand in those relations to him and to his neighbour, from which the requirements of the law at first resulted. The mo

ral law, I say, could not be changed, in any essential point, unless we could cease to be under infinite obligations to our great Creator; unless he

could allow us in some degree to be alienated from him, and despisers of him; or to love worldly objects and our own present advantage or pleasure more than his infinite excellency; and to prefer them to his glory, and the enjoyment of his favour: unless he could allow us to be ungrateful for his benefits, to discredit his veracity, to dispute his authority, to reject the appointments of his wisdom; and to injure, neglect, corrupt, or hate one another, to the confusion, and ruin of his fair creation. Such absurd and dreadful consequences may unanswerably be deduced, from the supposition of the moral law of God being repealed or altered : and they are the bane of all Antinomianism; and of every system formed on the absurd notion of a new and milder law promulgated by Jesus Christ, however ingeniously such schemes may be arranged or diversified. The Lord may, consistently with the immutable perfections of his nature, and the righteousness of his government, reveal truths before unknown: he may abrogate positive institutions, or appoint others: he may order various circumstances relative to the law in a new manner, according to the different situations in which rational agents are placed: but the love of God with all the powers of the soul, and the love of our neighbour as ourselves, must continue the indispensable duty of all reasonable creatures, however circumstanced, through all the ages of eternity.