it subverts the faith once delivered to the saints, and destroys the proper notion of the grace of God.

When we review this account of the gospel, we must confess, that it is with the utmost propriety designed "the gospel of the grace of God"-" the true grace of God"-" the manifold grace of God" "the word of his grace"-"the gospel of Christ" -"the gospel of peace"-" the gospel of our salvation," and "the truth as it is in Jesus." What has been laid before the reader in this section, proves, that "the law is not against the promise;" and that faith, instead of making void the law of God, establishes its authority and honour upon the firmest basis.* We maintain, that the law of God is the consummate standard of righteousness, the original condition of life, and a venerable system with which, as well as with its divine Author, there is no variableness or shadow of turning. The abundant and sovereign grace of God is fully consistent with the most awful glories of the Deity; and the perfect harmony of both, lays a solid foundation for the hope of sinners. Had justice, which is the essential glory of God's nature, or the law, which is the revealed glory of his will,—had either of these been violated by the evangelical scheme; benign and

* Rom. iii. 31. "We establish the law, not only as we receive it for a rule of life, but as we expect no salvation without a proper, without a perfect conformity to its injunctions. How can this be effected? By qualifying its sense, and softening it into an easier system. This were to vacate the law, to deprive it of its honours, and hinder it from attaining the due end either of obedience or condemnation. No; but we establish the law, by believing in that great Mediator, who has obeyed its every precept, sustained its whole penalty, and satisfied all its requirements in their utmost extent." Mr. Hervey's Dialogues, Letter 5th, Aspasio to Theron.

desirable as it is, it must have been utterly rejected; it could never have taken place; the whole world must have perished, rather than such an injury be offered to any of the divine perfections. But, instead of being injured, they are most illustriously displayed by the obedience and death of Christ. By this means, Jehovah is inflexibly just, even in justifying the ungodly; and his law is highly exalted, even in absolving the transgressor that believeth in Jesus. We plead the cause of that marvellous, free, and preventing grace, which "reigns through righteousness by Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Justification, holiness, and comfort, are the precious fruits of this triumphant grace, the capital ingredients of this eternal life.

SECT. III.-The manner of proposing the Doctrines concerning the Law of Works and the Gospel of the Grace of God, unto Mankind, in the Scriptures.

The Holy Scriptures are "the word of truth:" they faithfully declare the counsel of the Lord, and therefore they shall stand fast to all generations. They are not the word of men, nor even of angels speaking from heaven; but they are "in truth the word of God," who cannot deceive us, and with whom it is impossible to lie. In them, the most high God addresses his call to men, and his voice unto the sons of Adam. The declarations of the God of truth are immediately directed to the characters of mankind, and their respective conditions.

*

No individual is now particularly named; but every character, every condition of the sons of Adam, is interested in the truths delivered unto us in the living oracles; wherein God has published his good and acceptable will, has revealed his wrath from heaven, and has displayed the unsearchable riches of his grace, unto self-destroyed sinners. The Scriptures exhibit a system of faith and practice, calculated only for the use of mankind, while they live in this present evil world. The certainty of a future state, the everlasting happiness of such as believe the gospel now preached unto every creature, and the damnation of all that do not believe it, are doctrines clearly proposed to our faith in the word of God, and doctrines that have an advantageous influence upon the hope and holiness, joy and fear of believers. But the manner of God's dealing with the righteous and the wicked, as to the manifestations of his will, power, and sovereignty in a future state, shall be adapted to their respective conditions, and in many respects very different from the manner of his proposing the doctrines of the law and the gospel unto mankind in the Scriptures.

It must be observed in general, that the law of works, and the gospel of the grace of God, are proposed in the Scriptures unto the same persons,

It must be acknowledged, that the greatest part of the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, was written on special occasions, or with an immediate relation to some particular persons or societies; but this is a circumstance that neither derogates from their divine authority, nor supersedes their general and standing usefulness. The learned Dr. Guyse has entered, with his usual judgment and accuracy, into the discussion of this subject, in his very excellent Sermons on the Standing Use of the Scripture.

and to these persons viewed as standing before God in the same condition. The Holy Ghost presents the law and the gospel, as operating with united influence, like one undivided system, to discover the glory of God, and to promote the salvation of sinners. To establish and illustrate this position, I would offer the following remarks to the reader's most careful examination :

1. The Scriptures set the precepts and threatenings of the law of works before mankind, in order to discover unto them, the majesty, holiness, and justice of God; and to convince them of their real state before God as perishing sinners, who can never attain to the law of righteousness by their utmost endeavours in following after it. The design of proposing the law to mankind in their guilty and strengthless condition, is to arraign and prove them guilty; to demonstrate, beyond all possibility of contradiction, that they have sinned and come short of the glory of God; to manifest the malignity of sin to their conscience; to declare the justice of God, in punishing them according to its dreadful demerit; to point out their enormous debt, though unable to pay one farthing; and to shut them up by all these alarming truths, demonstrated to their consciences, to despair, absolutely to despair, of obtaining righteousness by the law, and to embrace the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

It cannot be pretended, that the sinner who enjoys this knowledge of sin by the law, is more holy, more righteous, and more acceptable to God now, than he was before, while he was alive without the

law, and thought himself upright and holy in that condition. They certainly misapprehend both the law of God and the nature of man, who imagine, that the knowledge of sin by the law is a virtue or an effectual principle of holiness. So far is this notion removed from the truth of both scripture-testimony and the experience of the convinced, that the knowledge of sin which is by the law, never fails to produce, according to its measure, despair, enmity against God, blasphemy, and every sin, unless it be accompanied with a revelation of Jesus Christ in the soul. This was the experience of Paul, of Cain, of the carnal Jews, and of the damned in hell, who are punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. I therefore conclude this remark with these observations, which sum up the whole, namely, all mankind are by nature under the law of works this law is proposed in the word of God to convince mankind of their deplorable state, in regard to sin and misery, under that law: and those who are convinced of their deplorable state under that law, are not more holy and more virtuous on account of that conviction. It is absurd to suppose, that a person, possessed of a true sight of his own estate, and perceiving it to be altogether sinful and utterly lost, can be conscious to himself of any good dispositions in his mind, of any favourable extenuating circumstances in his guilt, or of any self-satisfaction arising from his being now thoroughly convinced of his sin and misery.

2. The Scriptures set the sovereign grace and free favour of God in Christ before mankind, as a necessary, sufficient, suitable, and immediate relief