tian race with certainty; without yea and nay, without, "Lo here" and "Lo there," without vain jangling, without beating the air, without pro and con, without a mixture of Hebrew and Ashdod, without daubing with untempered mortar, without building again that which I deftroyed, without beginning in the flesh and ending in the Spirit, and without ifs and buts and "I truft," &c.-which leave all at an uncertainty; when the effect of righteoufness in our days is to be peace and affurance for ever, and quietnefs and confidence is to be our ftrength.

I come now, in the laft place, to treat of the abolition of the law; which will probably procure and fecure me all the malice and envy that devils can infufe or men ferment, and perhaps as many vilifying letters, and pence for postage, as I have hairs upon my head:-but my good name is gone without any open fcandal, and those that have watched for my halting are not as yet come to their ban. quet; they have coined a phrafe of their own, have made me an offender for not acknowledging that word, and have lain in wait for me when reproving in the gate. They that have combined against me, in defence of the law, have called themselves an evangelical affociation; others, in the poffeffion of two wives, have publicly reproached me as an antinomian for seven years together, and contended, for the law as their only rule; forgetting the feventh commandment, which forbids. adultery, and the criterion of a

bishop,

bishop, which is to be the bufband of one wife; others, who have traduced me worse than a devil, have blamed me for a bad fpirit; others, in language too bad for Billingsgate, call upon me for charity-these can fee a mote through a beam of timber; and fome, who have shut me out of their pulpits, have contended for a rule that tells them to do as they would be done by; and thus I have ten thousand instructors, but not one earthly father.

Some tell us that all the angels in heaven are under the moral law, forgetting that God's voice in the law is to the fons of men, not to angels; and that the law of angels is not the will of precept, which is the will of the master to the earthly fervant; for angels (as well as gospel minifters) are evangelical, and not bond, servants; are elected and confirmed in their standing in Chrift Jefus; have the fame rule as God's fons have; and, according to Christ's words, it is the good will of the Father, and not the will of the flave's mafter, which is the rule of angels-" Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in beaven." Hence it appears to be the good will of the Father's purpose, who elected them in Chrift Jefus, which is the law of the elect angels, called the will of God done in heaven by angels, who are confirmed in Chrift; of whom Mofes never was the head, nor the lawgiver-but Chrift, who is the head of all principalities and powers; and into

whofe

whofe glorious gospel the angels defire to look, and to whom, even now-unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places—is known, by the church, (not by the law,) the manifold wisdom of God.

I know Mofes bath in every city them that preach bim; who cry up the fervant in order to exalt themfelves, that they may have fome room for boasting. But God tells us that Mofes his fervant is dead, and that the haughty fhall be humbled, and the Lord of Hofts only fhall be exalted in gospel days. And it is well known that a minister of the letter can do nothing, nor cut any figure, but in the letter of the law; for, as a thorn goeth up into the band of a drunkard, fo is a parable in the mouth of fools; for he is fo galled in his confcience while he is about it, that he appears only as a brier and a thorn, who is nigh unto curfing in the eyes of every experienced foul that hears him; and, like Abraham's ram in the thicket, he can never get out of the entanglement either with truth or honour, because he is nothing but an impoftor; and both God and conscience rebuke him for taking the covenant in his mouth.

Some tell us that "if the law is done away to the believer, the believer can never die, death being the fentence of the law." In one fenfe this is true, for be that believes fhall never die. But I think they have forgotten that Chrift to this end died, rofe again, and revived that he might be the Lord both of the dead and of the living; and that no faint liveth to himself,

himfelf, or dieth to himself; but, whether he live or die, he is the Lord's. Death, as the fentence of the law, is a penal evil; but death in Christ is a new covenant gift. All things are yours, whether life or death. To the finner it is a curfed end, to the believer a bleffed one-the finner, being an bundred years old, fhall be accurfed; but blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Death, armed with guilt and the curfe of the law, is the king of terrors; but, difarmed of its fting, a fhadow. Death to the finner is the beginning of judgment, but to the believer the end of his faith. Job longed for it, Jacob waited for it, and Simeon prayed for it; and no wonder, for precious in the fight of the Lord is the death of his faints. Befides, Chrift is the grand example, pattern, and forerunner, and the firft fruits, of them that flept; and it is needful that his followers should follow their Head, and be conformable unto his death. He was the firft to whom the path of life was fhewn: for, though the widow's fon, by Elijah; another, by Elifha; Lazarus, and many more, by Chrift; were raised from the dead; yet it was only to a mortal life-they died again; and though Enoch and Elijah went to heaven without tafting death, yet they never went from the tomb; Christ was the first that ever trod the way to an immortal life from the grave-Thou haft made known to me the way of life, &c. Furthermore, believers are to be planted together in the likeness of Chrift's death, and in the likeness of his refurrection. If one died

fur

for all, then were all dead when he died, and with my dead body fhall they arife. Inftead of believers never dying, it is plain they die twice, and fome have died daily. Their firft death is by the application. of the law's fentence, when the law comes with power, when fin revives and the finner dies; and their firft refurrection is under the operation of the Spirit of God:-and there is a dying again. But we should make a diftinction between dying in faith, and dying in fin; between dying in the flesh, and in the Lord; between the flesh refting in hope, and perishing in its own corruption; and between falling afleep in Jefus, and going down to the with a lie in the right hand.

grave

Others tell us, that "the law is the legal covenant of grace;" which is as full of fenfe, and as pregnant with meaning, as to talk of black fnow, or white charcoal; for it amounts to this-that God's free grace is the just wages of the finner's dead works; which wages, or reward, if it be of grace, is no more of works; but, if of works, then it is no more of grace: one must give way to make room for the other; either works must be no more works, or grace must be no more grace. But we know that God gave it to Abraham, and his feed, by promife.

Others, who are more learned, tell us that what is faid in this chapter to be done away and abolished is the glory of Mofes' face: but this glory was done away long before Chrift came. We do not

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