read of his face fhining, but only at the giving of the law, or while God abode upon the mount; for we can hardly think that Mofes walked for eight and thirty years with a napkin on his face and, could this be proved, we know that the rays of his face must be done away at death. The face of Mofes had been buried in the country of Moab many hundred years before Chrift came in the flesh: nor can we fuppofe that the Redeemer's errand into this world was only to wipe off the rays from the face of Mofes. This is not the end fpoken of in my text, to which the children of Ifrael could not ftedfastly look. Chrift is not called the end of Mofes face, but the end of the law; the magnifying, the honour giving, the perfectly obeying, the puntally fulfilling, the doing away, and the abolishing end of the moral law for righteousness to every one that believeth-and to none elfe; for fuch, and only fuch, are juftified freely from all things: and, if they are not justified from the galling yoke of the moral precept, which is "Do, and live;" (which precept never was altered by Chrift, nor fhall be;) if they are still under the law as their rule of life, they are under the curfe; for a precept without a fentence is no law; therefore, if this is the cafe, they are not juftified from all things, nor from the worst thing, nor from any thing; for there is no feparating the precept of the law from the fentence: Chrift never did this, and I know he never will. He came not to divide the law, nor to alter the

law;

law; there is not a hint of this in all the bible. He fulfilled every precept of it in behalf of his own elect; which obedience God accepted, and to every believer he imputes it: but to the reprobate the law is ftill, in the hand of God the Father, what it ever was—a covenant of works. God reckons

the reward of fuch to be of debt. It is a dreadful rod in the hand of God, even to his own children, when he lays it on; and this Paul found when his fin revived and he died: and he would have died for ever if Chrift had not appeared; but it pleafed God to reveal his fon in him. And, if it is a dreadful rod in the Father's hand to the elect, what must it be in the hand of an angry God to the finner? Why it is a fiery law ftill; and that they fhall find who fet themselves against him and his anointed. Let us break their bonds afunder, and caft their cords from us. He that fitteth in the heavens fhall laugh, he fall have them in derifion; then fhall be fpeak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his fore difpleasure: yet have I fet my King upon my holy hill. Thus you fee that God takes all thofe into his hand who reject his anointed, and in all the wrath of the law he still speaks to them, and vexes them in his fore difpleafure; yea, all that make a match with Chrift, before their first husband be dead, God takes into his hands; every plant that he hath not planted he plucks up; and every branch in Chrift that bears not fruit-all barren branches, apoftates, and hypocrites-he takes away from Chrift, who is the fin

ner's

ner's only refuge and hiding place and fuch fal under all the ftorms of his wrath; and in the law, not in Chrift, God appears to them, and in that law he is a confuming fire; and a terrible thing it is to be taken from the living vine and only refuge, and then to fall into the hands of the living God. Such wretches fee not a God in Chrift, but a confuming fire and a flighted Saviour. Hence the awful cry, Hide us from the face of him that fitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. They, who talk of the believer's being under the moral law in the hand of Christ, talk nonfenfe; the moral law is in the hand of an angry God to every finner. Hence the Father's counfel to his children, Turn to the strong bold, ye prifoners of hope; and Chrift's advice is, Abide in me, for those that turn from mẹ to their crooked ways, my Father will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity; and those that depart from the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead; and, if you go over to the law, either for righteousness or perfection, I fhall profit you nothing; therefore abide in me, for he that abides in me, and I in him, brings forth much fruit, and my Father purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.-Those that are making their boast of the law, and bringing the believer under it as his rule, little think what they are doing; they have no experience of these things, nor has God revealed these to them, nor have they the Spirit to lead

them, and therefore know not what they fay nor whereof they affirm. And I know feveral, who have been for years labouring at the law-not lawfully, but against the gospel-who by their countenances fhew what hands they are fallen into; they feel fomething of it, but do not understand it, and therefore call it temptation, the workings of unbelief, and the trial of faith; but the truth is, it is the bondage of the law, the wrath of God, and the fearfulness of hypocrites; for, as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. Paul, in his explanation of this mystery in this chapter, doth not palm the glory upon Mofes, but upon the law. The glory, which appeared upon the face of Mofes, was to give a fanction to the law; and it was a miracle of the lawgiver to confirm the law to Ifrael, that it was of God, divine, and authentic. Paul takes the glory from the face of Mofes, and puts it upon the tables of stone; but if the miniflration of death written and engraven upon ftones was glorious (v. 7); for if the miniftration of condemnation be lory (v. 9). The law, which in the feventh verfe is faid to be glorious, is in the ninth verfe emphatically faid to be glory: but that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because it made nothing perfect, and because of the glory that excelleth, which is the bringing in of a better hope; for, if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Hence it is plain that the glorious miniftration of death en

graven on ftones-the glory called the miniftration of condemnation-is excelled, done away, and abolifhed, by the gofpel. And, although in the laft clause of the seventh verfe it is written which glory was to be done away, that word glory is not in the original text, nor has it any bufinefs there; for Paul is not oppofing the glory of the gospel to the glory on Mofes' face, for thefe glories in the mystery are one in Chrift; but to the moral law he oppofeth the gofpel; and tells us that the one is done away and abolished, that the other which excels may remain. And certainly it is fhaken, waxed old, decayed, and vanished away; that the kingdom which we have received may stand by itself, and which fhall never be fhaken. The law and the prophets were until John; fince that time the kingdom of God is preached, and many are preffing into it.

Not long fince, at a friend's house, I got hold of the Bishops' bible; wherein it is twice declared, in the chapter out of which my text is taken, that the law is abolished. In the fame houfe I faw a learned commentator on the bible, who dropped many pretty things on this chapter, but skipped entirely over the words done away and abolished; to escape, as I fuppofe, the name of an Antinomian. But many are my godfathers and godmothers who have given me this name; and therefore, as I have no good name to lofe, I fhall, with Paul, use great boldness and plainnefs of fpeech, and endeavour to fhew mine opinion.