Chap. 8. and the Covenant of Grace. confeffes is the lawes office to a beleever ) then I (hall fpeedily give an account, how this dead husband retains power of com- mand. The argument is as well of force, the dead husband bath no power to di }cover his wives faults, to refiraine, curb, or keep her in: But the Lnw is a dead husband to beleevers; Therefore the Law hath no fuch power. It lies upon him to anfwer this argu- ment to free himfelf from felf contradi ftíon. And I would faine fee thisanfwered, and the other maintained. Secondly,for more full fatisfac`tion, I fay that fome learned Expofitors make the Rom.,:i. &c. husband in that fimilitude not to be the Law, but fin, which hath vindicated. its power from the Law. So Diodati in his Notes upon the place. Man fgnifceth fin which bath power from the Law; the woman ù our humane nature, and of thef e two are begotten the depraved errours of (in; So allo Doctor Reynolds in his Treatife of Divorce, fet- ting out the fcope of this fimilitude, thus expreffeth it, Ai a Wife her husband being dead, doth lawfully take another, and is not an a- dultere f fe,. in having his company to bring forth fruit of her body to him ; fo regenerate perforas, their natural corruption (provoked by the Law to fin) and flefhbeing mortified, and japed to Chrift as to a fecond husband, page 37. Mafter Burger Vindicia Legis, page 218. faith, Sin which by the Law doth irritate an provoke our car - ruption, that is the former husband the foul had, and lofts they are the children thereof, and this the rather is to be received , baecaufe theApoftle in his reddition doth not fay theLaw is dead,but We are dead. But if Matter Powell will (till contend that the Law is-the husband in that place, which by r;eafon of corruption bath fo much power for irritation and condemnation over an unregene- rate man; I (hall onely give him that advice which Doctor Rey- nolds in the place quoted,gives Bellarmin upon occafion of his in- terpretation of this fimilitude. Let Bellarmine acknoWledgge, that fimilitudes mull not be fet on the rack, nor the drift thereof be firetched in luth fort, as if they ought jug in length, breadth, and depth, to match and fit that whereunto they are re fembled.And when . he confeffeth power in the Law notwithftanding this death to performe diverfe offices in the fouls of beleevers, he cannot .af- firme that the law is wholly dead, nor deny but that it may have this office of command likewife.- The power which the Law lo feth, is that which corruption gave it, which is irritátion and con demnation;corruption never gave command to the Law, and the H 3 death, 53
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