rarsc. arr:J LAW AND THE G09,,PEL. 1.61 the gospel, i. e. the precept and the promise, cannot con tradict one another ; for they both run through all tho different dispensations thatever God gave to the children of men since the fall. Secondly, The law and gospel do not contradict one another, for they are two different discoveries of the mind and will of God, made to men for very different purposes. The law, since the fall of Adam, was given for the discovery or conviction ofsin, and to shew men not only their duty, but also how exceedingly sinful their natures are, and how unable they are to fulfil their duties per fectly; and therefore to lay them under a sense of guilt and condemnation. The promise, or gospel, was given for the relief of guilty man, whom the law had con- demned, and toprovide a righteousness, or justification; and life, for them,who, accordingto the law, had asentence of death passed upon them. Therefore the law is called " the ministration of condemnation and death," and the gospel " the ministration of the spirit and righteousness, or ofjustification and eternal life ;" 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8, 9. I confess, if the law had been given for the same end as the gospel, if the law had been given for man ruined and sinful, to obtain life and salvation by it as well as the gospel, then-they might have been supposed to contra- diet one another, and the 'Objection in my text had stood firm, and we could not have easily and fairly answered it; but since they are given for different purposes, they are but different revelations of God, which are made happily subordinate one to another, and their different ends and designs are both obtained. The law convinces and condemns sinners, and the gospel relieves and par; dons them, justifies and saves them: See Rom. iii. 20-- 22, &c. Gal. iii. 10-14. Object. 1. But doth not St. Paul himself say, that the law was ordained for life ? Rom. vii. 10. Answ. 1. Perhaps St. Paul might mean only to shew his former opinion, that he thought " it was ordained to give life ; Rom. vii. 10, 11, 18. But supposing this to be the real design ofthe words, it signifies no more than that the law was designed or ordained to give life and happi- ness to every one that perfectly fulfilled it; Rom. ii. 7. and x. 5. But in Gal. iii. 10. cursed is every one that con- tinueth not in all thins which are written in the boots
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