SEAM. V.) OF THE MORAL' LAW, AND THE EVIL OP SIN. SI release christians from the precepts of the law is to make " Christ the minister of sin, and to turn the grace of our God into wantonness," which the apostles Paul and Jude speak of with detestation and abhorrence. Gal. ii. 77. Jude verse 4. To pretend that obedience to the moral law is needless for christians who believe the gospel, is to deny and destroy, as much as in us lies, the great end for which Christ and the gospel came into the world ; which is to ¢' redeem us from all iniquity thatwe might" be zealous of good works ;" Tit. _ii. 14. " To deliver us from the curse of the law," and the condemnation \of it, that we might love the precepts of the law, and practise them with delight and newness of heart. It is not therefore our preaching of the law to promote the gospel, that deserves the reproach of a legal sermon; but tó preach the law instead of the gospel, 'or to preach the gospel as a law of works. Christ and St. Paul well understood the gospel, and yet they both preached the law in the commands and terrors of it. We must learn the law if we would be acquainted with our own guilt and danger, or if we would know our duty, and practise religion and virtue. " By the law is the knowledge of sin," and by the law our feet are guided into the paths of righteousness. It is in the glass of the law of God that we see the sinfulness of our hearts and lives : It discovers every blot in our souls, and every blemish in our conver- sation : It lays us under guilt, it makes us know our misery, it humbles us to the dust before God, and is made use of by the blessed Spirit to drive us out of ourselves, and all our own pretences to righteousness, that we may seek the appointed salvation of Jesus, and fly to our better hope. Reflection III. " What a holy regard and jealousy has God shewn for the honour of his everlasting law, and what a sacred indignation has he manifested against sin, when he sent his own Son to obey this law, and to suffer for ou /disobedience to it Not-the Son of God him- selfwhen he came into flesh and blood was exempted from the duties of this law, and he magnified it and made it honourable by his practice of it in perfection: And when so glorious and divine a person condescended to become a sacrificefor our transgressions against this law, he gave the highest instance of his own veneration for it as well VOL. III. G
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