310
FAITH
THE WAY
TO
SALVATION.
[SERNI. X%ftT.
mouth
is
stopped, and the
whole
world
is
become guilty
before God,
Rom.
iii.
19.
Though
the
nations
of
the
Jews and
christians, and
perhaps the greatest
part of
the heathen
world, have
had
some
revelations
of
the
gospel
or covenant
of
grace,
and
have been
under
the
outward
offers
of
it
;
yet Jews,
heathens, and
national
christians, are
all under the sentence
of
the covenant
-of the
law
of
works, till
they
enter
into.
the.
covenant
of
grace
by
repentance
and faith
in
the
mercy
of
God.
But the covenant
of
grace,
or the
gospel,
is
a
new
constitution,. which
God
bath
ordained
for
the relief
of
poor
fallen miserable man, condemned and perishing
under
the curse
of
the
law
of
works.
It
is
a constitu-
tion
of
grace, whereby alone fallen
sinners
can obtain
salvation.
The
law
of
works demands universal obedience to all
the
commands
of
God, obedience perfect
and persever-
ing;
for
this
is
the language
of
it;
the
man
that
Both
them
shall
live
in
them,
Rom.
x.
5.
and
it
curses every
sinner without hope or remedy; cursed
is
every
one
that
continueth not
in
all
things
that
are written
in the
book
of
the
law to
do
them,
Gal.
iii.
10, 12.
But
the voice
of
the gospel, the righteousness
of
faith,
or the
way
of
justification
by
Christ,
speaketh
on this
wise
With
the
heart
man believeth
unto righteousness,
and
with the
mouth
confession
is made
unto
salvation;
for
the
just
,shall live
by
faith,
Rom.
x.
10.
Gal.
iii.
11.
The
one
proclaims
eternal
life
to all
that
perfectly
obey,
the
other
publishes
salvation to
all
that
believe,
though
their
obe-
dience
be very
imperfect.
I
grant
indeed,
that
the apostle cites these descriptions
of
the
law
of
works
out of
the books
of
Moses,
and
there-
fore
some
persons would suppose
him only
to
mean the
particular
law given to
the Jews
at
mount
Sinai,
and
not
the
general covenant
of
works made with Adam, and
with
all
mankind
in him.
But
to this
I
give
these two answers
:
1.
Answer.
The
law
of
works, which
the apostle speaks
of
in
the epistle to the Romans, particularly
in
the second
and third
chapters,
cannot
signify
merely
the Jewish
law
;
for it
is
such a
law as
includes
all the
heathen
world, as
appears
plain, Rom,
ii.
14, 15.
and
by
which
the hea-
thens
as
well as
the Jews
were
condemned, and could