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DTSC.
1V.
LAW AND
THE GOSPEL.
ißi"
to
be
pardoned, accepted,
and justified,
by
trusting
¡i
what Christ bath done
and
suffered
on his
account.
And
so
all
christians. Rom.
iii.
22. And
in this
sense
the
gospel
"
justifieth
the
ungodly;
Rom.
iv.
5.
i.
e,
those
who
have
no
righteousness
of their
own
to-
plead, whose best obedience
is
all defective.
.
Quest. But doth
this gospel save
and
justify
a
mat:
that
bath
no
regard
to
the
law
of
God
?
How
is
his
obedience
to the
law
or
holinesss secured,
if a
man
be
justified or pronounced righteous, and acquitted
of
sin;
and accepted
to
eternal
life,
by
believing
or trusting
in
the promises
of
grace
?
Surely_
many wicked
men
will
say,
" I
trust in
the promise
of
pardon through
Jesus Christ
;
and
is
this
enough
?
is
there
no
security
that
these believers shall
be
obedient
to
the
law,
ás far
as they can,
though they
cannot
obey
it perfectly
?"
Answ. Yes,
there
is
abundant
security for their dili-
gence
in
duty
to
the
law,
though they can never
work
out
a
righteousness for themselves,
to be
justified
by
the
law.
Let
these reasons
be
considered
:
1.
It
is
the
great
design
of
the gospel
to restore
us
,to
holiness
as well as
to
happiness:
and
therefore
the
law,
in the
commands
of
it,
runs through
all
the
gracious
dis-
pensations
of God
to fallen man, as
I
have
shewn
you;
And
God
will
have
no
regard
to
them
in
a
way
of
grace,
who have no
regard
to
his law in
a
way
of
obedience,
The
law
constantly requires and points
out our
duty,
it
shews
us
our
sin,
it
lays
us
under condemnation, and
makes us seek
a
refuge
in the gospel
of
forgiveness.
Now
the
gospel
is
not prepared,
for
such
as
knowingly
and
wilfully
renounce
the
law
of
God,
which
is
holy,
and
just,
and good, and
who
persist
in this
practice,
and
abandon
the
commandments
of
it.
Can it
be ever
expected,
that
the
great God should
pardon and
save
those
rebels through
Jesus
Christ,
who
knowingly
and
wilfully
persist
in
their rebellions
?
God
forbid.
The
very
light
of nature
will
not
suffer
us
to
believe this.
This would
be to
"
make
Christ
the mi-
nister of
sin,
and
to build
again the things
which -Christ
came
to
destroy
;"
Gal.
ii.
17,
18.
For it
is
the design
of
all the blessings
of
the gospel,
to make
us
conformable
to God, and
to this
law,
which
is
the unchangeable
image
of
his holiness.
The great
design
of
it
is
to
make
N
3