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THE MORAL LAW,
AND
THE
EVII.
OF
SIN.
[SEEM.
V.
law,
that a,
creature
must
obey his
Maker
in
all things.
And for this
reason it
was
that our
blessed
Saviour,
who
had
no
need
to
be
washed from
sin,
yet
submitted
to
bap
-,
tism
under
the ministry'
of
John
his
forerunner,
even
when
John
seemed to
dissuade
him from
it
;
Mat.
iii.
15.
"
Suffer
it
to
be.so
now said
he,
for thus
it
becomes
us
to
fulfil
ail righteousness,
that
is,
to
obey whatever God.
commands."
V.
I
would
add
in
the
last
place,
that scripture
asserts
the perpetuity and everlasting obligation
of
the moral
law
;
Luke
xvi.
17-
" It
is
easier for
heaven and
earth
to pass
away,
than for
the
least tittle
of
the
law
to
fail;''
and our
blessed
Saviour declares
;
Mat.
v. 17.
that
"
he
carne
not
to destroy the
law,
but
to fulfil
it
;"
by which
he
cannot
mean the Jewish
ritual
which
was
soon
abo-
lished,
but
he
means eminently the moral
law,
for it
is
the precepts
of
that
law he
proceeds
to
explain.
And
it
is in conformity
to
this
doctrine,
the
apostle
Paul
makes
use
of
this
law
-to
convince
Jew
and gentile, and
all
man-,
kind
in all ages,
that
they
are sinners and guilty
before
God,
in the second
and third chapters
to
the
Romans,'
By
the
law
is
the knowledge
of
sin,"
whether
the -na-
tural
law
of
the heathens, or the written
law
of
the
Jews
All have
broken
this moral
law
of
God,
"
every
mouth
is
stopped and
all
the
world lies
guilty
before
God."
.
I
know
that
there
are
some
contrary
opinions rising up
in the
heart of
man against this doctrine. Some have
Objected here,
that
since
the
fail
of
Adam no mere man
is
able perfectly
to
comply with the
demands
of
it,
for
it
requires universal
obedience
in
thought,
word
and
ac-
tion, and
a
perfect abstinence horn
every
sin
but
since
no
man
is
able to yield this obedience,
it
can
never
be
supposed
that
-a
righteous and
a
gracious
God
can
conti,
flue
to
require
it
To
this
I
answer,
first,
Answer I.
That
man has
not
lost
his
natural
powers
to
obey this
law;
he
is
bound then
as
far
as his
natural
pgwers
will
reach
:
I
own his
faculties are greatly
cor-,
rupted
by
vicious
inclinations or
sinful
propensities,
which
has been
happily called
by
our
divines a
moral ina-
bility
to
fulfil
the
law,
rather
than a
natural
impossibility
of
it.
But though
the powers
of
man
be
vitiated,
and
his
inclinations
to evil
are
so
strong,
that
they
will
never
.14e
effectually
subdued without
divine
grace34yet
the
great