96 ORLIGATIOst or THE MORAL LAw. Hess. It is in theglass of the law of God that we see the sínfnt+ ness of our hearts and lives : It discovers every blotin our souls, and everyblemish in our conversation : It lays us under guilt, it makes us know our misery, it humbles us to thedust 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. 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 our disobedience to it?" Not the Son of God himself when he came into flesh and bloodwas 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 glo- rious and divine a person.condeseended to become a sacrifice for our transgressions against this law; he gave the highest instance ofhis own veneration for it as well as of the just resentment of God his Father against every sin.. The great and glorious God, the Governor of the world, thought it more necessary andbecom- ing his Majesty that the Sonof his love should be put to a painful and shameful death to make a propitiation for our sins against this law, than that any one transgression should be pardoned without an atonement. These awful sentiments should';be an'everlasting caution to us against entertaining slight thoughts of the evil of sin. It is no trifling matter to indulge the least sin, whenit awa- kens the resentment and wrath of the eternal God. Fools are they indeed that snake a mock of sin; Prov. xiv. 9. when the Son of Godnmustdie, before it could be pardoned. IV. " How glorious is the wisdom and the mercy of the gospel, which does honour to the law in every respect, which pre- pares a honourable atonement and pardon for guilty rebels who have broken this everlasting law, and provides grace and power to renew our nature according to the demands of it." It not only pardons returning transgressors, but it promises to write this law in the hearts of men, that it may bebetter observed and obeyed. A double and complete salvation. Read the language of the gospel and rejoice in it; Heb. viii. 10. This is the cove- rant, saith the Lord, that I will make with men; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no snore. And it is repeated in Iieb.. x. 10, 17. _ The law of God requires universal and everlasting obedience, and it is an un- speakableblessing to have this obedience made natural and easy bysanctifying grace. V. " Happy is the world above, where such natural and
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=