90 O$LIGATICN OE THE MORAL LAW. Having proved the perpetual obligation of the moral law, I proceed to the third part of my discourse, and that is brief- ly to represent the evil nature of sin. Our text informs us wherein it consists. Sin is the transgression of the law. When a creature transgresses any command that God bath given, he commits sin ; but this chiefly refers to the moral law, because it is this law upon which all others are founded, and which gives force and authority to them all. Now there is a heinous evil contained in the nature of sin, if we consider the following charac- ters of it. I. " It is an affront to the authority and government of a wise and holy God, a God whohas sovereign right to make laws for his creatures, and has formed all his commands and prohibi. tions according to infinite wisdom. Every act of wilful sin does as it were deny the sovereignty of God over us and the property that God has in us according to the expression of profane sinners ; Ps. xii. 4. Our lips are our own, .who is Lord over us. ,Wilful sin against God renounces his right to govern us and pours high contempt upon his wisdom and his righteous dominion ; it denies his laws to bewise and righteous, as though they were not fit to be enjoined of God or practised of men. II. " Sin carries in the nature of it high ingratitude to God our Creator, anda wicked abuse of that goodness which has be- stowedupon us all our natural powers and talents, our limbs, our .senses, and all our faculties of soul and body." Such aCreator, who has furnished his creatures with so many excellent faculties, may'reasonably expect and demand of them a return of love and obedience, but to employ these very talents and powers for the dishonour ofhim who gave them is abominable in itself and highly provoking to that God who formed us. III. Sin against the law of God " breaks inupon that wise and beautiful order which God has appointed to run through his whole creation." Prov. xvi. 4. God has made all thingsfor himselfand his own glory ; but if we set up ourselves and our the law ; and in 1 Con, in. 21. he declares he is not without law to God, but he isunder the law, as it is in the handsof Christ. Not an apostlenor an angel from heaven can release creatures from the demandsof duty to their Creator, for while we are the work of the hand of God, andcontinue to be his creatures, this law never ceases to command perfect obedience to the God that made us, viz. that we most lovehim with all our soul, and with all our strength. Nor do all the lessening expressionswhich the apostleuses in his epistle to the Hebrews against the law, give us a release from the moral law, for his design is only to shew the weakness and unprofitableness of the Jewish law or covenant of Sinai in comparison of the glorious state of the gospel, and the new covenant, when the moral law shall be written on the hearts of men. lieb. vii. 8. and viii. 10-13. This is the law that mast stand for ever when the Jewish covenant va- sielles and is abolished.
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