114 MORAL LAW UNDER THE GOSPEL. young enquirer, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command- ments? Did he design to give him a plain'and direct answer how he might obtain eternal life and salvation, according to the gos- pel ? Or did he design only to convince him of sin, by preaching the law to him, in order to make him see his guilt and misery, that he might seek after a better righteousness than that of the works of the law, another way of obtaining acceptance with God and eternal life, than merely by his own doings ? I answer, the last of these seems to be the design of Christ. He did not in- tend in these words to give him immediate and direct instruction, how he might actually obtain salvation, but rather first to con- vince him of sin, &c. and I would offer these following reasons forit: I. The answer of Christ is exactly suited to his question. Now his question was about eternal life to be obtained by works, and not about the salvation of a sinner by the mercy of God. He did not ask, as the convinced jailor ; Acts xvi. 30. What shall I do to be saved, or to obtain salvation ? But what good work must I do to obtain eternal life by it ? It is granted that eternal life is sometimes put for the final happiness of believers under the gospel, because it is included in the salvation of Christ ; yet life and eternal life are peculiarly and properly the blessings promised in the law of works, in which sense the word salvation is never used : and the scripture in some places by this way of expression makes this distinction evident. See the terms of the law or covenant of works, both in its commands and its reward, as it is described in direct oppo- sition to the gospel, and method of salvation, in Rom. x. 5, 6. Moses describing the righteousness which is of the law, that the man who doth these things shall live by them; whereas the righ- teousness offaith, that is the way of justification and acceptance withGod by the gospel, says quite other things, If thou shalt be- lieve and confess Christ, &c. verses 9,10. So St. Paul describes the promised blessingsof the law of works, in the same manner, in his epistle to theGalatians, Gal. iii. 12. The law is not offaith, but the man who doth them shall live in them. Life is still the word of the promise. And in Rom. ii. 6, 7. where the apostle is properly preaching the law of works with the terms of it, it is called immortality, eternal life ; to be obtained by continuance in good works, or well-doing. It is this eternal life and immortality which was implied in the covenant of works which God made with Adam. If he did eat the forbidden fruit, he should die ; but if he observed the commands of God, he should live; and the tree of life, in the -midst of the garden, was a symbol or sacrament of life and im- mortality to seal this promise to man, if he continued inhis obe- dience to God.
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