SECTION Il. 117 sinner might obtain eternal happiness; for this is a work Which the law can do, even in our fallen, state :.For by the law is the knowledge ofsin, Rom. iii. 20. and vii. 7. The law can convince and condemn, though it cannot justify, and save. Our Saviour knew the hearts or men ; heknew this young man was conceited of his own righteousness, and he had a mind to lead his con- Science to a sight and sense of the imperfection of his obedience, and therefore he preaches the law to him in manyof the express commands of it, for that very end which the law might attain, that is, conviction of sin and self-condemnation. This is the first thing necessary in order to the salvation of men, and there- fore our Saviour begins with it. And it is well worthy our notice, that the public promulga- tion ofthe ten commandments, with such solemn terrors at mount Sinai, was designed, in the spiritual intention of it, to lay the consciences of men under guilt, rather than to make then par- takers of righteousness and life. Rom. v. 20. The law entered that the offence might abound, that is, that the sins of men might appear to be great and numerous, beyond what their carnal imaginations would have supposed, without the express, letter of the law, which forbids coveting, &c. The apostle Paul tells us ; Rom. vii. 9. He had not known this concupiscence to be sin, but by the law ; and that useful expositor of scripture, Mr. Samuel Clark, who is not wont to be too evangelical in, his expositions, remarks on Ex. xix. 24. That the charge of forbidding the people to come near mount Sinai, is often, repeated, lest God break forth upon them, to shew that the end of the law is rather to exclude men from God, by reason of their sins, than to justify or to give life; for which hecites ; 2 Cor. iii. 7. Gal. iii. 10 -24. And indeed this was one considerable part of the design and business of our Saviour's personal ministry here on earth, viz, to preach the law of God in its perfection, and convince men of sin, to let them see that they were condemned and exposed to the wrath of God, that theymight learn the necessity of a Sa- viour to atone for sin, and of the mercy of God to pardon it. He described the purity and exactness of the law, not only to teach his disciples and all succeeding christians, that their obedi- ence to the law of God ought to be more exact and pure, more inward and spiritual, than what the Pharisees required or prac- tised, but also to shew men the imperfection of their best righ- teousness, and that they were all guilty before God, that he might prepare them to receive the gospel, partly by his own preaching it, and especially when it should bepublished in greater brightness and clearness, and in its full glory, after his resur- rection. Was not this one great design of his sermon upon the mount, where he explains the law of God in its lengths and 51 3
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