SECTION V. 137 the promises, Gal. iii. 21. but the r law is our school-master," and leader of us as children to Christ : so the Greek word zrx.8 11,yá. means, Gal. iii: 21. Conviction of sin by Christ's preaching off.lte law, leads men, as in a lower school, as yet, to proceed farther, and to seek for and embrace the grace ofChrist in the gospel, as it is preached more fully and clearly by his apostles under the teachings of his Spirit. This scheme and view of things being well adjusted in the mind, will help us to understand many of those legal expres- sions in the New Testament, which might seem to lead us to the covenant of works again, or which seem to mingle the law and . gospel for salvation, if we will but remember that the Holy Ghost in the New Testament sometimes discovers the law in its severity and perfection of demands for the'conviction of sin, as well as for the discovery of our duty, and sometimes reveals the gospel in the riches of its grace, for the faith and salvation of awakened sinners. II. " How firm and durableis the ancient and perfect law of God, which requires perfect, constant and persevering obe- dience ?" It is an eternal law : It is not yet abolished, though the gospel be introduced, nor shall it be through allthe ages of mankind, and the several dispensations of God toward men. The moral law is sometimes said tobe a transcript or copy from the nature and attributes of God; the duties there requiredbear the more perfect stamp and signature of his essential perfections, and therefore the law must be unchangeable. And not only the requirements of duty, but I think the sanctions of the law also in its promised rewards and threatened penaltiesare everlasting. " He that doth these commands perfectly shall live in or by them : But cursed is he that continueth not in all the commands of the law to do them," andhe must die, Gal. iii. 10, 12. I do not find any scripture that tells me, that the commands, or the sanc- tions are repealed, though God bathprovided a wayto deliver v If it should be said, that the apostle in Heb vii. 18. says, "there is verily a disanulling of the commandment for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, for the law madenothing perfect," Sue. I answer, that the context plainly shews that the words " law" and "commandment" here, do not mean the moral law, but refer either to the Sinai covenant, or the whole scheme of the Jewish moo- nomy, and particularly to the Levitical priesthood which is abrogated, because it could not make a proper atonement for sin. If it should be objected yet again, that the sameapostle in Rom. vii. 6. de- 'dares, that " we are now delivered from the law, that being dead in which we were held e, and that the law in this place means the ten commandments, because the apostle argues from the tenth command, " Thou shalt not covet :" I an- swer, that the apostle there plainly means, that now under the gospel we who are true christians, and are entered into the covenant of graceby faith, aredelivered from the bondage and chains of the law, as a covenant of works, whereby our indwelling sits were rather irritated and provoked than subdued: "It is dead," that is, it has lost its unhappy influences on true believers : But not that the law itself is abolished, either as a rule of life to christians, or as a condemning
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