$fl THE FORM OP THE GOSPEL. law is plainly described by the apostle Rom. ii.. 12-15. The work of the law is.written in thé hearts of the heathens, that is the general commands and penalties may be found by the light of na- ture, and " the doers of this law shall be justified." Not that St. Paul meant, that any person shall actually be justified by his doing, but that this is the way of justification, according to the law of nature. Thus.it was, also, in the Jewish law, or Sinai covenant, which was not the gospel, but an additional constitution, relating . only to the Jewish nation, to be governed by God as their pecu- liar king. And it was really distinct from the covenant of grace or gospel of salvation, whereby Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the Israelites themselves were to be saved. Some persons, indeed, call it a legal dispensation of the covenant of grace, with whom I will not contend, but it is more agreeable to the languageof scripture, to call it a distinct covenant, or a covenant or law of works, as a Jewish appendix to the gospel. It is true, indeed, the Jewish law had much of grace in it as well as much of terror, and in manyparts of it, it represented, typified, witnessed and held forth the gospelor covenant of grace, whereby all believers in all ages are to be saved, as well as the original lawof nature, or the general covenant of works, whereby all men are cursedand condemned ; and the apostle makes use of it in all these views in his epistles to the Romans, Galatians and Hebrews : But the Jewish law in its own proper nature and de- sign, was a special or'particular covenant of works with temporal promises and temporal threatenings. The duties enjoined were chiefly contained in the four last books of Moses, andcommonly called the moral, the ceremonial, and the judicial or political law : 'rho sanotion is written in many parts of those books ; some of the threatenings or penalties were to be inflicted on particular offenders by the magistrate, such as, beating with rods, stoning to death, fines and amercements òf money or goods, &c. Some were to be inflicted on the whole nation by God himself, if they transgressed this law, such as, plagues, famine, banishmentfrom the land of Canaan, &c. Deut., xxviii. and the justifying righteousness according to this law, was their obedience to the precepts and ordinances of it. Deut. vi. 25. " And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he bath com- manded us. So Dent. xxiv. 13. So Rom. x. v. Moses de- scribeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which loth those things shaltliveby them." Now let us consider bow far the gospel partakes of the nature of a law, and may be so called : I. The gospel, taken in a large sense, bath so much of the Nature of a law in it, that titers are commands given, duties en-
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