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other strips the heir to adorn the slave. One sets up Moses, whose office it is to accuse the legalist, on the throne of Zion's King; and renders the Lord's government so imperfect, that his subjects have no rule but what is fetched from the servant, who was no more than a witness of the grace and truth that was to come by the Master. Another enforces a perfect obedience to the servant's rule, before we can obtain favour of the King; degrading the merit of the Sovereign, to exalt the servant and the letter. But, as it was in the beginning, so it is now, and ever shall be; for Moses had in old time, hath now, and will have, in every city, them that preach him.

Every chosen vessel, when the commandment comes with power to revive sin, and slay the sinner, turns his feet to the legal testimonies; makes haste, and delays not, to keep the commandments, as the only way that seems right to a man: but ancient experience, as well as modern, teaches us, that all would have fainted unless they had believed. A believing view of Christ; submission to the sovereign will of God revealed in him; and a cordial reception of him, as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, are the first acts of obedience that stand for any thing in God's account: and he gives the believing soul a sensibility of his approbation, by the pardon of his sins; the powerful operations of his Spirit; a sense of divine love; the enjoyment of peace and reconciliation; enlargement of heart; deliverance from

the fear of death, wrath, and bondage; and by all the joys of a rising, lively, and glorious hope. While the believer's will lies straight, or runs parallel, with the sovereign will of his Father in Christ Jesus, he walks with God, and takes heaven with him: he heareth not rebuke; nor is there any dreadful sound in his ears; nor is he afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. But, if he neglects the means of grace, omits prayer, and aims not at keeping up communion with his God; though the ten commandments say nothing about these things, yet he is summoned by his conscience to another hearing, and at another bar, where inquisition is strictly made, and the cry of the humble attended to. Here the believer finds that, with a froward man, the Lord will shew himself froward; with a perverse child, he will shew himself perverse; with a perfect one, he will shew himself perfect; and with an upright man, he will shew himself upright. At this bar, humbling grace attends both the inquisition and the chastening rod, which cannot be the case in the court of judicature. Nor can humbling grace be obtained by a rule that worketh wrath, where Justice will by no means clear the guilty. No man, either saint or sinner, was ever humbled, softened, or sweetened, at that bar. Devils, charged with folly, and desperate rebels, are both witnesses of this truth, who are obliged to stand the fiery test when they would fain fly out of God's hand. Every awakened sin

ner, as before observed, flies to the law, as his only rule of life, walk, conduct, and conversation; and he finds by sad experience that there is nothing but destruction and misery in all his ways, till he bows to the better yoke, and submits to another rule, which is attended with saving health, and directs his steps to the way of life and path of peace.

Under that galling, unbearable yoke, Reader, by which thou couldest neither live, walk, nor conduct thyself, these legal gentlemen wish to bring thy neck again: for unexperienced men know nothing savingly of the Gospel rule; therefore they can form no just ideas of the immortal ties of love, the dominion of grace, the powerful operations of the Spirit, and an heart-felt union with Christ: they know of no bands or cords but the slavish fear of death and hell; and therefore enforce personal holiness and good works from the law; which was the work of the ancient spies who came in to spy out the liberty of the saints; and then sent the justified Galatians, who had begun in the Spirit, to the law, to be made perfect by the flesh: whereas he who is subjected to the will of the Father of spirits, is chastened for his profit, and made a partaker of God's holiness, Heb. xii. 10; and, being joined to the Lord, he is one Spirit; and, by virtue of this union, he receives grace, strength, and a fresh supply of the Spirit, to prepare and qualify him for every good word and work: and this

soul-satisfying union is felt and enjoyed as long as a saint walks with God, in humble submission and resignation to his sovereign will; but, if he resist the will of his God, by disputing against or opposing his decrees, by murmuring at the daily cross, or fretting at different changes of heart, or at trying and intricate providences, he makes to himself crooked paths, and he that goes therein shall not enjoy peace. He acts like Jonah, runs counter to his rule; the storm pursues him, and in time sinks him; till out of the belly of hell he cries, conscious that he has observed lying vanities, and forsaken his own mercy: the thoughts of which, and his base ingratitude, constrain him once more to fix his longing eyes, not on Sinai, but on the Mercyseat in the holy Temple: after which, in answer to a few confessions and supplications put up, he comes forth again, crying, Salvation is of the Lord. But, if he will again dispute the point, and resist the will of his Father, after a few expostulations, a violent heat shall wither all his joys and comforts; and an east wind shall beat upon his head till he faints; and, when he comes to himself, he will say, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven;" which seems, by those words, to be the only rule, both of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. For what else can be the only rule of the family of heaven and earth, but the good-will of God in Christ Jesus, seeing angels themselves stand not on the tottering basis of free-will, but are elected and confirmed by so

vereign grace in Christ Jesus, who is the head of all principality and power? And, whether this good-will of God in Christ to the elect be revealed in a command or a promise, the glorious blessing is life in both, and is a free gift. "I know that his commandment is life everlasting." "And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life," 1 John ii. 25.

While the Master's will of commandments respecting the desolate woman and her children keeps the bond fraternity all their lifetime subject to bondage; the Master standing, not on the disposition of the servant's heart, but on the goodness of his work, and declaring the offender in one point to be guilty of all; under this dispensation he lives, which makes him hate coming to a reckoning; under this he dies, which makes him wish for a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell. Convinced that the bed which he hath made is too short for a resting-place, and his legal coverings too narrow to hide his guilt, a consciousness of this will force him to call on the rocks to fall on him, and to the hills to cover him: for, if he hath been inflamed with rage at the green tree, what but the work of fiery indignation can be done in the dry?

By the preaching of the Gospel the Law may be considered as established in the following man

ner:

It is established, in the hand of a sin-avenging God, against all the ungodliness and unrighteous

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