and for inherent holiness. They went about to establish their own righteoufnefs, as those do who exclude the righteousness of Chrift from my text; and fo ftumbled at the Rock of ages, were broken off by unbelief, and scattered into all winds, and remain to this day without a King, without a Priest, without a Prophet, without an Ephod, without a Teraphim, and without a Sacrifice. And all that they got by their religion, and for their pretended zeal for the Law, was the destruction of themselves, as a church, state, and nation; and, what is more dreadful, they imprecated and procured the innocent blood of Chrift and the curse of Heaven upon their own offspring, from age to age, yea, to more than twenty generations. But I have no call to go farther in defcribing a Pharisee, for the Church of Christ swarms alive with them; and in this glass the Reader, if he has any eyes, may fee his hundreds, if not his thousands.

any

This is

But the righteousness of the Saints far enough exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes: "For they "receive the bleffing from the Lord, and righte"oufnefs from the God of their falvation. "the generation of them that seek him, that feek "thy face, O God of Jacob." Pfalm xxiv. 5, 6. The righteousness that God bestows on his faints is a divine, a perfect, and an everlasting one; and without a perfect righteoufnefs no foul can stand in God's prefence, or find access to him in this world:

for,

for, if we have accefs with confidence, it is by the faith of Chrift; and if we enter heaven, and fee God's face with acceptance in the world to come, it is because we are made righteous in our Elder Brother, and hold the truth as it is in him. " Open "the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth "the truth may enter in." Ifai. xxvi. 2. This is the wisdom of God, and the glory of the faints; the other is the invention of men, and the snare of fools: But "their rock is not as our Rock, our enemies them"felves being judges." So I preach, and so you believe; and neither fuch preaching, nor fuch believing, fhall ever be in vain in the Lord.

We have seen what the Redeemer fays of the weighty matters of the Law; which is the first table, and which refpects God: and we find those things are wrought in all the faints.

We have feen, likewife, the leffer matters, or the least commandments; which are the fecond table, and refpect brethren and neighbours and we find that they are the Pharifees in heart, and the falfe Preachers in the church, who break them; and that they are broken by those who hate, flander, cenfure, and condemn, the children of God-under which we are exhorted to be patient and fubmiffive, that we may appear to be the children of our Father which is in heaven, who fuffers as much difhonour from their neglecting the weighty matters of the Law, as we do by their breaking the leaft command

ments

ments in hating and reviling us. But does the Pharifee and hypocrite's breaking the commandments entail the name of an Antinomian and a Devil upon those who have the righteoufnefs of the Law fulfilled in them, and who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit? Does their expofing themselves to the juft judgment of God, for condemning the juft, bring a yoke of bondage on them that are made free by the Holy Ghost? Or, what Chrift applies to the Pharifees and hypocrites, can it be faftened on thofe whom he hath formed for himself, and to whom he will never impute fin? Or can it be thought that they are the perfons that are in danger of hell-fire, whom Chrift himself declares, fhall never come into condemnation?

Does the Saviour's telling us that the believer paffes from death unto life, imply that the believer is under the miniftration of death as his Rule of Life? Or, does his telling us to take his yoke upon us, which is cafy, imply that the yoke of bondage, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear, is to be added to it? Does the Lord's telling me to abide in him, imply that I am to go to Mofes? Or, does his affirming that those who abide in him bring forth much fruit, imply that nothing but licentioufnefs is intended?

Can any man feparate the precept of the Law from the fentence? Is the Law divided? Can any man bring my neck under the yoke of the precept,

and

and keep my foul from the curfe? No; he that is under the precept, is under the fentence: "They "that are of the works of the Law, are under the

curfe of the Law." And they who go to the Law for juftification, in any fenfe, or even to be. made perfect, Chrift fhall profit them nothing. God has made a new covenant with his people: not according to the old; that was written by his finger on tables of ftone; this, by the Spirit, on the tables of the heart-that was the Law of Works; this is the Law of Faith, Truth, and Liberty; and furely fuch a foul is not without Law to God. The Law of Faith is written on the believer's heart, and with the mind he ferves the Law of God. The Law of the Spirit of Life is in Christ, and he is under that Law to Chrift. It is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Chrift that frees him from the Law of Sin and Death: fuch an one is not under the Law, but under Grace; not under the Law of Works in the hand of Chrift, (for that cannot be proved) but under the Law of the Spirit of Life in Chrift. And fuch men are the moft pure, the moft happy, and the most useful men, in the church; and their followers are the moft bright and fruitful in the world, and the most evangelical worshippers of God. 66 They are manifeftly declared to be the Epiftles of Chrift, miniftred (fays Paul) by us: "written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the

living God; not on tables of flone, but on the

"fleshly tables of the heart. God hath made us "able minifters of the New Teftament; not of the "Letter, but of the Spirit: for the Letter killeth, "but the Spirit giveth life. But if the miniftra"tion of death, written and engraven on ftones, << was glorious, fo that the children of Ifrael could "not ftedfaftly behold the face of Mofes, for the "glory of his countenance, which glory was to "be done away; how fhall not the miniftration of "the Spirit be rather glorious? For, if the mini"ftration of condemnation be glory, much more "doth the miniftration of righteoufnefs exceed in "glory. For if that which is done away was glo"rious, much more that which remaineth is glo"rious. Seeing, then, that we have fuch hope, we "ufe great plainnefs of fpeech: and not as Mofes, "who put a veil over his face, that the children of "Ifrael could not ftedfaftly look to the end of that "which is ABOLISHED." 2 Cor. chap. iii.

Let our opponents tell us what that Law is which was engraven on tables of fione; and let them prove it to be the Ceremonial Law, if they can. Then let them fhew who thofe precious fouls, called living Epiftles, are; and then let them prove that Paul's twice afferting that the miniftration of death, engraven on ftones, being DONE AWAY and ABOLISHED, means that the Law is their only Rule of Life. And, if this be Antinomianifm, let them father it upon the Holy Ghoft: he is the Author of

the