but only of the wrath of God; and therefore the law, as it is the revelation of wrath, worketh wrath. Try it when you will, you will find that it is only the revelation of God's love that worketh love; and that is the revelation of him in the gofpel, as a gracious God, a promifing God, a pitying, and fin-pardoning God, a reconciled God in Chrift, this works love: but God, as revealed in the broken law, is merely a commanding God, a threatening God, a judging and avenging Ged, a terrible God, a confuming fire to finners; and this works wrath and enmity. Now, love being the fulfilling of the law, and the fum thereof; enmity is the fum of all fin: therefore, while the law works wrath and enmity, it is the ftrength of fin. The gofpel works love, the law works enmity: and as the faith of the gofpel works by love; fo legal faith, or rather unbelief, works by enmity: and as the law works wrath and enmity, fo it works fear and bondage; flavifh fear, and dreadful bondage, which is attended with diforder, difturbance, and defpair. 5. The law is the frength of fin, in refpect of its oppofition to the gofpel, wherein grace and ftrength alone is exhibited for the deftruction of fin. The law is not of faith, Gal. iii. 12.-The law and grace are set in oppofition to one-another, in many places, as Rom. xi. 6. "If by grace, then it is no more of work, otherwise grace is no more grace; but if it be of work, then it is no more grace, otherwife work is no more work." The command of the law, as a covenant of works, Do and live, ftands directly oppofite to the call of the gofpel, which is to lay hold on eternal life upon the doing of another: the threatening of the law, and the promise of it also, stand directly oppofite to the profer and promife of the gospel; the threatening of the law is a threatening of death to the finner for his difobedience; the promife of the gofpel is a promise of life to the finner through the obedience of the SURETY: the promife of the law was a promise of life to him that works for it, and works perfectly; the promife of the gofpel is a promife of life to him that works not, but believes on him that juftifieth the ungodly, ungodly, Rom. iv. 4, 5. The conditional promife of the law, whereof the condition is no lefs than perfect, perfonal obedience, is directly oppofite to the free and abfolute promife of the gofpel, and the freedom of the grace thereof, which is to be had without money and without price. The righteousness of the law, and the righteousness of the gospel, ftand alfo directly opposite : the righteousness of the law is only for the perfect man, that never finned; the righteousness of the gofpel is for a finner, a finner overwhelmed with fin: the righteousnefs of the law is the righteoufnefs of man, and the righteoufnefs of the gofpel is the righteoufnefs of God; it is a righteoufnefs of another, and in another than ourfelves it is a righteousness imputed without works, to a finner believing in Chrift, Rom. iii. 21, 22. The strength of the law for obedience, was the natural ftrength that God gave to Adam at firft; it was home-bred, and yet but ftrength only in the ftream, which is dried up, fo as by nature we are without ftrength; and fin hath the poffeffion of all the ftrength of nature: but the ftrength of the gofpel is a borrowed ftrength, as well as the righteoufnefs a borrowed righteoufnefs, faying, In the Lord bave I righteoufness and strength; and so it is the strength of the fountain, that can never be dried up. The law requires all to be done in our own ftrength; the gospel expects nothing to be done but in the ftrength of another the law gives no ground of claim for life, but by debt to the doer; the gofpel gives po claim for it, but by grace to the finner. Now, there can be nothing more oppofite than law and gofpel; and therefore, in refpect of the oppofition of the law to the gofpel of the grace of God, it may be called the ftrength of fin, fince it opposes that which alone can destroy that ftrength. 6. The law is the ftrength of fin, in refpect of its agreement with the natural impreffion that it hath left upon the heart of the children of men; and by reafon of which they ftand out against Christ, in and by whom alone the ftrength of fin is broken: I call it an agree ment, because the law, though it will never accept of any work that a finner can do, yet it requires the finner to do whatever it required at the first, and that under the the pain of eternal death, which he hath already incurred by fin; and under the pain of forfeiture of eternal life, which he hath already forfeit by his failure; for the law hath not loft its authority to command, though we have loft ability to obey. Now, the natural impreffions that the law hath left upon the children of men, are agreeable to the original conftitution of the law, or covenant of works. The law was the firft liquor poured into the veffel of man's nature, and the veffel fmells of that liquor that was firft put into it; hence it is fo natural for all men to expect life no other way but in a way of doing for it. And these legal impreffions, left on our nature by the law, are the ftrength of fin in manifold refpects, especially in their agreement with the law to oppose Chrift in the gofpel: hence the legal mind opposes Christ as a Prophet, as it is ignorant of God's righteousness, and averfe from being taught this lesson, taking up God as ftill dealing with it in the old-covenant way. The legal confcience opposes Christ as a Priest; for, whenever it is awakened, it knows nothing of feeking peace by the blood of Chrift, but natively looks to the law, and its own obedience for it, faying, O fince I have displeased God by my difobedience, how fhall I please him but by my obedience? If I have offended him by my fin, how thall I pacify him but by my duty? It is as natural for confcience thus to act and speak when it is preffed, as it is natural for a man to breathe in the air, or for a fifh to fwim in the water: hence the natural confcience, inftead of leading men to Chrift, in whom alone God is well-pleafed and fatisfied, it leads. them to the law, and fo the quite oppofite way to Christ. The legal will also oppofes Christ as a King; for, when he is rejected as a Priest, he cannot be received as a King: for his fpiritual kingdom is founded upon his Priesthood, infomuch, that they who receive him not for righteoufnefs, cannot receive him for ftrength; and confequently the ftrength of fin, both to condemn and command, remains. In a word, the will is unwilling to be faved in this way of grace, and the natural man cannot receive thefe things of the Spirit of God and the the gofpel; men's legal notions and imaginations exalt themselves against the knowledge of Chrift, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. And they are fo high and mighty, that nothing can pull them down but the power of omnipotency; the weapons that are mighty through God to the pulling down of ftrong holds, cafting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itfelf against the knowledge of God.-Again, these legal impreffions left by the law, have a weakening influence upon the graces of the Spirit, where they are implanted; for the implantation of grace does not wholly root out the impreffion of the law in time, fuch a deep rooting it hath in our nature. Thefe weeds of legal impreffions, that grow up in the garden of the heart, draw away the fap and strengh of the fruits of the Spirit, and weaken them.They either hinder or weaken faith, For the law is not of faith: it opposes both the doctrine of faith, and the grace of faith: it hinders and weakens repentance; for gofpelrepentance iffues from that faith which the law oppofes: it hinders and weakens love; for the man cannot love that God, whom, by the law, he apprehends to be an enemy: and hence it hinders and opposes joy in the Lord; for the legal spirit is a spirit of heavinefs, in oppofition to joy; and fo it eats out the man's ftrength, for, The joy of the Lord is our strength and, confequently, when thus the law weakens and oppofes the ftrength of grace, in this refpect it is the strength of fin; its agreement with the natural impreffion that it hath left on the hearts of the children of men, creates a natural disagreement betwixt us and Christ, betwixt us and the gospel, and the grace of the gofpel. Pride of natural righteoufnefs ftands up againft, and oppofes the gofpel-righteoufnefs. 7. The law is the ftrength of fin, in refpect of the irritating quality of its precept upon corrupt nature; "Sin, taking occafion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupifcence," Rom. vii. 8. And here it is ftrange to think of the different effects of the law of works, in ftrengthening fin on the one hand, by its agreement with proud and felf-righteous nature, as I have been fhewing; and, on the other hand, by its difagreeablenefs with, and oppofition unto carnal and corrupt corrupt nature, which is irritated by the law. Sin takes occafion by the commandment, and fo the law is the strength of fin; as it is in the Latin proverb, Occafio facit furem, "Occafion makes the thief." Thus Achan; I faw fuch and fuch things, and feeing them I coveted them, and took them. The law does not, properly fpeaking, give occafion to fin; but fin takes occafion from the law to be operative and working; yea, fuch is the corruption of nature, that the more God's law forbids fin, the more we break out into fin; as a dam or bank made in the midft of a strong current of water, the more it is dammed up, the more it fwells; and, when once it prevails, it breaks over with the greater violence: fo here, the more God's law oppofes fin, the more does fin rife, and fwell, and rage: Nitimur in vetitum, &c. Why this? Even because there is fuch a contrariety betwixt God's holy law and our unholy nature. Again, in regard of righteous nature, now proud and felfifh, they feem to agree, and do really fo in fome things: for, according to the tenor of the covenant of works, man would have had a perfonal righteousness to have gloried in, if God had defigned him life that way; and proud nature abused that original conftitution, which God never defigned fhould ftand but for a little, to be like a fcaffold for building up a better covenant; yet proud nature grips, as I faid, to that wherein the law would have exalted it, if it had ftood: but, in regard of corrupt and carnal nature, there is fuch an oppofition to the very command of the law, that it is not subject thereto, neither can be; nay, instead of subjection to it, it is irritate and increased by it. In this fenfe it may be faid, that when the law enters, offence doth abound: for fin, like a mad horfe, rages, and is the more furious, that it is checked with the bridle. 8. To name no more, As the law is the ftrength of fin, in respect of the irritating quality of the command upon corrupt nature; fo the law is the ftrength of fin, in refpect of the severity of the fanction thereof; which, fo far as it is regarded by us now in our obedience to the law, in thefe our finful circumftances under a bro ken |