ver. I. (What the law of Rome only, or the ceremonial law? No surely; but the moral law) For, to give a plain instance, "the woman that hath an husband, is bound by the (moral) law to her husband as long as he liveth, But if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband, ver. 2. So then, if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, tho' she be married to another man." ver. 3. From this particular instance the apostle proceeds to draw that general conclusion. "Wherefore, my brethren," by a plain parity of reason, “ ye also are become dead to the law." the whole Mosaic institution, by the body of Christ offered for you, and bringing you under a new dispensation: that ye should without any blame he married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, and hath thereby given proof of his authority to make the change, that ye should bring forth fruit unto God, ver. 4. And this we can do now, whereas before we could not: For when we were in the flesh, under the power of the flesh, that is, of corrupt nature, (which was necessarily the case till we knew the power of Christ's resurrection) the motions of sin, which were by the law, which were shewn and inflamed by the Mosaic law, not conquered, did work in our members, broke out various ways, to bring forth fruit unto death. ver. 5. But now we are delivered from the law, from that whole moral as well as ceremonial œconomy; that being dead whereby we were held: that intire institution being now as it were dead, and having no more authority over us, than the husband when dead hath over his wife: that we should serve him who died for us and rose again, in newness of spirit, in a new spiritual dispensation, and not in the oldness of the letter, ver. 6. with a bare outward service, according to the letter of the Mosaic institution.

3. The apostle having gone thus far, in proving that the Christian had set aside the Jewish dispensation, and that the moral law itself, tho' it could never pass away, yet stood on a different foundation from what it did before, now stops to propose and answer an objection. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? So some might infer from a misapprehension of those words, the motions of sin

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which were by the law. God forbid! saith the apostle, that we should say so. Nay, the law is an irreconcileable enemy to sin, searching it out wherever it is. I had not known sin but by the law. I had not known lust, evil desire to be sin, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet, ver. 7. After opening farther into the four following verses, he subjoins this general conclusion, with regard more 'especially to the moral law, from which the preceding instance was taken: Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

4. In order to explain and inforce these deep words, só little regard, because so little understood, I shall endeavour to shew, first, the original of this law, secondly, the nature thereof; thirdly, the 'properties, that it is holy, and just, and good, and fourthly, the uses of it.

I. 1. I shall, first, endeavour to shew the original of the moral law, often called the law, by way of eminence. Now this is not, as some may possibly have imagined, of so late an institution as the time of Moses. Noah declared it to men long before that time, and Enoch before him. But we may trace its original higher still, even beyond the foundation of the world, to that period, unknown indeed to men, but doubtless inrolled in the annals of eternity, when the morning stars first sang together, being newly called into existence. It pleased the great creator to make these his first born sens, intelligent beings, that they might know him that created them. For this end he endued them with understanding, to discern truth from falshood, good from evil and as a necessary result of this, with liberty, a capacity of chusing the one and refusing the other. By this they were likewise enabled to offer him a free and willing service: a service rewardable in itself, as well as most acceptable to their gracious Master.

2. To employ all the faculties which he had given them, particularly their understanding and liberty, he gave them a law, a compleat model of all truth, so far as is intelligible to a finite being, and of all good, so far as angelic minds were capable of embracing it. It was also the design of their beneficent Governor herein, to make way for a continual increase of their happiness;

seeing every instance of obedience to that law, would both add to the perfection of their nature, and intitle them to an higher reward, which the righteous Judge would give in its season.

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3. In like manner, when God in his appointed time, had created a new order of intelligent beings, when he had raised man from the dust of the earth, breathed into him the breath of life, and caused him to become a living soul, endued with power to chused good or evil: he gave to this free, intelligent creature, the same law as to his first-born children: not wrote indeed upon tables of stone, or any corruptible substance, but engraven on his heart by the finger of God, wrote in the inmost spirit both of men and of angels to the intent it might never be far off, never hard to be understood; but always at hand, and always shining with clear light, even as the sun in the midst of heaven.

4. Such was the original of the law of God. With regard to man, it was co-eval with his nature. But with regard to the elder sons of God, it shone in its full splendour, or ever the mountains were brought forth, or the earth and the round world were made. But it was not long be-fore man rebelled against God, and by breaking this glorious law, well nigh effaced it out of his heart; the eyes of his understanding being darkened, in the same measure as his soul was alienated from the life of God. And yet God did not dispise the work of his own hands: but being reconciled to man thro' the Son of his love, he in some measure re-inscribed the law, on the heart of his dark, sinful creature. He again shewed thee, O man what is good (altho' not as in the beginning) even to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk bumble with thy God.

5. And this he shewed not only to our first parents, but likewise to all their posterity by that true light which enlightens every man that cometh into the world. But notwithstanding this light, all flesh had in process of time cor rupted their way before him: till he chose out of mankind a peculiar people, to whom he gave a more perfect knowledge of his law. And the beads of this, because they were slow of understanding, he wrote on two tables

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of stone; which he commanded the fathers to teach their children, thro' all succeeding generations.

6. And thus it is, that the law of God is now made known to them that know not God. They hear, with the hearing of the ear, the things that were written aforetime for our instruction. But this does not suffice. They can

not by this means comprehend the height, and depth, and length, and breadth thereof. God alone can reveal this by his Spirit. And so he does to all that truly believe, in consequence of that gracious promise, made to all the Israel of God: " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. And this shall be the covenant that I will make, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jer. xxxi. 31, &c.

II. 1. The nature of that law which was originally given to angels in heaven and man in paradise, and which God has so mercifully promised to write afresh in the hearts of all true believers, was the second thing I proposed to shew. In order to which I would first observe, that altho' the law and the commandment are some times differently taken, (the commandment meaning but a part of the law) yet in the text they are used as equivalent terms, implying one and the same thing. But we cannot understand here, either by one or the other, the ceremonial law. 'Tis not the ceremonial law, whereof the apostle says, in the words above recited, I had not known sin but by the law: this is too plain to need a proof. Neither is it the ceremonial law which saith, in the words immediately subjoined, Thou shalt not covet. Therefore the ceremonial law, has no place in the present question.

2. Neither can we understand by the law mentioned in the text, the Mosaic dispensation. 'Tis true, the word is sometimes so understood: as when the apostle says, speaking to the Galatians, (c. iii. v. 17.) The covenant which was confirmed before (namely with Abraham the father of the faithful) the law, i. e. the Mosaic dispensation, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul. But it cannot be understood so in the text; for the apostle

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never bestows, so high commendations as these upon that imperfect and shadowy dispensation. He no where affirms, the Mosaic to be a spiritual law: that it is holy, and just and good. Neither is it true, that God will write that law in the hearts of them whose iniquities he remembers no more. It remains that the law, eminently so termed, is no other than the moral law.

3. Now this law is an incorruptible picture of the High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity. It is he whom in his essence no man hath seen, or can see, made visible to men and angels. It is the face of God unveiled: God manifested to his creatures as they are able to bear it manifested to give and not to destroy life; that they may see God and live. It is the heart of God disclosed to man. Yea, in some sense we may apply to this law, what the apostle says of his Son, it is aπavyaoua της δόξης, κ, χαρακτηρ της υποςάσεως αυτο The streaming forth, or out-beaming of his glory, the express image of his person.

4. "If virtue, said the antient Heathen, could assume such a shape as that we could behold her with our eyes, what wonderful love would she excite in us!" If virtue could do this! Is it done already. The law of God is all virtues in one, in such a shape, as to be beheld with open face, by all those whose eyes God hath enlightened. What is the law, but divine virtue and wisdom, assuming a visible form? What is it, but the original ideas of truth and good, which were lodged in the uncreated mind from eternity, now drawn forth and cloathed with such a vehicle, as to appear even to human understanding?

5. If we survey the law of God in another point of view, it is supreme, unchangeable reason: it is unalterable rectitude it is the everlasting fitness of all things that are or ever were created. I am sensible, what a shortness, and even impropriety there is, in these and all other human expressions, when we endeavour by these faint pictures, to shadow out the deep things of God. Nevertheless we have no better, indeed no other way during this our infant state of existence. As we now know but in part, so we are constrained to prophesy, i. e. speak of the things of God, in part also. We cannot order our speech by reason of darkness, while we are in this house No. IX.

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