their own righteousness and good works, very highly, and make great pretensions to the law; whose lives are no example to good men, far from it. Nor do they always conceal their inward enmity even against the sovereignty of God himself, but often arraign it, and his justice too, at the bar of reason. They think the Almighty is just such an one as themselves; they hate his decrees; are envious at the objects of his choice; and spy out, in order to ridicule and bring into contempt, the liberty which they have in Christ Jesus: and by which they plainly shew that they have no real love to God, nor to the real children of God; and therefore their works are little worth, neither springing from a good root, nor directed to a good end. There is nothing but natural, corrupt, or vile affections, in bond children. They are strangers to the spirituality of the law, strangers to the yoke of it, and to the bondage that it genders; and are haters of the power of godliness; and they misrepresent others as erroneous who preach the truth, while themselves publish nothing but self-contradictions and lies. That the moral law has ceased to exist as a covenant of works is a damnable falsehood. No hint of it is given in all the Bible. This is the worst branch of antinomianism that ever was published. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness: not only the fulfilling end, but the grand end of the law is answered in and by him. And the same end is answered and fulfilled by a work of grace in us. We are redeemed from under the law, are delivered from the law, and are under grace, and not under the law. But the law is still what it ever was-an everlasting, unalterable, unrepealable law; and a covenant of works in every sense; and to him that works under it the reward is still reckoned of debt. But these base antinomians, who have bereaved the law of all its power, and so have destroyed it, cry out, The believer is under the law to Christ. Then I ask wherein the child of God differs from the bastard? Is not every pharisee in the nation under the law to Christ? Is not the Saviour the king of nations, and God of the whole earth? Has he not power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him? Is not all judgment committed to him? Is he not the Judge of quick and dead? Are not all men accountable to him? Is he not the master of the servant, as well as Father of the children? Do not kings reign, and princes decree justice, by him? He is the master of Judas, as well as lord of the household. He will open the book of the law, the book of conscience, and the book of life. He is a just God and a Saviour; and will bless the children of the free woman, and curse the bond woman and her children. One is under the blessing of Zion, and the other under the curse of Sinai. These are Ebal and Gerizzim, which bear the blessing and the curse. By the book of the law will one be judged, and by the book of life the other. Thus all the non-elect are under the But the believer is under grace to Christ: it is the law of the spirit of life in Christ that makes the believer free from the law of death engraven on tables of stone. There is a law of life in Christ's heart to the believer; and the law of Moses is in the Saviour's hand to the infidel. And it is a covenant of works still; it works bondage in the believer who looks to it, and wrath and death in the sinner that is under it. And of this working power it never was, nor ever shall be divested. The rod of Christ's strength, by which he rules his saints, or his powerful rod, is the gospel. You may call it the good-will of God in Christ Jesus, which is the saint's rule. Or you may call it the law of the Spirit in Christ, under which, Paul says, the believer is. Or you may call it the new covenant, written in the mind, and put in the heart, of the saint, which is, as Paul says, the believer's law to God: which law, or covenant, is said to be new, and not according to the old; and is the covenant of grace, not of works; and under grace the believer is, and not under the law. Or you may call it the law of faith, which excludes boasting. Or you may call it the perfect law of liberty; and he that looks into it, and continues therein, shall be blessed in his deed. This law brings glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, and good-will towards men. This is sound doctrine, this is pure gospel, this is doing the work of an evangelist. But as for this treatise of vain jangling, what does it confute? what does it establish? Nothing but the ignorance and foolishness of the authors. First, They tell us that Christ is made sanctification to his people, in his kingly office, by the gift of the Spirit.' Which is sanctification by the Holy Ghost instead of sanctification by the blood of Christ. Here they set aside perfect sanctification by his grand sacrifice as a priest. Personal union is Secondly, They tell us that wrought in the soul by Faith.' Which is putting that upon a grace of the Spirit which is done by God the Father only. Thirdly, We are told that The righteousness of Christ comes from his priestly office.' Which righteousness was wrought out, or was performed, in his life, by his active obedience as a servant and surety; and which work the Saviour said was finished before he offered himself as a priest, John xvii. 4. Fourthly, We are told that 'The believer is delivered from the love and power of all sin; but that the new man is taken captive by sin.' 6 Fifthly, That 'The law has ceased to exist as a covenant of works.' This is called A grand truth:' which, by the bye, is an abominable lie. Sixthly, This grand truth, of the law ceasing to exist as a covenant of works, is denied, by asserting that 'The law is without any variation.' Seventhly, That 'The moral law, and the law of love, are synonymous terms, and mean one and the same thing.' That is, that the bond of the covenant of grace, which came by Jesus Christ, is the main branch of the law of death engraven on tables of stone, which was given by Moses. This is robbing the master to enrich the servant; lessening grace to the honour of works. No wonder the Psalmist called the law a trap; which must needs be true with a witness, when hypocrites bait it with the first blessing of the everlasting gospel, on purpose to entangle the saint in the yoke of bondage. Thou hast a full view here, reader, of real orthodox doctrines, by which the antinomians are unmasked. This is the vain jangling that confutes error, undeceives the deceived, and establishes the law. They tell you that the law is the believer's only rule of life, walk, and conduct; but only with the allowance of this grand and glorious truth, namely, that it has ceased to exist as a covenant of works; and, therefore, has no power to command works to be done, nor any power to condemn the slothful, who does nothing. The law has ceased to exist with respect to works, that it may be substituted as the bond of the covenant of grace. This is destroying the law for ever, and establishing the gospel upon the destruction of it. Now our authors are going on to palm the commands of Christ, or laws of Zion, upon the law of Moses, and mount Sinai, without any regard to the terms of the new covenant, new ordinances, or new services. So that you may take circumcision |