I.

ses, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gra. cious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving ini. quity, transgression, and sin, &c. And Moses made haste, &c, and said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, &c, pardon our iniquity, and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. And he (the Lord) said, I make a (or the) cove nant, Exodus xxxiv, 6-10.

&c. &c. &c. shall

24.

II.

s

offence cometh; wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off. It is better to enter into life maimed, rather than be cast into everlasting fire, Matt. xviii, 7, 8. Wo unto you that are rich, Wo unto you that are full, Wo unto you that laugh now, Wo unto you, when all men speak well of you, Luke vi, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil-for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat, &c, Matt. xxv, 42. I flatter myself, that if Zelotes and Honestus candidly weigh the preceding arguments and scriptures, they will reap from thence a double advantage: (1.) They will no more tread the honour of Christ's moral law in the dust-no more rob it of its chief glory, that of being a strict rule of judgment. (2.) Honestus will be again benefited by a consider. able part of the New Testament; and Zelotes by a considerable part of the law and the prophets, which (as our Lord himself informs us) "hang on" those very "commandments" that the Antinomians divest of their sanction, and the Pharisees of their spirituality.

SECTION VII.

The doctrine of the preceding section is weighed in the Scripture Scales-According to Christ's Gospel, keeping the moral law in faith is a SUBORDINATE way to eternal life, and some Protestants are grossly mistaken when they make believers afraid sincerely.to observe the commandments, in order to obtain through Christ a more abun. dant life of grace here, and an eternal life of glory hereafter.

IF I have spent so much time in attempting to remove the difficulties with which the doctrine of the law is clogged, it has not been without reason; for the success of my Checks in a great degree depends upon clearing up this part of my subject. If I fail here, Pharisaism will not be checked, and gross Antinomianism will still pass for the pure Gospel ; fundamental errors about the law being the muddy springs whence the broken cisterns, both of the Pharisees and of the Antinomians, have their constant supplies. Honestus will have an anti-evangelical, Christless law, or at least a law without spirituality and strictness; the law he frames to himself being an insignificant twig, and not the Spirit's twoedged piercing sword. And Zelotes contrives a Gospel without law; or, if he admits of a law for Christ's subjects, it is such a one as has only the shadow of a law" a rule of life," as he calls it, and NOT a rule of judgment. That at first sight Honestus may perceive the spirituality of the law, and the need of Christ's Gospel; and that Zelotes may discover the need of Christ's law, and see its awful impartiality, I beg

leave to recapitulate the contents of the last section; presenting them to the reader, in my Scales, as the just weights of the sanctuary exactly balancing each other.

Here Zelotes, as if he were determined to set aside the left Gospel scale, cries out, "There is no entering into life by doing and keeping the commandments. The young ruler and the lawyer were both as great legalists as yourself, and Christ answered them according to their error; the wise man having observed, that we must sometimes answer a fool according to his folly.'" I understand you, Zelotes; you suppose that one Pharisaic fiend had driven the poisoned nail of legality into their breasts, and that Christ was so officious as to clinch it for him. "Not so," replies Zelotes, "but I think Christ's answer was ironical, like that of the Prophet Micaiah, who said one thing to King Ahab, and meant another." What! Zelotes, two men, at different times and in the most solemn manner, propose to our Lord the most important question in the world. He shows a particular regard for them; and returns them similar answers. When one of them had described the way of obedience, an evangelist observes, that "Jesus saw he had answered discreetly, Mark xii, 34. St. Luke informs us that Christ commended him and said, "Thou hast answered right," Luke x, 28; and yet you intimate, that not only our Lord's answers, but his commendations were ironical. In what an unfavourable light do you put our Saviour's kindness to poor sinners, who prostrate themselves at his feet, and there ask the way to heaven! If "cursed is he that maketh the blind to wander out of their earthly way;" how can you, upon your principles, exculpate our Lord for doing this with respect to the blind seekers, who inquire the way that leads to eternal life and heaven?

But this is not all. It is evident, that although from the taunting tone of Micaiah's voice, Ahab directly understood that the answer given him was ironical; yet, lest there should be deception in the case, the prophet dropped the mask of irony, and told the king the naked truth before they parted. Not so Jesus Christ, if Solifidianism is the Gospel: for although neither the ruler nor the lawyer suspected that his direction and approbation were ironical, he let them both depart without giving them, or his disciples who were present, the least hint that he was sending them upon a fool's errand. Therefore, if setting sinners upon keeping the commandments in faith to go to heaven be only showing them the cleaner way to hell, as Zelotes sometimes intimates, nobody ever

pointed sinners more clearly to hell than our blessed Lord. This mistake of Zelotes is so much the more glaring, as the passages which he supposes to be ironical agree perfectly with the sermon on the mount, and with Matt. xxv; two awful portions of the Gospel, which I am glad the Solifidians have not yet set aside as evangelical ironies.

Once more: if our Lord's direction was not true with regard to the covenant of grace, it was absolutely false with respect to the covenant of works; for as the ruler and the lawyer had undoubtedly broken the Adamic law of perfect innocence, they never could obtain life by keeping that law, should they have done it to the highest perfection for the time to come. Therefore, which way soever Zelotes turns himself, upon his scheme our Lord spoke either a deceitful irony, or a flat untruth :I resume the Scales.

I.

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the house of bondage.

The righteousness of faith speaketh on this wise :-Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? &e, or, Who shall descend into the deep? &c. But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, Rom. x, 5, &c.

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, Gal. iii, 13.

If they that are of the [anti-evangelical] law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise of none effect, Rom. iv, 14.

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness came by the [anti-evangelical] law; [or if it came originally by any] law; then CHRIST is dead in vain, Gal. ii, 21.

I, through the law, am dead to the law. Ye are not under the law. Now we are delivered from the law, [both as a cumbrous burden of carnal commandments; as a heavy load of typical ceremonies; and as

II.

Thou shalt have no other god before me, &c, [to the end of the decalogue.]

This commandment, which I command thee this day, is not, &c, far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to heaven? &c. Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us? &c. But the word is very nigh unto thee, Deut. xxx, 11, &c.

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty, James ii, 12.

If ye fulfil the royal law, &c, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," ye do well: for he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy, James ii, 8, 13.

God sending his own Son, &c, for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in [or by] us who walk not after the flesh, &c, Rom. viii, 3, 4.

Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid : yea, we establish the law. Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all, James ii, 10. Think not that I am come to

• Here observe, that God prefaces the decalogue by evangelically giving himself to the Jews as their God-a gracious God, who had already "saved them out of the land of Egypt," Jude 5, and who had a peculiar right to their faith and grateful evangelical obedience.

* Thus apostates (by breaking one of the ten commandments, and not repenting according to the privilege, which "the law of liberty" allows in the day of salvation) are last, though they were once first. I say apostates; because our Lord, St. Paul, and St. James, evidently speak of believers, i. e. of persons already in the kingdom of heaven, or in the Christian dispensation.

†The reader will be glad to see what judicious Calvinists make of this pas sage. Diodati, one of Calvin's most famous successors, comments thus upon it: