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were equal in every respect to its demands. God required no more of him than he had power to perform. His present incapacity is an effect of his sin, and subsequent to the existence of the law; consequently it cannot be unjust in God to require perfect obedience of him, he being now morally unable to yield it; unless is can be supposed that with the sinner's loss of ability to perform, the Deity has lost his authority to command. A shocking supposition! Is not the authority of God over his creatures invariably the same, notwithstanding any alterations that may take place in them? Doubtless. Whose fault is it that we labour under a moral inability to yield perfect obedience to the divine law? Our own, surely. Shall we then plead that impotence, which is an effect of our wickedness, as a reason why God should be less strict in his demands? Suppose you should lend your friend in good circumstances, a thousand pounds, payable at a certain time; and he should spend his estate at a gaming table, and thereby become reduced to poverty; would his inability render it unjust in you to demand your money, or dissolve his obligation to pay it? Verily, whatever might be his condition, your demand would be indisputably just, and his obligation not to be called in ques

tion.

Many things might be insisted on, in answer to the objection, viz. that the gospel, instead of being designed to abate the rigour of the law, reveals a righteousness for the justification of the sinner, that is in every respect adequate to its requirements. If so, there is no necessity of a re

laxation of it. This will be the subject of the next discourse.

Again-If the law of God in its original state, was perfect, and in every respect consistent with the perfections of the divine nature, such as became a God to give, and the creature to obey, how can it be relaxed? Can it be altered without injury? Is it possible that it should undergo a change, and yet retain its perfection?

Farther-If the law admits sincere instead of perfect obedience, in consequence of the introduction of the gospel, how comes it to pass, that Christ and his apostles taught the perpetuity of the law, and assure us that whosoever shall offend in one point is guilty of all? More than this it never required.

The friends of these opinions "run themselves insensibly," says a late judicious divine, "into the grossest inconsistence. They hold that God in mercy to mankind has abolished that rigorous constitution or law, that they were under originally; and instead of it, has introduced a more mild constitution, and put us under a new law, which requires no more than imperfect sincere obedience, in compliance with our poor infirm impotent circumstances, since the fall.

"Now how can these things be made consistent? I would ask, what law these imperfections of our obedience are a breach of? If they are a breach of no law that we were ever under, then they are not sins. And if they be not sins, what need of Christ's dying to satisfy for them? But if they are sins, and the breach of some law, what law is it? They cannot be a breach of their new law; for that requires no other than imperfect

obedience, or obedience with imperfections; and therefore to have obedience attended with imperfections, is no breach of it; for it is as much as it requires. And they cannot be a breach of their old law; for that, they say, is entirely abolished, and we never were under it. They say it would not be just in God to require of us perfect obedience, because it would not be just in God to require more than we can perform, or to punish us for failing of it. And therefore, by their own scheme, the imperfections of our obedience do not deserve to be punished. What need therefore of Christ's dying to satisfy for them? What need of his suffering to satisfy for that which is no fault, and in its own nature deserves no suffering? What need of Christ's dying to purchase, that our imperfect obedience should be accepted, when, according to their scheme, it would be unjust in itself that any other obedience than imperfect should be required? What need of Christ's dying to make way for God's accepting such an obedience, as it would be unjust in him not to accept? Is there any need of Christ's dying to prevail with God not to do unrighteously? If it be said that Christ died to satisfy that old law for us, that so we might not be under it, but that there might be room for our being under a more mild law; still I would inquire, what need of Christ's dying that we might not be under a law, which (by their principles) it would be unjust that we should be under, whether Christ had died or no, because in our present state we are not able to keep it?"* The glaring

President Edwards on the Freedom of the Will, page 158, 159.

inconsistencies which this author has judiciously pointed out, I apprehend, can never be reconciled upon these principles. I now proceed,

III. To shew that the sinner, upon his becoming experimentally acquainted with the grace of the gospel, is thereby led to renounce all confidence in the flesh; and to expect acceptance with God, only on account of that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ.

This observation is contained in, and proved by the text. But what things were GAIN to me (while a Pharisee) these I counted Loss for Christ, (upon my conversion to Christianity.) Yea, doubtless, and I (do now, as a believer in Jesus and an apostle) count all things (whether birth privileges, legal observances, submission to gospel ordinances, zeal, diligence, and fidelity in the ministry, &c.) but Loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things (of all things as explained above; and of all temporal good things, such as the good opinion

of

my countrymen, the way to wealth and preferment, a fixed and quiet habitation; and instead of these I became exposed to bonds, stripes, and imprisonment: yea, and death itself;) and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, (who is alpha and omega, the sum total of the Christian's treasure) and be found in him (to such there is no condemnation; Rom. viii. 1.) not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

This passage is plain and striking. In it St. Paul assures us what his views had been, so long

as he remained ignorant of the glorious gospel; and declares in the most explicit manner, that the high esteem he had long entertained for his own obedience was entirely removed, by an acquaintance with the riches of grace. Observe the pains he takes to explode his own, and extol the righteousness of Jesus. He views them in contrast, tramples on the one, and glories in the other. The eyes of his mind having been opened, he sees that all his attempts to obtain the divine favour, by a course of obedience, were loss; a loss of time, and a loss of labour; and that if God had not plucked him as a brand from the burning, he should have lost his immortal soul!

It is observable, that he does not only renounce his own righteousness, which he explains as being of the law; but that he does it in the most positive manner, and with a high degree of contempt. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss-He came to this conclusion, upon the clearest conviction of its truth. In no principle was he more fully established, than that his own righteousness was loss and dung, or dogs' meat, as some choose to read the latter Greek word, zvara (skubala.) But the former translation conveys the apostle's idea in a more emphatic manner, it being what even dogs themselves would reject.

In language like this we find the church speaking, Isaiah Ixiv. 6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Rags are insufficient to cover the body, and to keep it warm so the sinner's best righteousness is absolutely insufficient to clothe his naked soul, and to secure it from the wrath of God, and the curses of his law. Rags are an evidence of pov

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