DISCOURSE THE SECOND.

The Law preparatory to the Gospel by producing the
Conviction of Sin.

IN order fully to understand the doctrine of the

ultimate intended reference of Judaism to Christianity, for which we advanced some probable arguments in the preceding Discourse, it seems necessary that the subject should still be set before the reader in a distinct point of view, which is neither uninteresting nor unimportant, as preliminary to our proper purpose; by an endeavour to shew how the same Law of Moses in its moral enactments and in its ceremonial observances did actually operate as a preparatory dispensation to that of Christ.

Of the controversies which disturbed the infant church of Christ, there was none which the apostles found more difficulty in allaying, than that which was occasioned by Judaizing Christians; a description of men who contended that the observance of the enactments of the Law of Moses, was no less necessary to salvation than faith in Jesus Christ. Now, as is evident, such an opinion was directly

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at variance with the first principles of the Gospel dispensation, which every where affirms that besides the name of Christ," there is none other

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name under heaven, by which we can be saved.” It is not then to be wondered at that St. Paul in particular should have opposed with his characteristic zeal and earnestness the prevalence of such a doctrine :-a doctrine, which derogated from the value of his Master's sufferings, as though something else besides what He had done and suffered for us, some plea of human merit or righteousness, was essentially and intrinsically necessary to procure our peace with God. However, to the existence of this controversy we are indebted for that luminous exposition of the design and import of the Jewish Law, which he has given us more especially in his Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews.

The design of the Law is briefly stated in the words of Gal. iii. 24: "Wherefore the Law was "our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." Let us then proceed to investigate by what particular method of discipline and instruction this schoolmaster effected his purpose. This is the inquiry we propose to make; and the due developement of it, it is plain, will disclose those views concerning the nature and purpose of the Levitical covenant, with which it is desirable that the mind of the reader should be impressed.

In perusing, then, the moral enactments of this Law, we find such as the following: "Thou "shalt not kill: Thou shalt not commit adul

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tery: Thou shalt not steal." These and the remainder which were delivered at the same period, constitute the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, as they are called. Our Saviour sums them up in two comprehensive rules, viz. "loving God with "all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, " and with all the strength; and our neighbour as "one's self." This part then of the Jewish Law lays down those great maxims or particulars of duty, which the Creator, as the moral Governor of the universe, expects to be observed by all his creatures who are capable of such obedience. It is the homage, which man, as his accountable and responsible creature, is every where bound to pay him. That he should be so served by his rational creation God hath willed. So far then as the source and principle of moral obligations like these is concerned, the revealed dictates of divine wisdom, truth, holiness, justice, power, are evidently sufficient. Neither Jew nor Gentile needed any other answer, why he was bound, through a sense of the reverence due from such an one as himself to his Maker, to perform towards him that kind of actions, and no other.

Moreover, the law of God in thus revealing to mankind the rule and standard of duty, had an

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nexed a penalty in case of disobedience. It would not have been a Law, had it not done so. In this respect, then, the recorded declaration of divine wisdom and holiness was, "The soul that "sinneth it shall die a;" and again, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things "which are written in the book of the law to do "them b." It is perhaps necessary to observe that to the Jews all the provisions of that Law came recommended and sanctioned by a moral force; because God to them was the author and revealer of all, directly or indirectly. Continue, then,

is the word made use of in relation to this subject; and what the individual, to whom this warning was given, was to continue in, were, "all

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things which were written in the book of the "law to do them;" in other words, all the declarations of the divine will and pleasure to whatsoever they referred. Not one single act of transgression would be forgiven, nor any one sin be tolerated.

When the subject is viewed in this light, the language which the schoolmaster may be conceived as holding to his pupils, was this: "You shall have

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your reward, provided you can earn it. But re"member, if you fail in any one instance of duty,

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you are undone for ever. Your expectation of "eternal life, as the reward of such obedience, will b Gal. iii. 10. Deut. xxvii. 26.

a Ezek. xviii. 4. 20.

be in that case forfeited. To the curse, de"nounced even against any single act of transgression, you will then be liable. And that the

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blessing, if obtained, may be your own, in the "full sense of the word-yours of debt, and not "as of grace or favour-expect from me no kind "of assistance whatever in your endeavours to ob"tain it."

This then being the case, such being the enactments and declarations of the Law, it is not difficult to see how it operated as a preliminary dispensation to bring men to Christ.

By those clear intimations of duty which we have mentioned, it convinced them of their deficiencies; and by the curse, which, as we have also seen, it annexed to every act of transgression, it awakened them to a sense of their danger: so that, uneasy under a sense of guilt, and alarmed under the apprehension of punishment, they might be prepared, with humility and gratitude, to accept the remedy of their forlorn and desolate condition, whenever it should be offered to them. And that such was the designed effect of the Law, we may collect from various passages of St. Paul's epistles, which we will now pause to consider. "The Law," says he, "entered, that the offence might abound "." And, again, in answer to another question," Wherefore then serveth the Law?"

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c Rom. v. 20.