of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The apostle was a man like a great many in our days, for the righteousness of the law, as long as he was a Pharisee, and confident of speeding that way; but when the law came to deal with him in the spirituality of it, he tells us what he felt; I had not known sin, saith he, but by the law, for I had not known lust, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, Rom. vii. 7. There can be none of you so ignorant to think, but that the apostle Faul, when he was a Jew and a Pharisee, understood very well the tenth commandment, Thou shalt not covet; he read it, remembered it, and understood it perfectly, as a Pharisee; but when the spirituality of the law of God was discovered to him, shewing him, that the least inordinate rising of his heart towards that which was evil was forbidden therein, then the man was slain, his confidence was broken: he did not know sin till this came. Alas! Sirs, many do nothing but sin, and yet they do not know what sin is; if I may so say, they know nothing but sinning, yet they do not know what sin' is. The discovery of sin is made by the brightness and the power of the law of God, when the spirituality of the law is discovered. 2dly, The law aggravates sin, it multiplies it, it increases it; The law entered, that the offence might abound, Rom. v. 20. Pray observe; the apostle is telling us, in the preceding verse, that one man's. offence abounded to the condemning the whole world. Had not the offence abounded sufficiently then? Nay, saith the apostle, the law entered that sin might abound: that men might know and understand, how great their provocations were, what a holy God they had offended, what a righteous law they had broken, and thereby come to see the evil of sin to be a great deal bigger than ever they apprehended it to be before. And assure yourselves, Sirs, that unless the law of God be known unto you as the cause of the abounding of sin, as the cause of its growing bigger and greater in your eyes, you never yet knew the law of God rightly. 3dly, God's law doth irritate and provoke sin; not only doth it make the sin that a man committed to be greater than he apprehended it to be before, but really it makes the man sin the more. The bare law of God--pray take heed to what I say-the bare law of God, without gospel grace applied to the heart of a sinner, to one that is a stranger to gospel grace, it will make his provocations more bitter and more grievous than ever they were before. So the apostle speaks, Rom. vii. 11. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it sler me. What occasion could sin take by the commandment? Pray mind; How could sin take occasion by the commandment? the commandment forbad sin, and the commandment threatened sin; what occasion then could sin take by the commandment? Just such an occasion as the building of a wall against a running river would be to its overflowing its banks; if any man does foolishly imagine to stop the course of a river by fencing against it with a wall, it will quickly rise higher and higher, and bound higher, and overtop that wall, and run more furiously than ever. Just so it is with a great many poor sinners; their consciences convince them of sin, and they are disquieted with the thoughts of it, and this and that and the other they will do, and this and that and the other sin they will forbear; they will set God's commands, and God's threatenings, in the way of their sins, and then they think surely they shall be sanctified: a vain dream! sin is stronger than the law, be you persuaded of it; I mean, sin is stronger this way, than to be bounded and stopped by the law of God: sanctification belongs only to the Spirit. 4thly, Law obedience doth increase the pride and stubbornness of the heart against God, which is the root of all sin. Pray take heed to what I say; I am not now speaking of a man's obeying the law in point of justification; that casts a reflection on the blood of Jesus Christ; but I am speaking of that obedience which a man strives to pay unto the law, in order to his sanctification; and whosoever labours to obey the law, without a due regard to the sanctifying influences of the grace of God, this man's pride will grow greater hereby, and his rebellion against God be acted the more. A poor sinner is never truly humbled till he knows that he deserves nothing which is good, and till he knows that he can do nothing that is good, and then he is broken indeed he can deserve nothing that is good, and therefore must be beholden only to the good that is wrought out for him by another; he can do nothing that is good, and : therefore must be beholden to grace to work that in him which he was never able to get. So much for this first thing -that the law is not the mean of sanctification: it is the rule of holy walking, but not the mean of it: for unless the Spirit of Christ works upon the heart, no man can be holy. 2dly, I am to prove that sanctification is by the Spirit, that it is wrought in the heart only by the grace of the gospel. 1st, This only changeth the tree, this only changeth the man. The law deals with a man as it finds him, and leaves him as it finds him; it finds him a sinner, and leaves him a sinner; it finds him condemned, and it leaves him condemned; it finds him corrupted, and it leaves him corrupted; it finds him in his grave, and it leaves him there. The law finds a man in the grave, bound hand and foot, and commands him to do what it knows he cannot do; but gospel grace changes the man, and changes the tree. This is old doctrine, that a great many of our new preachers, and new Christians, know nothing of. O generation of vipers! how can ye, being evil, speak good things? Matth. xii. 34. This world will still run. upon this, that a bad man may grow good by doing good things: our Lord tells us just the contrary, a man must first be good, before he can do any good thing. Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by his fruit, Matth. xii. 35. Luke vi. 43. as our Lord at large and plainly teaches. Gospel grace is the only mean of sanctification; for it alone changes a man, renews and quickens him. This is the commendation of it, in that place I now named, 2 Cor. iii. 6. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The Spirit, that is, the gospel, giveth life; namely, when the Holy Ghost concurreth with it for there it is spoken with respect to his concur. ring influence. 2dly, Gospel grace takes away the sting from the law, and so makes it lovely to the soul. The sting of the law is the curse of it, there is nothing else in the law that is displeasing to a man that hath any thing of the grace of God in him; now the curse of the law is a dreadful thing; but gospel grace takes away the sting and the curse, and then it becomes lovely and amiable to the believer. The law is a holy rule of practice, that is true; but the law that mandeth holy practice on the penalty of eternal death, that is removed to the believer, and thereupon holy practice begins. to be amiable. 3dly, The law by gospel grace is written upon the heart, and so the practice of it becomes lovely and amiable, according to God's covenant; Heb. viii. 10. I will put my law into their minds, and write it upon their hearts; as if the Lord should have said, "I formerly wrote my law on ta❝bles of stone, I proclaimed it in fire and thunder upon "earth, but that did not do the business; now in these "latter days I will write my law in their hearts:" and for God to write the law in the heart, is nothing but for God to make the law lovely to the heart, that the heart may be framed to a holy liking and loving of the law of God. 4thly, Gospel grace only, renders God lovely to the soul; now to have God to be lovely to us, is the spring of all holiness. You know how our Lord sums up the whole law, in this, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment, Mark xii. 31. Love, saith the apostle, is the fulfilling of the law, Rom. xiii. 10. Pray take heed to this point; I am speaking of gospel grace as sanctifying a man, because it is that only which represents God as lovely to the soul. And truly, till the love of God be planted in the heart, it is impossible that a man can be holy for whatsoever obedience is paid to God and his will, if not from love, is but provocation. Now the love of God cannot be planted in the heart, but by a discovery of the loveliness of God; and it is impossible that a man can love God, until he knows God to be love. In this was manifested the love of God towards us, saith the apostle, because God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, 1 John iv. 9, 10. Here is the way to make an end of sin; Christ being the propitiation for our sins, is the ground of justification; and a discovery of God's sending Christ to be a propitiation for our sins, is the motive of our sanctification. No man obeys God out of love, but that man who knows and believes the love that God hath towards him. We have known and believed the love that God hath to us: God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, drvelleth in God, and God in him, 1 John iv. 16. What I have said is to point out these two things: 1st, All that are savingly won to Christ Jesus, they are won by arguments of love. Sirs, whatsoever use the Lord makes of the law, (and a great deal of good use he makes of it) the Lord never converted a man by the law, nor ever will. Many are awakened by the law, and terrified by the law, but the law of God can do nothing else; it can never make a man a believer; it may awaken a secure sinner, and make the smoke of hell to arise in his throat, but it can never make a man a believer on Christ Jesus; it is impossible to make him such, till the amiableness of the Saviour be discovered to him in the glass of the gospel. 2dly, As Christians are first made Christians by the arguments of love, so all their obedience and holiness flows from the same spring. All that obedience and holiness which is right and acceptable in the sight of God, is from the same arguments of love. Christ craves it on this account, and they pay it on this account; and if their obedience and holiness be not thus paid, it is never accepted. What the apostle saith in another case, about giving alms, God loveth a cheerful giver, I may say, the Lord loveth a cheerful doer; all holy obedience is to be performed by the strength of arguments drawn from love. Therefore now, whilst I am on this head, let me lead you a little to the searching of your own spirits, that you may see what spiyou are under, and what spirit you are led by. There are a great many arguments to duty in the gospel, and a great many in the law; and according as they have force and power upon you, so are you to judge of your spiritual frame. rit I would speak a little more distinctly about the law's arguments to holiness, what they are, and what they do the arguments that the law gives for obedience to God, they principally arise from these three heads. 1st, The greatness and majesty of a commanding God: the glory of God shined forth at the giving of the law, and whensoever the Lord sets home the same law upon the conscience of a man, there is also a discovery of the glory of the Law-giver. 2dly, The equity and righteousness of his will is another argument: if this be the will of God, it must be just, righteous, and equal; and |