ry wide, even as far as the whole immuni ties, rights, and privileges of the children of God do. Very different this from what goes under this name among the men of the world, and which they are fo madly fond on, but when well looked into, is found little better than what the facred hiftorian mentions as the unhappiness of old Ifrael when there was no king, viz. liberty to do what was right in their own eyes, while, at the fame time, they continue in the very worst kind of bondage without regret, and even with pleasure; bound under fin and death, flaves to the bafeft lufts and vilest pleasures, and fhamefully captivated and carried along by the course of the world, and the spirit that works in the children of difobedience. It is not for nothing that the Apostle ftates the Chriftian's freedom and liberty in deliverance from the law and its curfing power; for there is the root of all our bondage. The fting of death is fin; by that it kills; but the ftrength of fin, or what gives fin its dominion and killing power, is the law. Whenever therefore one is delivered from the power of the law, and brought under the measures of grace, the strength of fin is

gone,

gone, and it can no longer maintain its dominion, Rom. vi. 14.

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The horrible nature of this bondage, and the horror it creates where-ever it is perceived and felt, the excellency of that liberty which Christ the Son of God gives, with that joy unspeakable and full of glory which attends it, and especially the prodigious price the purchase cost him, must be allowed motives ftrong enough to engage every man who has fenfe enough to know what he is about, to exert his utmost activity for obtaining it, and to stand firm in the poffeffion of it, that he do not on any temptation, or for any price, let it flip: and that cannot be done without having done all to ftand, Eph. vi. 13.; nor that without putting on the whole armour of God, as we are directed, verf. 14. et seqq. God himself has graciously provided complete armour; he has done more; he has made a full provifion of grace in his bleffed Son: he has not only permitted us to come, but has invited, nay, and commanded us, to come boldly, and affured us of finding what is abundantly fufficient for the weakest and moft worthlefs of Adam's finful race; enough

nough to make the very weakest able to do all things, Phil. iv. 13. And can any thing be more abfurd than to look for more, unless it be to look for it any where elfe?

But there is fomething greatly worfe than absurdity and folly in those who are thus abundantly provided, when they turn afide to the law. There is fomething very folemn and peremptory in the certification the Apostle gives the Galatians, v 2. et feqq. Behold, I Paul fay unto you; I Paul, Christ's apostle and ambassador to you, (and what I fay is the fame as if Christ himself faid fo in his own proper perfon), That if you are circumcifed, Chrift fhall profit you nothing: The most dreadful denunciation that can poffibly be made to creatures in our circumftances, creatures dead in trefpaffes and fins. Had we never had any further intimation of the mind of God, we must have concluded, that there was no way of being delivered but by the almighty power of God; nor any hope of that, but by abfolutely free and unmerited mercy. But when he has opened fuch a door of hope as he has done, in fending his own beloved Son, with all the fullness of eternal

life in his hand, to be the Saviour of the world, and to give this life to all that will come to him for it, with this express declaration, that there is no falvation in any other, and that it is only through him. that we have any the leaft mercy to expect. If we are found in fuch circumftances as that Chrift fhall profit us nothing, we are, we must be, configned to eternal perdition, without any poffibility of relief.

But some may poffibly think this a hard faying, Have none who are circumcifed any benefit by Christ? What then should become of the Jews who believed in him? nay, and what fhould have become of Paul himself and his fellow-apostles, who no doubt were all circumcifed? We need only obferve, what every body who reads the epiftle cannot mifs to obferve, that he is not here addreffing the Jews who were circumcised before they believed in Christ, but the Gentiles who never were, and yet were admitted to all the privileges of believers, or the children of God by faith, without circumcifion, or any other works of the law, or obfervances injoined by it. To them he fays, If they are circumcifed VOL. III.

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now,

now, Chrift should profit them nothing; and they would be in the fame cafe as if he had not come at all, or done any thing to redeem them from the curfe, not of the law of Mofes, which they were never under, but of that original law which brought Adam and all his posterity under fin and death.

But ftill it may be faid, Tho' it must be allowed that circumcifion, and all other legal obfervances, were fuperfluous, and therefore useless to them; yet how comes circumcifion particularly to have fuch a dreadful tendency? To this it might be answered, That circumcifion, and the other ritual obfervances of the Jewish law, were figures for the time then prefent, and were never defigned to continue longer than the promifed feed fhould come; then they expired of courfe, and were no longer the ordinances of God. The outward circumci→ fion became the concifion, a mere mangling of the flesh; and the true circumcifion was that of the heart, of the Spirit, and not of the letter. If thofe then who were not bound by the law of Mofes, fhould fubmit to the external circumcifion, it must have been at least a constructive de