back again to the precept and the curse of the law, to be taught, what he has not yet learnt to purpose, his guilt and misery. Christ is come into the world to save sinners; and we have God's word for it, a thousand times over, that he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him but then the law came before Christ, to prepare the way for him, by making known the want of him, and thereby to bring men's hearts into a state to receive him. We never come to Christ till the law is first come to us; and the law is never effectually come to us till by it we are brought to Christ; that is, till we are convinced by it of our guilt and misery, and are looking after mercy in his righteousness. Wherefore this is the second step in the use of the law, that we betake ourselves to mercy in Christ, the promise of whom is plainly implied in the explicit giving out of the law. Hitherto the text evidently reaches, The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.' But then,

Thirdly. When we are come to Christ for deliverance from the curse of the law, have we no more to do with the law? Yes verily we have, we must walk in it all the days of our life. And that we shall not, we cannot, fail to do, if we be really come to Christ, if our faith in him be true. For if it be true faith it will work by love; love will be the certain infallible fruit of it, love towards God and our neighbour. And to walk in the love of God and of our neighbour is indeed to walk in God's commandments, for this is the substance of what all and each of them require of us; and if our hearts be in the real practice of this love, we shall sincerely conform to what God enjoins, forbear what he denies us, and valiantly oppose the desires and motions of our simple nature within us. God did not give out the law with a purpose that we should lay aside the observance of it; just to show us our misery, that we might cry for mercy, and then make no more use of it: but he gave us the law to show us our guilt, because we did not love God and one another; and he gave us the promise to encourage us to walk in the love of himself and our neighbour. The design of all was to bring us to love, as the Apostle plainly witnesses, The end of the commandment is charity; * the end of giving out the law, in which giving it

* 1 Tim. i. 5.

out the promise is contained, is to bring us to the love of God and of each other. Without the law we had not known that we were fallen from charity, and the guilt of that state had not been apprehended; without the promise we had had neither encouragement nor power to love. But now the Law and Gospel go hand in hand to the same end, the former showing us what love is, and the latter influencing us to walk in it. So charity is the issue of all. Hence it is that the truly humble believer takes so much delight in the law, and so heartily desires and endeavours to conform to it. Hence he cries unto God daily, from the bottom of his soul, "Create, O my God, a new spirit within me! I long to love thee with all my heart, to find the deepest reverence of thy eternal Majesty always there, and to make thee all my trust. Father of mercies! grant me power to glorify thy name, to attend upon thy appointments with holy worship, to maintain only thy glory in all my conduct, to profess myself thy servant in the most religious observance of thine own day. O my God, heal this fountain of sin that is in my nature, that I may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name. Or, if it may not yet be destroyed, bring it daily nearer to death, that I may feel less and less its accursed motions, and may never more consent to them. Let love take its place, the love of thee and of my brother, that I may indulge no more any sensual earthly or devilish lust; but, being pure in heart, heavenly-minded, and full of charity, I may honour all men, forgive and do good to all men, and speak as well as act to the edification of my brother." To such a prayer as this the heart of the man who is come to Christ does unfeignedly say Amen. He is no believer whose heart does not. Yet what is all this but a desire and disposition wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost to walk in God's commandments? for I have only put into the form of a prayer the duties that are contained in them.

You see now the use that is to be made of the law, how it must show us our sin and misery, drive us to Christ, and be our rule of walking with God as obedient children. If the two former of these be done, the third will unavoidably follow. But the main difficulty lies in the first, the conviction of our real guilt and misery by the law. To this point, according to the

tenor of the text, the foregoing discourses have been directed. That they have had at least this blessing I will trust, to have shown us all more of our sins. How far they may have been instrumental to convince any of us of our misery because of sin, and to stir up in us a hearty concern about salvation, is another question; and it will behove you all to consider how you will answer it on the last day. That day is hastening upon us; a joyful or a terrible day, according as we shall then be found. Who can say how terrible, my dear brethren, to any soul of you who will not now hear the sentence of the law to conviction, and therefore shall then hear it to condemnation! But O how joyful to that happy soul, who, having now heard the sentence of death, is fled to Jesus for refuge, and is walking in his steps, and therefore shall only meet his triumphant Lord in the last day to receive the final sentence of absolution, and to hear those ravishing words from his mouth, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'* O sirs, can such words as these reach our ears without piercing our hearts? May the Lord give us all grace to humble ourselves, that he may exalt us in that day, through the merits of our great Redeemer Jesus Christ!

Matt. xxv. 34.

SERMON XLVII.

MARK XVI. 15, 16.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

AFTER preaching the law for the discovery of sin, and the fearful ruin sin has brought upon us, I must needs come to you with the offer of the Gospel, that ye may know your case is not desperate, that ye may hear the glad tidings of salvation, that ye may lay hold on eternal life. It is not the ultimate design even of the law to wound, but by opening the deadly disease of sin, by making the smart of it felt, that it may be a means of directing to the Gospel for a cure. So both Law and Gospel speak the same gracious language, and the one and the other points out glory to the sinner. Has the law done its part? Has the law shown you, my dear brethren, that ye are sinners, guilty sinners, condemned sinners, helpless sinners? Has it shown you the plague of your nature, how sensual, earthly, and devilish, how atheistical, ungodly, and impious, ye came into the world, have lived therein more or less, and your wretched hearts still are? And are you looking about where to fly; where to cast your guilt; where to get peace with God, peace of conscience, deliverance from the fear of death and judgment, and the fire that shall never be quenched? where to find help against sin, and power to master its influence, and to become again like unto God in the temper of your souls and the conduct of your lives? Are ye intent upon this search after salvation, as having seen that your all, your eternal all, depends upon it? that if your guilt be not remitted, your sentence be

not reversed, your peace with God be not procured, your spirit be not sanctified, you are undone, utterly, eternally, undone, and have not the least glimpse of hope in that other world into which time is swiftly carrying you, and where you will live ages unnumbered by any but God, infinitely more than the blades of grass that cover the fields of the earth, the drops that compose the vast ocean, the sands that lie on the shores of it? Are you looking with awful concern upon this amazing scene; and, knowing what you are, and what God is, and that it is but a hand's breadth before death will be upon you, do you find this momentous thought pressing upon your heart, "What shall I do? I, whither shall I go? Ah! that the Lord would have mercy upon me, would turn away his eyes from beholding my sins; that the eternal God would look on me as a child; that he would rid me of all my fears and all my sins; that I might behold his face in glory, and live in his favour in that heavenly kingdom that is to come! Surely my soul should bless him, his mercy should be all my song, and I would be as loud and earnest as any of the blessed inhabitants of that everlasting city in showing forth his praise." And is this indeed your wish? Would you esteem yourself happy could you look on God as your friend, death without fear, judgment as the day of your hope, the joys above as your inheritance? Why all these things are to be had in Christ, they are all laid up in him; pardon, peace, adoption, resurrection, life, glory, are all laid up in Christ; and, what is more comfortable, more encouraging, you may have them all as freely as you will ask for them. Nay, they are all offered you; nay, you are pressed to receive them; nay, you are commanded to do it; yea, your refusal of God's free gift will be taken so ill that you shall be damned for not accepting it.

I am not now to tell you who Christ is, or what he has done; "how for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven," and by his obedience unto death both fulfilled the law and satisfied the curse of it. At the time when Christ spoke the words of the text, he was risen from the dead, and it was manifest thereby to the very eyes of his Apostles that the great work of redemption which he had undertaken was actually completed. It remained only to make it known. His personal presence was required in heaven; and therefore he commissions