life, keep the commandments." The law is your rule of life, do that, and thou shalt live. But the soul that hungered and thirsted after righteousness he always called to himself, and told him to abide in him, and then he should bring forth much fruit; but, if he did not abide in him, he would be cast forth as a withered branch, and be fit for nothing but the fire. If the law be incapable of any variations, according to this quotation, when did it cease to exist as a covenant of works, according to the former quotation? for we are not agreed upon this palpable contradiction.

Quot. Amongst men, the idea of a king and people supposes also a law subsisting between the parties; agreeable to which, the king is to govern, and the people to frame their actions.

Answ. But this law is not the moral law; for, if Christ rules his subjects by that, according to the actions they frame, he must destroy them altogether as rebels, for they all offend. But he receives gracious gifts for the rebellious, not killing pre cepts, that the Lord God may dwell among them

It is the law of faith that goes forth out of Zion, and the word of life that goes from Jerusalem. "The Lord shall send the Rod of thy strength out of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies," Psal. cx. 2. But then the moral law is not the rod of his strength; that is weak through the flesh. Christ says, "Bind the testimony, seal the law, among my disciples." The testimony of the gospel is received in the bond of love, and the

law of faith is attended with the seal of the Spirit: The day you believed, says Paul, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, Ephes. i. 13. But God does not set this seal to the preaching of the moral law: "He, therefore, that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law?" No, he doth not. Ministers of the letter are not sealed themselves; nor does God attend their ministry with his seal for they are servants of corruption; they know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm; and therefore can confirm nothing but their own ignorance, and the bondage of their audience. And this is evident: for some, who contend for the law, are obliged to write and read their sermons; which proves that they serve in the oldness of the letter, and not in the newness of the Spirit. Take them, reader, to the law, and to the testimony; that is, to the law of faith, and to the testimony of the gospel; and, if they speak not according to this word of life, it is because there is no light in them. Life and immortality are not brought to light in their souls by the gospel; they are under the yoke of the moral law; and the old vail is still upon their heart in reading the old Testament; which vail and yoke are done away in Christ, and an easier yoke given. The law of faith is so complete, and whatsoever is not done in obedience thereto, and from faith therein, is no better than rebellion and wickedness: "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

Stand fast, reader, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made thee free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The law has lately obtained a great many names which it never bore before, and which the bond-children in the present age have given it.

One divine calls it the evangelized law; which implies that the covenant of works is now turned into the covenant of grace; that the minister of the letter, by this turn, is now the minister of the Spirit; and that he who works, his work is reckoned to be of grace; and he that worketh not, but believeth, is an Antinomian, and the reward is reckoned to him of debt. This is turning things upside down, which is to be esteemed as potters clay.

Another divine differs from the last; and says, "The moral law is the legal covenant of grace;' which is as good sense as to talk of white charcoal, for it is no less than a contradiction in terms: and is, in effect, to say, that the ministry of death is now the grace of life: the ministration of condemnation is now the ministration of righteousness; the law that worked wrath now works love: the enmity is now reconciliation; the yoke of bondage is now the evangelical yoke of gospel obedience; and that which was engraven on tables of stone is now written on the fleshly tables of the heart, and the killing letter is now the quickening Spirit.

Others differ from the latter, and tell us that Christ came to bring us to the law, and to enable us to keep it. Hence the law is not a schoolmaster

to bring us to Christ, but Christ is the schoolmaster to bring us to the law; to fly from wrath is to fly from Jesus; and to fly for refuge is to go to the law for holiness. According to which sense Moses, the servant, has more honour than the Master; and the house has more honour than him that built it.

Others differ from these; and tell us that The law is the only rule of a believer's life; by which he is to walk, and not by faith; by which he is to live, and not by faith; by which he is to work, and not by faith. These make void the promise of God, and make faith of none effect.

Others tell us, that Christ came to enable believers to keep the law; which entirely contradicts the complaint of Zion, who declares that all her righteousness are as filthy rags. But the old man must be dead in our days, and there can be no law in the members warring against the law of the mind now; no flesh in the believer that loves the law of sin: and, though the apostles in many things all of them offended; yet believers in this age never offend at all; which makes their obedience perfect, and the Saviour's of less worth.

But the authors of this book differ from all the foregoing. For we are informed, page 42, that 'The moral law has ceased to exist as a covenant of works.' And, in the same page, the law is declared to be The eternal rule of righteousness, and is incapable of any variations. If it has ceased to be what it once was, it must

have varied some way or other. And we are likewise told that the believer is delivered from the power of sin; but that the new man of grace is overcome, and held captive, by sin.

Notwithstanding all these various changes, alterations, fluxes and refluxes, which men have made in the eternal rule of righteousness, and unalterable law of works, sure I am that heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle of the law shall fail of its unlimited demands, its killing power, or its threatened vengeance, which it will most assuredly exact of, or execute on, all that are found under it, whether it be Christ the surety, or the self-righteous, who reject his satisfaction. And I believe that the productions of such barren authors as these only serve to shew us the truth of the Holy Ghost's assertion, that those, who turn aside to vain jangling, and desire to be teachers of the law, know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

Our sworn enemy to the Antinomian now goes. on to describe the bands and cords that hold the King of Zion and his loyal subjects together.

Quot. As to his subjects, they are under a threefold obligation to pay the most ready, cheerful, and prompt obedience, to whatever commands. he is pleased to give them. In the first place, a natural obligation; as they are not only his subjects, but the creatures which his hands formed out of the dust.

Answ. This was Adam's tie, but it would not