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The law is the ministration of death. "The soul that sinneth it shall die," Ezek. xviii. 20. This sentence is sure to take place in the conscience of all the elect of God, some time or other. "When the commandment came sin revived, and I died," says Paul. "I am "I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind," Psalm xxxi. 12. "I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength; free among the dead." "I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness," Job x. 21, 22.

Now, I will not pretend to affirm that all the elect of God are exercised with the bondage and terrors of the law alike; but this I will affirm, that all, more or less, are made to feel every branch of this penal part of the law. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." And sure I am that none will seek Christ with all their heart but seusible sinners; nor is Christ sent to any others. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Every one of God's elect are made to feel their bondage, and are chafed in their minds, by the rebukes of conscience and the reflections of divine anger;, and to none else is Christ sent. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the

poor; and to set at liberty them that are bruised," Luke iv. 18.

And this I know, that there is not one of God's elect but, sooner or later, he will feel himself in a state of condemnation, and under the sentence of death, both from his own conscience, and from the word of God whenever it comes with power. "But, if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth," 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25. He is convinced of all, and judged of all; and the secrets of his heart are made manifest: and such an one owns that the searcher of all hearts is come near to him to judgment; and to this omniscient God he bows, adores, worships, and confesses; and ascribes the whole of this work to him; not to the prophets, nor to them that prophesy; for the excellency of this power is not of them, but it is of God, who is in the prophets: and this the poor criminal confesses without either an if or a but. He reports that God is in them of a truth. These poor souls, dead in sin and dead in law, are the persons that hunger after the bread of life, feeling the sentence, and hastening to get from under it. "The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am the Lord

thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: the Lord of hosts is his name," Isai. li. 14, 15. Here God owns himself to be the God of these captive exiles, who are in the horrible pit, hastening, and fearing that the bread of life will never be broken to them.

Now, though this penal part of the law, when applied, doth not remain in the elect of God, they being born heirs of the promise of life, which is the blessing of a better covenant, established upon better promises; yet they will never forget this law-work, nor their misery under it, while in this life." And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me," Lam. iii. 18-20.

Upon such souls as these the law has done its office. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." The commandment comes home with all its power, discovers sin, works wrath, and passes its awful sentence; upon which sin revives, and the sinner dies. And such souls suffer death, both in their representative, Christ, and in themselves, being planted together in the likeness of his death; and by the application of the law suffer death also, yea they suffer the law: and when this is done the law has done its office, for such souls are condemned by it, and are dead. "The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth," and no longer..

Now, if the law allows of a surety and substitute to stand in my law place, and the gift of eternal life can possibly be granted to me through him, by an act of free sovereign grace, I am no more under obligations to that law, for this undeserved and unexpected favour, than a poor criminal, who is condemned by the law, and going to suffer death, is, when he meets with the king's pardon on the road to the gallows.

"For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but, if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God," Rom. vii. 2-4. Hagar is the figure in the covenant of works; and all the children of that mother are in bondage, and under the law, and under the curse of it; and the elect themselves are by nature the children of wrath even as others, Ephes. ii. 3. And, as the law genders to bondage, our legal souls being born in sin and under the law,.we cleave to it: but, when the law has condemned us to death and filled us with wrath, all our hopes

in it and expectations from it die. By its cursing us, and giving us no life, it becomes dead to us; and we, being condemned and delivered over to endless death by it, become dead to that; upon which Christ in pity marries the poor widow, purges away our sins, which the law discovers, and silences law, conscience, and Satan, saying, "Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not bẻ put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more; for thy Maker is thine husband," Isai. liv. 4, 5. Thus Christ, who is both our brother and next of kin, marries the desolate and disconsolate widow, and raises up the name of the dead upon the inheritance, Ruth iv. 5. And this name that Christ raiseth up is the name of a son by adoption; for upon his marrying the widow the new man is formed, and he that is born of God hath the seed of God in him, which entitles us to this new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name, Isai. lxii. 2. "I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off," Isai. lvi. 5. Thus are we become Idead to the law that we should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God, Rom. vii. 4. For all that are under the law bring forth fruit unto death, Rom. vii. 5; or else they bring forth fruit unto themselves, Hosea x. 1; which is one and the same thing. The apostle mentions

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