LAW AND GOSPEL

(Continued from last issue)

It is the terror of the law which moves the carnal mind to attempt external obedience to it; but it is the spirit of the law which makes the believer delight in it. The man who seeks salvation by the deeds of the law, in whole or in part, is under the law; but the man who accepts a free grace salvation, as the gift of covenant love, in the person of Christ, is under grace, and has the law in his heart, and he who has the law in his heart, will never reject it from his Bible, his creed, or his conduct.

Nothing is further from the believer’s thoughts, than the placing of a dependence upon the deeds of the law; for he trusts his eternal all in the hands of his covenant surety, and feels confident, that all the moral acts and religious exercises of his whole life, do not weigh one grain in the scale of his justification; but every moral precept in God’s word is dear to his heart, and as grace is bestowed, they are all exemplified in his life.

He is not intimidated by the charge of Antinomianism for his attachment to, and triumph in, the distinguishing doctrines of the covenant of grace; nor will he blush at the imputation of legality, for his concern to walk in all the commandments of the Lord blameless. He is proof against both the invidious observations of the temporizing time-server, and the supercilious sneer of the self-conceited libertine.

The spirit of the law (stripped of its covenant form) and the spirit of the gospel are nearer akin than most men imagine; for LOVE is the fulfilling of the law, and LOVE is the essence of the gospel; and when gospel grace subdues the natural enmity of the heart, every precept of God’s word will be embraced and loved; he who treads divine precepts under his feet, has never felt the power of the gospel in his heart. The conduct of licentious professors of the gospel, and their manifest indifference respecting sin, while they boast of their liberty, constrain me to cry out with the Psalmist, “It is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they have made void thy law.”

If any law be presented to you, my dear Cleophas, as a condition of salvation, I know you will turn from it, and very properly too, rejecting it entirely, because there never was a law given which could give life; but present you with ten, or ten thousand moral precepts, as the transcript of your Father’s mind, and you will say they constitute the best regulations of your Father’s house, yea, the very spirit of adoption will constrain you to love them, because your Father gave them your insufficiency to yield perfect obedience will never induce you to reject them, while you see that they are perfectly honoured in the life of your precious Redeemer; nor will you be alarmed at the high standard of rectitude which the law fixes, because your heaven-born soul aspires to it and the consummation of the work of grace shall bring you to it. The perfect holiness it demands, is given you in Christ, and therefore shall be attained with Christ, through the mighty operations of his spirit, changing you into his image from glory to glory.

An inspired apostle informs us, that “the law is good if a man use it lawfully;” now it cannot be said to be used lawfully, when it is treated with contempt; or when it is put in the place of a Saviour; but it is lawfully used when it is consulted to obtain a deeper knowledge of sin; and set up as the standard of perfection; then we discover by it our total ruin, and learn to prize that complete redemption which is in Christ Jesus; like a clear mirror it shows us our deformity, and we turn from ourselves with disgust and shame, to seek in Christ that purity, holiness, and perfection, which the law demands and which the gospel proclaims to be in him.

Should you be assailed, my dear young friend, by any of those mystical bible-robbers, who steal from the sacred volume a string of detached sentences, straining them into a system agreeable to their own, depraved taste, to the rejection of the greater part of the oracles of truth, avoid them as you would infectious breath or pestilential air. You may know them by this inscription on their foreheads, “We are the people, and wisdom shall die with us,” concerning such we may use the wise man’s lamentation, “seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”

I have observed, that a departure from the simplicity of gospel doctrines and contempt of the precepts of God’s word generally go together, and when a man takes the liberty of rejecting part of scripture, he is on the high road to infidelity; and, I know not how soon he may reject the whole economy of grace. There is a holy harmony in the sacred volume which cannot be interrupted without deranging the whole; it is a chain of truth, and no link can be spared; therefore it behooves mortals to make their systems yield to divine truth, and not attempt to bend divine truth to their systems.

I will close these observations, my dear Cleophas, by reminding you of the interesting meeting that took place between Moses, Elias, and Christ, which Peter, James, and John were allowed to witness. There, surely, Moses and Elias agreed to hang all the glory of the types, sacrifices, and prophecies on Jesus!; while he condescended to talk with them, and acknowledge the beauty of the law, and the truth of prophecy, as pointing to himself. They did not meet there to dispute their prerogatives; Jesus had not summoned Moses there to degrade him in the eyes of his disciples, nor was Elias made to appear contemptible before them; but while Moses acknowledged his law fulfilled by Jesus, and Elias saw all the prophecies accomplished in him, they both recognized their engagement to set him forth to the end of time, and he condescends to employ them both in his service. The particulars of the conversation which then passed between these illustrious persons are not related, but its substance is expressly given, for they “appeared in glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Luke 9:31.

By the law I learn that I am guilty and depraved before God; but by the gospel I am taught, that I am justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus—by the law I find that I have ruined myself by sin, and stand exposed to divine vengeance; but the gospel proclaims, that Jesus was made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him—by the law, my legal hopes are destroyed; by the gospel my believing expectations are raised —by the law I become acquainted with my Father’s mind, by the gospel I am furnished with grace to attend to his will—in a word, by the law I am stripped, exposed, condemned, and killed; but by the gospel I am quickened, justified, accepted, and clothed; therefore, “I delight in the law of God after the inner man,” but “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That you, my dear friend, may obtain more knowledge of your total ruin, and closer intimacy with that precious Jesus, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets wrote, is the prayer of your

Affectionate pastor and friend,

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