Under the name of believers the penitent are comprehended, inasmuch as in the original annunciation of the gospel repentance and faith are jointly proposed as conditions of salvation. Matt. iii. 1, &c. iv. 17. Mark i. 15. Luke xxiv. 47. Acts ii. 39-41. x. 35. "he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." xix. 3, 4. xx. 21. and elsewhere. A THREAT OF ETERNAL DEATH TO SUCH AS SHALL NOT BELIEVE. Matt. x. 14, 15. "whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that city, shake off the dust of your feet: verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom-." xxi. 37. &c. "he sent unto them his son.... but when the husbandmen saw the son, they said.... let us kill him.... they say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men." Mark xvi. 16. "he that believeth not shall be damned." John iii. 19. "this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light." Acts iii. 23. “ every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." 2 Thess. i. 8, 9. "taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel." Heb. x. 26, &c. "if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgement." By unbelievers, however, those only can be meant to whom Christ has been announced in the gospel; for "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" Rom. x. 14.

IN EVERY NATION. Matt. xxiv. 14. "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come." Mark xvi. 15. 66 to every creature.” John x. 16. " other sheep I have which are not of this fold." Acts x. 34, 35. "of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." Rom. x. 18. "their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." This was pre

dicted, Isai. ii. 2, &c. "it shall come to pass in the last days," &c. See also Mic. iv. 1. Isai. xix. 18, &c. " in that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan," &c. xxv. 6, &c. "unto all people." xlii. 4, &c. " the isles shall wait for his law." xlv. 22, 23. "look unto me, and be

ye saved, all the ends of the earth." lv. 4, 5. a witness to the people," &c. lvi. 3, &c. "neither let the son of the stranger speak, saying, Jehovah hath utterly separated me from his people." lxvi. 21. "I will also take of them for priests and Levites, saith Jehovah.” Jer. iii. 17. “all the nations shall be gathered unto it," xxv. 8, &c. " because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north-." Hagg. ii. 7. "the desire of all nations shall come." Zech. viii. 20. "there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities."

On the introduction of the gospel, or new covenant through faith in Christ, the whole of the preceding covenant, in other words, the entire Mosaic law, was abolished. Jer. xxxi. 3133. as above. Luke xvi. 16. "the law and the prophets were until John." Acts xv. 10. "now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" Rom. iii. 21. "now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested." vi. 14. "ye are not under the law, but under grace." vii. 4. "ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." v. 6. " now we are delivered from the law, that being Idead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." In the beginning of the same chapter the apostle illustrates our emancipation from the law by the instance of a wife who is loosed from her husband who is dead. v. 7. "I had not known sin but by the law, (that is, the whole law, for the expression is unlimited) for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." It is in the decalogue that the injunction here specified is contained; we are therefore absolved from subjection to the decalogue as fully as to the rest of the law. viii. 15. "ye have not received the spirit of bondage

9 This opinion, that it was inconsistent with the liberty of the gospel to consider the decalogue as a law binding on Christians, is probably the reason why Milton forbears to mention it, where Michael describes to Adam the civil and ritual commandments delivered to the Jews. The omission is too remarkable not to have been designed, considering the noble opportunity which would have been afforded for enlarging on its moral precepts. See Paradise Lost, XII. 230--248.

دو

"min

again to fear." xiv. 20. "all things indeed are pure," compared with Tit. i. 15. "unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled." 1 Cor. vi. 12. "all things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." x. 23. "all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not." 2 Cor. iii. 3. " not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." v. 6—8. isters of the new testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life: but if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious.... how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?" v. 11. "if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." v. 15. "the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." v. 17. "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.' Gal. iii. 19. "wherefore then serveth the law? it was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.” v. 25. "after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." iv. 1, &c. "the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant.... until the time appointed of the father even so we, when we were children, were in bondage, under the elements of the world; but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' Compare also v. 21, addressed to those who desired to be under the law; and v. 24, of Hagar and Sarah," these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.... but Jerusalem which is above." v. 26. "is free" hence v. 30. "cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." v. 18. "if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Eph. ii. 14, 15. "who hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." Now not only the ceremonial

:

66

code, but the whole positive law of Moses, was a law of commandments, and contained in ordinances; nor was it the ceremonial law which formed the sole ground of distinction between the Jews and Gentiles, as Zanchius on this passage contends,' but the whole law; seeing that the Gentiles, v. 12, were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise," which promise was made to the works of the whole law, not to those of the ceremonial alone; nor was it to these latter only that the enmity between God and us was owing, v. 16. So Coloss. ii. 14-17. "blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us ..he took it out of the way," &c. Heb. vii. 12, 15, 16. "the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also in the law.... there ariseth another priest, who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment." v. 18. "there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, (that is, of the commandment of works) for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof." viii. 13. "in that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old; now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away." xii. 18. &c. " ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.... but ye are come unto mount Sion.... and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant."

It is generally replied, that all these passages are to be understood only of the abolition of the ceremonial law. This is refuted, first, by the definition of the law itself, as given in the preceding chapter, in which are specified all the various reasons for its enactment: if therefore, of the causes which led to the enactment of the law considered as a whole, every one is revoked or obsolete, it follows that the whole law itself must be annulled also. The principal reasons then which are given for the enactment of the law are as follows; that it might call forth and develope our natural depravity;2 that 1 Dissidii causâ sublatâ, h. e. lege rituum, animisque pacatis et inter se amicis. Zanchius in loc.

2

.. Therefore was law giv'n them to evince Their natural pravity by stirring up

Sin against law to fight.

Paradise Lost, XII. 287.

by this means it might work wrath; that it might impress us with a slavish fear through consciousness of divine enmity, and of the hand-writing of accusation that was against us; that it might be a schoolmaster to bring us to the righteousness of Christ; and others of a similar description. Now the texts quoted above prove clearly, both that all these causes are now abrogated, and that they have not the least connection with the ceremonial law.

First then, the law is abolished principally on the ground of its being a law of works; that it might give place to the law of grace. Rom. iii. 27. " by what law? of works? nay, but by the law of faith." xi. 6. "if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace." Now the law of works was not solely the ceremonial law, but the whole law.

Secondly, iv. 15. "the law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression." It is not however a part, but the whole of the law that worketh wrath; inasmuch as the transgression is of the whole, and not of a part only. Seeing then that the law worketh wrath, but the gospel grace, and that wrath is incompatible with grace, it is obvious that the law cannot co-exist with the gospel.

Thirdly, the law of which it was written, "the man that doeth them shall live in them," Gal. iii. 12. Lev. xviii. 5. and, "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," Deut. xxvii. 26. Gal. iii. 10. was the whole law. From "the curse of this law Christ hath redeemed us," v. 13. inasmuch as we were unable to fufil it ourselves. Now to fulfil the ceremonial law could not have been a matter of difficulty; it must therefore have been the entire Mosaic law from which Christ delivered us. Again, as it was against those who did not fulfil the whole law that the curse was denounced, it follows that Christ could not have redeemed us from that curse, unless he had abrogated the whole law; if therefore he abrogated the whole, no part of it can be now binding upon us.

Fourthly, we are taught, 2 Cor. iii. 7. that the law written and engraven in stones was the ministration of death, and therefore was done away. Now the law engraven in stones was not the ceremonial law, but the decalogue.

Fifthly, that which was, as just stated, a law of sin and death, (of sin, because it is a provocative to sin; of death,