Jews, argues upon a supposition, that "By the Law they had eternal life offered to them or laid before them, on condition of their exact performance of the Commandment; but that all coming short of perfect obedience, there was a necessity of recurring to FAITH.”

For what the Law could not do (says he) in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit *.

This general Argument, which runs through the epistles to the Romans and Galatians, wears indeed the face of an objection to what I have advanced: but to understand the true value of it, we must consider the Apostle's end and purpose in writing. It was to rectify an error in the Jewish Converts, who would lay a necessity upon all men of conforming to the Law of Moses. As strangely superstitious as this may now appear to us, it seems to have been a very natural consequence of opinions then held by the whole Jewish Nation, as doctrines of Moses and of the Law; namely, a future state of Rewards and Punishments, and the resurrection of the Body., Now these Doctrines, which easily disposed the less prejudiced part of the Jews to receive the Gospel, where they were taught more directly and explicitly, at the same time gave them wrong notions both of the Religion of MOSES and of JESUS: Which, by the way, I desire those, who so much contend for a future state's being in the Mosaic Dispensation, to take, notice of. Their wrong notion of the LAW consisted in, this, that having taken for granted, that the reward of obedience proposed by Moses was Immortality, and that this immortality could be obtained only by *Rom. viii. 3, 4

the

the works of the Law, therefore those works were, of necessity, to be observed. Their wrong notion of the GOSPEL consisted in this, that as Immortality was attached to IVorks by the Law, so it must needs be attached to Works by the Gospel also.

These were fatal mistakes. We have seen in our explanation of the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews, how the Apostles combated the last of them, namely, Justification by Works. The shewing now in what manner St. Paul opposed the other, of obligation to the Law, will explain the reasoning in question. Their opinion of obligation to the Law of Moses, was, as we say, founded on this principle, that it taught a future state, or offered immortality to its followers. The case was nice and delicate, and the confutation of the error required much address. What should our Apostle do? Should he in direct terms deny a future state was to be found in the Law? This would have shocked a general tradition supported by a national belief. Should he have owned that life and immortality came by the Law? This had not only fixed them in their error, but, what was worse, had tended to subvert the whole Gospel of JESUS. He has recourse therefore to this admirable expedient: The later Jews, in support of their national Doctrine of a future state, had given a spiritual sense to the Law. And this, which they did out of necessity, with little apparent grounds of conclusion then to be discovered, was seen, after the coming of the Messiah, to have the highest reasonableness and truth. Thus we find there were two spiritual senses, the one spurious, invented by the later Doctors of the Law; the other genuine, discovered by the Preachers of the Gospel; and these coinciding well enough in the main, St. Paul was enabled to seize a spiritual sense, and from thence to argue on their

own principles, that the Law of Moses could not now oblige; which he does in this irresistible manner. "The Law, says he, we know is spiritual*; that is, in a spiritual sense promises immmortality: for it says. Do this and licet. Therefore, he who does the deeds of the Law shall live ‡. But what then? Iam carnal§ : And all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: So that no flesh can be justified by the deeds of the Law, which requires a perfect obedience. Works then being unprofitable, we must have recourse to Faith: But the Law is not of Faith**: Therefore the Law is unprofitable for the attainment of salvation, and consequently no longer obligatory."-Never was an important argument more artfully conducted, where the-erroneous are brought into the right way on their own principles, and yet the truth not given up or betrayed. This would have been admired in a Greek or Roman Orator.

But though the principle he went upon was common both to him and his adversaries, and conscquently true, that the Law was spiritual, or had a spiritual meaning, whereby, under the species of those temporal promises of the Law, the promises of the Gospel were shadowed out; yet the inference from thence, that the LAW offered immortality to its followers, was solely Jewish, and urged by St. Paul as an argument ad hominem only; which appears certain from these considerations:

1. This spiritual sense, which St. Paul owns to be in the Law, was not a sense which was conveyed down with the literal, by Moses, to the followers of the Law; but was a sense invented or discovered long + Lev. xviii. 5. Gal. iii. 12.

Rom. vii. 14.

* Rom. x. 5. Gal. ii. 16.

§ Rom. vii. 14. Chap. iii. ver. 11.

Rom. iii. 23. ** Gal. iii. 12.

after;

after;-the spurious, by the later Jewish Doctors; and the genuine and real, by the Apostles; as appears from these words of St. Paul:-But now we are delivered from the Law, that being DEAD wherein we were held, that we should serve in NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, and not in the OLDNESS OF THE LETTER *. We see here, the Apostle gives the letter to the Jewish Economy, and the spirit to the Christian. Let me observe how exactly this quadrates with, and how well it explains, what he says in another place; where having told the Corinthians that he and his Fellow-Apostles were ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, he adds, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The Jews had only the letter delivered to them by the Law, but the Letter killeth; the consequence is, that the Law (in which was only the letter) had no future state.

2. Secondly, Supposing St. Paul really to hold that the Law offered immortality to its followers, and that that immortality was attached (as his argument supposes it) to Works, it would contradict the other reasoning which both he himself and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews urged so cordially against the second error of the Jewish Converts; namely, of immortality's being attached to works, or that justification was by works under the Gospel: for to confute this error, they prove, as we have shewn, that it was faith which justified, not only under the Gospel, but under the Law also.

3. Thirdly, If immortality were indeed offered through works, by the Law, then justification by faith, one of the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity t, would

Rom. vii. 6.

☛ This I shall shew hereafter; and endeavour to rescue it from the madness of enthusiasm on the one hand, and the absurdity of

would be infringed. For then faith could, at best, be only supposed to make up the defect of works, in such a sense as to enable works to justify.

4. Fourthly, It would directly contradict what St. Paul in other places says of the Law; as that it is a shadow of things to come, but that the body is of CHRIST. But the offer of immortality on one condition, could never be called the shadow of the offer of it on another. That it is the schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. Now, by the unhappy dexterity of these men, who, in defiance of the Apostle, will needs give the doctrines of grace and truth, as well as the doctrines of the Law, to MoSES, His appointed SCHOOLMASTER, the Law, is made to act a part that would utterly discredit every other schoolmaster, namely, to teach his children, yet in their Elements, the sublime doctrines of manly science.

5. Fifthly and lastly, If St. Paul intended this for any more than an argument ad hominem, he contradicted himself, and misled his disciple Timothy, whom he expressly assured, that our Saviour Jesus Christ hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. And lest, by this bringing to light, any one should mistake him to inean only that Jesus Christ had made life and immortality more clear and manifest, than Moses had done, he adds, that our Saviour had abolished or destroyed Death, or. that state of mortality and extinction into which mankind had fallen by the transgression of Adam; and in which, they continued under the Law of Moses, as appears from that Law's having no other sanction than temporal rewards and punishments. Now this

state

the common system on the other, and yet not betray it, in explaining it away under the fashionable pretence of delivering the Scripture Doctrine of it. Gal. iv. 3-9,

* Col. iii, 17. + Gal. iii. 24.