natural disposition is sanctified; but that is not all. We must be most carefully attentive to two things: first, that a predominating natural disposition be not mistaken for gracious temper; warmth of temper, and boldness, for Christian zeal and courage; or natural amiableness, for divine charity. And, on the other hand, natural deficiency must be supplied. A desponding tendency must not be allowed to excuse the absence of religious confidence; natural coldness and reserve must not be suffered to hinder the exercise of a warm-hearted affection,-of the sympathy which rejoices with them that do rejoice, and weeps with them that weep. Where nature would produce redundancy and excess, it must be curbed, and cut down to the true limits of grace. Where nature is defective, the deficiency that would otherwise be occasioned must be supplied, that we fully come up to the rule of grace. We have so to study both the standard, as laid down in holy Scripture, and our own natural disposition and character, that we may be "perfect and entire, lacking nothing."

Now, it will easily be perceived, that for want of attention to these particulars, especially at the beginning of the Christian's course, both redundancies and deficiencies, in themselves absolutely wrong, may be suffered to exist. There may be such attention paid to the actual attainment of a present salvation, that the diligent study of the divine law, in order to full growth in grace, may be overlooked. We may content ourselves with generals, and omit the consideration of particulars. We may be defective in that godly jealousy which examines separate actions, in order to guard against self-deception. Saved by grace, we may allow ourselves to live without that sense of the obligation to exact obedience which is necessary that that exact obedience may be rendered. We may neglect to meditate on the law of the Lord, in its particular character of an actual rule of conduct. We may thus remain in such an unhappy state of ignorance, that we may do many things in this comparative darkness, the inconsistency of which, had we sought and obtained clearer light, fuller information on duty and character, we should have at once perceived. Others may see that we are wrong, whether by excess or deficiency: we may not see it ourselves. This is a melancholy state of things. Still, it is one that may exist; it is one that too often does exist. And it is an Antinomian state. A more impressive view of the majesty, the purity, the strictness of the divine law, a deeper conviction of the uncancelled obligation to obedience, would prevent its existence. We look so exclusively at the mercy of God in Christ, that we allow ourselves to cherish a sort of persuasion that such rigorous attention to duty is not now absolutely necessary. We take the scriptures that refer to this, and do not connect them with others of a different character; just as other persons take these other texts, and, dwelling on them almost exclusively, fall into Pharisaic error. They are deficient in the faith which trusts in Christ alone; they perceive not the necessity of Christian privileges, and the obligation to seek and enjoy them; so that "the consolations of God are small with" them. As these last approach the state of those who "have the form of godliness, and deny its power," so the first approach the state of those who "do evil that good may come :" they actually "make void the law through faith.”

Of either state we may distinctly conceive; yet allowing-while we greatly lament their existence, knowing that all such expose themselves to imminent danger-that He who sees the heart, may perceive there a sincerity, a sincerity predominating on the whole, which may cause the extension of mercy to them. Speaking now in particular concerning the

former, whose error is a real species of Antinomianism,-speaking of them, we should express our hopes, as well as our fears and doubts: but speaking to them, we should admonish them, tell them of their error, and of its evil and danger; and call them earnestly to seek to detect it, that henceforth it may be avoided.

And that they may adopt measures for this, they should have its evil and danger faithfully pointed out. We deny not their sincerity, on the whole; but they must be reminded that they run fearful hazards for themselves, and that they occasion great mischief as to others. We have several times, in the course of the foregoing remarks, employed the very instructive and impressive language of holy writ,-"Do we then make void the law through faith ?" This is instructive language. To make void the law is, to set it aside, to annul it, to treat it as having no force, as being practically, and as to ourselves, abrogated; so that there is no necessity that we should pay to it exact and obedient attention. This method of speaking precisely points out the evil to be avoided. God, in redeeming men from the curse of the law, has not annulled its precepts : what God, its Author, has not done, we are not to do by our method of treating it. We are to regard it even as more fully established by Redemption and Grace, and are to act accordingly; seeking, in pursuance of the very design of redeeming love, the object of redeeming sorrows and sufferings, that by "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ," setting us "free from the law of sin and death,” “the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

But the language is not less impressive than it is instructive. Immediately after asking the question, the Apostle was led, by the feelings awakened by the Holy Spirit, to give the reply, which shows how he started back from the very supposition of that which his question implies. "Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid!" Far be that from us! The thought is not to be admitted for a moment. The passage, therefore, is not a cool statement of doctrine, but an expression, likewise, of strongly-excited feeling. With vehement utterance he denies the case which he supposes : he points to it to declare the powerful repulsion which it occasioned. That which an inspired Apostle, writing as moved by the Holy Ghost, and not by his own will, regarded with such aversion, and even horror, cannot be an ordinary evil. One way, therefore, to guard against its existence, will be to view its evil and mischief,—briefly and generally, but still decidedly and faithfully.

1. The law of God, comprising all the precepts of revelation, is the declaration of the divine will.-We are God's creatures; and, as having been made for moral government, we are his subjects. He is our Sovereign in a far higher sense than that in which all living creation is subject to his rule. He has made us with certain faculties, and for certain objects. He has formed us, as it were, into a corporate body, constituting his earthly kingdom, the affairs of which were to be administered by himself. Man is a rational agent, capable (we speak according to his original state of being, his essential constitution) of choice, self-direction, and willing service. It is, therefore, a government in which proper order was to be secured by law. Of man, God is the absolute Proprietor. He has endowed him with active faculties; and these are to be exercised in a certain way, and for certain objects. These his creating Lord has pointed out, and given to the creature and subject full directions. And these are not given as recommendatory counsels, as wise and benevolent advice, but as constituting the decla

ration of the divine will. Man's natural condition was one of subjection to authority. "Thou shalt do this; Thou shalt not do that: " this is the language of God to him. And this points out his high elevation on the scale of created being. As God made him, he was a creature capable of being the subject of a kingdom whose Sovereign was God; of being placed under an administration of moral law requiring known, intended, voluntary obedience; that obedience, thus regulated by law, being the will of God concerning him. We speak of the mineral, the vegetable, the moral kingdom; and, figuratively, of their laws: but these are the effects of the divine will, realized by divine power. Moral laws, requiring willing, intentional obedience, are the highest of all. We allow the supposition is bold, but we employ it only for illustration. Supposing, then, that in the inferior domains of the divine administration, the laws of each could be set aside; that in the mineral, the vegetable, the animal kingdom, all the laws of chemistry, mechanics, instincts, could be made void besides the sin of the thing formed rebelling against Him that had formed it, what incalculable mischief would ensue! What an utter subversion of all order! What destruction of all evidences of wisdom, goodness, and power! And so much higher as is the highest kingdom of all, so much greater must be the sin and the mischief of setting aside its laws, and abrogating the supreme will of its Sovereign.

2. The law of God is the expression of God's moral nature, the manifestation of his holiness to created intelligences.-The wisdom of God being assumed, it would at once be evident that his laws could not be the mere declaration of sovereign will. Man was created in the image of God, and thus rendered capable of becoming fully a "partaker of the divine nature;" and this, according to Scripture, is to be "partaker of his holiness. That nature, therefore, required to be made known to him. In some measure, and so far as it refers to the creation, arrangement, and preservation of derived existences, it is shown to him in them, together with the laws of their being and operations. Nothing exists casually. All things that are, may be said to have first been in those wonderful ideas which exist in the Infinite and Eternal Mind. God is not abstract existence, mere power, void capacity; a slumbering, inactive Deity, like the fabled, and yet, even in this form, practically forgotten Supreme One of the wildly-dreaming mythology of the Hindoos. It is ever full of its own vast conceptions. Essentially, and eternally, is Jehovah a God of knowledge and wisdom; knowing not only all that has been, and that is, but all that shall be, all that can be. If so we may speak, (but on such subjects how feeble and narrow are not only human words, but human thoughts!) God is not only an intellectual, but a moral, Being. He is Holiness, as well as Intelligence. On earth, lose sight of man, and created existence shows the divine Intelligence; and thus,—

"Part of his Name divinely stands

On all his creatures writ:

They show the labour of his hands,
Or impress of his feet."

But in man a higher nature is manifest; we have reason to believe, the highest nature of all. Seraphim proclaim the holiness of God. It is this which is so gloriously manifested in our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the angels were commanded to worship when he was brought into the world. We can only argue concerning God from what he has said and done; and

this shines before us as his brightest glory. And this is the source of the divine law. We see in it, taken in its fullest extent, the moral nature and character of Deity; the rule of living for creatures made in his image, and whose exalted good is found in communion with himself, for which they can only be completely prepared by matured and active resemblance to him. What human nature is when deprived of the inward impression of divine law, possessing only the life of mere intelligent existence, with the faculties and capacities belonging to its constitution, let the awfully corrupt condition of fallen man as civilized, let the awfully debased state of fallen man as savage, declare. The great promise, therefore, of the covenant of redeeming love is, that the law of God shall be written on our hearts, put into our inward parts. To this even pardon is referred. Guilt is removed from the conscience through the blood of sprinkling, that the Holy Ghost, Comforter and Sanctifier, may be given to us. The law of God is not only to be placed before us, but to dwell within us, that our active nature may resemble him. The wisest philosopher, so far as he understands the facts of nature, is wise only in knowing, in part, somewhat of the infinite and everlasting knowledge of God. The holiest saint is so only by partaking the divine holiness. When the laws of God, by the Spirit of God, through the Incarnate Redeemer, dwell within us, we escape the corruption that is in the world of creatures dead in trespasses and sins, and are partakers of the divine nature.

Of that nature the law of God is the expression. In its actual application to created intelligences, it began in time; in its source it is eternal. Mr. Wesley expresses himself admirably on both these aspects of the subject. Speaking of "the first-born sons of creation," he says, " To employ all the faculties which he had given them, particularly their understanding and liberty, he gave them a law, a complete model of all truth, so far as is intelligible to a finite being; and of all good, so far as angelic minds were capable of embracing it. It was also the design of their beneficent Governor herein to make way for a continual increase of their happiness." "It was written in the inmost spirit both of men and angels." "With regard to

man, it was coeval with his nature." As to the source of the law, his striking language is,—“It is the face of God unveiled; God manifested to his creatures as they are able to bear it; manifested to give, and not to destroy, life. It is the heart of God disclosed to man. Yea, in some sense, we may apply to this law what the Apostle says of his Son,-it is the streaming forth, or outbeaming, of his glory; the express image of his person. The law of God is all virtues in one; in such a shape as to be beheld with open face by all those whose eyes God hath enlightened. What is the law but divine virtue and wisdom assuming a visible form? What is it but the original ideas of truth and good, which were lodged in the uncreated mind from eternity, now drawn forth and clothed with such a vehicle as to appear even to human understanding?”

Such is the law of God; and being so, it is the model of his highest nature and character, and one great instrument by which man is to be brought to it. Can we wonder at the feeling with which the very thought of making it void, of abrogating it, and rendering it useless and unproductive, was regarded by St. Paul's mind, when under the influence of plenary inspiration? We everywhere see, that when this law is withdrawn from

* Sermon I. on the "Original, Nature, Property, and Use of the Law." The reader is earnestly entreated most thoughtfully and prayerfully to read all three.

human nature, it is debased, it is corrupt, it is malignant, it is miserable. What are devils but angelic natures devoid of this law? That men are not yet altogether as devils, earth as hell, arises not from anything in man himself, but from the existence and operation of a most glorious scheme of merciful redemption. But even as it is, look at man civilized, or man savage, under the influence of this lawless nature, and learn the terrible results of its absence. Every step, therefore, in this direction, is essentially evil and mischievous, the mischief increasing at every step. It is a movement, in itself considered, devilward, hellward. It is even more than to reject the will of God: it is to renounce his very nature; to do that which, could its tendencies be carried out, would abrogate some of the most glorious perfections of Godhead, and exchange the beautiful splendour of the holiness of God, for the palpable darkness, the loathsome deformity, the bitter, the burning malignity of an absolutely lawless nature. Let the real character of the movement be considered, and not only every solemn thought, every wise deliberation, but every instinctive movement of the interior life of God, will say, "Make void the law through faith?' Set God's mercy in opposition to God's holiness? Make his love an instrument of sin? Be the very thought far from us! God forbid !

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3. The law of God is the instrument through which some of his most important purposes are to be accomplished.-By means of it he designs to make individuals holy, and so to prepare them for their final end, to regenerate and purify the mass of society, and, morally, to renew the face of the earth. This fact is most obviously declared in Scripture. It is there said, connecting obedience with final salvation, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." And our Lord solemnly teaches us that, "except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." To the believer, it is expressly said, "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ;' and "the fruit of the Spirit" is in strict accordance with the claims of the divine law. They whom he makes free from sin, become, in consequence, "servants to God,"-therefore to do his will,-and thus, they have their "fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Through the covenant of mercy he does not annul the law; he is indeed "merciful to our unrighteousness, and our sins and iniquities he remembers no more; but by the way in which he does this, he declares his law to be unchangeable; for, first, he only forgives us through the atonement of Christ he, as it were, punished his Son, whom he made sin for us, that he might pardon us, and make us "the righteousness of God in him." And, second, the eternal Spirit, the Giver of life, in making us alive from the death of sin, according to the covenant of redeeming grace, effects the great purpose of that covenant," I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." This is their new nature; these the laws of their new life. Nothing is grievous to any living creature that is in accordance with its nature; and therefore is it written, " And his commandments are not grievous. By the love of the law, and continual meditation upon it, and, as it were, digestion of it, we are like the tree planted by the rivers of waters, which, with unwithering leaf, bringeth forth his fruit in his season. Regenerate man delights in the law; it is sweeter than honey or the honey-comb. He therefore feeds on it, reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests it. The outward law is thus transferred within, becomes an integral part of his moral system; so that the word of Christ-not merely its letter, but its