The Moral Law

A Sermon preached by the Rev. W. ROMAINE, M.A.

“Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandments holy, just, and good.” (Roms. vii. 12.)

THE great Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth has an indisputable authority to make laws for the government of His creatures, and to require their obedience. Since every thing that they have is received from His hands, and held under Him at His pleasure, it therefore behoves them to inquire upon what terms they hold it. And if God has given them any laws, it is their duty to study them, and their interest to obey them. If there be any sanctions to enforce these laws, any rewards or punishments, they should inquire whether these things are to be known, and by what means discovered; that they may obtain the reward, and escape the punishment.

Whenever a serious, unprejudiced person desires to be satisfied in these points, which so nearly concern his present peace of conscience, and his future happiness, he will soon be convinced that God has made a gracious provision for his instruction. God has opened His mind and will in this matter. He has recorded His laws, and published them. The sacred volume of Divine statutes is in our hands, and in our mother tongue. It is so very short, that none can want time to peruse it; and it is so very plain and intelligible, as to the rule of duty, that none can plead ignorance. He that runs may read it; and the simple may understand it, and learn knowledge; for upon a very cursory view of this Divine treatise, it will appear that there are three distinct bodies of law mentioned in it; namely, the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the law of faith. We are all highly concerned to inquire into the nature of these laws; and therefore I purpose, through God’s assistance, to inquire into the scope and design of each of them. At present I shall confine myself to the moral law, which alone is spoken of in my text. The apostle is treating of its usefulness to discover the sinfulness of sin: “I had not known sin,” says he, “but by the law.” The law must first lay down a rule, before it can be known what sin is, which is the transgression of that rule. “For I had not known lust,” and that the very first rising and motion of evil in the heart was a sin, “unless the law had said,

Thou shalt not covet.” This is the law of the tenth commandment; from whence it is very evident, that Paul is here treating of the moral law, which is of such perfect purity, as to reach to the desires and covetings of the heart; and which, by restraining them, makes them appear more sinful, and grow more outrageous: But sin took an occasion by the commandment, and wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law, sin is dead; although it be in us, yet it is not perceived, until it be held before the holy, spiritual law of God, and then it begins to stir and rage; for, as it follows, “I was once alive without the law,” says the apostle; when I knew not the law, I thought myself alive; my conscience never troubled me, nor did I apprehend the deadly nature of sin; “but when the commandment came,” when I began to understand the commandment in His spiritual nature, and it came to my conscience, and was applied with a Divine power to my heart, “then sin revived, and I died”; I found myself dead in trespasses and sins; “for the same commandment which was ordained unto life, was found to be unto me unto death; but sin took occasion by the commandment, not through any fault in the commandment, but entirely through my own fault, deceived me, and by it slew me. What shall we say then? Is the law and the commandment sin? God forbid. The law is holy; all the fault is in us, who abuse the law; “and the commandment is holy, and just, and good.” The occasion of the words, and the context thus in part opened and explained, may help us to determine;

I. What the moral law is;

II. Whether it be still in force;

III. Whether we all have kept it; and if not,

IV. What is the penalty due to the breach of it. And then I shall draw some practical inferences from these particulars. And may the Spirit of the living God apply what shall be spoken. May He enlighten all your understandings with a clear view of the spiritual nature of the moral law, that by it you may be brought to the knowledge of sin, and to see and to feel your want of a Saviour. Under the teachings of this good Spirit, let us consider,

I. What the moral law is. I define it to be the holy, just, and good will of God, made known and promulgated to His creatures, in all these particulars, wherein He requires their perfect obedience in order to their happiness. The law is the discovery of His will; for the almighty Creator and sovereign Lord of heaven and earth governs all His works and creatures according to the good pleasure of His own will. His will is the absolutely perfect law of the natural world. He hath given to the inanimate works of His hands, a law which shall not be broken. The active powers in nature shall work, and passive matter shall obey by an unalterable rule, until the heavens shall be folded up like a scroll, and the earth and all the works therein shall be burnt up. And His will is as absolute a law to His rational creatures, as to the natural agents; because he can enact no laws, but what partake of His own adorable perfections. His law is His will made known. It is a copy of His infinitely pure mind. It is a fair transcript of His holiness, justice, goodness, and of every other Divine attribute; for by the law He discovers to His creatures, what it is His will they should be and do, in order to preserve His favour. He would have them holy, just, and good; and the law makes known to them the rule of their obedience, by an exact conformity to which they are holy, just, and good. The will of God revealed in the law is holy, and conformity to it is holiness. Holiness, in the Old Testament language, signifies a separation from impurity; and when applied to the Divine nature, it rather expresses what God is not, than what He is. It is a negative idea, denoting an entire separation from everything which can defile. Holiness, in God, excludes all possibility of pollution. In Him there neither is, nor can be, the least impurity. He is of purer eyes than to behold the least iniquity. He cannot even look upon any thing which is in the least unclean; for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Now the law is an exact copy of God’s holiness. It is the outward discovery of His most holy mind and will, informing His creatures how perfectly pure they must preserve themselves, if they would preserve His favour. The law discovers to them what God is, and shows how like Him they ought to be, in holiness. And since God cannot behold the least impurity,

consequently His law cannot, because it is His mind and will revealed concerning this matter. He will not suffer any deviation from His law, no, not in thought; for the language of the law is positive and express out of the mouth of the supreme Lawgiver Himself, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” And are you, my brethren, thus holy? This should be a matter of close examination. Are you what the law requires you to be? Do you look upon the law as perfectly, infinitely holy in itself, even as holy as God is? and have you considered sin as an offence against the holiness of God and of His law, even such an unpardonable offence, that you could never make the least satisfaction for it? It is very evident these things are not well understood, because the practice of mankind shows what low ideas they entertain of them. What makes sin appear light and little, and some offences small? Is it not, because sinners are ignorant of the absolutely perfect holiness of the law? And after they have broken it, how mean an opinion have they of its holiness, when they think that a little sorrow and some few tears, that their repentance and amendment can make them holy, and satisfy the demands of the broken law! If any of you entertain these unworthy ideas of God and of His law, you should consider that although God does require you to be perfectly holy, yet He can require nothing of you but what is just. The law is just, as well as holy; just in all its demands, and just in the rule of its process in rewarding obedience, and punishing transgression. The Scripture word for justice is taken from human affairs, and from thence is applied to Divine. In the first ages of the world, money was paid and received by weight, and he who kept an even balance in paying and receiving was a just man. His justice consisted in keeping the scales even, in weighing all things with an equal balance, and in giving and taking only what was lawful and right. Now the Law holds this balance of justice in its hands, that it may prove the Judge of all the earth does right, and will be glorified in all that He requires of His creatures; for the holy obedience which He demands of them is a just obedience. He had a sovereign authority to require it, and He gave them power to pay it Him; and, therefore, they could not complain of any injustice, if He should inflict the punishment threatened to the disobedient, any more than if He should bestow the reward

promised to the obedient. Thus the law is just. It is the exact copy of God’s justice, and is as perfectly just as God is. It can no more require and do an unjust thing, than God can; for the law only discovers what is the infinitely just mind and will of God concerning the behaviour of His creatures. The law says, “Do this, and thou shalt live: transgress this, and dying, thou shalt surely die.” This is the will of the supreme Lawgiver, and His justice is engaged to see the honour of His law maintained, as well in punishing transgression with death, as in rewarding obedience with life. The law cannot possibly do any injustice, because it is directed by the unerring will of God. God, and His will, and His law, are alike just. For it is written in the law, “The Lord’s work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity; just and right is He” (Deut. xxxii. 4).

All His ways and dealings with the children of men are perfectly just, and they are also good. His law is good. It partakes of the goodness of its Divine Author, inasmuch as it tends to promote the welfare and happiness of His creatures. The creature was made to show forth the glory of its great Creator, and the law was the rule by which it was to walk in order to promote His glory; and in this holy walking there was all good to be met with. It was the way of pleasantness, and the path of peace. It preserved the assurance of the Divine favour, afforded a perpetual feast of conscience, and gave sure and certain hopes of a glorious immortality: “for Moses thus describeth the righteousness, which is of the law, that the man who doeth these things shall live by them.” If he do all the things written in the book of the law, he shall live unto God, and shall live with God. He shall enjoy a life of happiness here in the love and communion of God, and he shall enjoy an endless life of glory. Surely, then, the law is good; since the keeping of it would have produced all good, and since the transgression of it has brought all the evil upon man, which he can suffer in time and in eternity. Consider, my brethren, how good the law is, from that deluge of evil which came in upon the breach of it. When the Lord God, at the end of His six days’ work, surveyed all that He had made, behold, it was very good. There was then no evil of any kind to afflict either body

or soul; but by sin, the body became subject to sickness, pain, and death, and the soul to guilt and misery; and in the next life both body and soul were subject to the worm that never dieth, and to the fire that never shall be quenched.

Such is the goodness of the law. It is the all-wise provision which God has made for His own Glory, and for the happiness of His creatures, to whom He has published it. He made it known to our first parents in paradise. It was their rule of action, while they stood in the likeness and image of God. They had no opposition then to His good, and acceptable, and perfect will; but the understanding had a clear view of it, the will chose it, and the heart loved it, and they were able to do it with all their mind and with all their strength. And when sin entered into the world, the will of God was not changed, nor His law repealed. The law was in full force from Adam to Moses, in whose time the Lord God recorded it with the most awful majesty on Mount Sinai, and engraved it, with His own hands, upon two tables of stone. And it stands unrepealed to this day; promising life to obedience, and threatening death to transgression.

Since, then, the law has been properly promulgated, an holy, just, and good law, that altereth not, let us hear what it requires. It is the will of the Lawgiver, that he who doeth the things written in the book of the law shall live by them. But then he must do all things without exception; he must not fail in any one point. If he will enter into life, he must keep all the commandments. He must be universally holy, just, and good, as the law is. If he ever receive the promised reward, he must perform the condition; that is, he must pay the law perfect, uninterrupted obedience, with every faculty of soul and body, in their utmost strength and vigour; for it cannot suffer any transgression, but for the least inflicts the threatened punishment.

This is an essential property of the moral law. Upon the very first offence it cuts the sinner off from all claim to the promised reward, and as to anything that he can do, cuts him off for ever. It is not in his power to make himself innocent again. Having once failed in his obedience, the law knows nothing of mercy, cannot accept the greatest repentance, nor be

satisfied with the deepest sorrow for what is past; but immediately passes sentence according to what is written: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” If you fail in one single instance of obedience, you do not continue to perform all things, but fall under the curse of the broken law, and are as much liable to punishment, though not in the same degree, as if you had failed in every instance. In which sense the words of James are to be understood, “He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all.”

I have now gone through the several parts of the definition before given of the moral law, and it appears to be the holy, just, and good will of God, made known and promulgated to His creatures in all those particulars wherein He requires their perfect obedience, in order to their happiness. Since this is the case, it highly concerns every one of us to inquire, whether we be under an obligation to keep this law, which is the Second particular I proposed to consider; namely,

Whether the moral law be still in force, and still requires of them who expect to be saved by it, perfect, unswerving obedience. And upon the first proposal of this question, it would occur to every attentive person, that the law being as holy, just, and good, as God is, can no more admit of any variableness or shadow of turning, than God Himself can. He says, “I change not”; and how then can His law, which is the discovery of His mind and will, be changeable? Man may change, but the law is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It altereth not: if man does not keep it, it will lose none of its honour. Justice will be glorified by supporting the holiness of the law, and by inflicting the deserved punishment on the transgressors of it. But let us consult the law and the testimony. The Psalmist says (Psa. exi. 7, 8), “All His commandments are sure; they stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.” All His commandments, not excepting one, are fixed upon a sure, immovable foundation; for they stand fast for ever and ever in full force, established by the unchangeable will of God, and are ordained in perfect harmony with all the Divine attributes, being done in truth, which cannot lie, and uprightness, which cannot err. To the same purpose he says

in another Psalm, exix., 160, “Thy word is true from the beginning; and every one of Thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” These righteous judgments are the decrees of the moral law, and there is not one of them that can be repealed, but they shall all endure in full force for ever. Our blessed Saviour has thrown great light upon this subject. The whole moral law is summed up in the ten commandments, which He has reduced to these two—the love of God, and the love of our neighbour: on these two commandments, says He, hang all the law and the prophets; for love is the fulfilling of the law, and love never faileth; consequently, the law of love can never fail, but its debt of gratitude will be paying; and happy is he who shall be paying it to all eternity. Thus the moral law stands established by the authority of our Divine Teacher. In His sermon upon the mount, He reforms the abuses and false comments, which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the moral law, and He begins with this remark (Matt. v. 17), “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil”: to fulfil the law by paying it infinitely perfect obedience, and by being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; and by this active and passive obedience, He showed that it was easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than that one title of the law should fail. If the law could have abated anything of its demands, there would have been no necessity for Christ’s fulfilling it by His obedience and death. But the law was unalterable. It could not be satisfied with any obedience, but what was absolutely holy, just, and good; and as all men had failed in paying it this obedience, they must therefore have been punished in their own persons, unless God, out of the riches of His wisdom and grace, had found out a way, by which the honour of His law might be advanced, and yet the sinner might be saved. And that was by sending His Son to fulfil the law. He was equal to this work, because He was God, equal with the Father; and He took our nature, and God and man were united in one Christ, that He might be capable of doing and suffering and meriting in an infinite degree. Accordingly, in the fulness of time He stood up in the place of sinners; and therefore He became liable to do and to suffer whatever law and justice demanded, that having magnified the law by obeying its precepts, and made it honourable by suffering

its penalties, the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in them who should believe on Him to everlasting life; but the law is still in force to condemn every one who does not savingly believe on Him, and will be for ever in force to inflict the deserved punishment.

It is evident then, that the moral law stands to this day unrepealed. Although man be changed from what he was at first, yet the law is not. It is still the holy, just, and good will of God, requiring perfect obedience. And when the holiness of the law is violated, the justice of God is bound to see the sanctions of the law executed upon the disobedient; and the Divine goodness cannot plead an arrest of judgment, because it is a good law which is broken, and therefore it is a good thing to see that the transgressors of it be paid the wages of sin.

My brethren, are not these very alarming truths, and ought they not to suggest to every one of you such reflections as these? What! am I under the law, bound to keep it with a perfect unsinning obedience? Can the law abate nothing of its demands; but must I love God always, and with all my mind, heart, soul, and strength, and my neighbour as myself, if I hope to enter into life by keeping the commandments? Surely, then, I ought to examine whether I have always loved God and my neighbour, as the law requires. If these be the thoughts of your hearts, then you are prepared to follow me to a serious consideration of the Third head of discourse; namely,

Whether we all have kept the moral law. Its demands are very great. It will not accept of any obedience, unless it be continual. You must continue, without the least interruption, to do all things that are written in the book of the law. And have any of you walked with a steadfast course in the way of the commandments, without once turning aside? Consult conscience. Does it not accuse? Consult Scripture. Does it not say, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way”? leaving the way of God’s commandments.

The law also requires spiritual obedience. It reaches to the inmost thoughts and intents of the heart. You must never have one sinful thought in you, if you expect life from your keeping the law; for the law is spiritual; it searches the heart

and the reins, and strikes at the very first motion or rising of sin. One sinful desire cuts you off from legal righteousness, as much as ten thousand sins; for it is written, “Thou shalt not covet”; and he that covets, offends in one point, and therefore is guilty of all.

Besides, the law is perfect, perfectly holy, just, and good; for it is the will of God, and can no more suffer the least iniquity in its sight, than God Himself can. It will abate nothing of absolutely perfect obedience. All the strength, and all the mind, every faculty of the soul and body is to be exerted, and with the utmost vigour, in the observance of the law. The heart, too, is to love it, and the affections are to be delighted with obeying it.

This is what the law demands of every one of you. It will have a continual, a spiritual, and a perfect love of God, without one thought ever arising in opposition to His holy will, and the love of your neighbour must be like the love of yourself. And does any man or woman keep the law in this manner? Do any of you? Certainly you cannot suppose that you have never broken the law, because you have just now declared the contrary out of your own mouths. You have confessed this day, and on your bended knees, before God—”We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” And when you spake these words, did not your conscience assure you that they were true? For have you not offended against the holy law of God, and have not you left undone what it required, and done what it forbid? Surely you did not prevaricate with God, when in another part of the service you confessed that you had broken all the commandments. The rubric says,—”Then shall the priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly all the ten commandments; and the people still kneeling, shall, after every commandment, ask God mercy for their transgressions thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come”; and accordingly, after every commandment, you prayed God to have mercy upon you for breaking it, and to incline your hearts to keep it. And is it not certain, then, that you

have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God, by robbing His law of its due obedience?

What! would you make me a breaker of all the commandments, says some self-righteous formalist? I never murdered anybody, nor committed adultery. No! Had you never one angry thought or word against your neighbour? This is murder. Or did not one impure and unclean thought ever arise in your mind? This is adultery, according to the spiritual law of God. You look at your actions in the glass of man’s law, and because you have not outwardly offended, you think you have kept the law of God. There is your mistake. Look at Matt. v. 21, etc., and at 1 John iii. 15, and you will see that anger and hatred are murder in the eye of God; and read Matt. v. 27, 28, where our Lord teaches you, that one lustful look is heart-adultery. God regards the heart, and heart-sin is as much sin against His spiritual law, as outward transgression; and when the formalist sees his heart, naked and open, as God sees it, he will not pretend that he has not broken all the commandments, but will rather desire God to have mercy upon him, and incline his heart to keep His laws.

If any of you refuse to be determined by these authorities, hear what the Lord God has declared concerning you, and His decree will, I hope, be decisive. He is represented in the 14th Psalm, as looking down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek after God: but they were all gone out of the way; they were altogether become filthy, there was none that did good, no, not one: there was not one of the children of men that did good, and sinned not. We have in the third chapter of the Romans, the apostle’s comment upon this psalm. After having proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, and transgressors of the law, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one, legally righteous, he says, verse 19, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” Thus God Himself has declared, that you have not done good, that you are under sin, and in His sight guilty. And what can you object to these Scriptures? Sirs, are you not greatly alarmed at hearing them? For they come home to every one’s case, and ought

to reach every one’s conscience. And what are the present apprehensions of your minds concerning them? Have you broken the holy law of God, and you know you have, and do you not dread the consequence of your transgressions? What can tempt you to hope that you shall escape the threatened penalty? Has your sorrow for breaking the law, or your repentance, or your amendment, merit enough so far to undo the sin committed, as that law cannot demand, nor justice inflict punishment for it? Or have you some blind notions of absolute mercy in God, as if He would cease to be just, rather than not be merciful to you? Men and brethren, if any or all of these false notions tempt you to be secure under the breach of the law, and under the wrath of the almighty Lawgiver, let us bring them to the standard of Scripture, and inquire,

What is the penalty due to the breach of the moral law?

When God published His law, He enforced it with proper sanctions. He promised reward to the obedient,—“Do this, and thou shalt live.” And He threatened punishment to the disobedient,—“In the day that thou transgressest, dying thou shalt surely die.” This is the rule of God’s process. If you keep the law, you shall have the life promised: but if you transgress, you shall be alienated from the life of God, and subject to death; to the first and to the second death, to a death of nature, and to a death of grace; for both these kinds of death are the punishment of sin:—“For as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” And beside this death of the body, there is a death of the soul,—“The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. xviii. 4); it shall be alienated from the life of God for ever and ever, and shall suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. So that the broken law not only cuts you off from the fountain of life, but also pours out its curses, and inflicts real torments upon the unholy, the unjust, and the evil, according to the description in Rev. xxi. 8:—“And the fearful, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

These are the penalties which every transgressor of the law deserves, and these God has threatened to inflict. His will herein is unchangeable. His truth requires the performance of His threatenings. His justice is bound to see them inflicted. His holiness and goodness call upon justice for the immediate execution of the penalties due to sin. And how can the sinner escape? What can he do to deliver himself? He has nothing in his own power wherewith to satisfy the demands of law and justice. Suppose him sorrowful for his sin; that sorrow proves him guilty, and leaves him so. Say, he tries to repent; the law knows nothing of repentance; its language is, Do this, or thou shalt die. Grant, he amends his life for the future; yet what becomes of his past sins? Is his doing part of his duty any satisfaction for neglecting part of it? The law makes no provision for any such groundless pleas, but insists upon perfect obedience, and for the least failure puts the sinner under the curse, and under the wrath of God, and there leaves him to suffer the just punishment of his sin.

But some persons perhaps may object, If this be the case, what flesh can be saved? None; no, not one can be saved by keeping the law; for all have sinned and transgressed the law of God, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.

But still some may ask, Why then do you preach the law? Because it is a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. It teaches them the nature of sin, and convinces them of their want of a Saviour. “By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. iii. 20, and vii. 7). Men are secure and careless in sin, until the law, that worketh wrath, reach their consciences; then they begin to know sin, and to feel the exceeding sinfulness of it; “for it is the ministration of condemnation” (2 Cor. iii. 9). The law, spiritually understood and applied, convinces the sinner that he is a condemned creature, shows him in God’s word the sentence passed upon him, and makes him dread the execution of it. And thus it becomes to him “the ministration of death” (2 Cor. iii. 7), proving him to be guilty of sin, and to be deserving of death. The apostle’s case is very common. I thought myself alive, says he, without the law: he had no doubt but he was alive to God, while he was a strict Pharisee; but when the holy,

spiritual nature of the law was made known to him, he found himself to be dead in trespasses and sins. This, then, is the office of the law. It brings transgressors to the knowledge of sin, condemns them for it, and puts them under the sentence of death; and when the law has thus convinced them of their guilt and of their danger, they then find their want of a Saviour. But without this work of the law, they would not have been sensible that they stood in any need of him. If they were never sick, they would never send for the physician. If they were never brought to the knowledge of sin, they would never desire the knowledge of a Saviour. If they never found themselves under guilt and condemnation, they would never sue for His pardon; and would never ask life of Him, unless they found that they deserved to die the first and the second death. For these reasons the law must be taught. It is the schoolmaster appointed of God to bring sinners unto Christ; and when the schoolmaster comes in the name and power of the Divine Spirit, and convinces them of their distressed state and condition, and makes them sensible of their guilt and of their misery, then He brings them to Christ, earnestly to ask, and humbly to receive, mercy from Him Who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

And now, men and brethren, let us hear this schoolmaster, who is sent from heaven to teach us a Divine lesson. He speaks to you, ye careless and secure in sin, and denounces the anger of the almighty Lawgiver against you. Oh! with what a terrible voice does he reveal the wrath of God from heaven against all your ungodliness and unrighteousness. There is nothing dreadful in earth or hell, nothing to be feared in time or in eternity, but what is included in this most awful sentence,—“Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them” (Deut. xxvii. 26). Have you done them? have you done ALL that the law required? and in the perfect manner required? I dare appeal to your consciences. You may try to stifle their evidence, but they will speak; and do they not at this very time charge you with sin? You know that you have not kept all the law, and what then is the consequence? Why, the law pronounces you cursed, and it would make your ears tingle, and your heart melt within you, if you were to consider what

it is to be under the curses of the law, and to have the wrath of God abiding upon you for ever and ever. Have you no sense of these things, and no fearful apprehensions about your present condition? Is not conscience alarmed at the greatness of your danger? and do not the terrors of the law stir you up to flee from the wrath to come? If not, if all be quiet within, while you hear the law of the most high God, which ought to convince you of your guilt, and to make you apprehensive of your misery, then you are indeed sleeping the sleep of death. Oh! may the God of all mercy take pity on you and awaken you, lest you should sleep on, until the curses of the law be actually inflicted, and wrath come upon you to the uttermost.

Some persons may think it happy for them, that they are not careless and secure in sin; for they endeavour to keep the law as well as they can, and God is a merciful God, He will forgive them, when they do amiss. This is a common, but it is a very dangerous mistake: for it supposes that the law can abate something of its demands, and can accept of an imperfect obedience. Whereas the law is the holy, just, and good will of God, which altereth not. It requires perfect and universal obedience; and in case of the least transgression condemns the sinner, and passes sentence. If he plead that he never offended but in this particular instance, that is pleading guilty. If a man be indicted for murder, and the fact be proved upon him, and he be found guilty, and the judge pass sentence, what would it avail him, if he should make this plea, that he had never been guilty of high treason? The judge would observe to him, that he was not accused of high treason, but of murder, of which he was found guilty and condemned, and his not being a traitor was no reason why he should not be executed for being a murderer. So your not having broken this or that commandment have broken any of them. Suppose you are not an adulterer, yet cannot save you from the just sentence of the law, if you yet if you are a murderer, you deserve to die, and to receive the wages of sin:—”For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law” (James ii. 11).

But some will say, Shall we not be accepted, if we endeavour to keep the law as well as we can? No. The style of the law is, Do. It does not say, Endeavour to keep the commandment, but it speaks with authority, Do it, and do it perfectly, and in every point, and with all the mind, and with all the soul, and with all the heart, and with all the strength. Here is no room left for good resolutions, or good endeavours, but an actual performance of the whole law is demanded. The least failing or short coming is a transgression, and therefore is an absolute forfeiture of legal righteousness, and of every blessing promised to the perfect keeping of the law.

Some persons go a little farther than good endeavours, and think God will accept them for their sincere obedience. Whereas the law has nothing to do with sincerity. When you come to be tried by the law, the only question will be, whether you have broken it or not? If not, the promised reward is yours. You may claim it as your due: for to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But if you have broken the law, your sincere obedience cannot be accepted in the place of perfect obedience; because the law has made no provision for your case. It requires a continual performance of all its commands, and in a perfect manner; and if you fail, and then plead your sincerity in your favour, that is owning your guilt, and is a confession of your not having continued in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them; and therefore, as your sincere obedience is not perfect, it leaves you still under the curse of the law, and under the wrath of God.

There are other persons, who think that there is some kind of absolute mercy in God, and that although they have sinned, yet He is ready to forgive. But this is not the character of God as drawn in the law: for the law considers Him as the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, having absolute authority to enact laws for the government of His creatures, over whom He presides with unerring justice, to see His laws carried into execution. Justice is the ruling attribute of the supreme Lawgiver. As His law is just, so are its sanctions. It is equally just in Him to punish transgressors, as to reward the obedient: for the Judge of all the earth cannot but do right, and distribute impartial justice. Whether He can show mercy to the guilty,

is not the question; but whether He has made any provision in the law for showing them mercy; and He certainly has not. God is not described in the law as a God of mercy, but as a sovereign Judge, whose wrath, and not whose mercy, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

But if the Lawgiver has made no promise in His law, that He will show mercy to sinners, yet will He not be prevailed on by their sorrow and tears, their repentance and amendment? There is not one word in the law to encourage a sinner to hope for mercy, because he is sorry for his sin. It is full of threatenings against the least offence, and, for the least, cuts the offender off from all claim to legal righteousness. When he is in this state, what merit is there in sorrow, that it should change the laws of the most high God, or what efficacy in tears, that these should cause him to be reputed innocent, who is in fact guilty? He has forfeited all right and title to the happiness, which the law promised to obedience; and when he sees this, he grows sorry for what he has done amiss. So does a murderer, when found guilty, and condemned to suffer; but does the judge pardon him, because he is sorry for his crime? By no means. But he gives signs of true sorrow. He weeps bitterly. Suppose he does, yet the law demands obedience, and not tears for disobeying. These tears flow from a sense of guilt, and if there were rivers of them, they could not wash the stain of guilt out of the conscience; because the law has not ascribed any such virtue to them, as to accept of many tears for having offended, instead of unsinning obedience. And granting he goes a step farther:—he repents and amends. But what becomes of the broken law and of the deserved penalty? Can simple repentance undo the sin committed? Or can amendment for the future avert the penalty already deserved? No, these are things impossible. The law will have obedience or punishment, and justice is engaged to see that the law be obeyed, and the threatened punishment inflicted; and therefore, after you have disobeyed, the law can allow no place for repentance, nor no way to escape punishment, although you seek it carefully with tears.

But if the law cannot show the offender mercy, does it leave him without hope? Yes. It can show him no mercy, nor does

it give him any hope. It convinces him of sin, condemns him for it, and sentences him to the first and to the second death.

What! must he despair then? Of being able to attain mercy by any means in his own power he must despair—despair of working out for himself such righteousness as the law demands—despair of escaping, by any sorrow or repentance of his, the punishment which justice is bound to inflict. And when he finds himself in this guilty and helpless state, then will he be glad to hear of a Saviour. Blessed be God, there is salvation for him who despairs of being saved by the law. To him the Gospel offers (or proclaims) a free pardon. When he flies to the Gospel, seeking to be saved by free grace, then there is mercy for him and plenteous redemption. When he cries out, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the curses of the broken law, and from the justice of an offended God? the Gospel points out unto him the victorious Saviour, who hath redeemed His people from the curse of the law, being made a curse for them, and hath satisfied all the demands of His Father’s justice, having made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness; and, therefore, He can save to the uttermost. If there be any of you, whom the broken law accuses, and whom justice is pursuing to inflict the threatened punishment, fly to this almighty Saviour, and you will find in Him a safe refuge. He can save you from the condemnation of the law; for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And He can deliver you from the stroke of justice; for who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect, since it is God Himself that justifieth them?

This is the great salvation set before you, who despair of being saved by the law. It is a free, full, and eternal salvation. He who has it to give, has graciously convinced you of your want of it, and has made you willing to receive it as a free gift. Ask it, then, of Him deeply sensible of your unworthiness, and of your helplessness, and He will incline His ear unto your petitions; for He never cast out the prayer of the poor destitute. Ask, and ye shall have the precious gift of faith, and great joy and peace in believing, that you are redeemed from the curse of the law, and that you are enriched with the blessings of the Gospel. You will be made the children of God, and will receive

the adoption of sons through faith in Christ Jesus; and if sons, then you will be heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you; which may the Father reserve for you all, for the sake of His beloved Son, through the effectual grace of the Holy Spirit, that to the three Persons in one Jehovah you may be happy in ascribing equal honour and glory, and blessing and praise, for ever and ever. Amen.