glorieth only in the Lord; he rejoiceth in Chrift Jefus, and hath no confidence in the flesh; he does joy in God through Jefus Christ, by whom he receives the atonement, and grace reigning through righteousness, to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. v. 11, 21. This death is a pleasant parting, when the man is brought to a parting with all his own rags for a glorious robe. 5. It is an bonourable death. To be dead to the law, is a death that brings honour to God, to Christ, to the law, and to the believer. It brings honour to God's bolinefs, which is now fatisfied by Chrift's doing; and honour to God's juftice, which is now fatisfied by Chrift's dying. It brings honour to Chrift; for now the man values the righteousness of Chrift, as being indeed the righteoufnefs of God, and a full, fufficient, perfect righteousness. It brings honour to the law, when, instead of our imperfect obedience, we bring to it an obedience better than men or angels in their beft eftate could give it, even the lawgiver's obedience, which indeed doth magnify the law, and make it honourable. It brings honour alfo to the believer himself; he is honoured and beautified with a law-biding righteoufnefs, truly meritorious, and every way glorious; this is the honour of all the faints. 6. It is a profitable death; it is a happy death, and a holy death; profitable both for happinefs and holiness, profitable both for juftification and fanctification. Our legal righteoufnefs is unprofitable, Ifa. lvii. 12. I will declare thy righteousness and thy works, for they shall not profit thee. It is unprofitable for juftification; for by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be juftified: It is unprofitable for fanctification; for his filthy rags do rather pollute him than purify him.

But

But the righteousness of Chrift is profitable every way; they are happy that have it, for they are juftified from all things, from which they could not 1 be juftified by the law of Mofes: They are holy that have it, as will appear in the sequel of our difcourse. Being dead to the law, is the way to live unto God.

Fourth thing here propofed, is the means of this death, I through the law am dead to the law: The mean of death to the law, is the law. Queftion, How can this be, feeing the law is the cause of no good thing in us, and is the ministration of death and condemnation? 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8, 9. I answer, though the law is not the cause of this death to the law, and fo of death to fin; yet it is an occafion thereof, for it accuses, terrifies, and condemns us, and thereby occafions and urgeth us to flee to Christ, who is the true caufe that we die to the law, and to fin: As the needle goes before, and draws the thread which fews the cloth; fo the needle of the

law goes before, and makes way for the grace of the gofpel, that it may follow after, and take place in the heart. To be dead to the law, and married to Chrift, is all one in fcripture fenfe. Now to be dead to the law by the law, is, by means of the law, to be led to Chrift for juftification by faith in him, without the deeds of the law, Gal. iii. 24. The law was our Schoolmaster to lead us to Chrift, that we might be juftified by faith; where the law may be taken either for the ceremonial or moral law. If we take it for the ceremonial law, then it is true that the ceremonial law pointed out Christ to us truly: But then the ceremonial law was gofpel in the fubftance of it, tho' vailed over with types and hadows, which were to continue

till the body was come. But if we take it for the moral law, then it brings us to Chrift only occafionally; for to bring us to Chrift, is no proper work of the law, only it is the occafion thereof, infomuch as it drives us from itself, and makes us to fee that by it there is no hope of life; fo it curfes all finners, and gives hope of life to none: It is the gofpel only that fhews us the falvation to be had in Christ. Now the law, by the feverity of it, is an occafion to us of feeking life, where it is to be found; like a child knowing the tenderness of his father's love, and finding his fchoolmafter to be very fevere and fharp, runs from the severity of the mafter, to hide himself under his father's wings; yet not his master's teaching, but his feverity is the occafion of it; even fo it is through the law and its severity, that the believer is dead to the law: It is then by a law-work, in fome measure, a work of legal conviction and humiliation, that a man comes to be dead to the law.

Here I'll name to you a few pieces of law-work, which are the occafion of the man's being dead to the law, when the spirit of God makes use of the law for that end. 1. Through the law a man gets the conviction of the holiness of God, and of the holinefs, fpirituality and extent of the law itfelf; the fpirit of God inlightens the mind, to fee the conformity of the command unto the will of God, and to the holy nature of God: This is called the coming of the commandment, Rom. vii. 9. For I was alive without the law once. I thought I was holy enough; I found the life of my hand, while I was, touching the law, blamelefs; but when the commandment came, fin revived, and I died. When I saw the holiness and fpirituality of God's law,

fin revived, and I died; I faw that I was a finner indeed, and I died to the law, and to all conceit of my own works, and obedience to the law. This conviction makes a man have a doctrinal approbation of the law as holy, juft and good, holy in its precepts, just in its threatnings, and good in its promifes; I confent to the law, that it is good. By this conviction, a man fees not only the holiness and fpirituality, but the extent of the law: thy commandment is exceeding broad, it is extended to all my thoughts, words and actions; to all my affec tions, defigns, defires, and inclinations. Now, when a man fees this, it kills his confidence, and makes him fee he hath no righteousness conformable to the law. 2. Through the law, the man gets the conviction of fin. By the law is the knowledge of fin, Rom. iii. 20. Conviction of fin is the conscience of our tranfgreffing of this holy law, This conviction makes a man fee fin in its nature, that it is the tranfgreffion of the law, 1 John iii. 4. and fo a contrariety to the holy nature and will of God. This conviction makes a man fee the kinds of fin. It may be the fpirit of God begins with fome actual, grievous fin. Actual fin is the fwerving of our actions, either in thought, word or deed, from the law of God, either by omiffion or commiffion. From thence the conviction goes to original fin, letting the man fee, that not only is his nature destitute of all righteoufnefs, and conformity to the law, but that it is wholly corrupt, that he is just a hell of fin and enmity against God; and from thence the fpirit of God by the law convinces the man of the originating fin, even of Adam's fin, and fays to him, as it is, Ifai. xliii. 27. Thy first father bath finned, and thou in him. This

conviction

conviction makes the man fee also the aggravations of fin, how much light, and how many mercies he hath finned againft; and alfo the power and dominion of fin, what a flave he is thereto, and that the law is so far from freeing him therefrom, that it but exafperates corruption, and fo is the strength of fin. Now, when the man comes thus to fee fin in its nature, kinds, aggravations, and dominion, what can more tend to kill his conceit of righteousness by the law? 3. Through the law the man gets conviction of guilt as well as fin, that he is bound over to punishment according to the law; for guilt is properly an obligation to punishment. As by the precept of the law, the man comes to get the knowledge of the intrinfical evil of fin in its nature; fo by the penalty of the law, he comes to get the knowledge of the confequential evil of fin, as binding him over to hell, death and damnation; that the curfe of God, the wrath of God, the vengeance of God is the retinue and train of attendants that accompany fin; and fo the man put in fear of hell and damnation. It may be, when he goes to bed, he fears he fhall never rife again when he goes out, he thinks he fhall never come in again; he is afraid his meat choak him, or the houfe fall above his head, or the earth open and swallow him up: Senfe of wrath haunts him like a ghost; the man is put in prifon and concluded under fin, Gal. iii. 22. Sin is the prison, the finner is the prifoner, God is the judge, and the curfe of the law is the bond by which the prifoner is tied neck and heel; and from this prifon there is no escape, without the mercy of God in Chrift, who can command this prifoner to come forth. The law cannot do it, it is weak through the flesh

is

i

man