man cannot do it, he is by nature without ftrength: Only he whom God hath given to be a covenant to the people, Ifa. xlix. 9. can fay to the prisoner, Go forth. Now, when the man is thus convinced of guilt and wrath by the law, this hath a tendency to make him dead to the law, and to kill his confidence in any legal righteousness of his own. O is there any poor prifoner here, that finds himself fhut up in prifon, under the power of fin, and under the guilt of fin, and wrath of God? O let this give you fome comfort for the present, till God loose your bands, that this is the way God is taking to make you dead to the law, that you may live to God. 4. Through the law, a man gets the conviction of God's equity and righteousness, tho' he should punish, and execute law vengeance; and fo is made to justify God, tho' he should fend him to hell. I do not say that the finner is made content to be damned; no, that, in fome respect, were to be content to be an enemy to God, and to fin against him forever; for the state of the damned includes everlafting enmity and fin, and fo it can never be the thing he is made content with; but the man is brought to a conviction of God's equity and righteoufnefs, tho' he fhould fend him to hell, as an everlasting punishment. To justify God, fays an eminent divine, is to acknowledge, on the one hand, that he does no wrong to the finner in the execution of the curfe; and on the other hand, that he does no wrong to himself, or to his own justice, when he executes the judgment threatned against fin, but that he does that which is right. O, fays the finner in this cafe, God does me no wrong, tho' he fhould deftroy me; and he does not wrong his own juftice, but is a juft God in so doing: Yea, I cannot fee how the credit of

his juftice fhould be falved, and how he should be glorified in his justice, if he did not execute judg ment upon me, either in myself, or in a furety for me, because I have offended fuch an infinitely glorious Being. Against thee, thee only have I finned, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakeft, and clear when thou judgest, Pfal. li. 4. Is God unrighteous, that takes vengeance? God forbid. Rom. iii. 5, 6. The offence done against the greatest of Beings, deferves the greatest of punishments, even the eternal deftruction of the creature. It is true, God delights not in the death of a finner, As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of a finner, Ezek. xviii. that is, as it is a deftruction of the creature, though he delights in it, as it is the execution of his juftice; even fo the finner convinced by the law, tho' he cannot take pleasure in this, to think of being destroyed, yet there is fome fecret kind of justifying that which God takes pleasure in, namely, the execution of justice. O how fit is it, that God's justice be glorified! And how juft is God, in executing infinite judgment upon fuch an infinite evil as fin is! And indeed the finner would not fee falvation to be free, if he did not fee damnation to be just; but the fight of this, in the glafs of the law, and in the light of the fpirit, tends in a manner to reconcile the man with the device of falvation through Chrift, whose bloody facrifice gives juftice full fatisfaction. He is now content that God's juftice be glorified by a fatisfaction, more glorious than that which the damned in hell can give; and fo it tends to make him dead to the law, and to all other legal penances and fham fatisfactions, which thofe, who are ignorant of God's equity and righteousness, are ready foolishly to invent. 5. Thro' the law a man gets

the

the conviction of his own inexcufableness, which is that effect of a legal work of the fpirit, whereby the foul is left without excufe of, or defence for itself, Rom. iii. 19. Whatsoever things the law faith, it faith to them that are under it, that every mouth. may be ftopt, and all the world may become guilty before God. Now the whole foul of the man cries out, guilty, guilty; his fig-leaves of excuses are blown away; his former fhifts and cavils in defence of himself, do now evanish; he hath not a word to fpeak in favour of himself. What said he formerly? Why, it may be, his heart faid, if not his mouth, OI hope there will be no fear of me, Adam's fin was not mine; original fin is what I could not help, it came with me into the world; as for my actual fins, I fee others guilty of greater; as for my omiffion of duties and commiffion of trefpaffes, I fee none but have their faults; and God is a merciful God, and I hope he will not be fo unjuft as to damn his own creatures. Thefe and the like shifts and excuses formerly took place; but now he becomes fpeechless, his mouth is ftopt. They fee they will but deceive themselves by these miserable shifts, and that they are guilty, guilty, finful wretches, blacker than the very devil, and have not a mouth to open for themselves; and fo they die to all conceit of themselves, and their own righteoufnefs. 6. Thro' the law the man comes thus to get a conviction of his abfolute need of the gofpel, or of the Saviour revealed thereby, being convinced of his finful and miferable state by nature, and humbled under the ferious confideration and view of his fin and mifery, fearing the wrath of God due to him for fin, beholding the equity of God, though he fhould caft him into hell; having his mouth ftopt, and despairing of getting out of this condition by his own

power,

power, or the help of any other creature. He is now convinced of the need of the Saviour: O I perish, I perish for ever, unless the law-giver provide a righteousness for me that will answer the demands of the law. Now the foul is ready to cry out, not in Rachel's fenfe, Give me children, or else I die; but in her phrase, O give me Chrift, or else I die give me a furety, or elfe I die. Now he is content to be for ever indebted to the righteousness of another; and thus the law is the occafion of bringing a man to Chrift. And so you see how it is, that through the law they are dead to the law, that they live unto God.

may

THIRD HEAD.

The third thing is, to fpeak of the believer's life, which is the fruit of this death; it is a living unto God. And now, in fpeaking hereto, I fhall, I. Enquire what kind of life it is? 2. What are the fcriptural defignations of it? 3. What is imported in its being called a living in general? 4. What is imported in its being called a living to God in particular?

ift, What kind of life is it? And, (1.) It is not a natural life, either in a physical or moral fenfe. Natural life, in a phyfical fenfe, is that which we received from Adam by generation, and is the function of natural faculties, in living, moving, ufing of fense and reason; that is, a life common to all men, who yet may be dead: Neither is it a natural life in a moral fenfe, fuch as heathens may have. The heathens may have common notions of God, and of good and evil, fo as to render them inexcufable in their unnatural immoralities, Rom. i. 19, 20. They have a book of nature, both internal, in the remainders of the law in their heart, fo as they do by nature the things contained in the

law,

law, Rom. ii. 14, 15. And external, in God's works of creation and general providence; The heaven's declare the glory of the Lord, &c. Now, this natural life cannot be the living to God here fpoken of, becaufe this natural life flows only from a natural ftate, which is a ftate of death: By nature we are dead, legally dead under condemnation, fpiritually dead in fins, wholly corrupt; and the tree being bad, the fruit must be bad alfo ; a filthy fountain can bring forth nothing but filthy ftreams. This natural life does proceed from natural principles, and thefe are corrupt; fuch as the defires of the flesh and of the mind, the lufts of the flesh, the luft of the eye, and the pride of life. At beft their natural life flows from felf-love, or love to its own honour, praises, profits or pleasures; all nature's works are selfish, however heroic they may be. This natural life is directed by a natural rule, fuch as the light of nature inward, or outward, accompanied with the counfels and examples of naturalifts; neither does it ever come up to that fame rule of nature's light, which therefore does condemn them as guilty. This natural life hath only natural defigns and ends; the natural man acts from felf as his principle, and to felf as his end, afcribing the glory of all his actions thereunto: Thus Herod gave not God the glory of his fine oration; but took the praife to himself; but he was immediately fmitten of an angel, and eaten up of worms. This natural way of living is in a natural manner, after the courfe of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, Eph. ii. 2. which is nothing but a walking in the lufts of the flesh, fulfilling the defires of the flesh and of the mind: Yea, in this natural life, nothing of Chrift, or of his gofpel, is eiVOL. II.

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ther