of all; for all are equally under condemnation by the law. There are, indeed, different degrees of guilt, and there will be different degrees of punishment; but all are worthy of death, all are under one and the same sentence, and all must eternally perish, unless deliverance be obtained in God's appointed way.

3. The nature and character of the law is such, as to render justification by it an impossibility.

The apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 3), has informed us that God has effected, by sending his Son, "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh." The words, "what the law could not do," may be literally translated, "the impossibility of the law." But what occasions this impossibility? the nature and obligations of the law, considered in relation to the present condition of man. We have before seen what the substance of the law is; namely, the perfect love of God and man. And if we would understand its perfection, holiness, severity, and obligations, we must look into our Lord's sermon on the mount. In that divine exposition of the law, an unchaste look is denominated adultery in the heart; an angry word is considered as a degree of murder; and in regard to the love of our neighbour, we are required to be perfect, even as God himself is perfect. In fact, the law is not satisfied with less than complete, perpetual, and unerring obedience. Do you ask, Does the law require this perfection of sinful dust and ashes? The answer is, It does require it: it demands it. The law forbids every sin, in every form and degree: in

thought, word, and deed. It enjoins every duty to God and man, which can be branched out from its summary in the ten commandments. The law, therefore, not only cannot save, but, on the contrary, it condemns, and denounces its curse upon every transgressor. "For it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." Attend, my brethren, to this declaration. Observe the following plain paraphrase of the words:"Cursed is every one," every individual, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, young and old, male and female," that continueth not,"-from the commencement to the termination of life, "in all things which are written in the book of the law," in fulfilling every precept which God has enjoined, and in avoiding every offence which He has prohibited,-"to do them,"-to perform every command, completely and perfectly, without any defect either in the matter or manner. taught us by St. James. keep the whole law, he is guilty of all.'

The same doctrine is "For whosoever shall and yet offend in one point, That is, if a man violate one of the precepts of the law, he is guilty of a breach, not indeed of the whole of the law, but of the whole law. The whole system of the law is broken, as a chain is severed by the failure of one of its links. By one act of transgression, the authority of the lawgiver, who has established every precept, is impugned, and the offender has rendered himself liable to the curse. In like manner as a man who had committed one

that he that hath not the Son of God hath not life? Do I come to Christ as a poor, lost, ruined sinner? Am I renouncing all hope in myself, and trusting in him alone for life and salvation? How does my faith operate? Does it produce effects attributed to it in the word of God? Does it work by love? Does it purify my heart? Does it enable me to overcome the world? Does it influence me to worship God in the spirit, to rejoice in Christ Jesus, and to have no confidence in the flesh? If I have received Christ Jesus the Lord, do I walk in him? Is my faith a principle that constrains me to obey Christ, and to live to him that died for me and rose again? Does it lead me to give up myself to the service of God, and to walk before him in holiness and righteousness? Remember, my brethren, that faith in Christ does not free us from the obligation of the law of God as a rule of life."Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid yea, we establish the law." Observe, what the apostle says immediately after the words of the text: 66 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we, ourselves, also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For I, through the law, am dead to the law"-dead to it as a covenant of works, but, under the law, to Christ. "I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

3. Finally, the subject we have been considering is calculated to afford peace and comfort to every believer.

My Christian brethren, you have been convinced

of your sin. You have been led to see that you have

nothing in yourselves sufficient to justify you at the bar of God. You have discovered your imperfections by the glass of God's word. Here you have also learned that the judge, at whose tribunal you must stand, is omniscient: you know that he is represented in the scripture as one "by whose brightness the stars are darkened, by whose power the mountains are melted, at whose indignation the earth quakes, by whose wisdom the wise are taken in their own craftiness, whose justice the angels are not able to bear, who will by no means clear the guilty, and whose vengeance, when once it is kindled, penetrates the lowest hell." You know enough, therefore, of the character and attributes of God-of his majesty, power, holiness, truth, and justice—and you also know enough of your own sinfulness, to be deeply convinced that you cannot appear before the judgment-seat of Christ in the great day, without a better plea for your acceptance and justification than your own righteousness or any thing that you possess in yourself. You have had such views of the character of the Almighty, and such convictions of your own sins and imperfections, as must constrain you to adopt the language of Job: “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now

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mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." But, whatever views you may have of your own sin, or of your own righteousness, you may be assured that you are more sinful than you think yourselves to be, and that your righteousness is more imperfect than you can imagine. But, Christians, it is not to yourselves that you are looking for a righteousness. that will bear you out at the bar of your Judge. No! your refuge is in the righteousness of Christ by

Here you have ground for confidence, for peace, for comfort. In Christ are merits and righteousness on which you may rest for pardon, acquittal, justification, acceptance, and eternal life. Millions have already built their hopes on this foundation, and not one of them has ever perished: and in him there is enough for millions more. Continue to believe in him, to trust in him, to live to him, to obey his commands, and you shall have every thing that is good for you in time, and every thing that is glorious in eternity. He has redeemed you from the curse of the law, he will deliver you from the power of sin, he will be with you through life, he will support you in death, he will receive your departing spirit into paradise; and when he comes the second time with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God to raise the dead, "he will ransom you from the power of the grave, and change your vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."