without any reflection. Ver. 24. Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying you must be circumcised, and keep the law; to whom que gave no such commandment: they trouble you, and they pervert your souls.--Sirs, There are four questions, that must always be preserved plain; plainly delivered, and plainly known by all good men :--1st, What is that righteousness in which a sinner can stand safe before God? The plain answer to it is, That it is the righteousness of Christ only. 2dly, How come we by this righteousness? The gospel answer is, By grace alone; it is given us as a free gift, we do not buy it. 3dly, How are we possessed of this righteousness? By faith alone; there is no putting on this raiment but by faith alone. 4thly, What warrant hath a man to believe on Jesus Christ? The. plain gospel answer is, Only the promise of the gospel. And here are two things I would caution you about; and the most part of people's mistakes lie about them. 1st, The law is no gospel but as it leads to Christ; the law not leading to Christ is against the gospel, and the gospel against the law; but the law leading to Christ serves the gospel, and the gospel serves the law by fulfilling it. 2dly, The doctrine of holiness, as it flows from Christ, is gospel; but the doctrine of holiness, without Christ, is no gospel. To make this plain: Whosoever they be that teach people to be holy, and tell them how they may be holy, and urge them very hard that they must be very holy, for this end, that when they are holy they may believe on Jesus Christ; these people pervert and perplex the gospel: but if people be persuaded of the necessity of holiness for salvation, and that they must believe on Jesus Christ that they may be holy, this is gospel. That is the second thing, Have a care of those doctrines that perplex and confound the truths of the gospel.

(3.) There are mixing doctrines: they that would mix something with the grace of God: the grace of God they will not disown; the righteousness of Christ they will not deny, but they will put something in with them in the matter of justification. Take heed of this matter; it is a shame that this should be talked on as a matter of controversy; it is a point that every one's conscience should be fully satisfied in,

as they expect salvation from the hand of God. Indeed good men may jar and jangle about terms that neither of them well understand; but when the matter comes to a particular person's own case, there should be a full satisfaction in this point -that the righteousness of Christ for our justification must stand pure and unmixed. It is a corrupt thing to mix any of the works of the law with the grace of God: and herein lay the error of the Galatians; the grace of God, and the righte ousness of Christ, they liked very well; but they would join the law of Moses therewith. Let the law of Moses keep its own place, and be the rule of our sanctification; but in our justification, it hath no room at all: God never gave it any room there, and all they are fools that do it never served any man that man that way.

(4.) There are blaspheming doctrines, opposing and blaspheming the grace of God; and the land is full of them. You may have heard of a sort of people, the Socinians, and they are gross enemies to the grace of God. These strike at the very root of the grace of God, and the righteousness of Christ. If Christ be not the true God, how can he save a sinner? It is impossible that the righteousness of a creature can atone for the unrighteousness of a creature. It is the Godhead of Christ, that adds that infinite virtue to his sacrifice, that we are saved by.-So much for this first exhortation, "Try the spirits."

2dly, I would exhort you to try your own state by this doc trine: I do not frustrate the grace of God: and as this hath been handled, it calls you to try yourselves about three things:1st, What are your real thoughts of God's law? 2dly, What are your real thoughts of Christ's righteousness? Sdly, What are your real thoughts of the grace of God? A little to each

of these.

(1.) What are your real thoughts of God's law ?—And although you may think this a remote-like mark, yet it is not so remote, but it comes near to the point: judgment will be made of a man's state before God, according to his real thoughts of the law of God. Good men have always great and high thoughts of God's law, and they have low thoughts of themgelves. Psal. cxix. 128. I esteem all thy precepts concerning every

thing to be right, and I hate every false away. The law is holy, the commandment is holy, just, and good: the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin, Rom. vii. 12, 14. But you will say, "Do not every body think so of the law of God?" I answer, No. No natural man hath a good thought of the. law of God. Every corrupt, unrenewed man hath one of these three thoughts concerning the law of God;

[1] The natural man thinks the law of God easy to be kept. It is a graceless proverb that some people have in their mouths sometimes, and it flows from the corruption of their hearts, "That it is an easier thing to please God than it is "to please man." Indeed, if they would take God's way, it is an easy thing to get his favour; but according to the sense that it is commonly spoken in, it is a wicked saying, and flows from this wicked meaning-that the natural man thinks the law of God easy to be kept; and thereupon the Scribes and Pharisees, (and so do all that seek righteousness by the law), they expound the law of God so largely that one would think any body might keep it. Therefore, when our Lord hath a mind to break down this fortress of self-righteousness, he explains the law of God in its true strictness. The Pha-. risees' doctrine was, that nobody broke the sixth commandment, but he that murdered a man-that no man broke the seventh commandment, but he that committed adultery with his neighbour's wife--that nobody broke the ninth, but he that foreswore himself: and, indeed, if this had been all the interpretation of the law of God, that part of it that concerns our duty towards man had been no hard thing. Blessed be God, a great many good people, and bad people too, have not been guilty of these gross transgressions :-but when the spiritual meaning of the law comes to be considered, who is innocent? I had not known lust, saith, the apostle, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, Rom. vii. 7. "The com"mandment came to me in another sense, with that bright"ness that soon convinced me of sin." This is the first thought that people have of the law of God-that it is easy to be kept.

[2.] When they are beat from this, and they find the law of God to be so strict a rule that it reaches to the word, and

thoughts, and heart, to the least motion either from within or without-then they begin to hope that the threatening will not be fulfilled: if God gives so severe a law, that reaches to all, even to the least sins, then they hope God will not punish every sin with the curse of the law. The Lord, by Moses, warns the people of this, Deut. xxix. 19. And it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he shall bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my own heart, to add drunkenness to thirst. The secure man is very unwilling to take up the holiness and the strictness of the law of God as forbidding every sin; but he is far more unwilling to believe that God means to execute the threatened vengeance for these sins. And what sorry pleas have they?« God is merciful." Aye, so he is, but not to them that despise his law. God is not merciful to any law-breaker; but God is merciful in providing a law-keeper to save us; but he hath no mercy for the law-breaker. If a man expects life by the law, he must die by it." Aye, but "Christ hath died for sinners ;" and so he hath; but Christ was sent to fulfil the law, and not to take it away. Christ came not to make the law of God less strict in commanding than it was, nor less severe in threatening; but Christ came to take both upon his own back: and all that believe in him shall be saved from both. Christ took not away the law, but fulfilled it; and it is the reckoning of that fulfilling of the law by Christ to us, that is our salvation; and thus the righte ousness of the law is fulfilled in us. The righteousness of the law was fulfilled by Christ, and this is reckoned to a believer; and so the righteousness of the law of God is fulfilled in him; fulfilled by Christ, and so fulfilled in the believer in him.

But now suppose the light of the word drives a man from both these vain imaginations, and he sees the law to be so holy that no man can escape its threatenings; when the natural man is thus beat from these two, then,

[3.] He rises up in rebellion against the law, and blasphemes the law of God. Sirs, there are a great many poor creatures that complain grievously that many blasphemous thoughts follow them: I do believe that next unto the advan

tage that Satan may have over some bad-tempered minds, and ill-disposed bodies, I am apt to believe that the main root of all these blasphemies, is this point of doctrine that I am upon. When the poor creature was secure, he thought he could easily fulfil the law of God, or avoid the curse of it; but when he comes to see both these to be in vain, then, unless grace subdues the man's heart, it naturally rises in rebellion against the law of God. "Why did God give such a strict law, that nobody can keep, but every one must be destroyed "by it?" These very thoughts arose in Paul's mind, Rom. vii. 13. Was then that which was good made death to me? God forbid. The apostle Paul never knew himself to be a sinner till the law came; and the more close the law came it slew him the more, and quickened sin in him more. Now, how can any one think well of that law that slays the sinner, and enlivens the sin?« God forbid, saith the apostle, that I should say this was the end for which the law was made; but this "was a blessed end in Christ's hand" By the commandment, sin appeared to be exceeding sinful, that Paul might see his exceeding need of a Saviour. And there are two things that raise these rebellious thoughts against the law of God.

(1.) When clear light about the law shines upon the man's conscience, then all the Babel-building of their own works are thrown unto the ground: their praying, reading, hearing, holiness, it is all thrown to the ground by the law of God;the law condemns them utterly in point of righteousness. The law indeed commands them in point of practice, and it commends them as things pleasing to Ged; but in point of righteousness before God, the law condemns them utterly, the only language of the law is this, "Do all, and live; fil "in the least, and die "--and thus the man sees all his own righteousness is gone. And how unwilling are people to yield to this? What a great matter for is it a men to be able to do so? When a poor awakened sinner, that never knew the grace of God, or the righteousness of Christ, when he hath by the force of good education, or the power of the word, been brought under some conviction of sin and duty, he then sets about praying, and reading, and hearing, and reforming, and, it may be, hath been doing something at this for se