Section VI. — Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned," yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others : in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly -^^^ discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives;" so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation fOr, and hatred against sin ;" together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience.^* It is likewise of use to the rogenv^rate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin ;" and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law." The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance

thereof/® although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works ;^* so as a man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law, and not under grace. ^

Section VII. — Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it;'^^ the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law requireth to be done.*^

" Rom. vi. 14; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 13; iv. 4, 6; Acts xiii. 39; Rom. viii. 1.— 12 Rom. vii. 12, 22, 25; Ps. cxix. 4-6; 1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 14, 16, 182.3.— 13 Rom. vii. 7; iii. 20.— i* James i. 23-25; Rom. vii. 9, 14, 24.— 15 Gal. iii. 24; Rom. vii. 24, 25; viii. 3, 4.— 16 James ii. 11; Ps. cxix. 101, 104, 128.— 1' Ezra ix. 13, 14; Ps. Ixxxix. 30-34.~i8 Lev. xxvi. 1-14; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Eph. vi. 2, 3; Ps. xxxvii. 11; Matt. v. 5; Ps. xix. 11.— 1» Gal. ii. 16; Luke xvii. 10.— 20 Rom. vi. 12, 14; 1 Pet. iii. 8-12; Ps. xxxiv. 12-16; Heb. xii. 28, 29.-21 (jal. iii. 21.— 22 Ezek. xxxvi. 27; Heb. viii. 10; Jer. xxxi. 33.

In these Sections it is affirmed —

1st. That since the fall no man is able to attain to righteousness and eternal life through obedience to the law. This is beyond question, because all men have sinned ; because men's natures are depraved ; because the law demands perfect and perpetual obedience; and because, " If righteousness c^ome by the law, then Christ is dead in vnin." Gal. ii. 21.

2d. That those who have embraced the Gospel of Christ are no longer under the law as a covenant of life, but grace.

3d. That nevertheless, under the gospel dispensation and in perfect harmony with its principles, the law is of manifold uses for all classes of men, and especially in the following respects :

(1.) To all men generally the law is a revelation of

the character and will of God, a standard of moral excellence and a rule for the regulation of action.

(2.) To un regenerate men, considered in relation to the gospel, the law is of use to convince them of the holiness and justice of God, of their own guilt and pollution, of their utter inability to fulfil its requirements, and so to act as a, schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Kom. vii. 7-13; Gal. iii. 24.

(3.) With respect to incorrigible sinners, the law is of use to restrain the outbursts of their evil passions, to render their disobedience without excuse, to vindicate the justice of God in their condemnation, and to render their cases a warning to others. 1 Tim. i. 9; Rom. i. 20; ii. 15 ; John iii. 18, 36.

(4.) In respect to regenerate men, the law continues to be indispensable as the instrument of the Holy Ghost in the work of their sanctification. It remains to them an inflexible standard of righteousness, to which their nature and their actions ought to correspond. It shows them the extent of their obligations to Christ, and how far short, as yet, they are from having apprehended that whereunto they were apprehended in Christ Jesus. It thus tends to set up in the regenerate the habit of conviction of sin and of repentance and faith. Its threatenings and its promises present motives deterring from sin and as.^uring of grace, and thus leading the soul onward to that blissful attainment when the sovereignly imposed law of God will become the spontaneous law of our spirits, and hence that royal law of liberty of which James speaks. James i. 25 ; ii. 8, 12. See L. Cat., Qs, 94-97.

It is here affirmed, that true believers are completely delivered from the law, as a covenant of works. Christ, as their representative and surety, endured the curse of the law in all its bitterness, and in its utmost extent, in his sufferings imto death, and thus set them completely free from its condemning power. — Gal. iii. 13; Rom. viii. 1. But had

Christ only endured the curse of the law, and still left his people under its commanding power as a covenant, this would only have restored them to the same uncertain state of probation in which Adam originally stood, and every transgression would have again involved them under the curse. Christ, however, not only sustained the full infliction of the penalty of the law, he also yielded perfect obedience to its precepts, and thus obtained for his people deliverance from its commanding, as well as its condemning power. To show the complete nature of this freedom, we are told that they are dead to the law through the body of Christ; that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth; and that they are not under the law, but under grace. — Rom. vii. 4, x. 4, vi. 14.

The doctrine of the believer's freedom from the law, as a covenant, has no tendency to licentiousness; for it has already been established, that they are under the obligation of the »law as a rule of life; and here it is further shown that the law is of manifold use to them, as well as to others : " The law is good," says the Apostle Paul, " if a man use it lawfully" (1 Tim. i. 8); that is, if he use it in a suitableness to the state wherein he is, either as a believer or an unbeliever. The law serves numerous and important purposes, both to the unregenerate and to the regenerate. Some of these uses may be briefly stated: —

First. To the unregenerate the moral law is of use in the following respects : —

1. To restrain them from much sin 1 Tim. i. 9.

2. To convince them of their sinfulness and misery. — Rom. iii. 20, vii. 9.

3. To discover to them their absolute need of Christ, and drive them to him as their all-sufficient Saviour. — Gal. iii. 24.

4. To render them inexcusable, if they continue in their sins, and finally reject the only Saviour of lost sinners. — Rom. i. 20, ii. 15; John iii. 18, 36.

Second. The moral law is of use to the regenerate in the following respects : —

1. To render Christ more precious to them, and excite their gratitude to him who so loved them as to obey its precepts and suffer its penalty, that he might deliver them from it as a corenant. — Gal. iii. 13, iv. 4, 5.

2. To show them the will of God, and regulate their conduct.— Mic. vi. 8.

3. To serve as a standard of self-examination, in order to discover the pollutions of their hearts and lives — to keep them self-abased — to lead them to a constant dependence

200 CONFESSION OF FAITH. \JCKAP. XX.

upon Christ, and to excite them to a progressive advancement in holiness. — Phil. iii. 10-14.

4. To serve as a test of their sincerity, that they may assure their hearts that they are of the truth, and that they delight in the law of God after the inward man, notwithstanding their manifold defects in duty. — 1 John iii. 19; Rom. vii. 22, 25 : 2 Cor. i. 12.