SERM. SERMON XXVII. The law proved to be good from the evidence of our own confciences. ROM. vii. 19. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that do I. T HERE is little doubt but that this is one of those paffages in St. Paul's epiftles, which St. Peter obferves are hard to be underflood, and which they that are unlearned and unftable, wreft, as they do other fcriptures, unto their own deftruction. The ufual cause of moft erroneous interpretations of Scripture is, that people fingle out particular texts, and then put their own conftruction upon them, without any regard to what goes before or after; and without confidering the context, and the whole drift of the discourse: Whereas it is plain, that those very persons who deal thus by the book of God, God, would cenfure any one, who would do SE R M. the fame by any other book whatsoever. There is nothing more common than this in the world, and it might eafily be fhewn, how this is the occafion of moft errors, that are held in oppofition to the established doctrine of the Church. When we all come to have our differences decided in the last day, by him who revealed the Gospel to us, 'tis to be feared that this very thing, will hinder multitudes from pleading invincible ignorance for their errors, viz. because that they did not use the same ingenuity and common sense in understanding the Scripture, which they never failed to use in any human author. This is one of those texts which hath been thus fingled out, and to worse purposes than that other of our Saviour's, This is my body; for that opinion of transubstantiation, is big with errors in opinion only, and is the immediate occafion but of one error in practice, that of Idolatry. But the falfe acceptation of this text hath an univerfal malignant influence upon the practice of men, in which confifts the very life and foul of religion. For the notion that multitudes, and particularly the Prefbyterians, and all our Sectaries have of the fense of these words, is this, viz. that tho' they do indeed omit fome neceffary duties, and are guilty of fome wilful and habitual fins; yet it is much against the inclination of their fouls, their heart is right VOL. II. R with XXVII. SER M. with God; fo that they serve him in the inner XXVII. man, and make no question, but that he will accept of thofe good wishes and defires of theirs. Many indeed will not express thus much, but they carry this in their minds, to quiet their confciences, whenever they find them uneafy at the fins they live in. And others will not stick openly to justify their gross, wilful, habitual fins by it; and call them the unavoidable weakneffes and infirmities of their nature; and all the while affume fuch an air of piety and holiness in their countenances, and make such confident pretences to fincere religion, that they appear the most fanctified people in the world: And indeed, their great unhappiness is, that they think themselves fo, for this makes it a dangerous fort of hypocrify. It is a cafe very common in the world, and therefore it must be worth while to confider the true sense of this part of Scripture, on which they build that falfe and mistaken opinion of themselves. That which makes this chapter seem thus obfcure is, St. Paul's fuppofing, the objections which he answers, already known; as indeed they were among thofe he wrote to, and therefore he only glances at them, and doth not express them in full, fo as to state them formally and at large. Wherefore the only way to know his meaning is, to obferve the drift and chain of his whole difcourfe. His main design in this SERM, and the foregoing chapter, is to convince both XXVII. Jews and Gentiles, that they lay under no obligation to observe the law of Moses. As for the Jews, they were fo wedded to their law, that at the first preaching of the Gospel, it was not fafe for the Apostles to infift upon this great point of doctrine to them. For if they had fallen directly and immediately upon it, this would have stuck as an invincible prejudice with those who were other wife well enough inclin'd to embrace the Gospel; fo that this matter was to be opened by degrees: our bleffed Saviour began it first in his difcourfe to the woman of Samaria; and as he himself observed the whole law, fo the difciples complied for fome time after his afcenfion. And at laft St. Paul, who was himself a zealous and obftinate Jew, was by the wifdom of God made choice of to declare the abrogation and nullity of what himself was but lately fo active and violent for. And accordingly he began it among the Gentiles, as we read in the xxift of the Acts, who were much eafier to be convinced than the Jews. And here in this chap. he speaks of the matter fully, to the Jews that were at Rome, and tells them in plain terms, that they are wholly freed from the observance of the ceremonial law, that they are dead to the law, and delivered from it. And urges and explains the matter by the fimilitude of a married woman. While her husband is alive the is bound to him R 2 SERM. him by the law; but when he is dead, the is XXVII. free to marry another; fo when the old law was in force, men were obliged to obey it, but now it being done away (as he fpeaks) and dead in the perfon of Chrift, who was crucified for that purpose, they were free to embrace the Gospel of Chrift, which is a much better difpenfation, because it requires the purity of our hearts, and inward holiness of foul, inftead of those outward ordinances. Upon this there occurs an objection, If fo, then the law was the cause of fin, viz. because it commanded only an outward obedience, and did not exact that inward fpiritual purity. To this he answers, that the law was not the caufe of fin, for it did require inward as well as outward obedience, as is evident from that precept, thou shalt not covet. But the truth of it is, tho' the law required this inward obedience of the mind, yet it had no penalty annexed to the breach of that part of the law, as the Gospel hath, viz. that of eternal damnation. And therefore men took occafion from this to indulge themselves in all their lufts, as far as they could without temporal punishment: and thus the law which was in itself good, and ordained to life, was found to be unto death. Here another objection is raised at the 13th verfe, where he comes more immediately to the matter we are now upon. The objection is this, However good as the law is, yet it became death to us; and the fault of men's mifcarrying, |