standing. It was not an inward principle or power. It held up the rule of duty to which men were to be conformed, but it could not impart the disposition or ability to obey. It was, as it were, a mere writing or book. On the other hand, the gospel is spiritual, as distinguished from what was external and ritual. It is the power of God, Rom. 1,6; the organ throuj^h ^diich the Spirit works in giving life to the^ soul. These^ words therefore express concisely the characteristic dif- ference between the law and the gospel. The one was exter- nal, the other spiritual ; the one was an outward precept, the other an inward power. In the one case the law was written on stone, in the other on the heart. The one therefore was letter^ the other sjnrit.
For the letter (i. e. the law) Jcilleth^ but the spirit (i. e. the gospel) giveth life. This is the reason why God hath made Paul the minister of the spirit. ' God had made us able min- isters not of the law but of the gospel, for the law kills, but the gospel gives life.' This passage and the following context present two important questions. First, in what sense does the law kill ? And second, How is it that the apostle attrib- utes to the Mosaic system this purely legal character, when he elsewhere so plainly teaches that the gospel was witnessed or taught both in the law and the prophets ? As to the for- mer of these questions, the answer furnished by the Scriptures is plain. The law demands perfect obedience. It says, " Do this and live," Rom. 10, 5. Gal. 3, 12, and "Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them," Gal. 3, 10. As no man renders this perfect obedience, the law condemns him. It pronounces on him the sentence of death. This is one way in which it kills. In the second place, it produces the knowledge or conscious- ness of shi, and of course of guilt, that is, of just exposure to the wrath of God. Thus again it slays. And thirdly, by pre- senting the perfect standard of duty, which cannot be seen without awakening the sense of obligation to be conformed to it, while it imparts no disposition or power to obey, it exasper- ates the soul and tims again it brings forth fruit unto death. All these effects of the law are systematically presented by the apostle in the 6th and Vth chapters of his epistle to the Romans, and in the 3d chapter of the epistle to the Galatians. The second question is more difficult. Every reader of the New Testament must be struck with the fact that the apostle often speaks of the Mosaic law as he does of the moral