2. All this proceeds from the deepest ignorance of the nature, properties and use of the law: and proves that those who act thus, either know not Christ, are utter strangers to living faith: or at least, that they are but babes in Christ, and as such _unskilled in the word of righteousness_.
3. Their grand plea is this: “That preaching the gospel (that is, according to their judgment, the speaking of nothing but the sufferings and merits of Christ) answers all the ends of the law.” But this we utterly deny. It does not answer the very first end of the law, namely, The convincing men of sin, the awakening those who are still asleep on the brink of hell. There may have been here and there an exempt case. One in a thousand may have been awakened by the gospel. But this is no general rule. The ordinary method of God, is to convict sinners by the law, and that only. The gospel is not the means which God hath ordained, or which our Lord himself used, for this end. We have no authority in scripture for applying it thus, nor any ground, to think it will prove effectual. Nor have we any more ground to expect this, from the nature of the thing. _They that be whole_, as our Lord himself observes, _need not a physician, but they that be sick_. It is absurd therefore to offer a physician to them that are whole, or that at least imagine themselves so to be. You are first, to convince them, that they are sick. Otherwise they will not thank you for your labour. It is equally absurd to offer Christ to them, whose heart is whole, having never yet been broken. It is in the proper sense, _casting pearls before swine_. Doubtless, _they will trample them under foot_. And it is no more than you have reason to expect, if they also _turn again and rent you_.
4. “But altho’ there is no command in scripture, to offer Christ to the careless sinner, yet are there not scriptural precedents for it?” I think not: I know not any. I believe you can’t produce one, either from the four Evangelists, or the _Acts of the Apostles_. Neither can you prove this to have been the practice of any of the apostles, from any passage in all their writings.
5. “Nay, does not the apostle _Paul_ say, in his former Epistle to the _Corinthians, We preach Christ crucified_? ch. i. ver. 23. And in his latter, _We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord_? ch. v. ver. 4.”
We consent to rest the cause on this issue: to tread in his steps, to follow his example. Only preach you, just as _Paul_ preached, and the dispute is at an end.
For altho’ we are certain he _preached Christ_, in as perfect a manner as the very chief of the apostles, yet who _preached the law_ more than St. _Paul_? Therefore he did not think the gospel answered the same end.
6. The very first sermon of St. _Paul_’s, which is recorded, concludes in these words. _By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the Prophets, Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish. For I work a work in your days, a work which you will in no wise believe, tho’ a man declare it unto you_, Acts xiii. 39, &c. Now it is manifest, all this is _preaching the law_, in the sense wherein you understand the term: even altho’ great part of, if not all his hearers, were either _Jews or religious proselytes_, ver. 43. and therefore probably many of them, in some degree at least, convinced of sin already. He first reminds them, That they could not be justified by the law of _Moses_, but only by faith in Christ: and then severely threatens them with the judgments of God, which is in the strongest sense _preaching the law_.
7. In his next discourse, that to the Heathens at _Lystra_, (ch. xiv. ver. 15, &c.) we do not find so much as the name of Christ. The whole purport of it is, That they should _turn from those vain idols, unto the living God_. Now confess the truth. Do not you think, If you had been there, you could have preached much better than he? I should not wonder, if you thought too, That his _preaching so ill_, occasioned his being _so ill treated_: and that his being _stoned_, was a just judgment upon him, for not _preaching Christ_!