This, it must be acknowledged, comes home to the point, and is indeed the main pillar of Antinomianism. And yet it needs not a long or laboured answer. We allow, 1. That God _justifies the ungodly_, him that till that hour is totally ungodly, full of all evil, void of all good. 2. That he justifies _the ungodly that worketh not_, that till that moment worketh no good work: neither can he: for an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. 3. That he justifies him _by faith alone_, without any goodness or righteousness preceding: and, 4. *That _faith is_ then _counted to him for righteousness_, namely, for _preceding righteousness: i. e._ God, thro’ the merits of Christ, accepts him that believes, as if he had already fulfilled all righteousness. But what is all this to your point? The apostle does not say, either here or elsewhere, that this faith is counted to him for _subsequent righteousness_. He does teach, that there is no righteousness _before_ faith. But where does he teach, that there is none _after_ it? He does assert, holiness cannot _precede_ justification: but not, that it need not _follow_ it. St. _Paul_ therefore gives you no colour for _making void the law_, by teaching that faith supersedes the necessity of holiness.
III. 1. There is yet another way of _making void the law thro’ faith_, which is more common than either of the former. And that is, the doing it practically: the making it void in _fact_, tho’ not in _principle_: the _living_, as if faith was designed to excuse us from holiness.
How earnestly does the Apostle guard us against this, in those well known words: _What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?_ God _forbid_! Rom. vi. 15. A caution which it is needful throughly to consider, because it is of the last importance.
2. The being _under the law_ may here mean, 1. The being obliged to observe the ceremonial law. 2. The being obliged to conform to the whole _Mosaic_ institution. 3. The being obliged to keep the whole moral law, as the condition of our acceptance with God: and, 4. The being under the wrath and curse of God, under sentence of eternal death; under a sense of guilt and condemnation, full of horror and slavish fear.
3. Now altho’ a believer is _not without law to_ God, _but under the law to Christ_, yet from the moment he believes, he is not _under the law_, in any of the preceding senses. On the contrary, he is _under grace_, under a more benign, gracious dispensation. As he is no longer under the ceremonial law, nor under the _Mosaic_ institution; as he is not obliged to keep even the moral law, as the condition of his acceptance: so he is delivered from the wrath and the curse of God, from all sense of guilt and condemnation, and from all that horror and fear of death and hell, whereby he was _all his life_ before _subject to bondage_. And he now performs (which while _under the law_ he could not do) a willing and universal obedience. He obeys not from the motive of slavish fear, but on a nobler principle, namely, The grace of God ruling in his heart, and causing all his works to be wrought in love.
4. What then? Shall this evangelical principle of action, be less powerful than the legal? Shall we be less obedient to God from filial love, than we were from servile fear?
’Tis well, if this is not a common case: if this practical Antinomianism, this unobserved way of _making void the law thro’ faith_, has not infected thousands of believers.
*Has it not infected you? Examine yourself honestly and closely. Do you not do now, what you durst not have done when you was _under the law_, or (as we commonly call it) _under conviction_? For instance. You durst not then indulge yourself in food. You took just what was needful, and that of the cheapest kind. Do you not allow yourself more latitude now? Do you not indulge yourself a _little_ more than you did? O beware, lest you _sin, because you are not under the law, but under grace_!
5. *When you was under conviction, you durst not indulge the lust of the eye in any degree. You would not do any thing, great or small, merely to gratify your curiosity. You regarded only cleanliness and necessity, or at most very moderate convenience, either in furniture or apparel; superfluity and finery of whatever kind, as well as fashionable elegance, were both a terror and an abomination to you.
*Are they so still? Is your conscience as tender now in these things, as it was then? Do you still follow the same rule both in furniture and apparel, trampling all finery, all superfluity, every thing useless, every thing merely ornamental; however fashionable, under foot? Rather, have you not resumed what you had once laid aside, and what you could not then use without wounding your conscience? And have you not learned to say, “O, I am not _so scrupulous_ now.” I would to God you were! Then you would not _sin_ thus, _because you are not under the law, but under grace_.