[Are we lost? it was such persons that Christ came to seek and to save. Have we nothing to present to God in order to obtain salvation ? He requires nothing at our hands, but to receive it freely from him " without money, and without
price" Let " the law then be to us as a schoolmaster,
to bring us unto Christ;" and let us look to " Christ as the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."]
Rom. vii. 18 — 23. I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing : for to will is present with me ; but how to 2^erform that which is good, I find not. For the good, that I would I do not : but the evil which I ivould not, that I do. Now if I do that I tvould not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a laiv, that, tvhen I ivould do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man : but I see another laiv in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
OF all evils that can be mentioned, Antinomianism is the worst ; because it makes the Lord Jesus Christ himself a minister of sin, and turns the most glorious revelation of his grace into an occasion of unrestrained licentiousness. But whilst we reprobate with utter abhorrence the idea of sinning that grace may abound, we dare not, with some, deny or pervert the Gospel of Christ. We must affirm, that the Gospel offers to us a free and full salvation through the blood of Christ, and that they who believe in Christ are altogether dead to the law, so as to have nothing to hope for from its promises, or to fear from its threats. If, from this assertion, any one should infer, that we think ourselves at liberty to violate the precepts of the law, he would be much mistaken. There were some who put this construction on St. Paul's statements ; to whom he replied, " Shall we then continue in sin, that grace may abound ?" and again, " Shall we then sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace* ?" To each of these questions he answered,
a Rom. vi, 1, 15.