I. By contrasting the new testament with the old —
The old-testament dispensation had no power to give life —
[The Law, as given to man in Paradise, was undoubtedly " ordained unto life :" and was capable of giving him life, if he had continued obedient to it : but to fallen man it never has been, or can be, a source of life.
Its commands are such as fallen man cannot obey. It requires us to " love God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength, and our neighbour as ourselves." But who can do this? Who, except the Lord Jesus Christ himself, has not failed in some particular?
At the same time that its commands are so difficult, it affords no strength whatever for the performance of them. It simply says, Do this, and live : but it contains no promise of assist- ance for the doing of it, nor any intimation of pardon for one single act of disobedience.
It moreover enforces its commands with a most awful sanc- tion, denouncing " a curse against every man who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them :" so that if there be in our obedience no absolute dere- liction of duty, but only a defect ; and if that defect be of the slightest kind, and occur only once in the whole course of our lives ; the penalty instantly attaches to us, and is irreversibly denounced against us^
Thus, in itself, the law is, as the Apostle justly calls it, " a ministration only of death and of condemnation ''."
But, in the manner in which it is lyromulgated, it has yet a further tendency to " kill." For it is promulgated now exactly as it was in Paradise : and there is no notice given in the de- calogue that we are not to trust in it for acceptance : so that a person who does not inquire diligently into the design of God in giving it, is but too likely to misapprehend its real use, and to rest in it, instead of looking out for some other law in which he may rest.
Further, the ceremonial law also has, through the ignorance of man, the same tendency to "kill" those who are placed under it. For, whilst it prescribes certain observances, as means of expiating transgression, it gives no direct information concerning the precise nature and extent of the remission ob- tained by them : so that a person performing the appointed ordinances would be likely to conceive that his sins were actually pardoned in the sight of God ; whilst, in reality, the annual repetition of the same sacrifices might teach him that they were not completely and finally forgiven ^
" Gal. iii. 10. b ver. 7, 9. " lleb. x. 1—4.