covenant, that has been made with us in Christ Jesus, is our proper refuge, that we may flee to it, and lay hold upon it, and find acceptance by it: and let this covenant be all your salva- tion and all your desire.]
2. To fulfil its purposes —
[It was intended, as we have said, to drive you to Christ. Let it operate in this manner. Look not to it, for a single moment, as affording you any hope towards God. Be content to renounce, in point of dependence, your best actions, as much as your vilest sins : and look to Christ precisely as the wounded Israelites did to the brazen serpent in the wilderness. They did not attempt to combine with God's appointment any prescriptions of their own ; but simply turned their eyes to that object, in faith. I pray you to bear this in mind, and to imitate their conduct in this respect. Fear not respecting the interests of holiness : they are well provided for in this blessed ordinance : and the more dead you are to the law, the more, I pledge myself, you will live unto your God.]
3. To honour its requirements —
[The world will have a jealousy on this head : they will always suppose, that if you do not seek for justification by the law, you have no motive for obeying it. Shew them how greatly they err in this respect. Indeed, they stand in this respect self-condemned : for at the moment that they com- plain of your sentiments as licentious, they find fault with your lives as too strict and holy. You are regarded by them as " righteous over-much ;" and as making the way to heaven so strait, that none but yourselves can walk in it. This is as it should be ; I mean, as far as it respects you ; for it is in this way that you are to "make your light shine before men," and to " put to silence the ignorance of foolish men by well-doing."]