justified by faith.'" Hence he concludes, that, "faith being now come, we are no longer under a school- master, but are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
We see, then, what the better covenant is, and wherein its superiority consists ; the one being a covenant of works, and the other, of grace. We see, also, that the covenant of works, though re- published four hundred and thirty years after the covenant made with Abraham, was not intended to supersede the covenant of grace, but to be sub- servient to it, and to shut up men to it, and to constrain them to embrace it.
I am fearful of obscuring the subject by multiply- ing citations of Holy Writ : I will, therefore, close this part with merely adducing one passage as explana- tory of the whole. St. Paul, contrasting the two covenants, represents each of them as declaring to us its own terms, precisely in the way that I have done : " Moses describeth the righteousness of the law, That the man that doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness of faith speaketh on this wise : Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that is to bring Christ down from above :) or, Who shall descend into the deep ? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart ; that is, the word of faith which we preach ; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved : for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation V
Having then shewn what this better covenant is, I now come to shew how the law, as an instructor, guides us to this better covenant ; or, as my text expresses it, how it is " a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith."
It must ever be borne in mind, that the law can
k Rom. x. 5 — 10.