last place, that our obedience to the law is one of the chief blessifigs conferred upon us by the new covenant, the covenant of grace. You will remember, that the first covenant merely says, " Do this, and live." It condemns for disobedience ; but never does any thing towards enabling us to obey. But what says God to us in. the new covenant ? " This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I will put my law into their mind, and write it in their hearts1." And again, " A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you : and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh: and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and to keep my judgments and do themm." Here, by the very terms of the new covenant, is obedience to the law infallibly secured ; because God himself undertakes to work it in us by the in- fluences of his good Spirit. His assured promise to every one that embraces the new covenant is, " Sin shall not have dominion over you : for ye are not under the law, but under grace"."
Hence, then, you see the perpetuity of the law fully established. It is only in its covenant form that it is cancelled : as a rule of duty, it is, as I have before observed, altogether unchangeable : and its authority, instead of being invalidated by the Gospel, is confirmed and strengthened by it : since our obe- dience to it was, as I have distinctly shewn, first, the end for which Christ came into the world ; next, the end for which he delivered us from the law as a covenant of works; and, lastly, the end for which he has brought us into the new covenant, the covenant of grace. In answer, therefore, to every one who doubts the practical tendency of the Gospel, we are prepared to say, with the Apostle Paul, " Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid0."
Having thus endeavoured, with the utmost plainness,
1 Heb. viii. 10. m Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27.
n Rom. vi. 14. ° Rom. vi. 15.