can offer thee any thing : if thou canst not bring perfect obe- dience with thee, it is in vain to come to me : thou must seek a remedy elsewhere : for I can afford thee none.' Thus the law, being inflexible in its demands, and inexorable in its denunciations, compels the sinner to look out for some other way of escape from the wrath to come, and " shuts him up" to that which is revealed in the Gospel : it declares to him, that, as long as he continues to found his hopes on the law, he is, and must be, under its curse : and, just as at the first promul- gation of the law, the people, trembling with apprehensions of immediate death, entreated that God would give them a me- diator, through whom they might venture to approach him ; so now the terrors of Mount Sinai constrain men to look for mercy solely through the mediation and intercession of the Lord Jesus e. In this view " the law was to be a schoolmaster to us, to bring us to Christ :" it was by instruction to inform us, and by discipline to constrain us ; that so the promises made to us in the Gospel might become available for their destined end.]
The law thus viewed, opens to us in all its grandeur,
II. The benefit of the Gospel —
" Before faith came," and whilst the way of sal- vation through a crucified Redeemer was but darkly and partially disclosed, the law kept men in a state of bondage, like prisoners shut up, and looking forward to a future deliverance : but, " when faith did come," and the Gospel was fully revealed, then it appeared what unspeakable mercy God had kept in store for the sinners of mankind : for by the Gospel,
1. We are liberated from the law —
[The very instant we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and lay hold on the covenant of grace, we cease to be any longer under the covenant of works. The law, as a covenant, has no longer any power either to command, or to condemn : it is abrogated with respect to us ; yea, it is dead : and has no more power over us, or connexion with us, than a man who is dead has with the widow whom he has left behind him. This is not only affirmed by the Apostle, but is illus- trated also by this very image. " If," says he, " her husband is dead, the woman is loosed from the law of her husband : so we are become dead to the law and the law is become dead
e Deut. v. 23—28.