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as the law finds any fault with or defect in our righte oufnefs, fo long does it curfe us, Gal. iii. 10.; and so long as the curfe remains, the ftrength of fin remains: and confequently the law cannot give relief to the awakened confcience by any the best righteoufnefs of our own, whether of inward graces, or outward duties; for the awakened confcience will witnefs again us, judge and condemn us, in the beft of thefe.

(1.) Suppofe you have inward graces and good qualifications, the best of thefe will not give confcience peace when God awakens it: I fhall fuppofe you have faith; well, but have you not unbelief alfo, and more unbelief than faith? And may not confcience condemn you for that, as Chrift did his difciples, "How is it that ye have no faith," while you carry in many cafes as if you had none at all? Suppofe you have repentance, yet have you not impenitency alfo? May not confcience condemn you many times for a hard impenitent heart; fo hardened from God's fear, that neither the word nor rod of God does make impreffion on you; yea, neither mercies nor judgments do you lay to heart as you ought? Suppose you have humility; yet is there not pride alfo in your heart? and may not your confcience accufe you of much felf-elevation, and felf confidence? Suppofe you have love to God; yet, have you not much enmity also? and may not your confcience condemn you, that you love not God with all your heart, with all your foul, mind, and strength; and that your heart goes more out after the creature than the Creator, at least fome times, and in many inftances? Suppofe you have fincerity; yet, may not confcience witness against you, that your fincerity is mixed with hypocrify? Suppofe you have zeal; yet, will not confcience witnefs that you have too much lukewarmnefs? Suppofe you have a fixed heart upon God, and Chrift, and heavenly things at fome times; yet, will not confcience accuse you of innumerable wanderings of heart? Why, then it feems your beft righteoufaefs even of inward graces will not pacify confcience. Nor,

(2.) Suppofe you have outward duties to add to your inward graces; fuppofe you pray in your clofet, in your

family,

family, and in public, which is well done; and fuppofe you hear the word carefully, and joyfully, and perform all other duties: yet, will not confcience witnefs that fin mixes itself with your beft duties? And when you pray, yet you are not always praying in the Holy Ghofl; when you worlhip, yet you are not fill worshipping Ged in the Spirit; when you hear, you are not always hearing in faith; when you receive the word and facraments, you are not ay receiving Chrift therein; and when you communicate, you are not ay communicating worthily: may not confcience condemn you for thefe things, and put you to cry after all, Lord, be merciful to me a finner?

Well then, when you cannot ftand before your own confciences, in your beft righteoufnefs, either of internal qualifications or external performances; how can you think to ftand before God, who is greater than confcience, and knows all things, and fees more fin and wickedness in you than ever you faw? He fees the errors you cannot fee, Pfalm xix. 12. "Who can underfiand his errors?" and the heart's wickednefs you cannot difcern, Jer. xvii. 9, 10. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and defperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord fearch the heart, and try the reins, to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Now, O man, woman, if you cannot stand before the bar of your own heart and confcience, but you must be condemned, though it knows not the thousandth part of your heart-wickedness that God knows; how will you ftand before the bar of God, whose understanding is infinite, and who is of glorious holinefs and dreadful juftice? Oh! his fiery law will burn up all your filthy rags, if you have not another covering, when death, judgment, and eternity ftare you in the face! Is it not your duty and intereft then, to feek after a better robe, even that of Chrift's everlasting, law-biding righteoufnefs? that alone can pacify confcience, because it gives the law all its demands, and quenches the fire of it with his blood. O feek then to be under this covert of the blood of the Lamb of God, that purple-covering of the new-covenant chariot, that is paved with love for the daughters of Jerufalem.

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11. Hence fee, why it is that fin hath a reigning power over the ungodly, and a prevailing power over the godly; even becaufe the former are wholly under the law, and the latter partly under it. On the one hand, fin reigns over unbelievers, because they are under the law men being in bondage to the law, are in bondage to their luft. Whence is it that all manner of fin and profanenefs rages in our day, and fo much practical oppofition to the law, as a rule of holinefs? Even becaufe, people being under the law, as a covenant of works, the gofpel is flighted and difparaged; grace, in effect, is cried down, and the law is cried up in oppofition to it therefore God leaves men to all lawlefs impiety, as a righteous punifhment of their contemning of grace, by which alone the law can be honoured, both as a covenant and a rule, Ifa. xlii. 21. Mat. v. 17. Rom. iii. 31.-On the other hand, why does fin prevail fo much over believers? why are they fo unholy and untender in their walk? Even because they are partly under the law. It is true, they are not under the law, but under grace in point of right, the law of works hath no authority over them; but yet, in point of poffeffion, it maintains a great fway, while unbelief remains; and hence, though fin hath no rightful legal dominion over them, yet it continues to have great actual prevalence, while they do not make use of that grace they are under, Rom. vi. 14. When they let the grace of God out of their mind, then they are difcouraged, and fin gets advantage: they are apt to trust partly to their own works, and endeavours, and frames; and therefore, like the woman with the bloody iffue, they lofe both their time and pains, and spend all on physicians that do them no good, till they come back to Chrift and grace again. Sometimes even believers, inftead of ufing grace aright, are ready to mifufe it, and make it a cover for floth, under pretence that Chrift muft do all. They are thus in danger of practical Antinomianifm, and turning the grace of God into wantonnefs: they pray not, watch not, and therefore they have nothing, because their hands. refufe to labour; and they do not ftudy, in all appointed means, to keep themselves under the droppings of

grace,

grace, which would make their duties their pleafure; but, being under much legal bondage, it makes their duties their burden, and a wearifome tafk; which being thereupon fhifted and flighted, fin gets advantage. But, Oh! if believers did but believe their privileges, and rightly ufe the grace they are under, it were impoflible for them to be long under the feet of their enemies. If they by faith were reckoning themfelves to be what they are, according to Rom. vi. 11. "Likewife reckon ye yourfelves to be dead indeed unto fin, but alive unto God, through Jefus Chrift our Lord;" what a happy and holy life would the believer have, if by faith he were reckoning himself to be in Chrift? For he should not conceive of God out of Chrift, nor of himfelf out of Chrift, nor of Chrift and himself as two, but as one myftical perfon, by virtue of the myftical fpiritual union betwixt Chrift and him. If he were reckoning that he is a member of Chrift, and can do all things through him; and reckoning that Chrift is in him, and he is in Chrift; reckoning that he is dead in Chrift unto fin, and alive in Chrift unto God; how would his fpirit be raifed, elevated," and nobilitated to the life of religion, looking to himfelf, not in himself, but in Chrift, by virtue of marriage to him?

If the believer were faying, by faith, O! I am complete in Chrift; I am perfe&tly righteous in Chrift, and accepted as righteous in the fight of God, only through the righteoufnefs of Chrift; I was once bound to the fiery law, the terrible law, and thousands in hell are paying that debt of fatisfaction to it, and cannot pay it to eternity; but I have paid every farthing, and the law can ask no more; yea, in Chrift, I have magnified the law, and made it honourable: Here is one of the greatest myfteries in the world, behold a man who fees himfelf fo finful, that he thinks none in all the world fo black, and ugly, and finful as he, can, in this refpect, reckon himfelf as righteous as Abraham or Paul; yea, perfectly righteous; and fee himself in that gofpel-glafs, that fays, Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee. Why, the believer being clothed with the Sun of righteoufnefs,

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he is righteous in the fight of God: to be righteous in man's fight is nothing to this, hypocrites may arrive at that; but to be righteous in God's fight, is to be fo righteous, that infinite holinefs, infinite jullice can find no blot, no fpot, no hole, in the garment of righteoufnefs with which the man is clothed. O believers in Chrift, you that are perfect through his comeliness, you do not view fufliciently your privileges, otherwise it would elevate you above corruption, and fill you with holy triumph over all your lufts and idols, and make you think fhame to fin; if you were reckoning what you are in Chrift, you would reckon it below you to tread in the dirty fleps of the world: but when unbelief darkens your gofpel privileges, and grace is out of view, you faint in duty, and are difcouraged and difheartened in your work, fo as fin recovers its fpirit and flrength.

12. Hence we may fee, that whatever oppofition and refiftence to fin, hypocrites and unbelievers may make, yet ftill they are under the frength of fin, because under the law; and whatever prevalence fin may have over believers, yet they are freed from the ftrength of fin, because they are not under the law. This twofold inference lays a foundation for refolving two difficult cafes.

Firft Cafe is, Seeing hypocrites may refft fin, what refiftance of fin is confiftent with the dominion thereof? Hypocrites and reprobates do not always fin peaceably but with fome reluctancy; they forbear many fins, and get victory over them: how then may this be cleared? and how does it appear that they may make resistance againft fin, and yet the flrength of it never broken?

I anfwer, for clearing this, in thefe two affertions. (1.) The firft affertion is, That there is indeed a refifting of fin, which is confiftent with the power and dominion of it; as I would clear in a few words. A perfon may folemnly refolve and fwear against fin, and yet be under the power of it; as it was with Ifrael, Pfal.lxxviii. 37. and Joh. xxiv. 18. People may confefs their fins, and repent of them with tears; as Efau, and Judas, and Saul, Heb. xii. 17. Matth. xxvii. 3, 4, 5. 1 Sam. xxiv.

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