in God's covenant. And here I might go through the several burdens of the Lord's people, and offer a word of encouragement to you under each. I shall only touch them. 1. Art thou burdened with the body of clay ? Perhaps thy clay-cottage is always like to drop down every day, and this fills thee with heaviness. Well, believer, know for thy comfort, that, if the earthly house of this tabernacle were diffolved, thou hast, a building of God, a house not made with bands, eternal in the heavens. There are manfions of glory prepared for thee there, where thou shalt be for ever with the Lord. 2. Art thou burdened with a load of fin, crying, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me? Well, here is comfort, believer; thy old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of fin might be deftroyed. Ere long he will present thee to his Father, without spot or wrinkle, or any fuch thing. 3. Art thou burdened with the sense of much actual guilt? Art thou crying with David, Mine iniquities have gone over mine head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me? Well, but confider, believer, God is faithful to forgive thee: For he has faid, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness; their fins and their iniquities I will remember no more. 4. Art thou burdened with. the temptations and fiery darts of Satan? Well, but confider, believer, Christ thy glorious head, the true feed of the woman, has bruised the head of the old ferpent; through death ke bath destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil. And, as he overcame him in his own person, so he will make thee to overcome him in thy perfon, ere long; The God of peace, shall tread Satan under thy feet shortly. 5. Is the fociety of the wicked thy burden ? Art i Art thou crying, Wo is me, that I fojourn in Mesech? Why? Confider, thou shalt get other company ere long. When thou puttest off this clay-tabernacle, thou shalt enter in among the spirits of just men made perfect. Only stand thy ground, and be not conformed to the world. 6. Art thou burdened with the abounding fins and backslidings of the day and generation wherein thou livest? Well, be comforted; God's mark is upon thee as one of the mourners in Zion; and, in the day when the man with the flaughter-weapon shall go through, God will give a charge not to come near any upon whom his mark is found; Thou shalt be bid in the day of the Lord's anger. 7. Art thou burdened with the concerns of Christ, with the interests of his kingdom and glory? Is thy heart, with Eli's, trembling for fear of the ark of the Lord, lest it get a wrong touch? Know, for thy encouragement, that the Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations; and that, the clouds and darkness be round about him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne, and mercy and truth shall go before his face. Though his way be in the whirl-wind, and his steps in the deep waters, yet he carries on the designs of his glory, and his church's good: And as for thee, that art forrowful for the folemn assemblies, to whom the reproach of it is a burden, God will gather thee unto himself, he will gather thee unto the general affembly, and church of the first-born. 8. Art thou burdened with manifold afflictions in thy body, in thy estate, in thy name, in thy relations? Know, for thy comfort, God is carrying on a design of love to thee in all these things: Thy light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for thee a far more exceeding and eternal weight of of glory. See a sweet prophecy for thy comfort, Ifa. liv. 11, 12. 9. Art thou burdened with much weighty work? Perhaps thou knowest not how to manage this and the other duty, how to adventure to a communion table, or the like. Well, for thy encouragement, poor foul, the Lord fends none a warfare upon their own charges: And therefore look to him that he may bear thy charges out of the stock that is in thy elder brother's hand; and go in his strength, making mention of his righteousness. 10. Art thou under the burden of much darkness, crying with Job, Behold, I go forward ana backward, and cannot see him? &c. Job xxiii. 8. Well, be comforted: For unto the upright, light Shall arise in darkness. Unto you that fear my name, shall the fun of righteousness arife with healing in his wings. And therefore say thou, with the church, Mic. vii. 9. He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. Again, 11. Art thou burdened with the Lord's distance from thy foul, Because the Comforter that should relieve thy foul is far from thee? Lam. i. 16. Well, be comforted, He will not contend for ever, he has promised to return, Ifa. liv. 7, 8. The Lord cannot keep up himself long from the poor foul that is weeping and groaning after him; as we see in Ephraim, Jer. xxxi. 19. Again, 12. Art thou burdened with the fear of death? Know, for thy comfort, the sting of death is gone, and it cannot hurt thee, Hof. xiii. 14. I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plague! O grave, I will be thy destruction! Lastly, Art thou burdened with the death of the righteous? particularly with the loss of faithful minifters ? nisters? Well, be encouraged, that tho the Lord taketh away an Elijah, yet the Lord God of Elijah lives, and the residue of the spirit is still with him. And therefore take up David's song, and fing, The Lord liveth, blessed be my rock. And let the God of my falvation be exalted. Law-death, Gofpel-life: Or, The death of legal righteousness, the life of gofpel holiness. Being the Substance of everal SERMONS preached upon a thanksgivingday, after the administration of the Sacrament of the Lord's supper, at Carnock; and enlarged upon afterward, upon an occafion of the fame nature, at Orwell. By the Rev. Mr. RALPH ERSKINE. GAL. ii. 19. 'through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. A Godly life, is what we are all obliged to live, especially if we have been at the Lord's able; but it is a mystery that very few understand in their experience, if they will judge their experiences by comparing them with this of Paul in our text. I through the law, &c. Our apostle in this epistle, is vindicating himfelf from the base aspersions cast upon him by the false apostles, with respect to his calling, as if he had had been no apostle, and with respect to his doc trine, as if it had been false and erroneous. From the beginning of this chapter to v. 11. he tells us what he did at Jerufalem, how strenuously he opposed the false brethren, that he might maintain the truth of the gospel, which they fought to overturn. From the 11th verse to the 17th, the apostle tells us what he did at Antioch, how zealoufly he opposed, and reproved even Peter himself, for his diffimulation, in compelling the Gentiles to judaize; giving thereby such offence, that the Jews were confirmed in their Judaism, ver. 12. Other Jews dissembled with him, and Barnabas also was carried away with their diffimulation; and hereby occafion was given both to Jews and Gentiles to defert Christ, to deny grace, to return to the law, and seek justification by the works thereof. So that we may see here, that great and good men may difsemble, and do much ill by their diffimulation; both among ministers and people. We have here a wonderful example of it in the greatest of men, and such as were pillars of the church; but it would seem that Peter and Barnabas, and other Jews here, did not see their fault and fin, but thought they did right enough: but Paul saw it, v. 14. When I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel. This might seem a very bold and impudent attempt for Paul, the youngest of all the apostles, (I mean, of whom Christ was last seen, as of one born out of due time) for him to take upon him to accuse and condemn Peter, as well as Barnabas and the Jews, for their practical error, not walking according to the truth of the gofpel. But we fee, that as people may have the gospel, but not the truth of the gospel; so these that have the truth of the gospel may be guilty of not walking according |