immediately after this to hear God faying, as it juft follows; "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy tranf greffions, for mine own fake, and will not remember thy fins!" So Ifa. lvii. 17, 18. "For the iniquity of his covetoufnefs I was wroth, and fmote him; I hid me and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart." O what a wonderful and furprifing birth of free grace is that which follows! "I have feen his ways and will heal him; I will lead him alfo, and reftore comfort unto him, and to his mourners." When one would think, now the threatning is big with child, and ready to bring forth vengeance; then, to the praise of free grace, the promife, being big with a blefling, brings forth mercy and falvation. This is what makes Abraham's faith neceffary, according to its meafure, in all the children of promife; becaufe fome refemblance of the difficulties that Abraham's faith had to encounter, does prefent to them. Why, fay you, it was a thing incredible, that was promifed to Abraham, he being fo fuperannuate and dead, and Sarah likewife fo old and barren. Well, man, woman, but the cafe is yours in other refpects: you have the old man of fin and corruption, and your heart is dead and barren of any fpiritual good; and it is as impoffible for you to bring forth any fpiritual iffue, as it was for Abraham and Sarah to have an Ifaac, if he had not been a child of promife, brought forth, not by the power of nature, but by the virtue of the promife: Even fo it is with you; you need Abraham's faith; and faith of the fame nature. you will have, if you be a child of Abraham. Senfe and reafon will oppofe and fay, It is incredible that fpiritual life and fruit can iffue out of fuch a dead and barren foul; but now the language of faith is, What fays the promife? As Abraham confidered not the deadnefs of his own body, or of Sarah's womb," nor the difficulties that flood in the way of the promife; but the truth, faithfulnefs, and power of the promifer: even fo, faith confiders not the deadnefs, hardnefs, and barrenness of the heart; but the truth and veracity of that God, who is able, of ftones, to raife up children to Abraham, according to his promife. And thus the promife brings

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forth

forth its happy iffue, and the child of promife owns that it is not by the power of nature, but merely by the power of grace, and virtue of the promife, that any spiritual good is brought forth, saying, By grace I am what I am."-Thus, " We are the children of God by faith ;" and, As Ifaac, the children of the promise.

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6. Ifaac's birth was the joy of his parents; the comfort of Abraham, the laughter of Sarah, Gen. xxi. 6. : Even fo, the birth of the promife is the joy of their heavenly relations. It is a day wherein God is evidencing that he is well-pleafed in Chrift: it is a day of the gladness of Chrift's heart; faints and angels are glad ; the church militant and triumphant rejoice; "There is joy in heaven over one finner that repenteth," Luke xv. 7. 10. See how, in the preceeding verse, where our text lies, the barren Chriftian church is called to rejoice when children are born to God within her, Gal. iv. 27. " Rejoice, thou barren, that beareft not; break forth and cry, thou that travaileft not: for the defolate hath many more children than fhe which hath an hufband." Then is the church in joyful circumftances, when, by virtue of the gospel promife, children are brought forth in her, even this man and that man there. Such happy days have been in the church of Scotland, when the fpirit of reformation was poured out; but when that fpirit is much quenched, and reformationlight obfcured, and reformation-zeal cooled, when the edge of it is blunted, when the carved work thereof is burnt, the covenanted work buried much in oblivion, and when old reformation-principles, together with the gofpel doctrine of free grace, which was the great inftrument of converfion, is brought under much contempt and reproach; little wonder, when God is like to give the mother-church a bill of divorce, that fhe be not the joyful mother of many children to him. The gofpel promife, and the free revelation of grace in Christ, is the very womb of the church, that brings forth her children; but, now-a-days, the doctrine of the gofpel is brought under much difparagement, under much fufpicion, as if it were fome new dangerous scheme of doctrine; as the Athenians faid of Paul's, Acts xvii. 19.

Yea,

Yea, it was faid of Chrift's, "What new doctrine is this?" Mark i. 37. Such is the natural bias towards the law, as a covenant, and fo natively does a church and people fall into it, even after and under a profession of found principles, that when evangelical doctrine comes to be revived, in any measure, it is ftill branded with novelty. Thus it was with Chrift himself; his doctrine was called new, when he came to be a minister of the old and ancient truths of God, even to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, Rom. xv. 8. But it is the free promife, the free grace of God, that begets holy children to God; and therefore an unholy devil will raife up all the calumnies in the world against it, that fo when it is brought under an ill report, and univerfal fufpicion, none may receive or get good of it; for all the faving good that is gotten, is by the power of grace, by the virtue of the promife: however," The election fhall obtain ;" but, if the devil could get his will, the promise fhould never be the joyful, mother of any children.

7. Ifaac was born, not after the flesh, but by the pro-. mife; not of the bond-woman, but of the free. See thecontext, Gal. iv. 22, 23. And how this is explained, you fee in the following ver. 24, 25, 26.; and how it is applied both in the text, and ver. 31.; where it is in like manner, faid of all believers, "So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free." As HAGAR and SARAH here fignify the old and new covenant, as I fhewed in the explication; fo ISHMAEL and ISAAC hold forth thefe that are under the law, and these that are under grace. Now, believers are thus distinguished from all unbelieving Ifhmaelites, that they are not under the law, but under grace; and hence fin cannot have dominion over them, Rom. vi. 14. There is a threefold bondage to the law that unbelievers are under, which the children of the promife and the freewoman are delivered from.

* See the ground of this charge accounted for, and the unjustness thereof evinced, Vol. I. page 232. Vol. I. page 304, 305. 395. Vol. III. page 40. 44.

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(1.) The

(1.) The commanding power of the law; that is, the precept of it under this conditional form, D, and live. The law of works, that they are under, fays, Dɔ and live, Rom. x. 5. That law that they are under, fays to them, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;" which, no doubt, is galling to the confcience, as it was to that young man in the gofpel, to whom Chrift thus fpeaks for his awakening and conviction. How galling muft it be to them that are under the law, to understand that they are under fuch an imprestable command, Dɔ perfectly, and live eternally; considering the holiness and fpirituality of that law, and alfo the wickedness and inability of the creature? Therefore,

(2.) They are under the bondage of the condemning power of the law, curfing every one that continues not in all things written in the book of the law to do them, Gal. iii. 10. The law not only curfes its tranfgreffors from heaven, which they have forfeited, but curfes them to hell, which they have incurred; for, “All have finned, and comé fhort of the glory of God," Rom. iii. 23.; yea, "The wages of fin is death;" and, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodlinefs and unrighteoufnefs of men," Rom. i. 18.

(3.) They are under the bondage of the irritating power of the law; "The motions of fin which are by the law, work in their members to bring forth fruit unto death," Rom. vii. 5. The fpiritual law mightily irritates the corruption of a man in nature, fo as he becomes angry and chaft, and fins more and more; for, The carnal mind is enmity against, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The law inrages his corruption, like a mad horfe, that rages the more that he is checked with the bridle here is a fad bondage, that all unbelievers, Ishmaelites, children of the bond-woman, are under. Now believers, the children of promife, are, with Ifaac, the children of the free-woman, being delivered from that bondage from the firft, by Chrift's obedience imputed, Rom. v. 19.; from the fecond, by his fatisfaction imputed, Gal. iii. 13.; from the third, by his grace imparted, and his Spirit implanted, according to the new covenant, Rom. viii. 2. The believer is not under the

law

law of works, becaufe Chrift hath done all for him: he is not under the threatening of it, becaufe Christ hath fuffered all for him; he is not under the irritation of it, for, the law, as a rule, is written in his heart, and, Chrift, by his Spirit, works in-him both to will and to do of his good pleafure. He is not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby either juftified or condemned; hence he is neither under the bondage of doing duty, from hope that he fhall be juftified by doing it; nor from the fear that he fhall be condemned for not doing it, feeing that as by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be juftified; fo," There is no condemnation to them that are in Chrift." He is freed both from the legal hope of getting to heaven by his doing, and flavish fear of going to hell for not doing; for, as his title to heaven is founded on Chrift's obedience only, and his fecurity from hell upon Chrift's death and fatisfaction only; fo his motives to obedience are more evangelical, and fuited to the gofpel-liberty that he is under, fuch as love and gratitude towards that God who hath faved him. I fpeak of believers now, as fuch, and in fo far as freed from the law, and not in fo far as unbelief and a legal temper, in the fad remains thereof, may hold them under much bondage: but fuch is their freedom, as I have expreffed, in fo far as they hold faft the liberty wherewith Chrift hath made them free, Gal. v. 1.-I might here alfo speak of the freedom of God's children even from the ceremonial law, which may be a part of the apoftle's intent; a bondage which the Jews, by their own confent, are ftill under; this is cal led, by that famous council, Acts xv. 10. "A yoke upon the neck of the difciples, which neither we, nor our fathers, were able to bear." And if inftituted ceremonies were fuch, how much more muft uninftituted ones be? This is a yoke which many in our land are wreathing about their own necks, embracing the abjured English popifh ceremonies, and new modes of divine fervice, which have no ftamp of divine authority. We fhould even pity and pray for thofe who are fond of such a yoke, as cannot but, in the iffue, gall their necks; and that this generation may not run wholly back to Rome.

Now,