and in that Senfe only can be faid to make SERM. void the Law.

And indeed if the Law confider'd in this View was not made void thro' Faith, the Gospel could not be what it is. If Righteousness come by the Law, fays the Apostle, then Chrift is dead in vain: But further that the Gofpel does not make void the Law is plain from hence; because by the fame Rule it would make void itfelf; and fo instead of setting up one Law upon the Ruins of another, would most effectually destroy both; and root out Law and Gofpel too. To make void the Law thro' Faith is to make Christianity a falfe Religion; for the Law, as it is a Moral Rule, in which Senfe only we are now concern'd to understand it, teaches us our Duty to God and our Neighbour, and it is the Business of the Gospel to do the fame. It is not calculated to fill Men's Heads with thin metaphyfical Notions, but with true fubftantial Religion: 'Tis to make Men more knowing in what they are most of all concern'd to know; viz. the Terms of their Acceptance

VII.

with

SERM. with God. In fhort, the Gospel is cal VII. culated to teach Men to lead good Lives;

and accordingly our bleffed Saviour in the Doctrine he taught, and especially in his most admirable Sermon on the Mounts takes a great deal of Pains to fix in the Minds of his Hearers the Obligations they lay under to perform the Moral Law; and condemns the Scribes and Pharifees for tranfgreffing that Law thro' their Traditions: And when one asked him, what he should do to inherit eternal Life, he told him, if thou wilt enter into Life keep the Commandments; and is so far from destroying the Law, that he expressly fays, that one fot, or one Tittle fhall in no wife pass from the Law till all be fulfill'd. Our Saviour was fo far from having any Intention to destroy the Moral Law, that he did not so much as endeavour to alter even the judicial Law of the Country where he lived; but left the Civil Government as he found it, in the Poffeffion of its own Rights and Priviledges, without adding any Thing but Precepts of Obedience. For indeed Chriftianity

no

no where meddles with the Civil Rights of Government, but only bids us be obedient to the higher Powers, without determining the higher Powers in any other Senfe than the Powers in Being; which one might reasonably expect itshould do, had it intended to have them appointed not according to the different Conftitutions of different Nations, but according to fome other Rule.

But to proceed: Should the Gospel make void the Law, i' would not only make void itself, as going contrary to its own Rule, but it would alfo make void the great Law of Nature; and fo cut off likewife the only Rule of the Gentiles, by abrogating that Law, which God gave both Jews and Gentiles, to enable them to diftinguish between Right and Wrong. And what fort of Religion must that be, that tends to destroy human Nature, and rase out all Footsteps of Good and Evil? Not that which comes from above certainly; and yet it must be the Religion of those who make void the Law thro' Faith Twere much better after this Rate to be

SERM.

VII.

left

SERM. left to a State of Nature, than to be cheated VII. out of our Morality under the Pretence of

a higher Difpenfation. What would Socrates or Plato think of that Religion, that fhuts out all good Actions, and provides nothing in their Stead, but a bare Affent of the Mind to a certain Set of Propofi tions, without being any further concerned about them. If the Gofpel-Freedom were a Liberty not from the Bondage of the Law, but of doing what is right in our own Eyes, it would be fuch a Difpenfation, as no good Man would think it worth his while to trouble himself about, or to exchange his Morality for: It being a Difpenfation only to remove us from one Bondage to another, from the Bondage of the Law to the Bondage of Sin. A Religion, thus built upon a Defect of Moral Goodness, has no Foundation in Nature, or Reafon to fupport it.

II. Having proved that the Gospel does not make void the Law, I come now, Secondly, to prove, that it confirms and eftablishes it.

Our bleffed Saviour tells the Jews, whò

thought

thought He came into the World to be a SERM.
temporal Prince; and therefore entertained VII.
little elfe in their Minds but Pride and
Ambition, grounded upon their Expecta-
tions of a conquering Meffiah, who should
free them from the Bondage of the Roman
Yoke, and make them Mafters of the
World, (which Thoughts must have been
founded upon a Suppofition, that they
were to be dispensed with, as to their Ob-
ligation to the Duties of the Moral Law)
I fay he tells them, in order to root out
all Thoughts of that kind, that He was not
come to deftroy the Law and the Prophets
but to fulfil them.

Our Saviour was fo great an Encourager of the Moral Law, that almost every thing he said had a Tendency to advance it, but not in the leaft to exclude, or make it void. If under the Gofpel-Difpenfation the Law is not only preferved entire, but improved, and carried to a greater Height, and made more perfect than it was before; if the Gospel takes off the thin Cloathing of the Letter, and explains it in a Sense more worthy the Divine Legiflator, and more agreeable even to it felf, than the

I

&

In