Barrenness, Adversity and Anguish, Crosses and Difappointments, to avenge their Violation and Contempt of it. Blessings and Curses, temporal and present Al; Of little value (in comparison) to Men, who carry immortal Souls about them; and answering to those slender Confiderations we treat with Servants for; A little Wages paid down in Hand; A tolerable Subsistence from Hand to Mouth; but nothing of a Settlement : Corrections, that follow immediately upon the Fault, and a Difcipline suitable to the Sordidness of Their Temper, which looks no farther, than present Smart, and present Profit. It is made good especially, by that Terror and perpetual Consternation of Mind, neceffarily confequent upon a Law, Rigorous in exacting Works, without administring Ability to perform them; Sufficient to inform Men of their Guilt, but not providing Remedies againft it; Threatning Death to Tranfgreffions, (as the Condition of corrupt Nature then stood) not to be avoided, and not giving any comfortable Prospect of a Deliverance: As Slaves are contained in their Duty, by the Scourge held over them, or made to labour in fight of the Gibbet. Upon all which Accounts it is, that St. Paul most emphatically expresses the Advantage of being freed from fuch a Law, by faying, that we have not, in this new Covenant, received the Spirit of Bondage again unto Fear.

Rom. viii. 15.

The Gospel, quite contrary, treats us as Free-men and Sons. It imposeth upon us nothing unfit for Men of generous Descent and liberal Education. It requires perfect and substantial Holiness. Virtues of intrinfick Worth, answerable to the Dignity of Human Nature, such as adorn, exalt, and perfect it: Rests not in the outward Act, but carries these Virtues into our moft fecret Parts; Enjoins Purity of Heart, Uprightness of Intention; secures our Innocence, by tearing up Wickedness by the Roots; Makes us of a Piece throughout, and fets

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fets us above the little trickish Arts of Diffimulation and Constraint. These Virtues it enforces with the nobleft Rewards; An Eternity of Joys; Joysworthy of, and agreeable to, an intelligent and immortal Spirit; The Pleasures of Knowledge, and Goodness, and Love; the Knowledge and Love of God, and every defirable Object: A Recompence worth our waiting for, worth all we can do or endure to obtain it, because the Recompence of Sons; Not our Hire but our Portion; A glorious Inheritance, an everlasting Settlement. And, Laftly, It inspires fuch tender and filial Affection, fuch a becoming Senfe of Gratitude, fuch affured Hope of being accepted in the Beloved, and confidered when wedo well; fuch firm Perfuafion of Pardon, and kind Allowances, when we fail, and do amiss; fuch Dependence upon Grace and Strength feconding our Endeavours to do better; as fill and fupport us with inward Complacencies, sweeten all our Duty, take off the Edge of all our Sufferings, and render the fo reasonable Service of fo good a Father, Freedom, perfect Freedom.

Secondly, It is necessary, for a right understanding the Apostle, to be rightly informed in what respect the Law of Mofes and the Gospel are faid to be Two Covenants. Strictly speaking, as the Church of God, fo likewife the Covenant of God with that Church, hath, ever fince the Fall of our first Parents, been One and the Same. The Terms whereof, on God's part, are, Forgiveness of Sins, reftoring Mankind to Holinessand Immortality, for the fake of his Son, and a View of His Sacrifice and Death for them: On Man's part, Belief in that Son, Dependance upon that Sacrifice, Repentance for paft Offences, and fincere Obedience for the future. Thus did this (truly called the Second) Covenant, repair the Breaches of that First, which promised Immortality to unfinning Obedience: Made with Adam in the time of his Innocence, but broken by Him, and impoffible to be difcharged by any Other Man ; fince fince all, defcending from Him, (after His Crime) par take in His Frailty and Corruption.

The Foundation then of all the Comfort refulting from this Covenant, is the Redemption of the World by the Death of Chrift. The Promises made to Abraham and the Patriarch, were confirmed in Christ; The Spirit speaking by the Prophets was the Spirit of Christ; Nay, even before the Flood, it was Chrift, that preached to the old World, while the Ark was preparing in the days of Noah. In this refpect principally it feems to be, that the Author to the Hebrews stiles him Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. So that these Covenants (the Law, and the Gofpel) are not Two, with refpect to the Substance and principal Intent of them; but only in regard of the different Administration, and the Terms upon which it pleased God, at certain Periods, to apply and confer that General Promife of Salvation. The Promises of the Gospel indeed, and the Covenant of it, are declared better than That of the Law; as they are propounded with greater Clearness, confirmed with stronger Evidence, and are in part already accomplished. For this hath brought that Life and Immortality to light, of which Mankind before had but dark and doubtful Expectations. This hath taught us in express Terins, what the Law taught in Shadows and Types; with an Obscurity, under which carnal Minds (who, because they best like, are not disposed to look beyond, the Temporal) feldom difcerned the Spiritual and Heavenly Blessings to be understood. It changes the Object of our Faith, from a Messiah to come, to one already come. But still the Messiah is the Salvation, still the Joys of Heaven the Reward, still Virtue, and Piety, and Faith, the Conditions of attaining it: Whether the simpler Worship of the Patriarchs, or the Rites of the Mofaical Law, or the Faith and Sacraments of the Gofpel Gofpel disburdened of those Rites, were the Method, which Almighty God, in his Wisdom, faw fit, each in their proper Season, to prescribe, as a necessary Qualification for them at that time. The short is this: That, altho' for wife Reasons, God hath changed the Instances, in which he would be served, as to the outward Teftimonies of our Belief in, and Love and Reverence for him: and, in this Sense, the Law and the Gofpel are Two Covenants: Yet that Faith, and Love, and Reverence, were always indispensible Duties of Religion on Our part of the Covenant: As the Remiffion of Sins by Jesus Christ, and a Blessed Immortality, always continued the fame on His part. And thus the Law and Gospel, which, as to their difference in Modes and Circumstances, were perfectly distinct; Yet, in Effect, and as to the Essentials of Obedience and moral Virtue, the Reward aimed at, and the Ground of their Hopes, were One and the Same Covenant.

3. The Last Particular, duly attended to, will help us rightly to interpret those many disparaging and seemingly hard, Reflections, cast upon the Law by St. Paul, in the Management of his Controverfy againft Them, who still stood peremptory for the Neceffity of observing it. Now these are not meant of the Moral Law, which wasa Branch of Natural, and still remains part of the Christian, Religion : Nor of the Ceremonial Law, fo far as any of the Rites enjoined there, were understood to typify, and to be accepted for the Relation they bore to, Christ; For in this Sense that Law too belonged to the Gospel. But they are all intended of that Ritual Law, as altogether separate from, and independent on the Gofpel. In this Sense the Jews took it, who deny'd altogether, and perfecuted, the Faith of Jefus. So allowing Salvation to be owing, in no degree to Him, but altogether to the Law. In this the Judaizing Christians took it also, who allowed Faith in Jesus Chrift to be a partial Cause of Salvation, but not fufficient and and effectual, without the Works of the Law. Both these Errors this Apostle oppofes; By proving Jesus Chrift, against the Jews, and Jesus Chrift alone against the Judaizing Chriftians, to be the Author and efficient Cause, and Repentance and Faith in him the conditional Cause, of our Salvation. He shews, that the Law thus taken, was not capable of justifying the Observers of it at any time; but that at this time it added to their Guilt. The Former, because all its Efficacy depended upon a Representation of Chrift to come; The Latter, because the continuing to observe it as necessary, was a constructive Denial, at least a Disparagement, of Chrift already come. And thus it is (when fet in Contradistinction from, and Opposition to, the Gospel and Faith,) and not otherwise, that the Law and Works are exposed, not only, as not justifying, but even killing those, who repose their Confidence in them.

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II. The Other remarkable Circumftance, which offers it felf to our Confideration, concerning the Two Sons of Abraham, relates to the manner of their Birth, and is contained in those Words, Ver. 23. But He, who was of the Bond-woman, was born after the Flesh; but He, of the Free-woman, was by Promise. In the Production of Ishmael there was only the fame common Providence, which concurs with, and gives Success to, Natural Causes, in ordinary Generations. A Mother in the Vigor of her Age, and a Father not yet absolutely decayed, required no more. But in that of Ifaac every thing was miraculous. For a Mother dead, to all these Purposes, and (to use this Apostle's Expression elsewhere) a Father as good as dead, to become fruitful, was an Effect altogether above, and out of the Power of, Nature. This argued an immediate Operation of Omnipotence; and 'tis urged as a noble Instance of Faith, to believe the Promife of God. And Ifaac is therefore called the Child of Promife, because foretold as the chofen Seed,

Rom. iv. 19.
Heb. xi. 12.

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