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thereof, 18 although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works so as a man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law, and not under grace.

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SECTION VII.-Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law requireth to be done. 22

11 Rom. vi. 14; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 13; iv. 4, 5; Acts xiii. 39; Rom. viii. 1.12 Rom. vii. 12, 22, 25; Ps. cxix. 4-6; 1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 14, 16, 18– 23.- —13 Rom. vii. 7 ; iii. 20.—14 James i. 23-25; Rom. vii. 9, 14, 24.-15 Gal. iii. 24; Rom. vii. 24, 25; viii. 3, 4.-16 James ii. 11; Ps. cxix. 101, 104, 128.-17 Ezra ix. 13, 14; Ps. lxxxix. 30-34.--18 Lev. xxvi. 1–14; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Eph. vi. 2, 3; Ps. xxxvii. 11; Matt. v. 5; Ps. xix. 11.-19 Gal. ii. 16; Luke xvii. 10.-20 Rom. vi. 12, 14; 1 Pet. iii. 8-12; Ps. xxxiv. 12-16; Heb. xii. 28, 29.-21 Gal. iii. 21.--22 Ezek. xxxvi. 27; Heb. viii. 10; Jer. 'xxxi. 33.

In these Sections it is affirmed

1st. That since the fall no man is able to attain to righteousness and eternal life through obedience to the law. This is beyond question, because all men have sinned; because men's natures are depraved; because the law demands perfect and perpetual obedience; and because, "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Gal. ii. 21.

2d. That those who have embraced the Gospel of Christ are no longer under the law as a covenant of life, but grace.

3d. That nevertheless, under the gospel dispensation and in perfect harmony with its principles, the law is of manifold uses for all classes of men, and especially in the following respects:

(1.) To all men generally the law is a revelation of

the character and will of God, a standard of moral excellence and a rule for the regulation of action.

(2.) To unregenerate men, considered in relation to the gospel, the law is of use to convince them of the holiness and justice of God, of their own guilt and pollution, of their utter inability to fulfil its requirements, and so to act as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Rom. vii. 7-13; Gal. iii. 24.

(3.) With respect to incorrigible sinners, the law is of use to restrain the outbursts of their evil passions, to render their disobedience without excuse, to vindicate the justice of God in their condemnation, and to render their cases a warning to others. 1 Tim. i. 9; Rom. i. 20; ii. 15; John iii. 18, 36.

(4.) In respect to regenerate men, the law continues. to be indispensable as the instrument of the Holy Ghost in the work of their sanctification. It remains to them an inflexible standard of righteousness, to which their nature and their actions ought to correspond. It shows them the extent of their obligations to Christ, and how far short, as yet, they are from having apprehended that whereunto they were apprehended in Christ Jesus. It thus tends to set up in the regenerate the habit of conviction of sin and of repentance and faith. Its threatenings and its promises present motives deterring from sin and assuring of grace, and thus leading the soul onward to that blissful attainment when the sovereignly imposed law of God will become the spontaneous law of our spirits, and hence that royal law of liberty of which James speaks. James i. 25; ii. 8, 12. See L. Cat., Qs. 91-97.

QUESTIONS.

1. What is the first proposition taught in the first two Sections? 2. What is the second proposition there taught?

3. What is the third taught?

4. What is the fourth taught?

5. Why is it certain that at his creation God placed man under an inalienable and perpetual obligation to obey the moral law? 6. What is the ultimate ground and rule of all law?

7. What relation in this regard does the divine will sustain to the divine nature?

8. Into how many classes may all divine laws be distributed? 9. State the characteristics of the first class.

10. Do the same of the second class.

11. Do the same of the third class.

12. Do the same of the fourth class.

13. How was this moral law at first revealed?

14. State proof of your answer.

15. Is this law as thus revealed sufficient for man's needs since the fall?

16. Where is the only complete revelation of the will of God made to man?

17. What practical conclusions follow from the fact that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice, and complete as such?

18. Into what special relation to the law was man introduced at his creation?

19. What was the issue of that arrangement?

20. Who has taken Adam's forfeited place in that covenant? 21. Have the elect been delivered from the claims which the law makes upon us in every relation, and if not, in what respect does the law remain binding?

22. What is meant when it is asserted that the whole moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments? 23. Prove that such is the fact.

24. In what way and for what purpose has the Church of Rome tampered with the Decalogue?

25. What is the great principle we are to bear in mind in inter

preting the Decalogue?

26. What is the first rule laid down in the L. Cat., Q. 99?

27. What is the second rule there laid down? What the third, fourth and fifth?

28. What is the first proposition taught in the third, fourth and fifth Sections?

29. What is the second proposition there taught?

30. What is the third?

31. What is the fourth?

32. What laws were not abrogated by the introduction of the Christian dispensation?

33. Prove that the moral law was not abrogated.

34. By what principles are we to determine what laws are of permanent and what are of temporary obligation?

35. In what different aspects may the Mosaic institute be viewed?

36. How can you prove that the ceremonial system introduced by Moses was typical of Christ and his work?

37. State the difference between a symbol and a type.

38. Show that the ceremonial system was superseded by Christ. 39. Show that the judicial laws of the Jews are no longer binding.

40. What is the first proposition taught in the sixth and seventh Sections?

41. What is the second proposition there taught?

42. What is the third?

43. What are the uses of the law to men in general under the Gospel dispensation?

44. What are its uses to unregenerate men in view of the offers of grace in the gospel?

45. What are its uses with respect to incorrigible sinners? 46. What are its uses to the regenerate?

CHAPTER XX.

OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

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SECTION I.—The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law ;1 and in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin,2 from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation ;3 as also in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law; but under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish Church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace,3 and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of."

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1 Tit. ii. 14; 1 Thess. i. 10; Gal. iii. 13.-2 Gal. i. 4; Col. i. 13; Acts xxvi. 18; Rom. vi. 14; 8 Rom viii. 28; Ps. cxix. 71; 1 Cor. xv. 54-57; Rom. viii. 1.—4 Rom. v. 1, 2.—5 Rom. viii. 14, 15; 1 John iv. 18.—6 Gal. iii. 9, 14.-7 Gal. iv. 1-3, 6, 7; v. 1; Acts xv. 10, 11.-8 Heb. iv. 14, 16; x. 19-22.-9 John vii. 38, 39; 2 Cor. iii. 13, 17, 18.

THE subject of this Chapter is that liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free, which is very different from that freedom of the will which we discussed under Chapter ix. We there saw that freedom of the will is an inalienable constitutional faculty of the human soul, whereby it always exercises its volitions as upon the whole it pleases in any given case. This liberty of will