was awfully manifested; when, like a rainbow after the storm, the mercy of heaven arose out of the dark and warring elements, and has ever since shone upon our world, like a beauteous halo that now circles and irradiates all the other perfections of the Godhead. And the sight of it is as free to all, as

The elements of light

is the sun in the firmament. and of air, and the other common bounties of nature, are not more designed for the use of each and all of the human species, than is the widely sounding call of "Look unto me all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved." And whosoever he be that looks, and looks believingly, shall live. He is lightened of the burden of his guilt so soon as he puts faith in the Saviour. That great peace-offering for the sins of the world, becomes a peace-offering unto him. He exchanges conditions with his surety. His guilt is put to Christ's account, and Christ's righteousness is put to his account. He obtains his full discharge from the sentence that was against him; and whereas by the law he was dead, he hath made his escape from this judgment, and now by Christ is alive.*

We wish that we could give the adequate impression of that perfect welcome and good-will, wherewith all men are invited to the mercy-seat. Under the economy of the law there was a curse pronounced upon every one who continued not in all the words that were written in its book to do them; and the question is, how can any who has transgressed so much as one of these precepts, make his

*For a full and explicit statement of this Doctrine, we refer the reader to the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Articles of Bishop Beveridge's belief, as drawn up by himself in the following Treatise.

escape from this felt denunciation?

Many there are who, to bring this about, would still keep up the old economy of the law, though in such a reduced and mutilated way, as might permit of an outlet to all but the most enormous of criminals. But the Gospel provides this outlet in another way, more direct, and distinct, and consistent, by taking down the old economy, and setting up a new economy altogether. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; and while by this expedient the honours of the commandment have been fully vindicated-by this expedient also, the mercy of God, as if released from the impediment which held it, now goes forth rejoicingly, and in all its amplitude, to the furthest limits of a guilty world. There is not one so sunk in iniquity, that God, in Christ, does not beseech to enter forthwith into reconciliation. There is not one man under sentence of death by the law, to whom eternal life is not offered, and offered freely, as the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The sceptre of forgiveness is held out even to the chief of sinners; and a way of access has been opened, by which one and all of them are invited to draw nigh. Heaven would have shrunk, so ethereal and so sensitive is its holiness-it would have shrunk, in quick and immediate recoil, from the approaches of the guilty; but the way by which they now come is a consecrated way, consecrated by the blood of an everlasting covenant; and along which all of us are beckoned to move, by every call, and every signal of encouragement. We are dead by the law, but it is a death from which we are bidden, by the voice

of the gospel, to come forth. And he that believeth therein, "though he were dead, yet shall he live."

This is the truth implied in the expression, that a Christian is dead by the law, and alive by Christ. We shall now consider the truth implied in the other expression, that a Christian is dead unto the law, and alive unto Christ. The former expression is significant of the judicial state of a believer. The latter We may

is significant of his personal character. perhaps better understand the phrase of being "dead unto the law," when we think of such analogous phrases, as, the being dead unto sin; or dead unto the world; or dead to the fascinations of pleasure; or dead to the sensibilities of the heart; or dead to the urgencies of temptation. It expresses character, for it expresses man's insensibility, or the property that he has of being unmoved by certain objects that are addressed to him, but which either pleasurably or painfully affect the feelings of other men. He who can look unsoftened and unimpressed on a scene of wretchedness, or of cruel suffering, is dead to compassion. He who pities, and is in tenderness, is alive to it. He who can look without delight on the glories of a landscape, is dead to the charms of nature's scenery. He who can be told, without emotion, of some noble deeds of generosity or honour, is dead to the higher beauties of the mind, to the charms of moral grace, or of moral greatness.

A man is dead unto that, which, when present to him as an object of thought, is nevertheless not an object of feeling; and more especially when that which is lovely is placed within his view, and no

love is awakened by it. It will therefore require some explanation, that we might apprehend aright the phrase of the apostle-" dead to the law." He cannot mean to say of himself, that he is dead to the beauties of that holiness which it contains —that he is dead to the worth of those virtues which lie engraven either on the first or second division of its tablet of jurisprudence-that he sees nought to admire in the godliness that is set forth in the one, or the humanity that is set forth in the other-that he is utterly devoid of aught like a taste, or an inclination within him, which can at all respond to that picture of moral excellence which the law puts before him; and so yielding no homage of desire towards it, he may have as good as renounced it in his doings. This surely is not the interpretation which can be put upon it; for the apostle elsewhere says of himself, that he delighted in the law; and he eulogises it as holy, and just, and good. Holy men of old loved the law, and it was their meditation all the day long-and the lyre of the Psalmist is re-echoed by the longings of every Christian heart, when he says, "O how I love thy law;" and, "blessed is the man that delighteth greatly in its commandments."

There must be something else then, in and about the law, to which a believer is dead, than either the rightness of its precepts, or the moral and spiritual beauty of its perfections, when these are realized upon the character. Every true believer is most thoroughly alive both to the one and the other -and the question remains, What is it of the law to which he has become dead? Perhaps this ques

He may

tion is best answered by the apostle's own statement, that we are dead in Christ, or that we have been partakers in his death-not that we partake with him in its sufferings, for this he endured alone, but we partake with him in its immunities, now that the sufferings are over. The believer stands now in the same relation to the law, that the man does, who has already sustained the execution of its sentence upon his person. It has no farther claim upon him. He needs to fear no more, for he has to suffer no more. Its threatenings have all been discharged-not upon himself, it is true, but upon another for his sake, and by whom they have for ever been averted from his own soul. now fear as little, and feel as little, of the law's severity, as can the dead body of the executed criminal and it is in this sense that the believer is dead unto the law-not dead to the worth and the loveliness of its commandments, but altogether dead to the terror of its condemnation-not unmoved by the grace and the rightness of its moralities, but wholly unmoved, because now wholly placed beyond the reach of its menaces-not dead to its voice, when it points to the way of peace and pleasantness, but now conclusively dead to its voice as a relentless judge, or its countenance as a fierce and determined avenger, so that the believer may at once walk before God without fear, and yet walk before him in righteousness and in holiness.

The older authors, whose writings are so much more richly fraught than those of our own day, with the produce of deep and well-exercised intellect, on the various questions of theology, tell us of the law