teousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And thus the law was our schoolmaster until Christ came to us; but, after he is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster, but are redeemed from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, Rom. vii. 6. Yea, we are divorced from the law as a barren husband, that can produce no fruit or fruitfuluess in us, that we should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, which Moses is not, that we should bring forth fruit unto God: and therefore are not adulteresses in the sight of God, though we quit the law of Moses, and be married to another; seeing that the first husband made us barren, and the second makes us fruitful; who marries the widow, raises up the name of the dead upon the inheritance, and does so worthily in Ephratah, and is so famous in Bethlehem; who has raised up an everlasting name, which shall not be cut off; who is such a father of the fatherless, and such a husband to the widow, in his holy habitation, as to make them forget the shame of their barrenness in the days of their youth, and remember the reproach of their widowhood no more; for he is our Maker who is our husband; "The Lord of hosts is his name, the God of the whole earth shall he be called." This is he who is eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; who plucks the spoil out of the jaws of the oppressor,

and makes the widow's heart to sing for joy. And, as he is the fulfilling end of the moral law, to which justice looked for satisfaction, to which the law looked for honour; so he is the end to which we must look for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and for grace to perform every righteous act, if ever we would follow after righteousness, or be found in one that will stand us in any stead in the great day; for we are all taught and led to look for the hope of righteousness which is by faith. And thus this righteousness appears to be the perfect obedience of Christ to the law; which God accepts, which is imputed by God himself to all that believe; and therefore it is God that justifies. This obedience of Christ is brought to us, and applied by the Spirit of our God, and therefore we are said to be justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. It is received and put on by faith; therefore we are said to be justified by faith: and the soul that has got it makes an honest confession of his lost estate, and of the free, justifying grace of God to him; on which account he is said to be justified in his sayings, and clear when he is judged. And this righteousness justifies him before God; "For, if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God:" and this righteousness, or justification, before God is attended with sincerity of heart, a humble walk, a tender conscience, and an honest life; in which sense, and before men,

by works a man is justified, and not by faith only; as Abraham was by offering up his son, which was done after the justification of his person; as Rahab was by receiving the spies in peace, and sending them out another way; and as every righteous man is, by letting his light of knowledge shine before men, and by letting others see his good works, his works of faith, his labours of love, and his patience of hope, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think treating the subject in this manner is doing the work of an evangelist, and making full proof of the ministry: it is fighting the good fight of faith, giving a certain sound by the gospel trumpet, and running the Christian race with certainty; without yea and nay, without lo here and lo there, without vain jangling, without beating the air, without pro and con, without a mixture of Hebrew and Ashdod, without daubing with untempered mortar, without building again that which I destroyed, without beginning in the flesh and ending in the Spirit, and without ifs and buts, and I trust, &c. which leave all at an uncertainty; when the effect of righteousness in our days is to be peace and assurance for ever, and quietness and confidence is to be our strength.

I come now, in the last place, to treat of the abolition of the law; which will probably procure and secure me all the malice and envy that devils can infuse or men ferment, and perhaps as many vilifying letters, and pence for postage, as I have

hairs upon my head: but my good name is gone without any open scandal, and those that have watched for my halting are not as yet come to their banquet; they have coined a phrase of their own, have made me an offender for not acknowledging that word, and have lain in wait for me when reproving in the gate. They that have combined against me, in defence of the law, have called themselves an evangelical association; others, in the possession of two wives, have publicly reproached me as an antinomian for seven years together, and contended for the law as their only rule; forgetting the seventh commandment, which forbids adultery, and the criterion of a bishop, which is to be the husband of one wife; others, who have traduced me worse than a devil, have blamed me for a bad spirit; others, in language too bad for Billingsgate, call upon me for charity; these can see a mote through a beam of timber; and some, who have shut me out of their pulpits, have contended for a rule that tells them to do as they would be done by; and thus I have ten thousand instructors, but not one earthly father.

Some tell us that all the angels in heaven are under the moral law, forgetting that God's voice in the law is to the sons of men, not to angels; and that the law of angels is not the will of precept, which is the will of the Master to the earthly servant: for angels, as well as gospel ministers, are evangelical, and not bond, servants; are elected

and confirmed in their standing in Christ Jesus; have the same rule as God's sons have; and, according to Christ's words, it is the good will of the Father, and not the will of the slave's master, which is the rule of angels; "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Hence it appears to be the good will of the Father's purpose, who elected them in Christ Jesus, which is the law of the elect angels, called the will of God done in heaven by angels, who are confirmed in Christ; of whom Moses never was the head, nor the lawgiver, but Christ, who is the head of all principalities and powers; and into whose glorious gospel the angels desire to look, and to whom, even now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is known, the church, not by the law, the manifold wisdom of God.

I know Moses hath in every city them that preach him; who cry up the servant in order to exalt themselves, that they may have some room for boasting. But God tells us that Moses his servant is dead, and that the haughty shall be humbled, and the Lord of hosts only shall be exalted in gospel days. And it is well known that a minister of the letter can do nothing, nor cut any figure, but in the letter of the law; for, "As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools;" for he is so galled in his conscience while he is about it,