selves, like the testament which was set forth by the immediate word of God, but mediately by messengers: and it was not delivered immediately to those parties, but into the hands of an assurer, namely, Moses. But the testament was delivered immediately to the party, to whom it was granted, namely, Abraham. This distinction I mention not only to contrast the sublime and important fact of an immediate and as it were personal grant from God, against those splendours of meditorial promulgation with which the Judaical advocates of the law fascinate your imaginations, but also to confute their reasoning when they argue, that the testament and the law have the same sanction, and are therefore co-existent and of equal authority. The law I have said was delivered into the hand of an assurer. of one, but of two parties. But God is one; in the grant of the testament God stands alone. There being therefore an assurer in the giving of the law, and there being necessarily two parties where there is an assurer, the facts of there being an assurer in the giving of the law and consequently two parties, but no assurer in the grant of the testament, God being one, prove that the law does not stand on the same ground, with respect to its sanction as the testament. Your argument therefore, drawn

Now an assurer is not

from the power of a party to a deed of revocation, or alteration, or addition will not hold, because in this case the parties to the revocation or alteration or addition, are not one and the same with the party to the deed, God being the sole sanction of the testament of promise. For the testament or promise from one had no assurer. An assurer is an intervening attester between two parties to a joint deed. But the law being in the nature, not of a testament, but of a compact or covenant between two parties, Moses to whom it was delivered was the assurer of or between two, that is, between God and the people. The party ratifying the testament was God, or one, but the parties ratifying the compact or covenant through their assurer Moses were two, God and the people.

In proof that the law has no authority to .. innovate upon the promises, I have shewn that its sanction, and the sanction of the promises are diverse. Do I mean then, you ask, to represent them as rival and conflicting dispensations? Is the law in opposition to the promises? Never. It is the very position I dispute For had a law been given which could have given life, that is, which could have redeemed us from the curse of sin, then indeed our righteousness or acquittal before God, would have been really grounded on that law, then

the law might have been considered as opposed to or conflicting with the dispensation of faithfulness, each proposing for the benefit of mankind the same end, viz salvation, through diverse and apparently incompatible means, the one through the external works of the flesh, the other through the internal principles of the spirit. But as they do not propose the same end, viz. salvation, though diverse in their sanction, and differing in the means of accomplishing their respective ends, they are not in competition, and therefore do not conflict with each other, the law is not in opposition to the promises.

But moreover the scripture concludes all un- .. der sin, that is, as liable to the curse, those who are under the law equally with the others, in order that the promise of the blessing (or redemption from the curse) which derives through Jesus Christ's faithfulness, or our fellowship therewith, might be given to those who are faithful, thereby shewing, since those who are under the law, continue nevertheless according to this scripture under sin, that redemption from sin is not the end of the law, that the promises therefore do not conflict with the law, by assuming an exclusive efficacy towards that

end.

The law and the dispensation of faithfulness.. have not the same end, but before the annun

ciation of the latter as an effectual scheme of redemption, we were under custody of the law, as condemned persons shut up, until God's message of grace or dispensation of faithfulness should be proclaimed or revealed, and the door of our prison thrown open. So that the law.. was as it were the keeper of our childhood for Christ, till Christ should come with the glad tidings of our deliverance. So far was the law from redeeming us from our condition of restraint, that its very office, or at least its effect was to mark us as unfit to be at liberty; to discipline us in every the most trifling matter under an arbitrary system of minute and vexatious regulations.

The office of the law was to hold us, as it were, in custody, to be in due time delivered by another, by him, who was designated in the promises as the seed in whom only all the nations should be blessed; to be delivered, if we will but follow him, with all the grace of an acquittal by his proclamation of a new dispensation, a dispensation of mercy on the part of God, and faithfulness on the part of man, which dispensation he brought to us from his heavenly father, exemplified in his life, and sealed with his blood.

The faithful, therefore, by a sincere baptism.. into his crucified body or pledge to his faithful

ness of spirit, having secured the benefit of God's revealed grace or pardon are restored to freedom, are redeemed from the sentence of death or curse of sin, no longer owe obedience to a keeper, but are free as sons. Ye are no longer under thraldom to the law as a keeper, and consequently owe no obedience to any one of its ordinances.

For ye are all, Gentiles as well as Jews, .. through faithfulness and without circumcision as sincere members of Jesus Christ sons of God. For as many of you, as have been bap-.. tized into Christ, of whom God said, thou art my beloved son this day have I begotten thee, have invested yourselves, with him entirely, no less with his glory than with his sufferings.

In this union with Christ, of spirit and con- .. dition, the distinction of Jew or Greek, of slave or freeman, of male or female, are unknown. For ye are all one in Jesus Christ. No one has a separate interest in Christ. Christ suffered and was glorified, not for himself exclusively, but for all the faithful, whatever he did, or is, God graciously considers us, as far as we are beneficially concerned, to have done, and to be. Whatever in like manner we do and are, is for Christ or his members, and not for ourselves exclusively, self, or personal considerations are