VI.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW FULFILLED

IN US.*

'For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.'-ROMANS viii. 3, 4.

IT is a frequent topic with St. Paul that there is no real opposition between the Law and the Gospel. The preaching of salvation by faith in the crucified Son of God, Who bare our guilt and suffered in our stead, does not make void the obligation to do what through failing to do we become guilty. To do so would be fatal to its claims; for when God has once declared His will, no future revelation can alter the demands of the Lord, Who changeth not. Just as there can be no second Gospel, inconsistent with the first, so there can be no repeal of the present enactment in favour of that Gospel.

There are many, however, who loudly proclaim an irreconcilable contradiction between the doctrines of grace and the injunctions of morality, and in the supposed interests of one of the two reject the other. Almost the earliest perversion of the Gospel was that Antinomian delusion which maintained that, to those who had accepted Christ, sin was an unmeaning term; for the Law, which constitutes this and that action sinful, had been done away by Him. That fatal falsehood still prevails; and seeing how early this misapprehension arose, it is necessary always carefully to guard against that error for which the truth of God is most easily mistaken.

On the other hand, there are those in our own day, as before,

* Preached at Halton, near Runcorn, March 28th, 1875.

WEAKNESS OF THE LAW.

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who reject the central truth of our religion because they think it at variance with a pure morality. The evangelic doctrine, that is to say the presentation of Christ's death as the only ground of acceptance with God, is, they tell us, an immoral creed, because it provides no motives for righteousness. St. Paul frankly admits that there is an apparent contradiction. Christ frees us from the Law; and, in a sense, His grace is opposed to it; but when we look deeper, and see the real operation of the deliverance He wrought out, we discover that, so far from abolishing or disparaging the Law, He 'magnified the Law and made it honourable.'

God's design in 'sending His own Son' was to effect the very object that He had proposed in giving the Law, namely: 'that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us.' The work of Christ on earth, and its still prevailing results, are the only, but the amply sufficient, means of accomplishing God's original purpose with regard to men.

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Instruction is not enough. It points out the right way, but it does not give strength to walk in it. Ignorance is not the only, or even the greatest, enemy to happiness and goodness. Many a man knows what is right and does not follow it. may be fully aware that his conduct is as wrong as it can be, but he will not turn from it. He admits that the right is best, and the wrong is ruinous, but he has not power to obey his convictions. The pleasure-seeker knows the evil of his way, and will often confess it. He sees his habits mean, his time and money wasted; a shortened life, a blasted memory, a lost soul ! Yet the attraction is too strong for him. The excitement of company, of drink, and sport; the fierce, unnatural craving he has raised within him; all this drags him back to what he knows to be his ruin. He sees the misery and destitution of his family, his broken-hearted wife and parents, his hungry children, the remorse of his own conscience, the horrors of the morrow; but with all this, with 'hell naked before him,' he rushes headlong into it, lamenting frequently his weakness, but impotent to overcome it..

Yes, and men themselves given over to evil, without hope, will show that they see it to be vile by some last remains of conscience. They will shrink, perhaps, from introducing their children into the same scenes. The swearer is shocked at an oath from the lisping lips of his own little one. The debauchee would hurry his little son or daughter from his own haunts of 'pleasure': 'This is not the place for you.' How often do we find that the most irreligious parents, who never enter God's house nor utter a word of prayer, are glad enough for their children to go to Sunday-school, and will listen with delight to the little hymns they have learnt there. The knowledge of wrong makes itself felt in this way. When the man is without desire or without hope of abandoning the evil, he would still give much not to see his children following in his steps.

So it is even with God's law. It sets before us perfect righteousness, with the most certain authority and the most awful sanctions. It is plainly for men's good. To obey it is to be at peace with God, and with one's own conscience, and to bring health to the soul; while to break it is calamity here, and hereafter ruin. The way of them that transgress it 'is hard' while they travel on it, and' the end thereof are the ways of death.'

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Yet, with all this, it fails to procure the obedience and the happiness of men. It is still 'weak through the flesh.' 'The righteousness of the Law' is its weakness, its impossibility, through the impracticability of the material on which it has to work the flesh.' To accomplish the fulfilment of its own objects is just what the Law could not do,' cannot do. Hence that which was designed and calculated after all, 'found to be unto death,' according to experience as described in the foregoing chapter. from teaching men 'how to perform that which is good,' 'by the Law is the knowledge of sin.'

for life' is, Paul's own For, so far

Without doubt, God knew what the result would be. He was not taken by surprise at the failure of His commandment to be obeyed. He foresaw it, and He meant it. 'The Law,'

THE OFFICE OF THE LAW.

399

St. Paul had said before, 'entered that the offence might abound'; and that so men might know, not only that they were going wrong, but, still worse, that they could not go right; and so might be ready to welcome from heaven 'His own Son,' even in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,' as the almighty Redeemer from sin, and Imparter of righteousness and strength.'

It was and is the office of the Law to 'bring us unto Christ.' The way in which it effects this is well illustrated in the case of St. Paul himself, when he shows, from his own experience, the struggle of an earnest determined man to keep the commandments.

It is of great value that he takes his instances, not, like those we have already used, from gross and scandalous sin, but from spiritual and inward sin. For men guilty chiefly of these latter are likely to think themselves free from the Law, which is spoken to transgressors; and to nurse the delusion that they are without sin that need alarm them for its consequences. The drunkard, the swearer, the openly wicked or avowedly irreligious man, is unable to deny his guilt, unless he also reject the authority of God's law and the obligation to do right. The evildoer whose sins are manifest to all is, in most cases, fully aware that he is rushing to ruin; he dreads, and longs to escape the doom pronounced on him. It is far harder to awake to a sense of sin and danger the man whom his neighbours admire, and whose own heart alone is the witness against him. Such was Saul of Tarsus, whose conviction of sin arose from the last of all the commandments —the one that went so deep that men could not see or judge of its breach-'Thou shalt not covet.' But he saw, at once, that he did covet. He coveted the reputation and the abilities, yes, and the wealth also of his neighbour. He envied those who had the ear of the people, the admiration of the public, more than he had. He wished he had the wealth for almsgiving of other men. Not that he wanted the money for its own sake; few men do. It is a great error to limit the charge

of covetousness to the mad grasping of a miser, who hoards useless coin, and starves in the midst of his gold. Men covet money for what it will bring: as a means to something else.

Wealth does not mean a full purse or a large balance at the bank; it means ease, and leisure, and the power of doing many a thing that a poor man cannot do. It means books to the student, experiments to the man of science, resources to the philanthropist, and the power of large giving to the benevolent. It means position and influence, and the luxury of doing good. These are what men of sense covet. None but a fool cares for coin that he does not mean to be spent. But the commandment comes to the wisest and the sincerest, 'Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbour's.' No matter what you want it for; no matter whether you will use it better than your neighbour or not-Thou shalt not covet.' The best men, like Saul of Tarsus, convinced, but not yet renewed, feel that there is sin, and that they cannot keep that last commandment, which is, nevertheless, so 'holy, just, and good.' Struggle as they will, the evil impulse is too strong for them. The pressure of the prohibition seems but to kindle to a fiercer heat the hitherto dormant propensity, and the more they fight with it, the more they fail; for the very conflict makes it all the more constantly, the more closely, and the more vividly present to their minds, and that presence is a continual incitement which they cannot resist. That one sin, leading them captives, proves that they cannot fulfil the righteousness of God's holy law.

The particular besetment varies with the individual. In some it is irritability that cannot stand against provocation, and the more they fight against it the more irritable they become. Or it is pride, that has its root in a morbid self-consciousness, and grows worse for opposition; because the mind is thus perpetually turned inwards, and feeding on itself, is more inflated than ever; though every manifestation of the evil temper is acutest grief. Thus they are made to feel their hopeless inability to keep God's holy law, and they realize the