The law is for the direction of those who are able to keep it, but it serves another purpose. It instructs us, by its observed violations, in the melancholy but important truth, that all are guilty before God. It compels us to the remedy laid before us in the gospel, and is the "schoolmaster which brings us to Christ". When you feel the wretched deficiencies of your own heart, take in a full impression of its unworthiness, and do not seek tp protect yourself from the humiliating contemplation. The protection offered us in the gospel is protection against the terrors of the law, and not against the shame and the consciousness of having violated it. "Be not afraid, only believe", says the Saviour and the experience of every day carries home to my heart that the only applicable expedient for man in the actual state of our present being, is simply to take to Christ, to unite with him by faith, to approach God through that Mediator who is able to save to the uttermost, to perfect our union with the Saviour by doing Him the honour of trusting Him, or taking Him at his word, and to look for sanctification, for heavenly mindedness, for conformity to the will and image of Christ, for redemption not merely from the punishment of sin, but also from its power, for "progressive virtue and approving heaven" - to look for these, and for all other spiritual blessings, as the promised effects of that union. If you come to the tranquillity of such final conviction as this, is it possible, I ask, not to view the great agent in the process of reconciliation as your friend? and can the heart of the Christian refuse the energy of His impressive voice "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you"? Virtue is not exploded; it is hung upon a new principle (2 Cor. 14 15).
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