hteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy
and profane_.

These words explain the meaning of a great many passages in St. Paul's
Epistles, in which also he speaks of the law, and of not being under the
law, and other such expressions. And it is clear also, that he is not
speaking solely, or chiefly, or, in any considerable degree, of the
ceremonial law; but much more of the law of moral good, the law which
told men how they ought to live, and how they ought not. This law, he
says, is not made for good men, but for evil: a thing so plain, that we
may well wonder how any could ever have misunderstood it. It is so
manifest, that strict rules are required, just exactly in proportion to
our inability or want of will to rule ourselves; it is so very plain,
that, with regard to those crimes which we are under no temptation to
commit, we feel exactly as if there were no law. Which of us ever
thinks, as a matter of personal concern, of the law which sentences to
death murderers, or housebreakers, or those who maliciously set fire to
their neighbours' property? Do we not feel that, as far as our own
conduct is concerned, it would be exactly the same thing if no such law
were in existence? We should no more murder, or rob, or set fire to
houses and barns, if the law were wholly done away, than we do now that
it is in force.

There are, then, some points in which we feel practically that we are
not under the law, but dead to it; that the law is not made for us: but
do we think, therefore, that we may murder, and rob, and burn? or do we
not rather feel that such a notion would be little short of madness? We
are not under the law, because we do not need it; not because there is
in reality no law to punish us if we do need it. And just of this kind
is that general freedom from the law, of which St. Paul speaks, as the
high privilege of true Christians.

But yet St. Paul would not at all mean that any Christian is altogether
without the law: that is, that there are no points at all in which his
inclination is not to evil, and in which, therefore, he needs the fear
of God to restrain him from it. When he says of himself, that he kept
under his body lest that by any means he should become a castaway; just
so far as this fear of being a castaway possessed him, that is, just so
far as there were any evil tendencies in him, which required him to keep
them under by an effort, just so