far was he under the law. And this is
so, as we full well know, with us all; for as there is none of us in
whom sin is utterly dead, so neither can there be any of us who is
altogether dead to the law.

Yet, although this be so, there is no doubt that the gospel wishes to
consider us as generally dead to the law, in order that we really may
become so continually more and more. It supposes that the Spirit of God,
presenting to our minds the sight of God's love in Christ, sets us free
from the law of sin and death; that is, that a sense of thankfulness to
God, and love of God and of Christ, will be so strong a motive, that we
shall, generally speaking, need no other; that it will so work upon us,
as to make us feel good, easy, and delightful, and thus to become dead
to the law. And there is no doubt also, that that same freedom from the
law, which we ourselves experience daily, in respect of some particular
great crimes, (for, as I said, we do not feel that it is the fear of the
law which keeps us from murder or from robbing,) that very same freedom
is felt by good men in many other points, where it may be that we
ourselves do not feel it. A common instance may be given with respect to
prayer, and the outward worship of God. There are a great many who feel
this as a duty; but there are many also to whom it is not so much a
duty, as a privilege and a pleasure; and these are dead to the law which
commands us to be instant in prayer, just as we, in general, are dead to
the law which commands us to do no murder.

This being understood, it will be perfectly plain, why St. Paul, along
with all his language as to the law being passed away, and our being
become dead to it, yet uses, very frequently, language of another kind,
which shows that the law is not dead in itself, but lives, and ever will
live. He says, "We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,
that every one may receive according to what he has done in the body."
And he adds, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade
men." But the judgment, and the terror of the Lord, mean precisely what
are meant by the law. And this language of St. Paul shows more clearly,
that, unless we are first dead to the law, the law is not, and never
will be dead to us.

I should not have thought it useless, to have offered merely this
explanation of a language, which is very common in the New Testament,
which, forms one of its characteristic points, (for St. John's