int God of his end in giving unto us the command.
And the law was given for the best purposes. But, the most part of men
have no end, no use of the law. God hath given it for some end, but they
know it not. They live without God, and without rule in the world. Men
walk as if there was no law, nor command, nor curse. There are but two
ends the command was ordained for, the first instituted end which it
naturally tends unto is life, (Rom. vii. 10) and the second end for which
God hath appointed it since the first is missed, is to pursue men to Jesus
Christ, and convince them of sin, to make them once die that they may
live, Rom. vii. 9. But the most part know neither of these ends. A carnal
profane generation will not seek life by the righteousness of the law;
their iniquities testify against them even to their face, and their sin is
found hateful. There is not so much as an endeavour among too many
Christian professors, either to approve themselves unto men, or their own
consciences in their outward walking. They walk without any regard of a
command, or rule, as it were by guess. Their own rule is what pleases them
best. What suits their humours, and crosses God's word, that they will do,
as if they knew not the curse, or were afraid of the sentence of
condemnation. They walk in peace, and have no changes, they walk in the
imagination of their vain hearts. They cannot say, and none will say for
them, they seek life by the law, their contempt of it is so palpable, and
yet no other end of it they know so it is to them as if God had never
appointed it. Again,

2. There are many wrong and false ends, or uses of the law, when we make
it the immediate mean to life and righteousness, and seek justification by
it. And this was the end that these false teachers would have made of it.
This is the end that the Israelites looked to. "All that the Lord hath
commanded, will we do." O that was a great undertaking! Poor men, they
knew not what they said. They thought upon no other thing but obedience to
the command, and so made it a covenant of works. Thus did the people that
followed Christ, John vi. 28. And the young man that came to Christ said,
"What good thing shall I do, to inherit eternal life?" Here doing was
preferred to living by faith, Rom. x. 1-23. The Jews did so, and missed
the right way. And few of you will take(466) with this, that ye seek to be
justified by your own works; and yet, it is natural to men, they will not
sub