hifts, and aggravate sin, that it
may become exceeding sinful. But further, 2. This is not the last end of
it. Not only is it ordained to stop all mouths, but to make all flesh
guilty before God, "For by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be
justified," Rom. iii. 18, 19. It convinces of an impossibility to stand
before God, and so it kills a man. And now the man asks, "What shall I do
to be saved?" He cannot stand before God in terms of justice, where none
can stand, and so either must some other delivery come, or he is gone. Now
here he is put from making satisfaction, "Who can abide with everlasting
burnings?" He sees himself standing under the stroke of justice; and where
can he go from God's presence? If he go to heaven, he is there, if to
hell, he will find him out, the light and darkness are alike to him, Psal.
cxxxix. 7-11. Not only the cries of sinful man, but of wretched and
miserable man, are heard from him! Now these are the steps the law
proceeds by. But it must not stay there, or else it is not come to the end
of it. It must put a man within the doors of the covenant of grace. The
law is a messenger sent to pursue a man out of his own house of self
confidence and security, he was like to perish in, and not to know it. Now
by discovering his sinful and cursed condition, it brings him out of
himself, and out of all created things. But the end is not yet attained,
till it put him in Christ's hand, and enter him in the border of the city
of refuge and this is the end of the abounding of sin by the law, that
grace may superabound, Rom. v. 20. And this is the end of the concluding
him under sin, and making him guilty before God, that the promise of faith
may be given him, and another righteousness revealed by faith, Rom. iii.
20, 21, Gal. iii. 23. And now he is at peace, being justified by faith,
and rests as a stone in its own place (Rom. v. 1, 2 ), and the law hath
nothing to do with him; he is out of its jurisdiction. 3. Now when it hath
pursued him unto Christ for salvation, yet the command is still useful,
and appointed yet for faith in Jesus, in performing new obedience. The
Christian's daily walking is but the turning of the old round, as the sun
doth this day go about the compass it did the first day, so his life is
but a new conversion still. When he is now settled on Jesus for salvation,
he must yet be put by(470) the command. It discovers his dally sins, and
so he is put to Jesus, the open Fountain for a