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 expression of “Perfect love casteth out fear,” is exactly equivalent to St. Paul’s, “That we are dead to the law,”) and which has been often misunderstood, or misrepresented.  But yet I am well aware, that mere explanations of Scripture cannot be expected to interest those to whom Scripture is not familiar.  The answer to a riddle would be very soon forgotten, unless the riddle had first at once amused and puzzled us.  Just so, explanations of Scripture, to be at all valued, must suppose a previous knowledge of, and desire to understand, the difficulty; and this we cannot expect to find in very young persons.  Thus far, then, what I have said has been necessarily addressed, I do not say, or mean, to the oldest part of my hearers only, but yet to the older, and more considering part of them.  But the subject is capable, I think, of being brought much more closely home to us; for what St. Paul says of the law, with reference to all mankind, is precisely that state of mind which one would wish to see here; and the mistakes of his meaning are just such as are often prevalent, and are likely to do great mischief, with regard to the motives to be appealed to in education.