those grosser sins which characterize and debase their neighbours, will ensure for themselves the favour of God, and secure the kingdom of heaven.

66

Comparing themselves among themselves," or with their neighbours, or with the laws of men, instead of comparing themselves with the righteous law of God in all its requirements, they 66 are not wise;" but they deceive themselves. This is a delusive error: an error which proves fatal to many souls; and an error which the apostle St. Paul apprehended would ruin the Galatian converts. These Christians at Galatia had been, by Judaizing teachers, seduced from the simplicity of the gospel faith which he had preached unto them: and they were going about, like too many in our own day, to establish their own righteousness, instead of submitting to the righteousness of God. They were mixing and compounding faith with works, the foundation with the superstructure; or resting upon the works of the law for justification before God.

In his epistle to them, therefore, the apostle, with much severity, and with his usually acute reasoning, combats their error, and points out its fatal tendency. He shows the insufficiency of the law, i. e. the works of the law, to obtain righteousness. In the verse immediately preceding the text he observes, "For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." So far was the law

from producing righteousness, that, as the apostlé adds in the words of the text, " The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." The text leads us—

III. TO DESCRIBE THE PERSONS TO WHOM THAT "PROMISE" IS GIVEN " to them that be

lieve."

I. Let us NOTICE

THE CONDITION OF THE

HUMAN RACE. THEY ARE 66 ALL CONCLUDED UNDER SIN." "The scripture hath concluded all under sin," the scripture describes and addresses all mankind as prisoners shut up under sin. Whoever is described there as righteous before God, he was made righteous, not by nature, norby the law, but by the grace of God. The scripture recognises no justifying righteousness, except that which is of God by faith. They who are destitute of this "righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ," are by the scripture shut up under sin: they

1 Rom. iii. 22.

2 "Shut up as close prisoners,-locked up as it were in a dungeon."-LEIGH's Critica Sacra.

are declared to be guilty and corrupt. If you will refer to the sixth chapter of Genesis and fifth verse, you will see a melancholy picture given of man: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually;" -"evil from his youth," as it is added, chap. viii. 21, David in his day found and testified of man; "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no, not one." St. Paul, too, quoting the Old Testament, gives, in the third chapter of his epistle to the Romans, an awful but correct description of the world. He confines not to the heathen world his description of man's alienation from God. He had "before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Now, to be under sin implies,

1. To be under the dominion of sin. Sin holds under its iron sceptre every man who is unrenewed by divine grace. It exercises its dominion over the human race in their state of nature. The histories of all nations, and even of the Jewish nation, clearly demonstrate how universally sin reigned in the world. What desolations have been wrought on the earth! What ravages have been committed by nations distinguished for their high attainments 3 Ps. xiv. 3, &c.

4 Rom. iii. 9.

of polite and useful learning! What a torrent of iniquity has overflowed and deluged the world! Nation rising up against nation, and, with relentless cruelty, slaughtering thousands and millions of their fellow-men, to gratify ambition, avarice, or revenge. What desolations have been wrought on the earth! The world, as it came out of its Maker's hand, beautiful, and "very good," converted into a "Bochim :" and "Ichabod" inscribed on every earthly object! If you inquire what is the cause of all the confusion, and all the wretchedness experienced in the world,-we answer, it is sin. It is the corrupt heart of man that sends forth its polluted and polluting streams. In the heart is engendered and from the heart proceeds, every malignant and vile passion; enmity, cruelty, pride, revenge, lust, hatred, avarice, strife, murder, theft, covetousness, idolatry. These break out in the life, as the breaking forth of many waters," and they defile the man.""

In support of these declarations, or of scripture testimony, of man's miserable subjection to sin, we need not turn over the pages of history,—we need not resort to remote ages to search for evidence. Let us look around us, and what shall we behold? Shall we discover men in the present day, with all their advantages and privileges, subject to the Lord

5 Matt. xv. 18-20.

Are

of glory? Are not his laws transgressed? not his threatenings set at defiance? Is not his gospel despised, and his proffered grace rejected? But to bring the subject nearer home for it is a subject which concerns ourselves individually-let us inquire how stand our own hearts affected towards God? Are we, my brethren, or are we not under the dominion of sin? Are we not "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ?" Are we not more anxious to increase our worldly riches, honours and titles, than to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ?"7 Are we not of those "who mind earthly things," as the chief if not the only good? If we are, we may be certain that grace has not renewed our hearts unto holiness, and that we are under the dominion of sin. To be under sin implies

What an

2, To be under the curse of sin. awful state is this! To be under the penalty of God's violated law, and obnoxious to his wrath, is surely enough to make even a hardened sinner tremble. Yet this is the state of man while concluded under sin. Every transgression of the law incurs the penalty, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the

book of the law to do them."

"For whosoever

62 Tim. iii. 4.

72 Pet. iii. 18.

Gal. iii. 10.