Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/59



THE ORIGINAL, NATURE, PROPERTY AND USE OF THE LAW.

vii. 12.

''Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.''

1. Perhaps there are few subjects within the whole compass of religion, so little understood as this. The reader of this epistle is usually told, by the law, St. Paul means ''Jewish law'': and so apprehending himself to have no concern therewith, passes on without farther thought about it. Indeed some are not satisfied with this account: but observing the epistle is directed to the Romans, thence infer, that the apostle in the beginning of this chapter, alludes to the old Roman law. But as they have no more concern with this, than with the ceremonial law of Moses, so they spend not much thought, on what they suppose is occasionally mentioned, barely to illustrate another thing.

2. But a careful observer of the apostle's discourse, will not be content with these slight explications of it. And the more he weighs the