Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/69

 three: It is holy, just and good. And first, ''The law is holy''.

2. In this expression the apostle does not appear to speak of its effects; but rather of its nature: as St. James speaking of the same thing under another name, says, ''The wisdom from above (which is no other than this law, written on our heart) is first pure'', chap. iii. 17. [Greek: hagnê], chaste, spotless, internally, and essentially holy. And consequently, when it is transcribed into the life, as well as the soul, (it is as the same apostle terms it,) chap. i. 27. [Greek: thrêskeia kathara kai amiantos;] ''Pure religion and undefiled''; or, the pure, clean, unpolluted worship of God.

3. It is indeed, in the highest degree, pure, chaste, clean, holy. Otherwise it could not be the immediate offspring, and much less the express resemblance of God, who is essential holiness. It is pure from all sin, clean and unspotted from any touch of evil. It is a chaste virgin, incapable of any defilement, of any mixture with that which is unclean or unholy. It has no fellowship with sin of any kind. For ''what communion hath light with darkness''? As sin is in its very nature enmity to God, so his law is enmity to sin.

Therefore it is, that the apostle rejects with such abhorrence, that blasphemous supposition, that the law of God is either sin itself, or the cause of sin. God forbid, that we should suppose, it is the cause of sin, because it is the dis