Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/76

 the sinner discovered to himself. All his fig-leaves are torn away, and he sees that he is ''wretched and poor and miserable and blind and naked''. The law flashes conviction on every side. He feels himself a mere sinner. He has nothing to pay. His mouth is stopt, and he stands guilty before God.

2. To slay the sinner is then the first use of the law; to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts, and convince him that he is dead while he liveth; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead unto God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins. The second use of it is, to bring him unto life, unto Christ, that he may live. 'Tis true, in performing both these offices, it acts the part of a severe school-master. It drives us by force, rather than draws us by love. And yet love is the spring of all. It is the spirit of love, which by this painful means, tears away our confidence in the flesh, which leaves us no broken reed whereon to trust, and so constrains the sinner stript of all, to cry out in the bitterness of his soul, or groan in the depth of his heart,

"I give up every plea beside "Lord, I am damn'd—but thou hast died."

3. The third use of the law is, to keep us alive. It is the grand means whereby the blessed