Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/96

 *ter it? He does assert, holiness cannot precede justification: but not, that it need not follow it. St. Paul therefore gives you no colour for ''making void the law'', by teaching that faith supersedes the necessity of holiness.

III. 1. There is yet another way of ''making void the law thro' faith'', which is more common than either of the former. And that is, the doing it practically: the making it void in fact, tho' not in principle: the living, as if faith was designed to excuse us from holiness.

How earnestly does the Apostle guard us against this, in those well known words: ''What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid''! Rom. vi. 15. A caution which it is needful throughly to consider, because it is of the last importance.

2. The being under the law may here mean, 1. The being obliged to observe the ceremonial law. 2. The being obliged to conform to the whole Mosaic institution. 3. The being obliged to keep the whole moral law, as the condition of our acceptance with God: and, 4. The being under the wrath and curse of God, under sentence of eternal death; under a sense of guilt and condemnation, full of horror and slavish fear.

3. Now altho' a believer is not without law to God, but under the law to Christ, yet from the moment he believes, he is not under the law, in