Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the law, except grace be present; for what we are forced to do, the same goeth not from the heart, neither is acceptable.
A law supposes a law-giver, and implies an actuator and executor, and consequently rewards and punishments publicly announced, and distinctly assigned to the deeds enjoined or forbidden; and correlatively in the subjects of the law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the being, the power, the veracity and seeingness of the law-giver, in whom I here comprise the legislative, judicial and executive functions; and secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and fear. Now from this view, it is evident that the deeds or works of the Law are themselves null and dead, deriving their whole significance from their attachment or alligation to the rewards and punishments, even as this diversely shaped and ink colored paper has its value wholly from the words or meanings, which have been arbitrarily connected therewith; or as a ladder, or flight of stairs, of a provision-loft, or treasury. If the architect or master of the house had chosen to place the store-room or treasury on the ground floor, the ladder or steps would have been useless. The life is divided between the rewards and punishments on the one hand, and the hope and fear on the other: namely, the active life or excitancy belongs to the former, the passive life or excitability to the latter. Call the former the afficients, the latter the affections, the deeds being merely the signs or impresses of the former, as the seal, on the latter as the wax. Equally evident is it, that the affections are wholly formed by the deeds, which are themselves but the lifeless unsubstantial shapes of the actual forms (
formæ formantes
), namely, the rewards and punishments. Now contrast with this the process of the Gospel. There the affections are formed in the first instance, not by any reference to works or deeds, but by an unmerited rescue from death, liberation from slavish task-work; by faith, gratitude, love, and affectionate contemplation of the exceeding goodness and loveliness of the Saviour, Redeemer, Benefactor: from the affections flow the deeds, or rather the affections overflow in the deeds, and the rewards are but a continuance and continued increase of the free grace in the state of the soul and in the growth and gradual perfecting of that state, which are themselves gifts of the same free grace, and one with the rewards; for in the kingdom of Christ which is the realm of love and inter-community, the joy and grace of each regenerated spirit becomes double, and thereby augments the joys and the graces of the others, and the joys and graces of all unite in each;—Christ, the head, and by his Spirit the bond, or unitive
copula
of all, being the spiritual sun whose entire image is reflected in every individual of the myriads of dew-drops. While under the Law, the all was but an aggregate of subjects, each striving after a reward for himself, —not as included in and resulting from the state,—but as the stipulated wages of the task-work, as a loaf of bread may be the pay or bounty promised for the hewing of wood or the breaking of stones!
Ib.
He (said Luther), that will dispute with the Devil, &c.
Queries.