brances of him who was to come, and behold
Jesus Christ lying in these swaddling clothes of ceremonies, until the
fulness of time should come, that he might be manifested in the flesh, and
so you shall find eternal life in those dead beasts, in those dumb
ceremonies. If you consider this Lamb of God slain in all these
sacrifices, from the beginning of the world, then you present a sweet
smelling savour to God,--then you offer the true propitiation for the sins
of the world,--then he will delight more in that sacrifice than all other
personal obedience.

But what if I should say, that the gospel itself is a killing letter, and
ministration of death, being severed from Christ? I should say nothing
amiss, but what Paul speaketh, that his gospel was "a savour of death" to
many. Take the most powerful preaching, the most sweet discourse, the most
plain writings of the free grace and salvation in the gospel,--take all the
preaching of Jesus Christ himself and his apostles,--and you shall not find
life in them, unless ye be led by that Spirit of Christ unto himself, who
is "the resurrection and the life." It will no more save you than the
covenant of works, unless that word abide and dwell in your hearts, to
make you believe in him, and embrace him with your souls, whom God hath
sent. Suppose you heard all, and heard it gladly, and learned it, and
could discourse well upon it, and teach others, yet if you be not driven
out of yourselves, out of your own righteousness, as well as sins, and
pursued to this city of refuge, Jesus Christ, you have not eternal life.
Your knowledge of the truth of the gospel, and your obedience to God's
law, will certainly kill you, and as certainly as your ignorance and
disobedience, unless you have embraced in your soul that good thing Jesus
Christ, contained in these truths, who is the diamond of that golden ring
of the scriptures, and unless your soul embrace these promises as
soul-saving, as containing the chief good, and "worthy of all
acceptation," as well as your mind receive these as true and faithful
sayings, 1 Tim. i. 15.

Thus ye see Jesus Christ is either the subject of all in the scriptures,
or the end of it all. He is the very proper subject of the gospel. Paul
knew nothing but Christ crucified in his preaching, and he is the very end
and scope "of the law for righteousness," Rom. x. 3. All the preaching of
a covenant of works, all the curses and threatenings of the Bible, all the
rig