All this is so divinely plain and settled that discussion is definitively closed; but when we come to look at the law as a ground of relationship with God, we get into an entirely different region of thought. Scripture, in manifold places, and in the clearest possible manner, teaches us that, as Christians, as children of God, we are not on that ground at all. The Jew was on that ground, but he could not stand there with God. It was death and condemnation. "They could not endure that which was commanded, 'And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart;' and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, 'I exceedingly fear and quake.'" The Jew found the law to be a bed on which he could not stretch himself, and a covering in which he could not wrap himself. As to the Gentile, he was never, by any one branch of the divine economy, placed under law. His condition is expressly declared, in the opening of the epistle to the Romans, to be "without law [ἀνόμως]."--"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law," etc., and, "As many as have sinned without law shall perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law." Here the two classes are brought into sharp and vivid contrast, in the matter of their dispensational position. The Jew, under law; the Gentile, without law,--nothing can be more distinct. The Gentile was placed under government, in the person of Noah; but never under law. Should any one feel disposed to call this in question, let him produce a single line of Scripture to prove that God ever placed the Gentiles under the law. Let him search and see. It is of no possible use to argue and reason and object,--it is utterly vain to say, "_We think_" this or that: the question is, "What saith the Scripture?" If it says that the Gentiles were put under the law, let the passage be produced. We solemnly declare it says nothing of the kind, but the very reverse. It describes the condition and the position of the Gentile as "without law"--"having not the law." In Acts x, we see God opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile; in Acts xiv. 27, we see Him opening "the door of faith" to the Gentile; in Acts xxviii. 28, we see Him sending His salvation to the Gentile: but we search in vain, from cover to cover of the blessed Book, for a passage in which He places the Gentile under the law.