If we look at the law, in its two grand divisions, it tells a man to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; and to love his neighbor as himself. This is the sum of the law: this, and not a tittle less, is what the law demands. But where has this demand ever been responded to by any member of Adam's fallen posterity? Where is the man who could say he loves God after such a fashion? "The carnal mind [_i.e._, the mind which we have by nature] is enmity against God." Man hates God and His ways. God came, in the Person of Christ, and showed Himself to man--showed Himself, not in the overwhelming brightness of His majesty, but in all the charm and sweetness of perfect grace and condescension. What was the result? Man hated God.--"Now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father." (John xv. 24.) But, it may be said, man ought to love God. No doubt, and he deserves death and eternal perdition if he does not; but can the law produce this love in man's heart? was that its design? By no means, "for the law worketh wrath." The law finds man in a state of enmity against God; and without ever altering that state (for that was not its province), it commands him to love God with all his heart, and curses him if he does not. It was not the province of the law to alter or improve man's nature; nor yet could it impart any power to carry out its righteous demands. It said, "This do, and thou shalt live." It commanded man to love God. It did not reveal what God was to man, even in his guilt and ruin; but it told man what he ought to be toward God. This was dismal work. It was not the unfolding of the powerful attractions of the divine character, producing in man true repentance toward God, melting his icy heart, and elevating his soul in genuine affection and worship. No: it was an inflexible command to love God; and, instead of producing love, it "worked wrath;" not because God ought not to be loved, but because man was a sinner.