St. Paul compares God's dealing with man to a wise parent's instruction of his child.--See the Epistle to the Galatians. Boyhood is under law; you appeal not to the boy's reason, but his will, by rewards and punishments: Do this, and I will reward you; do it not, and you will be punished. So long as a man is under law, this is salutary and necessary, but only while under law. He is free when he discerns principles, and at the same time has got, by habit, the will to obey. So that rules have done for him a double work, taught him the principle and facilitated obedience to it. Distinguish however.--In point of time, law is first--in point of importance, the Spirit. In point of _time_, Charity is the "end" of the commandment--in point of _importance_, first and foremost. The first thing a boy has to do, is to learn implicit obedience to rules. The first thing in importance for a man to learn is, to sever himself from maxims, rules, laws. Why? That he may become an Antinomian, or a Latitudinarian? No. He is severed from submission to the _maxim_ because he has got allegiance to the _principle_. He is free from the rule and the law because he has got the Spirit written in his heart. This is the Gospel. A man is redeemed by Christ so far as he is not under the law; he is free from the law so far as he is free from the evil which the law restrains; he progresses so far as there is no evil in him which it is an effort to keep down; and perfect salvation and liberty are--when we,--who though having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, "to wit, the redemption of our body"--shall have been freed in body, soul, and spirit, from the last traces of the evil which can only be kept down by force. In other words, so far as Christ's statement is true of _us_, "The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." XX. _Preached February 21, 1853._ THE PRODIGAL AND HIS BROTHER. "And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found."--Luke xv. 31, 32. There are two classes of sins. There are some sins by which man crushes, wounds, malevolently injures his brother man: those sins which speak of a bad, tyrannical, and selfish heart. Christ met those with denunciation. There are other sins by which a man injures himself. There is a life of reckless indulgence; there is a career of yielding to ungovernable propensities, which most surely conducts to wretchedness and ruin, but makes a man an object of compassion rather than of condemnation.