Then, as to its being a rule of life, we read, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God" (Rom. vii. 4). "But now are we delivered from the law, being dead to that (see margin) wherein we were held: that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter" (ver. 6). Observe in this last-quoted passage two things: first, "we are delivered from the law;" second, not that we may do nature's pleasure, but "that we should _serve_ in newness of spirit." Being delivered from bondage, it is our privilege to "serve" in liberty. Again we read, further on in the chapter, "And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be _unto death_" (ver. 10). It evidently did not prove as a rule of _life_ to him. "I was _alive without the law_ once; but _when the commandment came_, sin revived, and _I died_" (ver. 9). Whoever "I" represents in this chapter was alive until the law came, and then he died. Hence, therefore, the law could not have been a rule of life to him; yea, it was the very opposite, even a rule of death. In a word, then, it is evident that a sinner cannot be justified by the works of the law; and it is equally evident that the law is not the rule of the believer's life. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse" (Gal. iii. 10). The law knows no such thing as a distinction between a regenerated and an unregenerated man: it curses all who attempt to stand before it. It rules and curses a man so long as he lives; nor is there any one who will so fully acknowledge that he cannot keep it as the true believer, and hence no one would be more thoroughly under the curse.