+III. The design of this deadness to the law in the Christian's soul.+--"That I might live unto God." This living unto God dethrones self, discovers to the man the base, degrading idol to which he has been bowing down, makes him ashamed of the worship he has paid it, and places on the throne of his heart his Saviour and his God. His renunciation of his self-righteousness has gradually brought on other renunciations of self. The law driving him to Christ has been the means of driving him out of self altogether. It has brought him into the sphere of the Gospel and among those soul-stirring principles, feelings, and aspirations connected with the Gospel. There is no greater mistake than to imagine that the Gospel has destroyed the law or loosened in any degree its hold on men. The Gospel rests on the law. But for the law and its unbending, unchangeable, external character the Gospel had not existed, for it would not have been needed. Dead to the law and alive unto God are two things that go together; the one springs out of the other. The more completely we die to the law as a covenant, the more fully, freely, and happily shall we live unto God.--_C. Bradley._ _Dead to the Law by the Law._ +I. The person justified is dead to the law.+--Here the law is compared to a hard and cruel master, and we to slaves or bondmen, who so long as they are alive are under the dominion and at the command of their masters; yet when they are dead they are free from that bondage, and their masters have no more to do with them. To be dead to the law is to be free from the dominion of the law. 1. In respect of the accusing and damnatory sentence of the law. 2. In respect of the power of the law. 3. In respect of the rigour of the law, exacting most perfect obedience for our justification. 4. In respect of the obligation of the conscience to the observance of ceremonies. +II. The justified person is dead to the law by the law.+--By the law of Moses I am dead to the law of Moses. The law accuses, terrifies, and condemns us, and therefore occasions us to flee unto Christ who is the cause that we die unto the law. As the needle goes down and draws in the thread which sews the cloth, so the law goes before and makes a way that grace may follow after and take place in the heart. +III. The end of our death to the law is that we may live to God.+--We live to God wisely in respect of ourselves, godly in respect go God, justly in respect to men. That we may live godly we must: 1. Bring ourselves into the presence of the invisible God and set all we do in His sight and presence. 2. We must take knowledge of the will of God in all things. 3. In all we do and suffer we must depend on God for success and deliverance. 4. In all things we must give thanks and praise to God.--_Perkins._ Ver. 20. _The Believer crucified with Christ, and Christ living in the Believer._