Take heed of fleshly wisdom. Reasoning suiteth much with the law: "I thought verily that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus," and so to have sought for life by the law. For thus reason will say, Here is a righteous law, the rule of life and death; besides, what can be better than to love God, and my neighbor as myself? Again, God has thus commanded, and his commands are just and good; therefore, doubtless, life must come by the law. Further, to love God and keep the law, are better than to sin and break it; and seeing men lost heaven by sin, how should they get it again but by working righteousness? Besides, God is righteous, and will therefore bless the righteous. O the holiness of the law! It mightily swayeth with reason when a man addicts himself to religion. The light of nature teaches that sin is not the way to heaven; and seeing no word doth more condemn sin, than the words of the ten commandments, it must needs be therefore the most perfect rule for holiness. Wherefore, says reason, the safest way to life and glory is to keep myself close to the law. But though the law indeed be holy, yet the mistake as to the matter in hand is as wide as the east from the west; for therefore the law can do thee no good, because it is holy and just; for what can he that has sinned expect from a law that is holy and just? Naught but condemnation. "There is one that accuseth you, even. Moses in whom ye trust." Here is the poison; to set this law in the. room of a Mediator, as those do who seek to stand just before God thereby. And then nothing is so dishonorable to Christ, nor of so soul-destroying a nature as the law; for that, thus placed, has not only power when souls are deluded, but power to delude by its real holiness, the understanding, conscience, and reason of a man; and by giving the soul a semblance of heaven, to cause it to throw away Christ, grace, and faith. Alas, he who boasteth himself in the works of the law, he doth not hear the law. When that speaks, it shakes mount Sinai, and writeth death upon all faces, and makes the church itself cry out, A Mediator! else we die. The law out of Christ is terrible as a lion; the law in him is meek as a lamb. FAITHFUL. "So I went on my way up the hill. Now when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me and saw one coming after me swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.