unfold itself in accordance with the highest law, holds out the
fulness of His gift in that Incarnate Word. Law has no heart; the
Gospel is the unveiling of the heart of God. Law commands; grace is
God bestowing Himself.

And still further, law condemns. Grace is love that bends down to an
evildoer, and deals not on the footing of strict retribution with the
infirmities and the sins of us poor weaklings. And so, seeing that no
man that lives but hears in his heart an accusing voice, and that
every one of us knows what it is to gaze upon lofty duties that we
have shrunk from, upon plain obligations from the yoke of which we
have selfishly and cowardly withdrawn our necks; seeing that every
man, woman, and child listening to me now has, lurking in some corner
of their hearts, a memory that only needs to be quickened to be a
torture, and deeds that only need to have the veil drawn away from
them to terrify and shame them--oh! surely it ought to be a word of
gladness for every one of us that, in front of any law that condemns
us, stands forth the gentle, gracious form of the Christ that brings
pardon, and 'the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men.'
Thank God! law needed to be 'given,' but it was only the foundation on
which was to be reared a better thing. 'The law was given By
Moses'--'a schoolmaster,' as conscience is to-day, 'to bring us to
Christ' by whom comes the grace that loves, that stoops, that gives,
and that pardons.

Still further, there is another antithesis here. The Gospel which
comes by Christ is not law, but truth. The object of law is to
regulate conduct, and only subordinately to inform the mind or to
enlighten the understanding. The Mosaic Law had for its foundation, of
course, a revelation of God. But that revelation of God was less