270 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The Christian married to a new husband. 



Christian is " dcad.'^ (Rom. vii. 4.) It is '' tbe Law'' 

 wherein wo were held, before Faith came : it is "the Laio" from 

 which we are delivered by burial into death : it is " the Law" 

 (not "its curse!") which is no longer to be observed " m the 

 oldness of the letter F' I think it would somewhat puzzle even 

 the most " lawjer-like subtlety'^ to explain how a curse is to 

 be kept " in newness of spirit !" — or, on the other hand, how 

 a statute which has ceased to command a liter al obedience, can 

 be anything else but " dead !"* 



"Know ye not, brethi-en (for I speak to them that know 

 the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as 

 long as he liveth ? For the woman which hath a husband, is 

 bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth ; h\it if 

 the husband he dead, slie is loosed from the law of her hus- 

 band .... Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to 

 ^ the Law' by the body of Christ; that i/e should he married 

 to anothcr.'' (Rom. vii. 1 — 6.) Is it a " curse only,'^ think 

 you, that is S3mibolized as a "dead hushandf "What glaring 



point. In some copies it is aTtoBavovroq — in direct apposition with 

 vojocoy — " the Law being dead" — as rendered in our translation. In 

 otliers, it is airoQavovTiq — " we being dead to tliat," — as given in 

 our marginal reading. The sense is in citlier case the same : — the 

 divorce is absolute: "a vina/lo." Nay, the Apostle seems to have had 

 in his mind both ideas: and hcnce, the mixed figure of a double death, 

 and consequently of a double divorce. (Compare verse 4, Tvith verse 6 ; 

 see also, Gal. ii. 19.) 



* "Bilt noTV have ye, with Moses' law yiothing to do, since the same 

 is become to you ward dead." Erasmus. [Paraphrase on Rom. vii.) 



" It is true,'' says Dr. Chalmers, in his Lecturcs on Romans, "■ that 

 the Law may be regarded as dead; and that he, our former husband, 

 now ' tåken out of the way,' has left us free to enter upon that allianco 

 with Christ considered as our new husband, -which in many other 

 parts of the New Testament is likened unto a marriage. And it is 

 true also, that the death of the Law, which gave rise to the dissolution 

 of its authority over us, took place at the death of Christ." {Leclure 

 xxxviii. ) 



