The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.
though the moral law be thus far abolished, it remains as a perpetual rule to believers. Though it be not their Saviour, it is their guide. Though it be not foedus, a covenant of life; yet it is norma, a rule of life. Every Christian is bound to conform to it; and to write, as exactly as he can after this copy. 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid.' Rom iii 31. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under its commanding power.The Ten Commandments, 44
Besides public ordinances, we should give ourselves to spiritual exercises in secret.
All the time we can spare from our necessary, civil, and natural actions should be employed in calling to mind what we have seen, heard, or felt of God.
You can never part with sin soon enough; it is a cursed inmate, that will surely bring mischief upon the soul that harbours it. It will set its own dwelling on fire.Works 7:147
To own and stand up for a hated and despised truth will bring more comfort to our souls than all the pleasure the wicked have in their sensual delights.
To humble us in our converses with God. He is good, but we are evil; he is heaven, but we are hell; he is perfect, but we are poor defective creatures. Therefore in all our approaches to him we should come the more humbly to him, and go the more holy from him; for it is sad when we come to the good God, and are never the better. If we go to the fire, we expect to be warm. Oh! when you come to the fountain of goodness, we should come away better.https://www.monergism.com/rich-young-ruler-exposition-mark-1017-27-ebook
The moral teaching of Christ and his apostles is the old law deepened and reapplied to new circumstances--life in the kingdom of God, where the Savior reigns; and in the post-Pentecost era of the Spirit, where God's people are called to live heaven's life among themselves and to be God's counterculture in the world.Concise Theology, Section 34
As the excellency of his nature giveth him a fitness and a sufficiency for the government of mankind, his creation, preservation, and other benefits give him a full right to make what laws he pleaseth, and to call man to an account whether he hath kept them, yea or no.Works, Volume 10
Christ in fact had not the least intent of making any change or innovation in the precepts of the law. God there appointed once for all a rite of life which he will never repent of... so let us have no more of that error, that here a defect of the law is corrected by Christ; Christ is not to be made into a new law-giver, adding anything to the everlasting righteousness of his Father, but is to be given the attention of a faithful interpreter, teaching us the nature of the law, its object and its scope.
Good God, whither is man fallen! First, we practice sin, then defend it, then boast of it. Sin is first our burden, then our custom, then our delight, then our excellency!
It is usual in providence that they who have God's heart should feel God's hand most heavy. I have observed it, that God's children never question His love so much as in sickness. Our thoughts return upon us in such retirement, and the weakness of the body discomposes the mind and deprives us of the free exercise of spiritual reason; to sense and feeling all is sharp.
Jewels do not lie upon the surface; you must get into the caverns and dark receptacles of the earth for them. No more do truths lie in the surface and outside of an expression. The beauty and glory of the Scriptures is within and must be fetched out with much study and prayer.
Poverty and pride are most unsuitable. It was one of Solomon's odd sights to see "servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth" (Eccl. 10:7). A poor proud man is a prodigy and wonder of pride. He has less temptation to be proud; he has more reason to be humble.