"The subject of this treatise," writes Colqohoun, "is in the highest degree, important and interesting, both to saints and to sinners. To know it experimentally, is to “be wise unto salvation;” and to live habitually under the influence of it, is to be at once holy and happy. To have spiritual and distinct views of it, is the way to be kept from verging towards self-righteousness, on the one hand, and licentiousness, on the other; and to be enabled to assert, the absolute freeness of sovereign grace, and at the same time, the sacred interests of true holiness. Without an experimental knowledge, and an unfeigned faith, of the law and the gospel, a man can neither venerate the authority of the one, nor esteem the grace of the other."
This classic is organized as follows:
Introduction
Chapter I. Of the Law of God in General
Chapter II. Of the Law of God as Promulgated to the Israelites From Mount Sinai
Chapter III. Of the Properties of the Moral Law
Chapter IV. The Rules for Understanding Aright the Ten Commandments
Chapter V. Of the Gospel of Christ
Chapter VI. Of the Uses of the Gospel, and of the Law in Subservience to the Gospel
Chapter VII. Of the Difference Between the Law and the Gospel
Chapter VIII. Of the Agreement Between the Law and the Gospel
Chapter IX. Of the Establishment of the Law by the Gospel
Chapter X. Of the Believer’s Privilege of Being Dead to the Law as a Covenant of Works, With a Highly Important Consequence of It
Chapter XI. Of the High Obligations Under Which Believers Lie, to Yield Even Perfect Obedience to the Law as a Rule of Life
Chapter XII. Of the Nature, Necessity, and Desert of Good Works
To the Reader