The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 8:2
Words: Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book 2, 1709. The law and Gospel distinguished.
Music: Old 100th attributed to Louis Bourgeois, in Four Score and Seven Psalms of David (Geneva, Switzerland: 1551) (🔊 pdf nwc).
Alternate Tune:
If you know where to get a good picture of Bourgeois (head-and-shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),
The Law commands and makes us know
What duties to our God we owe;
But ’tis the Gospel must reveal
Where lies our strength to do His will.
The Law discovers guilt and sin
And shows how vile our hearts have been;
The Gospel only can express
Forgiving love and cleansing grace.
What curses doth the Law denounce
Against the man that fails but once!
But in the Gospel Christ appears,
Pardoning the guilt of numerous years.
My soul, no more attempt to draw
Thy life and comfort from the Law.
Fly to the hope the Gospel gives;
The man that trusts the promise lives.