SECTION IV. iii. 15-18.

22

"Brethren I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God, the law which was 430 years after cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance 23 be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise." iii. 15-18.

It needs scarcely to be observed, that the whole of this paragraph is applicable to no law but the Mosaic.

SECTION V. iii. 19, 20, 21.

"Wherefore then serveth the law? it was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made," or rather, "respecting whom it was promised that all nations should be blessed in him which

22 As though there were another seed by circumcision, and not by faith, included in this promise, or Christians, as is evident from v. 9 and 7.

23 Justification by faith and the blessings consequent upon it, in respect of which men are said to be blessed with Abraham. v. 9.

seed is Christ. And it" (the law of Moses) "was ordained in the hand of a Mediator. But he is not a mediator of that one" (seed, the children of Abraham by faith, many of whom existed before Moses) "but God is one;" that is, God equally dispenses his favor to Christians and all the seed of Abraham as to those of whose law Moses was mediator. "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid for if there had been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law."

SECTION VI. iii. 22. ad finem.

"But" by the law convincing all men of sin, "the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” The promise made to Abraham, or rather the divine mercy renewed to mankind, through his obedience, in the form of a covenant, gives justification. The law by pointing out the sinful condition of its subjects, prepares them to acknowledge their need of the Divine mercy, and to avail themselves of it as promised from the beginning, and, at the establishment of Christianity, confirmed and actually conferred through the mediation of Christ. The curse of the law was made known only to shew the world the reasonableness of their being saved by faith, (as Abraham) through the grace and obedience of Jesus Christ.

"But before faith came" the perfecting of the method of justification by faith "we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." This law was the Mosaic. For although the Gentiles were included in that liability to punishment and need of justification by grace, as opposed to justification by merit, which is signified in the curse of the law, and were therefore equally condemned by the knowledge of sin which the law of Moses conveyed, they could not be said to be shut up together under the law, but only the Jews.

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster" or pædagogue to bring us "unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the pro

mise."

I have thus traced the Apostle's argument from its commencement in the second Chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, to that part of it upon which the enquiry "In what respects the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" depends. And having shewn that the Mosaic law is the law uniformly intended by St. Paul up to

this place, the conclusion may be safely affirmed with respect to the law referred to in the words "the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," which was proposed at the beginning of this enquiry, that "the law in Gal. iii. 24. is the Mosaic."

CHAP. II.

• THE LAW OF MOSES A PÆDAGOGUE

TO LEAD MEN TO CHRIST.

"BEFORE faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster until or in order to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."

It is generally agreed, that the law intended in these verses is the Mosaic, as no other law is mentioned in the former part of this Epistle. Nor can any reason be produced for attaching to the word "law" a more comprehensive signification.

But is not the law of nature, or covenant of works, or moral law, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ? And if so, why should it not be introduced by the Apostle into the argument of this Epistle?

The probabilities in favor of this interpretation, may be reduced to this circumstance, that the liability of all men as sinners to the divine displeasure, and their dependance on the divine mercy, and not on their own merits, for salvation, may be concluded without the discipline and instruction of the Mosaic law. Whence it would appear, that the moral law is a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, by preparing