21. Is

19. Wherefore then ferveth the law? It was added because of tranfgreffions, till the feed fhould come to whom the promife was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. 20. Now a media tor is not a mediator of one; but God is one. the law then against the promises of God? God for bid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. 22. But the fcripture hath concluded all under fin, that the promise by faith of Jesus. Chrift might be given to them that believe. 23. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, fbut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed. 24. Wherefore the law was our fchoolmaster to bring us unto Chrift, that we might be justified by faith. 25. But after that faith is come, longer under a fchoolmaster. 26. For ye children of God by faith in Chrift Jefus. many of you as have been baptized unto Chrift, have put on Chrift. 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Chrift Jefus. 29. And if ye be Chrift's, then are ye Abraham's feed, and heirs according to the promise.

we are no are all the

27. For as

HE Apostle having, in the forego

TH

ing verses, given a fair and distinct ftate of that divine conftitution which commonly goes under the name of the co

venant of grace, as prior to, and independent on, the law of Mofes, and entirely different in its nature and tendency from that and all other laws which have been fet up for answering the ends of it, to give a right and title to eternal life, and the full poffeffion of it in due time; and, at the fame time, fhewn it to be fo perfect, that it neither needed, nor could admit of any fupplement or affistance whatsoever; and as he was perfect master of his fubject, and had the whole fyftem before him, he could eafily foresee every difficulty, and every exception that could be made. There was one very obvious one: If the system of grace, as it was laid in Chrift, and the grant and deed of gift made to him, was fo complete, to what purpose was the law given? This he anfwers very diftinctly, and particularly; and thence takes occafion to give us a view of the Jewish and Gentile churches, which contributes greatly to the design of his writing, which was, to establish the Galatians in the belief of the truth as it is in Jefus, and caution them against the Judaizing zealots, who were labouring with all the art and cunning they were

masters

masters of, to bring them to fubmit to the law of Mofes.

Before we enter upon this part of the Apoftle's difcourfe, it will be of fome use to make a remark or two on the iffue the Apostle brings the ftate he had given of what he calls San to. In the preceding difcourfe, I obferved how earnestly numbers of commentators contend for the covenant-sense of that word, and that it never carries any other fenfe in the New Testament; nay, and that this is the true and genuine fenfe of the word. I forgot to take notice of their great argument, taken from the Jewish covenant, which, they fay, none can deny was evidently fuch; and yet, where-ever it is spoken of, it is called dixn. What occurs to me, on the beft judgement I can make of that tranfaction, is, that it was no covenant at all, but fulfilling the promise made to Abraham, of giving Canaan to them for a poffeffion, and a very wife fyftem of laws given them, founded in that free gift, and therefore is truly and properly called a grant or deed of gift. And the law given in confequence of their poffeffion, keeps its own name in the New as well as the Old Teftament

Teftament. But the most bulky and dif tinguishing part even of that law, the order of the tabernacle, and temple-worship, was no other than a fenfible exhibition of the bleffing of Abraham, even that capital bleffing, the grant and promife of eternal life, in Chrift the promised feed, which was the very spirit of that law. This was the order which the great creator established from the time that fin entered the world; and men were forced to fee, that they must either live by the mere grace and free favour of their creator, or perifh; and to this all fubfequent divine interpofals, the Mofaic efpecially, were fubfervient.

As by this conftitution and order all the grace ever God defigned for mankind, and particularly what comprehends all they are capable of receiving, and all they can ever have any need of, viz, the gift of eternal life, is lodged, treasured up, in Jefus Chrift, and conveyed by him to them. The light in which the Apostle fets this conveyance in Heb. ix. 15. et feqq. has induced many of the bef interpreters to pitch upon a teftamentary difpofition, as the only true meaning of the word conftantly ufed throughout the VOL. III. G g New

New Teftament to exprefs this conveyance. ` It is certainly next to impoffible for an attentive reader to avoid believing, that he who wrote thefe words took it in this view. Our Lord, in his farewell-fpeech to his difciples, recorded by the Apostle John, chap. xiv. xv. & xvi. fpeaks fo much through the whole fermon, and particularly chap. xiv. 27. in the strain of one ordering legacies to the friends he is leaving, as naturally leads one into that notion: and when one confiders the nature and design of the death he was going to fuffer, that it was a facrifice for their fin, a ransom for their lives, the price of their redemption from the curfe of the law, the bondage of fin, and death itfelf, and the only mean by which the bleffing could be conveyed; it must seem very odd to a man of plain understanding, what fhould make men of fenfe and learning fo averfe to the most endearing views of our God and Saviour. I will not take upon me to fay, but it is hard to avoid a fufpicion of fomething of the fame fpirit with that which did fo much mifchief in the Apostles days, viz. a prepofterous zeal for law and moral government; which none who know what fin is, durft think

of