tle was combating with so much force was not that a pure and holy life was of little or no account with God, but that, in order to produce such a life, a system of faith, a system adapted to the heart and hope and love of man, and not merely a legal technical system, appealing chiefly to the conscience, was needed, and was provided in Christianity. It was not because they were Jews, but because they were men, that the converts of Paul could hope for the benefits of the new system. It was not by the care and diligence they took in observing law, but the faith they reposed in Christ, which would enable them to make rapid advancement in Christianity. The great work they first had to do was the work of faith, and the chief law they were to observe was the law of faith, for faith is a work and is a law.

29, 30. The sum of these verses is simply, that God is the God of the whole family of mankind, and not of one branch of it only, and that he is just as ready to accept to the system, whose privileges are secured by faith, the Gentile as the Jew, or, to use the abstract terms, the uncircumcision as the circumcision. By faith and through faith mean the same.

31. The conclusion is, that the Jews, so far from objecting to this view, should accept it as the real method of fulfilling and establishing

the Law. For the Law was not final and perfect, but introductory and prospective. Jesus came, as he said, not to destroy, but to fulfil it. Matt. v. 17. He, therefore, who demonstrated the end at which the Law itself aimed, was the friend, and not the enemy of the Law. Paul, therefore, instead of being an iconoclast of what his nation most reverence, proves himself to be still a Hebrew of the Hebrews, by leading them on from law to faith, from Moses to Christ, from the rudimental beginning to the glorious consummation and capital of the Divine dispensations.

CHAPTER IV.

As the Apostle was writing to Jews principally,—and though in name an Epistle to the Romans, this is really an Epistle to the Hebrews,- he cites in this stage of his argument the eminent instance of Abraham. At first sight it would appear to be one not applicable, or, if applicable, not favorable to his cause. But under his discriminating zeal it becomes a powerful weapon of defence, and carries conviction to one taking a Jewish point of departure.

1. This verse, like the beginning of chap. iii., contains the question of a Jewish opponent. He there took up the general case of the chosen people, but here the particular case

2 the flesh hath found?

of the patriarch Abraham. Owing to a mistranslation, the precise point of the question is lost. It is not what Abraham hath found, but what he hath found or obtained as it respects the flesh, i. e. circumcision. A better rendering would be: What shall we say, then, that Abraham, our father, hath obtained as it respects the flesh.

But

2, 3. The Apostle replies. the particle for implies that something was understood, as much as to say, There is no ground for boasting, "for if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to boast, but not as it respects God." As uniformity of rendering is very desirable, the term which, in chap. iii. 27, is translated "boasting," should be so given here, instead of "glory." In the last clause the Apostle denies the proposition so far as God, the standard, is concerned; though, so far as man was concerned, Abraham might be thought to have ground of boasting. The Apostle would show that their much-honored ancestor was himself originally in the precise category of the Gentiles now; and that he was admitted to the distinguished privileges of a divine revelation on the basis of faith, and not on works or obedience to law, except by the law and work of faith, the very process through which both Jews and Gentiles were received to the Christian fellowship. Of course nothing that any mortal could do would merit from God any, even the least, of his favors, whether temporal or spiritual. All is of pure love and grace, in this life and in the life to come. When we speak of being saved by our own merits, if any do, we use words of foolishness. We are saved, if saved at all, by the free, unpurchased mercy of God. But then this very mercy

has established certain conditions which must be fulfilled on our part. The first of these is faith, the second obedience. They are not the cause, but the condition, of salvation. They were so in the case of Abraham, of the Jews, and of the Gentiles. One law reigns over all. In beating down, therefore, the exclusive pretensions of the Jews, Paul does not disparage works in their place and for their proper use, his Epistles are eloquent vindications of good works, but he would elevate the spirit of religion above its letter, moral principle over legal conformity, and the exercise of the religious affections and aspirations over the mere activity of conscience in yielding submission to a law. Truly speaking, faith itself is a work, and the great work; for when it is accomplished, in spirit and in truth, all other works follow as naturally as the day the night. Mark the words of Jesus, John vi. 29, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." If the question be whether justification-i. e. to be put in the way of being, and of being accounted, just or righteous, and so ultimately of salvation - be meritorious or gratuitous, the answer must be, gratuitous. But if the question be- - and here is the real hinge between the Calvinist and the Arminian - whether it be conditional or unconditional, we decide at once that it is conditional. Abraham fulfilled that condition, which was faith. That was his duty and his work, and he did it; and obeying that law of faith, it was counted to him for righteousness, for the simple and sufficient reason that it was righteousness. The only true God would only count as righteousness what was so in reality, not proceeding upon those subterfuges and

make-believes in which men entangle and sophisticate themselves. Faith is the living germ of all righteousness, out of which all the graces and virtues bloom and bear fruit.—The Scripture. Gen. xv. 6.

4, 5. Abraham's case is here generalized into a universal proposition. God accepts no man because he is perfectly righteous, because no man is so; but he justifies and puts in the way of righteousness and perfect goodness him who is endued with this vital germ of faith. These are no arbitrary and artificial relations of the parties, but natural, original, and fundamental. Peter declared it when he said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." And he who has faith, which is faith, possesses the possibilities and probabilities of all righteousness, however he may err, or even commit black and heinous sins, as did Abraham, David, and Peter. What is all human virtue by the side of Christ, and before the glory of God, but a marred and stained work? Saints are called saints by courtesy, and in a figure of speech; but "there is none good but One, that is, God." If the religious privileges accorded to Abraham and to the Jews had been given because they had fulfilled the whole duty of man, it might have been reckoned as the payment of a debt, and not the granting of a favor. But they could plead no claim on the score of merit. Their

only and sufficient fitness for the blessing was that they believed in God earnestly and sincerely, and that trust, being the elementary principle and representative of all the noble results which would follow, procured, not as cause, but as condition, for very imperfect and even sinful men, by anticipation, the promises of God. It may interest English readers to know that counted in the 3d verse and 5th, reckoned in the 4th, and imputeth in the 6th, are the same word in the original. Uniformity of rendering would be a decided improvement in our present version.

6-8. To substantiate his argumentum ad hominem, his special appeal to the Jews, he adds the other greatest name of Hebrew history, David. Ps. xxxii. 1, 2. The Psalmist is understood to refer to himself. Here also the vital point is expressed in the last clause of Ps. xxxii. 2, “and in whose spirit there is no guile.” Though he had deeply sinned, yet, owing to this faith in God, he did not give up in despair, but still prayed for pardon, still rose and struggled on, and fought the good fight of faith. Such a man is blest, not because he is perfect, not because he is not very sinful, but because he has a working faith, a guileless, honest purpose; and though overtaken by temptation, he rallies again and again, "never says die," to use a common saying, but "believeth all things, hopeth all things." But if we were to take the passage to prove, what some seem anxious to use it for, that God treats men with

:

the Gentile claim to the rights and privileges of the Gospel, unless they first submitted to the Jewish ritual. These were Scripture, circumcision, and Law. The first the Apostle had disposed of in ver. 2-8 by reference both to Abraham and David. The second, circumcision, had been despatched in ver. 9-12. The third, Law, so far as it related to Abraham, he enters upon now. Without the formality of heads and topics, the reasonings of Paul will always be found to have a method. For the promise, &c. The remarkable fact is cited, that the promise to Abraham, on which the Jews plumed themselves so highly, was not given to Abraham when he was under the Law system, but under the faith system; and the Apostle would infer, therefore, that it was not restricted to his seed under the Law merely, but extends to his seed under faith, and was equally open to Jew and Gentile, provided they fulfilled the condition he did, of believing. So far from being a subject of the Law, Abraham lived in the enjoyment of the distinguished blessings and promises granted to his faith more than four hundred years before the Law was given.-Heir of the world. Gen. xv. 5, xvii. 5, are referred to, not literally, but freely.

14. If to be under the Law, as the Jews now claim, is requisite to this heirship, then the promise to Abraham and his posterity is rendered null, for he was under faith, and not under the Law. He thus convinces the Jews that, if they made

their privileges depend on Law, and not on faith, they overturned their own system. To maintain faith was as necessary for them as for the Gentiles.

15. The nature of law is rigid. It is more a terror to evil-doers than a praise to them that do well. Its office is not consolation, but condemnation. Its spirit is rebuke of evil, indignation at wrong; it "worketh wrath," displeasure. It reveals what transgression is, but it cannot of itself give the power of obedience and performance; for that power we must look to higher principles and motives. Chap. vii. 7–13.

16. Instead of shaking, as he might seem to do, the structure of Judaism, by this train of argument, he put it upon a firmer foundation. He removed it from the uncertain ground of obedience, capricious and varying in each individual example, and established it upon the broad and eternal basis of the free grace and mercy of God. He made it sure to the branch of the law, and also to the branch of faith. McKnight remarks, that "in this passage, by the most just reasoning, the Apostle hath overthrown the narrow notion of bigots, who confine the mercy of God within the pale of this or that church, and by a noble liberality of sentiment he hath declared that all who imitate that faith and piety which Abraham exercised, while uncircumcised, shall, like him, obtain the inheritance through the free mercy of God by Jesus Christ."