which you received from me be to no purpose? Shall your falling away now destroy the glory of your obedience in the presence of God?" In short, by despising the pure doctrine which they had embraced, they throw away, of their own accord, the blessedness which they had obtained, and draw down upon themselves the destruction in which their unhappy career must terminate. -For I bear you record. It is not enough that pastors be respected, if they are not also loved; for both are necessary to make the doctrine they preach be fully relished, and both, the apostle declares, had existed among the Galatians. He had already spoken of their respect for him, and he now speaks of their love. To be willing to pluck out their own eyes, if it had been necessary, was an evidence of very extraordinary love, stronger than the willingness to part with life.

16. Am I therefore become your enemy? He now returns to speak about himself. It was entirely their own fault, he says, that they had changed their minds. Though it is a common remark, that truth begets hatred, yet, except through the malice and wickedness of those who refuse to hear it, truth is never hateful. While he vindicates himself from any blame in the unhappy difference between them, he glances slightly at their ingratitude. Yet still his advice is friendly, not to reject on rash or light grounds, the apostleship of one whom they had formerly considered to be worthy of their warmest love. What can be more unbecoming than that the hatred of truth should change enemies into friends? His aim then is, not so much to upbraid, as to move them to repentance.

17. They zealously affect you. He comes at length to the false apostles, and does more by silence to make them odious, than if he had given their names; for we usually abstain from naming those whose very names produce in us dislike and aversion. He mentions the immoderate ambition of those men, and warns the Galatians not to be led astray by their appearance of zeal. The comparison is borrowed from honourable love, as contrasted with those professions of regard which arise

from unhallowed desires. "Zealous affection," on the part of the false apostles, ought not to impose upon them, for it proceeded not from right zeal, but from an improper desire of obtaining reputation,-a desire most unlike that holy jealousy of which Paul speaks to the Corinthians. "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 1

To expose still more fully their base arts, he corrects his language. Yea, they would exclude you. They not only endeavour to gain your affections, but as they cannot obtain possession of you by any other means, they endeavour to kindle strife between us. When you have been thrown as it were destitute, they expect that you will yield yourselves up to them; for they perceive that, so long as there shall be maintained between us a religious harmony, they can have no influence. This stratagem is frequently resorted to by all the ministers of Satan. By producing in the people a dislike of their pastor, they hope afterwards to draw them to themselves; and having disposed of the rival, to obtain quiet possession. A careful and judicious examination of their conduct will discover that in this way they always begin.

18. But it is good to be zealously affected. It is hard to say whether this refers to himself or to the Galatians. Good ministers are exhorted to cherish holy jealousy in watching over the churches, "that they may present them as a chaste virgin to Christ.” 2 If it refers to Paul, the meaning will be: I too possess a strong affection for you, but with a totally different design: and I do so as much when I am absent as when I am present, because I do not seek my own advantage. But I am rather inclined to view it as referring to the Galatians, though in this case it will admit of more than one in

1

2 Cor. xi, 2, 3.

2

2 Cor. xi. 2.

terpretation. It may mean: They indeed attempt to withdraw your affections from me, that when you are thrown destitute, you may remove to them; but do you, who loved me while I was present, continue to cherish the same regard for me when I am absent. But a more correct explanation is suggested by the opposite senses which the word1 bears. As, in the former verse, he had used the word affect in a bad sense, denoting an improper way of accomplishing an object, so here he uses it in a good sense, denoting a zealous imitation of the good qualities of another. Having condemned false zeal, he now exhorts the Galatians to engage in a different sort of competition, and that, too, while he was absent.

19. My little children. The word children is still softer and more affectionate than brethren; 2 and the diminutive, little children, is an expression, not of contempt, but of endearment, though, at the same time, it suggests the tender years of those who ought now to have arrived at full age. 3 The style is abrupt, which is usually the case with highly pathetic passages. Strong feeling, from the difficulty of finding adequate expression, breaks off our words when half uttered, while the powerful emotion chokes the utterance.

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Of whom I travail in birth again. This phrase is added, to convey still more fully his vehement affection, which endured, on their account, the throes and pangs of a mother. It denotes likewise his anxiety; for a woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." 4 Until Christ be formed in you. That Christ should be formed in us is the same thing with our being formed in Christ; for we are born so as to become new creatures in him, and he, on the other hand, is born in us, so that we live his life. Since the true image of Christ, through the superstitions introduced by the false apostles, had been defaced, Paul

1

· ζηλοῦσθαι.

9 Ver. 12.

8 Heb. v. 12.

John xvi. 25.

1

labours to restore that image in all its perfection and brightness. This is done by the ministers of the Gospel, when they give "milk to babes, and strong meat to them that are of full age ;" and, in short, ought to be their employment during the whole course of their preaching. But Paul here compares himself to a woman in labour, because the Galatians were not yet completely born.

This is a remarkable passage for illustrating the efficacy of the Christian ministry. True, we are "born of God;"2 but because he employs a minister and preaching as his instruments for that purpose, he is pleased to ascribe to them that work which himself performs, through the power of his Spirit, in co-operation with the labours of man. Let us always attend to this distinction, that, when a minister is contrasted with God, he is nothing, and can do nothing, and is utterly useless; but because the Holy Spirit works efficaciously by means of him, he comes to be regarded and praised as an agent. Still, it is not what he can do in himself, or apart from God, but what God does by him, that is there described. If ministers wish to do any thing, let them labour to form Christ, not to form themselves, in their hearers. The writer is now so oppressed with grief, that he almost faints from exhaustion without completing his sentence.

20. I desire to be present with you now. This is a most serious expostulation, the complaint of a father so perplexed by the misconduct of his sons, that he looks around him for advice, and knows not to what hand to turn. He wishes to have an opportunity of personally addressing them, because we thus obtain a better idea of what is adapted to present circumstances; because, according as the bearer is affected, according as he is submissive or obstinate, we are enabled to regulate our discourse. But something more than this was meant by the desire to change the voice. He was prepared most cheerfully to assume a variety of forms, and even,

1 Heb. v. 13, 14.

21 John. iii. 9.

H

This

if the case required it, to frame a new language. is a course which pastors ought most carefully to follow. They must not be entirely guided by their own inclinations, or by the bent of their own genius, but must accommodate themselves, as far as the case will allow, to the capacity of the people,-with this reservation, however, that they are to proceed no farther than conscience shall dictate, and that no departure from integrity shall be made to gain the favour of the people.

21. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? 22. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. 23. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. 24. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. 25. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26. But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all.

21. Tell me. Having given exhortations adapted to touch the feelings, he follows up his former doctrine by an illustration of great beauty. Viewed simply as an argument, it would not be very powerful; but as a confirmation added to a most satisfactory chain of reasoning, it is not unworthy of attention. To be under the law, signifies here, to come under the yoke of the law, on the condition that God will act toward you according to the covenant of the law, and that you, in return, bind yourself to keep the law. In any other sense than this all believers are under the law; but the apostle treats, as we have already said, of the law with its appendages.

22. For it is written. No man who has a choice given him will be so mad as to despise freedom, and prefer slavery. But here the apostle teaches us, that