to bring the Jewish nation, as a nation, to Christ, would there be in this, even when it is acknowledged that the Jewish nation rejected our Lord, anything but an instance of that perversity of man, by which the designs of God are often frustrated, and all the good and the mercy which his benevolence has lavished on man, have been rendered vain and void1? Would it have differed, except in degree, from any of the former rejections of God's gracious messages, on the part of his chosen people? when he called them, 'rising up early and sending his prophets to them?,' when the vineyard which he had stoned and planted and dressed, instead of grapes put forth only wild grapes? or would this saying of St Paul have been more "hard to be understood" than the memorable and melancholy exclamation of

1 The writer in the British Critic asks whether the Jews were more prepared in the days of our Saviour than in those of David? Now Christianity would have had to struggle in that case with a people not entirely free even from idolatrous practices and inclinations, and the circumstances of the world would have been far more unfavourable for the propagation of such a religion as Christianity, than in the season in which Christianity actually did appear. The advantages gained by its later appearance are set forth by many of our divines. An abstract of their arguments,

with full references to their works, will be found in the work of my brother, quoted above (Christianity always Progressive, Notes to Ch. 11. Note 1.), together with some able observations of his own.

2 Jerem. xxxv. 15.

our Lord, when he wept over Jerusalem? All that could be done for his vineyard had been done, and yet it did not produce the fruit which might have been expected from it! What would there be in this but that which man's own experience and his own heart confirm to him day by day, when he owns with shame and sorrow, that the benefits which the careful hand of Providence prepared for him have been lost to him by his own perverseness, that the things which might have been for his peace, yea, which the Almighty designed for his peace, have been cast away and rejected by him and are hid from him for ever? The offers of the Almighty to his people were always conditional; they were at liberty to accept or to reject them, but the blessing or the curse was always at hand to follow on their choice. But man's ungainly temper was not to spoil the purposes of the Most High; and if he delayed the coming of his Son into the world, until the state of the Jewish Church was such that a sufficient number ready to embrace the Gospel would be found to propagate it, even though the nation at large rejected it, where would be the impropriety of the Apostle's use of such an expression? To create any difficulty here from the Apostle's phrase would be to determine, that, because this is the only purpose it falls in with his argument to

mention, the Law has no other, or at least, no greater purposes; none that are to last as long as Christianity itself needs the evidence of prophecy, and its doctrines the illustrations, derived from the types of the Law. Even had the Apostle's words conveyed the meaning I have supposed, this interpretation would have pressed them unfairly, and turned a general illustration into a special assertion! But, to say the truth, it appears to me that the whole difficulty, which has here been raised, disappears when the real meaning of the Apostle's words is admitted, and the circumstances of the persons to whom they were addressed are taken into the account! He is addressing men, who having embraced the Gospel, thought it incomplete unless they received the Law also, and he therefore sets before them the proper uses of that Law, both to those who lived under it, and to those who received the dispensation to which it was only preliminary. He refers to the advantage which the sense of sin, awakened in man's heart by spiritual meditation on the former Law, brings to those Jews who with him embrace the Gospel of life, and seek their salvation from the sacrifice of Christ, by faith in his blood and obedience to his will, and not by compliance with the ceremonial commands of the Levitical ritual. He refers to the lesson which that ritual with its types and sacrifices

was capable of teaching to multitudes of pure spirits who lived under its guidance, and looked to the promises afar off, (though this is not here a part of the Apostle's arguments), and of teaching to those who saw and rejoiced in their completion! It is to those who had accepted the salvation offered in the name of Christ that the Apostle addresses these words', and teaches them how to use the Scriptures which were written for their learning; and any reference to a course of successive training appears quite forced. Indeed his reference to the Law is partly in disparagement of it, as compared with the Gospel. It was, he says, such a measure of grace as could then be bestowed on man before the fulness of time; it was not consistent with the purposes of God to bestow more. But to return now to that which was only given till better and brighter things were opened to the view of man, would be to

1 The phrase in the original would rather import, which hath been and is, our schoolmaster to lead us unto Christ. There are many modes in which the illustration of St Paul may be taken. It may signify that in all ages the Law gave that information on the nature of sin, which the state of the people allowed them to understand, just as a schoolmaster teaches a child; and also that to those, who, like St Paul, had lived under the Law for a time, and then saw the Gospel, it was a course of education, such as to fit them for receiving it. The subject is, however, put in a somewhat different and a very striking light by Luther in loc. other interpretations may be seen in Macknight and Pole's Synopsis.

:

seek a return from freedom to bondage, from the full light of matured age to the season of childhood, when we needed guardians and instructors. It would be to return from the full blaze of meridian day, to the dim and faint twilight that ushers in the dawn.

These two difficulties it has appeared to me proper to anticipate, and thus far, but thus far only, to consider. I could have wished to pursue the train of thought suggested by the Apostle's words, when he presses on the Galatians the improvement they ought to derive from the consideration of the years of old, but it is now time to close this portion of the subject before us. And can we better employ the moments that remain, than by calling to mind one of the analogies between our condition and that of those who lived under the old covenant, by remembering that we too look for a better country and another temple, not made with hands, of which the Church below is but a type! If the pure in spirit among the Israelites of old looked forward in faith to glorious forms, of which they saw but the faint approaching shadows, if their long line of sacrifices, while it bowed down the heart with the sense of sin, yet spoke of better things to come, and cheered the ear of faith, while it trained their hearts to hold communion with the Father of light,—we also, in this our imperfect state, are under the guidance and training of a Master, whose work within us

B