GALATIANS, CHAP. I. V. 1, 2.

PAUL, an apostle, neither from men nor through a man, neither delegated from men, that is, owing deference to them as an apostle, liable to account with and bound to consult them in the exercise of the apostolical functions, nor appointed to his office through a man, through any human intervention, but appointed through the intervention of Jesus Christ, who in his state of glory cannot, with reference to the power of delegating an apostle, be classed with man; appointed too through God the Father, who raised Jesus Christ to that state of glory, who raised him from death, that is, took him up into heaven, thereby exalting him, with reference to the power of appointing or delega ting an apostle in heavenly matters, far above all other men. Paul thus deriving his authority.. primarily through God and Christ, and therefore responsible only to God and Christ, unites with all the brethren that are with him in greet

ings to the churches of Galatia. Grace be to· you as accepted members of Christ, or God's free pardon of your sins; and consequently peace, or your reconciliation with God. This grace and peace are from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for or.. respecting our sins. He gave himself, and the blessed dispensation of God, with reference to the sin of man, was consequent to his so giving himself.

By death he submitted to the sentence denounced against sin. But having no sin, and therefore not being liable to that sentence, he in fact gave up to death that which he did not owe, and paid a penalty he had not forfeited, becoming thereby a free and unspotted sacrifice, in an infinitely more perfect and acceptable sense, than any of those legal victims, by which the Jews vainly think to deprecate the wrath of God.

God rewarded him in the manner most gratifying to one who had lived only for the good of others. God could not accept his voluntary death as a debt, for Jesus had never sinned; but he does in effect accept it in our behalf, on our pledging ourselves to it by baptism or otherwise, in lieu of all the obligations and penalties to which the flesh is liable under the old dispensation. Thus in effect was Christ's death

the one only sacrifice, by which all the Jewish substitutions for personal fidelity are for ever abolished. Thus he died for our sins, thus the result of his death, through God's mercy, is, that he is set forth under the immediate sanction of God,—a sanction given by his open resurrection to life-his conduct or spirit, namely, the spirit of personal fidelity evinced by the testimony of his blood-set forth, I say, as the only rational sacrifice or atonement to the God of spirits, in order that we, by pledging ourselves to be as he was, may as often as we sincerely renew. that pledge, by whatever form or even without form, be pardoned our sins, or considered and treated as acquitted of them by our Father who is in heaven, without the works of the law, or compliance with the forms of justification prescribed by the law.

God was so entirely pleased with Jesus, that he loved him as his only begotten, as the only one who had rendered up to the common Father the free gift of a genuine filial heart; and God, to testify his favor for one whom he so loved, renewed in his person his everlasting promise to the spiritual seed of Abraham, to accept faithfulness of spirit from man in lieu of perfect and uniform righteousness. He openly invested Jesus, and in him all the faithful, with the inheritance of the eternal kingdom, an in

heritance standing on the promise given by God immediately to Abraham and his seed, and unencumbered by the limitations and injunctions of that law, which was given and administered, not immediately like the promise from God to Abraham, but mediately through Moses and the priests four hundred years after.

This grace of pardon, and this peace of reconciliation be upon you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who thus died for, or concerning our sins, to take us out of this existing evil age, to save us from the condemnation under which this existing evil age of the Judaical dispensation lies, a gracious result, agreeable to the will of God, being the effect of his merciful application in our favor of Christ's unmerited death, his merciful application of that death to our reconciliation without the works of the law, to the entire dissolution of the Jewish exclusive system, or rather to the enlargement of it, for the admission of all nations to its privileges, a gracious result accordant with the will of our God and Father. To.. whom be glory for ever and ever, amen.

I am surprised that ye are so quickly turned .. away from him who called you to this grace of Christ, who first called your attention to this dispensation of the uncircumcision, this message of God by Christ of a free remission of