Gal. iii. 8, 9. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
THE point which St. Paul above all things labours to establish, especially in his Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, is the doctrine of justification by- faith alone. The Jews universally were adverse to this doctrine, because it derogated, as they thought, from the honour of their law. And the Gentiles also were hostile to it, because it cut off from them all occasion of boasting in themselves. But the more the unbelieving world set themselves against it, the more this holy Apostle strove to place it beyond all contradiction or doubt. And well he might, since on the reception or rejection of it depends the ever- lasting salvation of every child of man. Let it not therefore be deemed superfluous, if on a point of such infinite importance we follow him, and bring it before you in a variety of views. If we have already received it, we still need to be confirmed in it from time to time, lest by any means we be drawn aside from it. There is something " bewitching" in the idea of meriting salvation at the hands of God ; and we are but too apt to listen to any statement which shall so flatter the pride of our hearts. Many con- verts belonging to the Churches of Galatia, after having been for a time established in the truth, were at last turned aside from it ; and drew from the Apostle this spirited remonstrance ; " O foolish Ga- latians, who hath bewitched you?" He appeals to them, that the miracles which he had wrought among them, as also the miraculous powers which they had received through his instrumentality, were all in con- firmation of this doctrine; by which, in fact, Abraham himself had been saved ; and by which alone they could ever be partakers of Abraham's felicity. This, he tells them, was the unvaried testimony of Scrip- ture ; and it had been declared two thousand years before to Abraham, in those most memorable words, " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
In discoursing on these words, we will shew,
I. What was that Gospel which the Scripture preached to Abraham —
VOL. xvir. F