those who cleaved to the covenant of works, and those who should lay hold on the covenant of gx*ace. Hagar, a bond- woman, represented the legal covenant which should in due time be made on Mount Sinai ; as her son Ishmael did the persons who should adhere to it: whereas Sarah, the married wife, represented the covenant of grace which had already been made with Abraham ; and her son Isaac, the persons who should obtain an interest in that. Now, all persons, by nature, live under the covenant of works : but divine grace, where it operates, brings men under the covenant of grace : but all the former will be cast out from God ; and the latter only will be partakers of his inheritance : and this distinction, we are told, was intended to be marked in the foregoing- history. It may appear hard that such a distinction should ever be made : but made it shall be ; God having declared this to be his sovereign will, his irrevocable decree : " Cast out" the bond-woman and her son ; for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman11."
Shall it be said, that this is too figurative and too recondite to add any weight to the preceding argument? I answer: This very circumstance, of its being so figurative and so re- condite, gives it, in my mind, even greater weight than if it had been more plain and obvious ; because it shews the unspeak- able importance of that truth which it is brought to confirm. Had not the doctrine of justification by faith alone been of prime and indispensable necessity to every child of man, the Apostle would have been satisfied with establishing it by the train of argument which he has pursued : but, feeling that the rejection of it would prove fatal to the soul, he would omit nothing that could contribute to the enforcing of it on men's consciences, or the impressing of it on their minds.]
Aware, however, that, in the opinion of many, there are strong objections to this doctrine, I will proceed,
II. To vindicate it —
Against the very act itself, which is referred to in my text, we should have been rather disposed to object, if it had not been approved by God himself: we should have thought Abraham would have been better employed in pacifying the rage of Sarah, than in lending himself as an instrument to give it energy and effect. We should have thought it more worthy of him to use his influence for the purpose of allaying
n ver. 21—31.