4. " For instruction in righteousness" —
[To point out all the offices of love would be tedious. Let us contemplate it as set forth by the Apostle in 1 Cor. xiii. ;
and, not content with any measure that we have
attained, let us abound in it more and more0.]
k Gal. v. 2—6. « Phil. iii. 9. m 1 Cor. xiii. 13.
n Just as fruit does not make a tree good, but only manifests it to be so.
0 If this were the subject of a Charity Sermon, it would be proper to open here the nature, excellence, and importance of the particular institution which was to be benefited ; and then to exhort the bene- volent in general, and believers in particular, to give it their liberal support.
Gal. v. 11. Then is the offence of the cross ceased.
THE Gospel, in the first ages, was an object of hatred and persecution both amongst Jews and Gen- tiles : to the Jews it was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness3:" and it was the one con- stant labour of them both to corrupt it ; the one by their traditions ; the other by that which was falsely called philosophy. Hence, whilst those opposite parties felt the utmost contempt for each other, they united their efforts against Christianity; as Herod and Pontius Pilate had done for the destruction of its Founder.
In the passage before us, St. Paul is guarding his converts against the attempts of the Judaizing teachers ; who sought to bring back their brethren to a dependence on the law, and who laboured even to subject the Gentile converts also to an observance of the Mosaic ritual. Circumcision, in particular, was that which these teachers insisted on as ordained of God and as of perpetual obligation. St. Paul tells the Galatians, that the whole of the Mosaic ritual was abrogated ; and that they must never suffer any one to bring them into subjection to itb. If he would have consented that the Jews should blend the Law with the Gospel, they would have been well pleased with him and with his doctrines too : " If," says he, " I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer per- secution ? for then is the offence of the cross ceased."
From these words I will endeavour to shew, I. Whence it is that the doctrine of the cross gives offence —
The doctrine of the cross is simply that declaration, that Christ died upon the cross for our redemption, and that through his obedience unto death we must obtain favour with God —
Now this doctrine uniformly gives offence to those
a 1 Cor. i. 23. b vcr. 1.