Gospel; which is not another Gospel: only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema.

In the next sentence the Apostle repeats his assertion that the Gospel which he preached was not after man; that he did not receive it from man, was not taught it by man, but that it came to him by the immediate revelation of Jesus Christ. Then he reminds them of his own vehement attachment to Jewish tradition, and tells them how God had freed him from his bondage by the revelation of His Son in him.

As for learning of the Twelve, after his conversion he had not gone to Jerusalem at all, but went to Arabia. And when he did go to Jerusalem he only stayed fifteen days, and saw only Peter and James. Nor was it till fourteen years after that he went to Jerusalem again, and then it was by the express direction of God. The result of the conference which he had there, was that the pillars of the Church added nothing to him, imposed no new restraints, but frankly recognized his mission to the Gentiles, as distinct from, and yet parallel to, their own mission to the Jews.

So much had been made of the paramount authority of Peter and James, that plain speaking was necessary, and accordingly S. Paul goes on to relate-what he would doubtless have rather consigned to oblivion-the inconsistency which Peter had displayed, which made it necessary to withstand him. When Peter came to Antioch he fully recognized the Gentile Christians as brothers in Christ, and mixed freely with them in private, as well as in public: but when certain came from James, Peter's

Jewish prejudices revived, and he withdrew from his former free intercourse, and stood aloof from the Gentile Christians, and by the overwhelming force of his character and authority induced Barnabas to do the same. Then publicly S. Paul withstood him, and rebuked his inconsistency and forgetfulness of the true principles of the common faith.

Ch. ii. 14: I said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, save through faith in Jesus Christ, even we (Jews as we are) believed on Christ Jesus, that we (no less than the Gentiles) might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law: because by the works of the Law shall no flesh (whether Jew or Gentile) be justified.

Then S. Paul adopts another argument. The gift of the Holy Spirit was the special characteristic of the Gospel, it was the crowning gift of the grace of God, it was what made their profession of Christ's religion a living power. Was then, he asks of them, this Divine gift given them by the Law or by the Gospel?

Ch. iii. 1: O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucified?

This only would I learn from you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh (i.e. by Circumcision)? .. Now that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident: for, the righteous shall live by faith; and the Law is not of faith; but He that doeth them shall live in them.

This is the great thesis that S. Paul works out, as we shall see afterwards, in the Epistle to the Romans.

Ch. iii. 23: But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the Law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. So that the Law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified [receive power to become righteous] by faith. But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ... and if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise.

Ch. iv. 1: But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed of the Father. So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, that He might redeem them which were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father." So that thou art no longer a bond-servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Ch. iv. 28-31: For we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise,... not children of a handmaid, but of the free-woman. With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.

You will remember that the Judaizing false teachers tried to make the Galatians believe that baptism only made them rudimentary Christians; and that if they would advance to the full manhood of Christianity, they must be circumcized, and brought under the Law. In the passage which we have just read, S. Paul turns the tables upon them. For men who had been baptized into Christ, and who had received His Spirit, to be circumcized

was to go backwards, not forwards; was to leave the completeness of spiritual privilege for a rudimentary condition; was to exchange liberty for servitude, the full free life of citizens in Christ's kingdom for the restrictions of a nursery and a school.

It was not by being children of Abraham after the flesh-whether by natural descent or by circumcision that they became heirs of the Promise, but by being made members of Christ and partakers of His Spirit, that Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father."

CHAPTER XX.

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

(continued.)

O one can read this Epistle without feeling that of all S. Paul's letters this is the most combative, the most controversial.

In dealing with the Judaizers at Corinth, the Apostle had contented himself with treating circumcision as a thing indifferent. He laid down in effect what was afterwards crystallized into a theological epigram: "In necessary things unity, in things doubtful liberty, in all things charity."

"Was any man called being circumcized? let him not become uncircumcized. Hath any been called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcized. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the Commandments of God."

But in dealing with the Galatians the Apostle goes much further. Circumstances alter cases, as we say. And the circumstances of the Galatians were totally different from anything that had obtained in Corinth,

In the case of the Galatian Christians, circumcision could no longer be considered a thing indifferent. For them, Gentiles by birth and education, Christians by profession, children of God by adoption and grace, for them to be circumcized was