Those who are born of God, favor the thing which are of God.  Sin is odious in their view.  They long for freedom from it—­“Oh wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

The saints wish for heaven, not only that they may see “their father who is in heaven,” and the divine Redeemer, “who loved them and gave himself for them;” but because there “the spirits of the just are made perfect”—­because there they expect to be holy as God is holy—­ because there, to be “satisfied with God’s likeness, and rejoice always before him.”  May God give us this temper, and keep us to his kingdom, for his mercy’s sake in Christ.  Amen.

* * * * * *

SERMON XI.

General Character of Christians.

Galatians v. 24.

“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the Flesh, with the Affections and Lusts.”

St. Paul is supposed to have been the first herald of gospel grace to the Galatians; and they appear to have rejoiced at the glad tidings, and to have received the bearer with much respect.  But after his departure, certain judaizing teachers went among them, and labored but too successfully, to alienate their affections from him, and turn them form the simplicity of the gospel.

The malice and errors of those deceitful workers, and the mischief which they occasioned at Galatia, caused the writing of this epistle:  which, like the other writings of this apostle, reflects light on the gospel in general, while it served to correct the mistakes of those professors of Christianity, and guide their erring footsteps into the way of peace and truth.

It is not our design to enter into the controversy between this inspired teacher, and his enemies.  We are only concerned to understand him, and shall receive his instructions as communicated from above.  The primary design of this epistle was to refute those false teachers who urged circumcision, and the observance of sundry parts of the Levitical code, which had been abrogated by the gospel.  This appears to have been a leading error of those anarchists.  That the apostle did not lay the intolerable burdens of the Mosaic ritual, on the professors of Christianity, was made the ground of a charge against him.  St. Paul defended himself by evincing the errors of his opponents, shewing that Christians are made free from the ceremonial law; and that their justification before God is not in virtue of any obedience of their own, to either the ceremonial, or the moral law, but of grace through faith in Christ.

In the former part of the epistle, he shows the impossibility of justification in any other than the gospel way—­especially in that way, to which those false teachers directed—­shews that they subverted the gospel, and rendered Christ’s sufferings of no effect—­“By the works of the law, shall no flesh be justified—­If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” *