umcision, they were equally obliged to keep
the whole law; and that they bound themselves to this by submitting to
be circumcised--that if they reverted to the law, and placed their
dependence on their obedience to it, they renounced the grace of
Christ, and would not be benefited by it.

"Behold, I Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised. Christ
shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that it is
circumcised, that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. Christ is
become of none effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the
law, ye are fallen from grace,"

While such was the state of those who followed the judaizing teachers,
those who retained the gospel as taught by the apostle, had another
hope--a hope which would not make ashamed--a hope in divine grace
through faith in Christ--"We through the spirit wait for the hope of
righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision
availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by
love."

Such is every Christian's hope before God. He "counts all things to be
loss and dung that he win Christ; but the righteousness which is of
God by faith."

But while St. Paul was exhibiting and urging these important truths,
on the wavering Galatians, he foresaw, that it would be objected, that
the scheme which he advanced, tended to licentiousness--that if men
might be saved by faith without the works of the law, they might
indulge themselves in sin--that this would render Christ the minister
of sin. The same objection appears to have been made at Rome, where a
faction existed similar to this at Galatia. This consequence the
apostle rejected with abhorrence. "Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid: Yea we establish the law."

The Levitical code included both the ceremonial and the moral law.
Though St. Paul declares justification unattainable by obedience to
either or to both, he did not set aside the moral law, as no longer
obligatory, as he did the ceremonial. This latter had answered the
ends of its appointment, and was abolished by fulfillment. It was only
a shadow of good things to come, and fled away before that of which it
was a shadow. Christ had therefore blotted it out and taken it away.
But the moral law was not done away. Christ hath fulfilled it for
those who believe on him; but it doth not therefore cease to be
obligatory upon them. It is of universal and eternal obligation. The
salvation of man