Ver. 2. keep your eyes open upon (_blepete_), +the "dogs,"+ the men
who would _excommunicate_ all who hold not with their half-Christian
Pharisaism and its legal burthens, but who are themselves thus
self-excluded from the covenant blessing. +Beware of the evil
workmen+, the teachers whose watchword is "works, works, works," a
weary round of observances and would-be merits, but who are sorry
_work-men_ indeed, spoiling the whole structure of "Heaven's easy,
artless, unencumber'd plan." +Beware of the concision+, the apostles
of a mere physical wounding, which, as enjoined according to their
principles, is nothing better than a mutilation (_katatome_), a parody
of what circumcision was meant to be, as the sacrament of a preparatory
dispensation now terminated in its

Ver. 3. fulfilment. +For+ not they but +we are the circumcision+, the
true Israel of the true covenant, sealed and purified by our God; +we
who by God's Spirit worship+,[4] doing priestly service in a spiritual
temple[5] in a life, love, and power, which is ours by the presence in
us of the Holy Ghost, the promise of the Father; +and who exult+, not
in tribal, national, ceremonial prerogatives, but +in Christ Jesus+,
our refuge and our crown, our righteousness and glory, with an
exultation infinitely warmer than the legalist's can be, and meanwhile
pure, for its source is altogether not ourselves; +and who+, in Him,
+not in the flesh+,[6] not in self and its workings, +are confident+
(for confident we are, but it is a "confidence in self-despair," the
confidence of those who have been driven by self-discovery to Christ
alone).[7] I speak with a general reference, of all true disciples;
but let me instance myself as a case peculiarly in point. I speak thus,

Ver. 4. +though having+ (_echon_), I, myself (_ego_), from _their_
view-point, +confidence even in flesh+. +Whoever else thinks of
confiding in flesh+, of building a legal standing-place on his
privilege and merit, +I+ may do so +more+ than he; for I have reached
the _ne plus ultra_ in that

Ver. 5. direction. +As for circumcision+,[8] I was an +eight-day+
child; no proselyte, operated upon in later life, but a son of the
Covenant; descended +from Israel's race+, one of the progeny of him who
was a prince with God (Gen. xxxii. 28); +of Benjamin's tribe+, the
tribe which gave the first God-chosen king to the nation, and which
remained "faithful among the faithless" to the house of David at a