demned in the gospel, every explication of the doctrine of justification which warrants such hopes, I repeat it, ought to rejected, not only as unscriptural, but as dangerous in the highest degree.

CONCLUSION.

Thus have I endeavoured to shew, that the belief of the doctrines of revelation, is not necessary to the justification of those who are destitute of revelation: and that neither the belief of any particular doctrine, such as, that Jesus is Christ the Son of God, nor of any determinate number of doctrines, such as those contained in creeds and confessions, is necessary to the justification of all who enjoy revelation; because all have not an equal opportunity of knowing, nor an equal capacity to comprehend these doctrines: But that justifying faith consists in one's believing such doctrines of religion as God hath given him an opportunity and a capacity of knowing; and in his being at pains to acquire such a knowledge of these doctrines as his talents and opportunities enable him to acquire; whether he hath nothing but his own reason and conscience to direct him, or hath these faculties aided by an external revelation: Consists also in habitually recollecting these doctrines, so as to be influenced by them, not to a single act of obedience only, but to an habitual compliance with the will of God, as far as he knows it. This idea of justifying faith, I have been at pains to explain and establish by the example of Abraham's justification, because it accords perfectly with all the things said of justifying faith in the scriptures, and is what men in every age and nation may acquire with those assistances which God grants to the sincere; and because it is such a faith as qualifies men for heaven, and which, according to the tenor of the new covenant made after the fall with Adam and all his posterity, will be accounted to them for righteousness through the merits of Christ.-I have likewise shewed, that the inspired writers have ascribed men's justification to good works, as expressly as to faith; not however as if either had any meritorious influence in procuring justification, but as conditions equally required by God, and equally necessary to render men capable of eternal life, and so inseparably connected, that it is impossible for the one to exist without the other.Farther, I have proved, that the common opinion concerning the justification of believers in the present life, from which so many

dangerous consequences have been deduced, is founded in a misunderstanding of the scripture phraseology, and is not agreeable either to reason or experience: not to reason; for how can a man be justified till his trial is finished, and there is an opportunity of judging of his whole conduct? nor to experience; for where is the believer, who in the present life is freed from any of the temporal penal consequences of sin, and is put in possession of the reward which God hath promised to bestow on them whom he accepteth as righteous? The judgment and acquittal of believers, will not happen till Christ returns to judge the world; at which period believers of all ages and nations being raised from the dead, will, by Christ's sentence as judge, be freed for ever from misery and death, and be put in possession of eternal life.

To conclude, I have thus largely treated of justification by faith, not only because it hath been the subject of much controversy in modern times, but because wrong notions concerning that important article of Christianity, have a tendency to weaken the obligations of morality: Whereas, right conceptions concerning it, afford the strongest motives to an holy life, throw a great light on the revelations of God, and shew the method of salvation discovered in these revelations, to be consonant to the best ideas men can form of the character of God as the righteous Governor of the universe.

10

PREFACE

ΤΟ

THE GALATIANS.

THE

HE Galatians were the descendants of those Gauls, who finding their own country too strait for them, left it after the death of Alexander the Great, in quest of new settlements. These emigrants, on leaving their own country, proceeded eastward along the Danube, till they came to where the Save joins that river. Then dividing themselves into three bodies under the conduct of different leaders, one of these bodies entered Pannonia, another marched into Thrace, and a third into Illyricum and Macedonia. The party which marched into Thrace, passed over the Bosphorus into the lesser Asia, and hiring themselves to Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, assisted him to subdue his brother Zipetes, with whom he was at war; and in reward for that service, they received from him a country in the middle of the lesser Asia, which from them was afterwards called Gallogracia, or Galatia.

The inland situation of Galatia preventing its inhabitants from having much intercourse with more civilized nations, the Gauls settled in that country continued long a rude and illiterate people. Yet they wanted neither the inclination, nor the capacity to receive instruction. For when Paul came among them, and preached to them, they were so ravished with the doctrines of the gospel, that they thought themselves the happiest of mortals; and were so strongly impressed with a sense of the obligation they lay under to the apostle for having enlightened them with respect to religion, that they thought they could never repay it, Gal. iv. 15. In short, his preaching and miracles had such an effect on the Galatians, that great numbers of them renouncing heathenism and embracing the gospel, they formed many separate Christian churches, called in the inscription of the apostle's letter to them, The churches of Galatia.

How little intercourse the Galatians had with the neighbouring nations, may be known from this, that at the time St. Paul preached the gospel to them, and for many ages afterwards, they continued to speak the language of the country from whence they came. So Jerome, who lived more than 600 years after that people settled themselves in Asia, informs us. For he tells us, that in his time, the language of the Galatians was the same with that which he had heard spoken when he was at Treves. See Rollin's Ant. Hist. B. xvi. Sect. 5.

SECTION I.

Of the Time when, and of the Person by whom the Galatians were converted to the Christian Faith.

Luke, in his history of the Acts of the Apostles, hath not told us directly at what time, nor by whom the Galatians were converted. But he hath mentioned Paul's journey into Phrygia and Galatia, for the purpose of confirming the churches, chap. xvi. 5, 6. And from what he tells us, Paul said to Barnabas, when he proposed that journey to him, we learn, that he and Barnabas had formerly preached the gospel in the cities of Phrygia and Galatia. Acts xv. 36. Let us go again and visit our brethren, in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.-Acts xvi. 4. And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. 5. And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily. 6. Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia, and the region of Galatia, &c.-It is true, in the history which Luke hath given, Acts. xiv. of the journey we allude to, which Paul and Barnabas made into the countries of the Lesser Asia, for the purpose of preaching to the Gentiles, it is not said expressly that they went into Phrygia and Galatia: But he hath mentioned particulars, from which it may be gathered, that in the course of that journey they preached in both of these countries. For example, having given an account of their being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, and mentioned the countries through which they passed, Acts xiii. 4, 5, 6. 13, 14. 51. the historian, in the beginning of chap. xiv. relates what happened to them in Iconium, a city of Lycaonia; then adds, ver. 5. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews, with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them, 6. They

were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about. 7. And there they preached the gospel.-What the region was which lay round about the cities of Lycaonia, we learn from Pliny, lib. v. c. 27. who speaks of a part of Lycaonia as bordering on Galatia, and says it contained fourteen cities, of which Iconium was the most famous. Farther, Strabo, in a passage quoted by Cellarius, Geog. vol. ii. p. 201. speaks of a part of Lycaonia, which bordered on Phrygia. Wherefore, since Galatia and Phrygia lay contiguous to Lycaonia, they probablywere the region round about Lycaonia, into which Paul and Barnabas went and preached, after leaving Lycaonia, and where they taught many, before they returned to Lystria; as mentioned, ver. 21.-These facts and circumstances joined make it more than probable, that when Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, he meant, among the rest, the cities of Phrygia and Galatia.

However, if I Judge rightly, even this was not the first time Paul preached in Galatia. For his first preaching in that country, is thus distinguished by himself: Gal. iv. 13. Ye know indeed, that in weakness of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you at first. 14. Yet my temptation which was in my flesh, ye did not despise, neither did ye reject me. Now if this weakness of the flesh, which he calls a temptation in his flesh, was, as is generally supposed, some visble bodily weakness occasioned by his rapture into the third heaven, his first preaching in Galatia probably happened soon after his rapture, and before Barnabas brought him from Tarsus to Antioch, as mentioned Acts xi. 25, 26. consequently before the church in that city, separated him and Barnabas to go and preach to the Gentiles, as related Acts xiii. 1, 2, 3. This appears likewise from those passages in the epistle to the Galatians, in which Paul insinuates that he was the person who had first called them to the knowledge and belief of the gospel, Gal. i. 6. 11. iii. 5. iv. 11, 13. 19. v. 8. For if Paul was the person who first called the Galatians, it must have happened before he and Barnabas went from Antioch, by the appointment of the Holy Ghost, to preach to the Gentiles. The reason is plain: If the Galatians were first called to the knowledge of the gospel, when Paul and Barnabas preached in those parts of Galatia, which lay round about Lycaonia, Paul could not with truth have called himself their spiritual father, seeing Barnabas, on that occasion, was equally active with him in preaching to the Galatians; and no doubt converted some of them.