His object was to preclude the artifice of the Gnostics, that the Christ was not the man Jesus, but a God within him. In opposition to it, the Apostle holds forth, as the Christ, HIM whom all knew to be a mere man, and whom the impostors blasphemed and rejected, because he was no other than a man.

The preceding inquiry warrants us in concluding that the Gnostic system was introduced into all the churches founded by Paul; and that the melancholy success of its authors was the principal cause which called forth the letters of that apostle. These letters are then controversial; and the only way of ascertaining the meaning of the writer is to consider the sentiments of those false teachers, which he sought to set aside. The peculiarity of his language on many occasions is to be traced to that of his opponents; and as their terms are not expressly stated, the words and phrases used by Paul became often obscure. I will illustrate this position by an example. The impostors denied the lawfulness of marriage, and at Corinth they taught that young women ought to continue virgins. See 1 Cor. vii. 25. Their object doubtless was to institute a class of virgins sacred to Christ, similar to those of Vesta in the heathen temples. It is on this circumstance that the following words of the apostle are founded; "I feel a zeal of God (a holy or divine jealousy) towards you, as I have betrothed you to one husband, in order to present you a pure virgin to him, namely, to Christ." Which when developed means this, "The men, who seek to deceive you, are anxious to have among you virgins consecrated to Christ. Suffer not yourselves to become the dupes of their craft. No such institution is necessary. Cultivate moral purity in all your thoughts, words and actions; thus you will yourselves become virgins; and such virgins alone are to be consecrated to the Lord Jesus."

CHAPTER XI.

The writings of Paul perverted in support of Antichristian doctrines.

No writings have ever been more abused than those of the apostle Paul: they have been perverted to support doctrines which it was the sole object of the author to set aside. And this because the false teachers whom he had in view, have for ages been lost sight of. This is the case with regard to the doctrines of the divine nature of Christ, of justification by faith and not by good works, the effect of his death as an atonement for sin, of election and predestination, of original sin and the natural depravity of man, and of the Gospel being a mystery incomprehensible by human reason. All these have been maintained and attempted to be proved from passages in the epistles of Paul. Let us take a short view of some of these questions.

I. "The doctrine," says Mosheim in his Commentaries, vol. i. p. 297, "taught by the apostles was, that our hope of obtaining pardon and salvation ought to centre in Christ, and his merits: these Jewish teachers, on the contrary, made it their business to extol the efficacy and saving power of works agreeable to the law, and to inculcate on men's minds, that such as had led a life of righteousness and holiness, might justly expect to receive eternal happiness from God as their due. To this doctrine, inasmuch as it went materially to lessen the dignity and importance of our blessed Saviour's character, and was founded on a false estimate of the strength of human nature, as well as repugnant to the voice and authority of the moral law itself, St. Paul opposed the most unremitting and particular re

sistance." I quote these words of Mosheim, because he was a very learned and candid man: yet his statement is quite the reverse of the truth, though some orthodox divines have gone much further, and represent the moral virtues, so far from being the means of acceptance with God, as being but splendid vices. The true state of the dispute between the false teachers and the apostle, was precisely the following: The former maintained that the works of the law were the only ground of confidence towards God; the latter, that faith in Christ laid this foundation. Now by the works of the law, the impostors meant the rites of the law, such as circumcision and other ordinances of the Levitical code; nor did these rites by any means imply the great duties of piety and morality. For this distinction the evidence is complete. The champions for the works of the law, as the means of justification, so far from being holy and devout, denied and reviled the God of their fathers: so far from being good and just, they were immoral in the extreme, and gloried in the most shameful actions. On the other hand, by faith, the apostle meant repentance and reformation through faith in Christ. With him faith is not the mere belief of certain mysteries incomprehensible by reason, but an influential principle of action, striking its root in the heart, and producing in the conduct the fruits of righteousness. And when men began to go to the opposite extreme, and to consider faith as a virtue in itself, the very apostle who pleaded for faith, in opposition to the ceremonial law, was the first to say, 66 Though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing."

In the writings of Paul we perceive with the greatest clearness and certainty, the true nature of those works in which the false teachers made their own righteousness to consist, and which they pleaded as the ground of confidence towards God. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul thus writes: "Beware of those dogs; be

ware of their wicked practices; beware of their biting you; for we are the true circumcision, who pay a religious service to God in the mind, and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though indeed I have room for confidence in the flesh for if any one may presume to have confidence in the flesh, I have still more. I was circumcised the eighth day, of the race of Israel; of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew from Hebrews; with respect to the law a Pharisee; with respect to zeal a persecutor of the church; according to the righteousness of the law, blameless. But these things which were gain, I count but loss in respect to Christ. Nay, indeed, I count all things but loss, in respect to the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Phil. iii. 2-9. Here we see enumerated those privileges, in which the deceivers confided, and on which they founded their hope of salvation.From the possession of them, they held themselves righteous in the eye of the law; while in a moral view they gloried in their shame, resembling those dogs, which are prompted by fury to bite men, and by hunger to devour the grossest filth. Is it not strange and preposterous, then, to conclude that, because the Apostle under the phrase "works of the law" decries ritual observances, and hereditary distinctions, as the means of salvation, he intended to decry the exercise of virtue, and the use of those talents imparted to us in the ordinary course of Providence, as the grounds of the same heavenly object?

2. The false teachers, adhering to the literal interpretation of the sacred writings, insisted on the validity. of the Levitical code; while Jesus and his followers, interpreting the same writings in a metaphorical sense, laid aside that code, and substituted a refined system of religion, adapted for all mankind. Philo thus expresses the state of the dispute between these two parties :"The interpretation of the sacred writings is made by

:

them in an implied allegorical sense for the law, in the opinion of these men, resembles a living being, the express literal signification constitutes the body, while the implied spiritual sense forms the soul of these scriptures." vol. ii. p. 483. This comparison of the law to a living being, will account for a remarkable feature which pervades the epistles of Paul, namely, the literal sense being called the flesh; and the metaphorical the spirit; as in the following verse, "We henceforth know no one according to the flesh; if we have known Christ according to the flesh, we now no longer know him so." 2 Cor. v. 16. To know Christ according to the flesh, is to know him in a literal sense, to expect a temporal Messiah. In another place Paul calls the external figures, which as it were concealed the metaphorical or literal sense, a veil; and those who literally adhered to the figure only, he compares to men who read Moses with a veil over their faces. "But their minds are blinded; for to this day the same veil remaineth in the reading of the old covenant, it being not discovered by them, that in Christ the veil is done away (i. e. the literal sense is superseded). But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil lies over their hearts. But when any one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed for the Lord is a spirit :" i. e. in his interpretation of Moses being metaphorical, he, as the Messiah, is no longer to be deemed a temporal, but a spiritual king. 2 Cor. iii. 14. He adds, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom;" which means, "Though in a literal sense we may be subject to a foreign power, though oppressed by cruelty and usurpation, yet being the subject of a spiritual Messiah, and, as such, free from the slavish yoke of sin, we enjoy the noblest freedom." In 1 Cor. ii. 6-15, the Apostle adverts to the two methods of interpreting the law; the advocate for the literal sense he calls, oxinos, the animal man, while the espouser of the metaphorical he terms