figure of speech which, they fay, this Apostle was extremely fond of. I will not eafily believe, that a man of his good fenfe, and directed as he was by the divine Spirit, would play with words, as affected rhetoricians do, to tickle the ears of their audience. Sure I am there is no fuch thing here; but a plain declaration of an important truth, in the fittest and most proper terms. When he had faid, they now knew God, had he said no more they might have been heedlefs enough to overlook the way in which they came by that knowledge, and value themselves on the attainment, as our wife men do now; who tell us, that by the mere dint of their extraordinary penetration, and what they call the light of nature, they are able to discover, not only the being, but all the powers and perfections of God, with fuch exact certainty, that they can tell, with the utmost affurance, what becomes him, and what doth not, nay, what he may and must do,

L

The Apostle was of the fame mind with his divine mafter, "that no man knoweth "the Father, but the Son, and he to "whom he will manifeft him." He had manifefted

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manifested him to these Galatians, by that gospel which he sent them by Paul's hands. To him therefore belonged all the honour: for had he not distinguished them by that unmerited or rather fovereign grace, they had been ftill funk in the fame ignorance and idolatry in which so many nations were left, who yet in all manner of natural abilities, and all the improvement the learning of these times could give them, were greatly above what they could pretend to. For when the world, with all their wisdom, could not make out the knowledge of God, it pleafed God, by a method which they reckoned foolishness, viz. the preaching of Christ and his cross, to give the most ignorant infinitely fairer and fuller views than ever philofopher could reach, with all his reasoning powers.

But it was not bare fpeculative knowledge the Apostle meant, either on God's fide, or the Chriftians. In this view, God knows all men, and all things alike; for nothing can be hid from his all-comprehending understanding. But for this fort of knowledge, there is another word commonly used in the language the Apostle wrote in. The word he here ufes carries

fuch

fuch fuitable affection as has a native tendency to produce its proper effects; and is but faintly expreffed by acknowledgement, the word commonly used in our language. And thus, when the Apostle fays of the believing Galatians, that they knew God the lowest meaning is, that they knew him fo as to be convinced that he was really fuch a God as he had declared, and shown himself to be in Christ Jefus; and to own and acknowledge him accordingly; which cannot be done without a dutiful fubmiffion to him in all the dependence` and confidence of love. This was enough to have founded a rebuke, even sharper than that which the Apostle gives them. But when he carries it up to their being distinguishingly known of God, this naturally would lead them on to all the evidences he had given of his peculiar love and favour in Chrift Jefus; to all that he had done, and all that he had promised to do, for them, either on this fide, or beyond the grave.

In this view they could not mifs to find themselves provided, not only above their most extended wishes, but infinitely above what imagination itself could carry them: VOL. III. "For

66 For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,

nor hath it ever entered into the heart " of man to conceive, what God hath pre"pared for them that love him;" for fuch are provided in all the fullness of God. Thus his question comes with redoubled force, How turn you again to these weak and beggarly elements, to which you defire again to be in bondage? Every word has its weight. A bondage it certainly was; and that is a state which no man will chufe but on abfolute neceffity. And there was no neceffity in their cafe: fo far. from it, that they had every thing which creatures in their fituation were capable of receiving. How abfurd then muft it have been, to turn back to what was at best but the rudiments, to what they they had now attained; and fuch too as could be of no manner of ufe to them? for they were weak, fo weak that they could not at all profit thofe who bestowed all their labour on them, Heb. xiii. 9.; and fo poor and beggarly, that they had nothing at all to give either one way or another for after all the drudgery employed about them, the poor men were left nothing better; and it had been well, if they had not been made worfe, as the A

postle

poftle shows afterward they were to a very dangerous degree.

In this view of his reasoning, I think we may find room for a word he uses, and which our tranflators have seen fit to leave out as fuperfluous, viz. avv. This word is commonly used in the fame fense with Tak, to fignify again; and did it admit of no other meaning, it would indeed be superfluous as it ftands in this paffage. But there is another well-known sense of the word, viz. from above, or from any high place or ftation, which perfectly fuits the place he has fet it in; and gives both additional strength and beauty to his question, as thefe Galatians could not defcend to that base fervitude, without coming down from the height God had raised them to.

ap

The reason the Apoftle gives for his prehenfions about them, verf. 11. and which he carries fo far as to be afraid that he had bestowed all the pains he had taken about them to no purpose, deferves the very ferious attention of every Christian. It was, verf. 10. that they obferved days and months, and times and years. If they were the Jewish obfervances he has here in his eye, (for perhaps they retained fome of their old Heathenifh ones, which they might

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