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they were to have nothing; and all the purpose that could have been answered, was, to deceive fools into a vain delusive hope, which they would never have entertained had they been fo wife as to confider the extent of their own powers.

To be fully fatisfied how justly the Apoftle fays, the Jerufalem from above is the mother of us all, fome of our acuteft critics obferve, that the Apostle here joins himself with the Gentiles; which they confirm from the following verfe; and conclude thence, that the little word all has crept in unwarrantably into the text, and ought to be ftruck out, because it takes in the Jews as well as Gentiles. Common sense and reafon would fay there was no great harm in this, and that it is fo far from marring, that it greatly supports the views he was inculcating. It fets Jews and Gentiles both on a level, and implies that the Jews are not one jot advantaged by having the law of Mofes: for when a right to the inheritance enters the queftion, they are forced to have recourfe to the fame grant and promife, which the Gentiles had as free accefs to as they ; and on this he brings in the remarkable prophecy of Isaiah, chap. liv. verf. 1.

It has been alledged, and not without fome good colour of reason, that our Apostle had this text in his eye, when he fays, that what is recorded by Mofes of Hagar and Sarah was allegorised, or treated in this manner by the prophet Ifaiah. It must be acknowledged, that the very found of the prophet's words naturally bring the cafe of these two women to our minds. It cannot be doubted, that it was the Gentile church he addreffes as a barren woman, who had continued long in that condition, and yet was to have many more children than the Jews whofe husband God had long declared himself to be, and whom that nation was very folemnly married to. And as he fpeaks of them as two women well known in his time, it is certain that there are not two recorded in history whom the prophet's defcription can fuit in any degree so nearly as Sarah and Hagar; though it must be acknowledged on the other fide, that there are fome circumftances in the prophet, that cannot easily be applied to Sarah, particularly that of a woman forfaken of her husband, which he never was, though

indeed

indeed as to the main thing, the bringing forth children, fhe was in the fame cafe as if fhe had been forfaken, and had no hufband, until the promise came, and Ifaac was born, when, by the common course of nature, the thing was impoffible.

But be that as it may, the prophet's account of the barren woman fuits the Gentiles, and the ftate of Chrift's kingdom among them, with the greatest exactness in every point. God called them as a woman forfaken, and a wife of youth. They were early efpoufed to him in the days of the fathers, Noah and his faithful defcendents, and as really as the Jewish nation was afterward. They were long, very long forfaken, and left in the cafe of a defolate woman, who of course could produce no children, until the promise came, and they were called into the kingdom and glory of our Lord Jefus Christ; and then the children of the Jewish nation were but an handful, in comparison of the Gentile Chriftians.

So far the Apostle had ftated the comparison between the mothers, Hagar and Sarah on one fide, and the Jewish and Christian churches on the other; and as

it was in this laft clafs that the Galatians stood, viz. the children of the free woman, he proceeds, verf. 28. to compare the children; and having faid enough of the bondage of the earthly Jerufalem and her children, he begins with the parallel between Ifaac and the Gentile believers particularly the Galatians, to whom he was writing, and compares them together as to their birth, and the confequences of it, namely, their station and right to the inheritance; all comprehended in their being the children of the promife, as Ifaac was.

The lowest use we can make of this is to turn our attention to that part of fcripture-history. Ifaac was the child of the promife on two accounts; firft, it was in the virtue of the promife that he was born; fecondly, he was made the heir of the promises. I need not add any thing of his birth to what we just now observed of the state of the mother; and as the promife was made to Abraham and his feed, which was to be reckoned in Ifaac, by the peremptory order of the promiser, his right to the promife, and all the bleffings it contained, could not be difputed. The inheritance came by his birth.

The

The Heathen nations had no pretenfions to any natural relation to Abraham, and could not boast, as the Jews did, that they had him for their father. But as the original promise made to him carried in it a bleffing to all the nations of the earth, every nation, yea, and every particular perfon, had a good title to put in for their fhare. Nay, when all nations, except the Jews, were left in the cafe of a forfaken defolate woman, there were great numbers of promises made and recorded in fcripture, that the one feed, who is Chrift, and who had all the promised bleffings in his hand, was defigned for them: A light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Ifrael. In virtue of these promises, they were begotten and born again; not as Adam's, and even Abraham's common defcendents were in the courfe of natural generation, but born of the Spirit, and created in Chrift Jefus unto good works. But nations and kingdoms never were, and there is no reafon to expect they ever will be thus born. The kingdom and church of Chrift is made up of particular perfons, immediately and directly united to him their head, and that without any other