Before we go any farther, it may be proper to fay fomething of the nature of the curfe which the Apofle denounces here. And there are three remarkable instances by which we may form a judgement about it, without any danger of being mistaken, viz. the original curfe pronounced on mankind in our first father, and the ground for his fake; the curfe annexed to the Mofaic law, and particular cafes under that difpenfation, where certain perfons or things were devoted, or laid under the curfe; and the curfe which our bleffed Redeemer kindly took upon himfelf. In all these cafes, the effect of the curfe was no lefs than the utter deftruction of the subject on which it once rested. When it fell on perfons, death was the confequence, and that makes an end of the man. That is the cafe of all mankind. But when life was extinguifhed, the law was fulfilled; for the curfe had done its bufinefs. The law has dominion over a man fo long as he liveth; but when he is dead, he is no more a subject, and it has nothing to fay to him; and the creator may, when he pleases, reftore him to a new life. But as that is as much an

act

act of pure fovereign grace, as the first creation was, he may with-hold it where hè pleases; and in that cafe the man is bound for ever under that death under which the curfe bound him.

The cafe of Jefus may be imagined an exception from this general rule: for he had no fin, and of courfe could not be cut off from God, in which the spiritual death lies. It is true he had no fin, and had a perfect right to life by the law, in the strictest tenor of it; and thence had power, fuch as never another man had, to lay down his life, and to take it up again. Death neither had nor could have any power over him; nor was it in the power of any man to take his life from him. But he could lay it down, as he did on the cross; a kind of death which God, in the profpect of this grand event, had pronounced a curfe upon. And as he fubmitted to the destruction of all that life which he derived from Adam; fo when, by his office of priesthood, he had taken upon himself the fins of all who come to him in that character, in order to put them away, he appears to have tasted pretty deeply in the fpiritual death, when he cried out, "My God 1 VOL. III.

F

my

my God, why hast thou forfaken me?". This by the way accounts perfectly for his agony in the garden, and his repeated earneft prayer, that "if it was poffible "that cup might pafs from him ;"which affords a full anfwer to the reproach caft upon him by a fort of men who know no more of him but the name, viz. that he did not fhow half the firmnefs and refolution that many of those did who fuffered for his fake. He knew perfectly the pleasure and happiness of the fpiritual life, and the way of living on God; the confequences too of being feparated from him: no wonder the dreadful profpect put him into the greatest agony, however short the time might be of its continuance. They who fuffered for his fake, were fo far from any fuch prospect, that they found themfelves perfectly secured against it; and the worst they had to fear was, the lofs of what they had already renounced, a perifhing life, and the equally perifhing gratifications and enjoyments of it, and fome fhort bodily torment, which fhould introduce them into "the joy of their Lord."

Artempts have been made to dwindle

away

away the import of this curfe, into a church-cenfure which went under that name. And the rather, that the account he gives of those against whom he denounces it, appears to extend very far, and takes in numbers whom they are very loath to condemn. It does indeed extend very far; for they are not only such, in his account, who teach or preach any thing contrary to the gofpel of Christ, which he had preached to them, and they had received; but fuch as teach any thing befides it, for that is his word; that is to say, who should pass any thing upon their hearers or readers for gospel, which is not really the gospel of Chrift. And what numbers of men, befides thofe whom the Apostle had in

his

eye, will fall under this condemnation! Nor will it mend the matter, that the Apostle means no more than excommunication, or cutting them off from the communion of the faithful; fince no man may be thus cut off, but for fuch conduct as God and his bleffed Son have denounced eternal damnation against, even the curfe in its utmost extent.

If any fhould take it into their head to ask the fame question about Paul that

was put to his mafter, By what authority he did those things, fince none but the fovereign of the universe has either authority to denounce, or power to inflict, fuch a curfe? the anfwer is eafy : He did it by the fame authority by which he proclaimed and published the gospel; that is, by his authority who hath the keys of hell and of death; and he did no more than his master had done before, when he gave his apostles authority, to go and preach the gospel to every creature, with this fanction, "He that believeth, fhall be faved; "and he that believeth not, fhall be damn66 ed."

By this very warm declaration of his fentiments, he effectually obviates what we find by chap. v. 11. the falfe teachers had attempted to perfuade the Galatians of, viz. that Paul himself was a promoter of circumcifion; which he tells them, chạp. vi. 12. they infifted on for no other reason, but to get favour from the unbelieving Jews, that they might avoid perfecution for the crofs of Chrift. This is the true key to what he fays, verf. 10.; For do I now perfuade men, or God? &c. the meaning of which, as it ftands in our

tranflation,