fignifies the promise, as it is the deed of the promifer, and fometimes the matter of it, or the bleffing conveyed by it, we need fay no more of it here; as indeed the promise of God, and the fulfilment of it, are in effect the fame: which makes it of little moment in which of the two fenfes we take it, where it is not plainly determined by the context, as it is here, to be the bleffing given by promife to Abraham, and to his feed.

We have the fame to fay of faith, which in common ufe fignifies both the act of believing, and what one believes; which are as infeparably connected. This fometimes occafions an ambiguity which may be of fome moment. There is fomething of this in the words before us. The faith of Jefus Chrift may denote, either his perfonal faith, or, that which is to be believed concerning him; and this produces another doubt, Whether the Apostle defigns this, or one's actual believing it. If we take it in the first fenfe, for the perfonal faith of Jefus himfelf, that affured confidence he had in his heavenly Father for making good the gift he had made him of the kingdom; in the ftrength of

which he endured the crofs, defpifing at once the shame and pain of it; and thereby deftroyed death, and him that had the power of it in this way we are carried up to the rife and fpring of the promife, and the way how the bleffing is conveyed and fecured to the faith of the believer; a view which ought never to be overlooked, as it is at once the pattern and foundation on which the Chriftian's faith is built.

Thus indeed the promife is, in all refpects, by the faith of Jefus Chrift: but that phrase most commonly denotes what we have fet before us to be believed in, the teftimony or record which God has made concerning him; which yet is fo far from excluding Chrift's perfonal faith, that it is an effential part of the teftimony, without which, neither the promife, nor the promised bleffing, could ever have existed. And thus the Apostle's meaning will come out to be, That the promife is held forth and conveyed to mankind in the gofpel, to be believed and trufted to; and the bleffing is thereby conveyed, and thus the promise made good, to all who believe; and which cannot be received

I i 2

received in any other manner, or by any other means. That no promise can be received, but by believing the promiser, will not be denied, or even doubted of; and as God's faying and doing is the fame thing, he who believes the promise can have no doubt about receiving the bleffing, and reckoning upon it as his own; though he cannot tell how God quickens a dead finner, how he conveys the Spirit of life, nor how that Spirit fupports, maintains, and carries on, the business of eternal life, to the measure of the ftature "of the fullnefs of Chrift," as the Apostle emphatically expreffes it, to make them bear the image of the heavenly man, as they had done that of the earthly. I need not observe, that fignifies a free gift, not a reward for doing.

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In the 23d and following verfes, the Apostle fhews the state of the Jews before faith came, and the wife and kind purpofes the law anfwered to them under that period. I believe hardly any body doubts that it is the time in which the law continued in full force the Apoftle defigns; and that was until Chrift came, as we find himself explaining it, chap. iv. 4.

Whether,

Whether, by faith coming, he means the light the promise was set in by the appearance of him who had the bleffing in his hand, ready for all that would come to him, and receive it from his hand, or their actual believing, is not worth difputing; for this good reason, that the revelation of Jefus Chrift anfwers no purpofe to any perfon, until it is known and believed: and he feems to take it fometimes in one of these fenfes, and fometimes in the other. When he speaks of the faith which fhould afterward be revealed, it seems plain, that he means the revelation of Chrift in the flesh; and downward, when he speaks of faith being come, it is as plain he means actual believing, as we shall fee by and by.

Before faith came, they were kept under the law, fo our tranflators render the Apoftle's words. But kept is too weak a word to answer that which he ufes. Properly, it fignifies being guarded, as kings and princes are by their life-guards and attendants, or towns and castles by their garrifons. It is the fame word the Apostle Peter uses for the fecurity and safeof those who are the heirs of the eter

ty

nal

nal inheritance, that they are kept by the mighty power of God, 1 Pet. i. 5. In general, it fignifies safe and sure custody; and then is fometimes used to fignify confinement, as prifoners are confined: and this way he feems to carry it, by what he adds of their being but up; fo confined, that they were not at liberty to go whither they would; no way being left open but that one of faith, which was to be revealed in due time.

It may be worth while to confider how the law of Mofes kept those who were under it thus clofely confined and guarded, fo as to anfwer all the purposes of what we call a pedagogue, adopting the Greek word into our language, literally, a guide, or leader of children, for a schoolmafter, as we render it, is not quite fo fignificant, to lead them to Chrift. Thus the law inftructed them first in the knowledge of fin, by fetting duty, the commandments of God, fairly before them; it likewife revealed the iffue and wages of fin, and by its fanction and curfe bound them under death. It gave indeed a glimpfe of pardon and forgiveness in the appropriated facrifices, and the pro