he produced the example of Abraham, but now (what is more cogent) he brings forward the Law itself enjoining them not to keep itself, but to leave off. So that, says he, you must abandon the Law, if you would obey it, for this is its own wish: this however he does not say expressly, but enforces it in another mode, mixing up with it an account of facts. Ver. 21. “Tell me,” he says, “ye that desire to be under the Law, do ye not hear the Law?”111 He says rightly, “ye that desire,” for the matter was not one of a proper and orderly succession of things but of their own unseasonable contentiousness. It is the Book of Creation which he here calls the Law, which name he often gives to the whole Old Testament. Ver. 22. “For it is written, (Gen. xv. 16.) that Abraham had two sons, one by the hand- maid and the other by the freewoman.” He returns again to Abraham, not in the way of repetition, but, inasmuch as the Patri- arch’s fame was great among the Jews, to show that the types had their origin from thence, and that present events were pictured aforetime in him. Having previously shown that the Galatians were sons of Abraham, now, in that the Patriarch’s sons were not of equal dignity, one being by a bondwoman, the other by a free-woman, he shows that they were not only his sons, but sons in the same sense as he that was freeborn and noble. Such is the power of Faith. Ver. 23. “Howbeit the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise.” What is the meaning of “after the flesh?” Having said that Faith united us to Abraham, and it having seemed incredible to his hearers, that those who were not begotten by Abraham should be called his sons, he proves that this paradox had actually happened long ago; for that Isaac, born not according to the order of nature, nor the law of marriage, nor the power of the flesh, was yet truly his own son. He was the issue of bodies that were dead, and of a womb that was dead; his conception was not by the flesh, nor his birth by the seed, for the 34 womb was dead both through age and barrenness, but the Word of God fashioned Him. Not so in the case of the bondman; He came by virtue of the laws of nature, and after the manner of marriage. Nevertheless, he that was not according to the flesh was more honorable than he that was born after the flesh. Therefore let it not disturb you that ye are not born after the flesh; for from the very reason that ye are not so born, are ye most of all Abraham’s kindred. The being born after the flesh renders one not more honorable, but less so, for a birth not after the flesh is more marvellous and more spiritual. And this is plain from the case of those who were born of old time; Ishmael, for instance, who was born according to 111 [“The Apostle resumes his argument for the superiority of the Gospel over the Law and illustrates the difference of the two by an allegorical interpretation of the history of Hagar and Sarah.”—Schaff.—G.A.] 67 Galatians 4:1-3