33 ye need another regeneration and refashioning;109 nevertheless I call you children, abortions and monsters though ye be. However, he does not express himself in this way, but spares them, unwilling to strike, and to inflict wound upon wound. Wise physicians do not cure those who have fallen into a long sickness all at once, but little by little, lest they should faint and die. And so is it with this blessed man; for these pangs were more severe in proportion as the force of his affection was stronger. And the offense was of no trivial kind. And as I have ever said and ever will say, even a slight fault mars the appearance and distorts the figure of the whole. Ver. 20. “Yea, I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my voice.” Observe his warmth, his inability to refrain himself, and to conceal these his feelings; such is the nature of love; nor is he satisfied with words, but desires to be present with them, and so, as he says, to change his voice, that is, to change to lamentation, to shed tears, to turn every thing into mourning. For he could not by letter show his tears or cries of grief, and therefore he ardently desires to be present with them. Ver. 20. “For I am perplexed about you.” I know not, says he, what to say, or what to think. How is it, that ye who by dangers, which ye endured for the faith’s sake, and by mir- acles, which ye performed through faith, had ascended to the highest heaven, should suddenly be brought to such a depth of degradation as to be drawn aside to circumcision or sabbaths, and should rely wholly upon Judaizers? Hence in the beginning he says, “I marvel that ye are so quickly removing,” and here, “I am perplexed about you,” as if he said, What am I to speak? What am I to utter? What am I to think? I am bitterly perplexed. And so he must needs weep, as the prophets do when in perplexity; for not only admonition but mourning also is a form in which solicitous attention is often manifested. And what he said in his speech to those at Miletus, “By the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one…with tears,” he says here also, “and to change my voice.” (Acts xx. 31.) When we find ourselves overcome by perplexity and helplessness which come contrary to expectation, we are driven to tears; and so Paul admonished them sharply, and endeavored to shame them, then in turn soothed them, and lastly he wept. And this weeping is not only a reproof but a bland- ishment; it does not exasperate like reproof, nor relax like indulgent treatment, but is a mixed remedy, and of great efficacy in the way of exhortation. Having thus softened and powerfully engaged their hearts by his tears, he again advances to the contest,110 and lays down a larger proposition, proving that the Law itself was opposed to its being kept. Before, 109 [“I travailed with you once in bringing you to Christ. By your relapse you have renewed a mother’s pangs in me.”—Lightfoot. “‘Until Christ be formed in you,’ is not an inversion of the metaphor he has begun with, but means, ‘till you have taken the form of Christ as the embryo develops into the child.’”— Lightfoot.—G.A.] 110 [The digression which contains his “affectionate appeal” (see note above) ends with verse 20, after which he resumes—G.A.] 66 Galatians 4:1-3