CHAPTER IV.] COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS. 33 another regeneration and refashioning; 1 never theless 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 miracles, 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 per plexed 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 mourn ing 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. "(Actsxx : 31.) Whenwe findourselves overcome by perplexity and helplessness which come contrary to expectation, we are driven to tears ; and so Paul admonished themsharply, and endeavored to shame them, then in turn soothed them, and lastly he wept. And this weeping is not only a reproof but a blandish ment; 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 power fully engaged their hearts by his tears, he again advances to the contest,2 and lays down a larger propostion, proving that the Law itself was opposed to its being kept/ Before, he produced the example of Abraham, but now (what ismore cogent) he brings forward the Law itself enjoin ing them not to keep itself, but to leave off. So that, says he, you must abandon the Law, if youwould 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 ? " 3 He says rightly, "ye that desire," for the matter was not one of a proper and orderly succession of things but of their own unseason able 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 Patriarch 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. I Having previously shown that the Galatians I 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 I by the flesh, nor his birth by the seed, for the 1 womb was dead both through age and barren- rel 1 ["I travailed with you once in bringing you to Christ. Byyour lapse 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. " Light- foot. G. A.] 3 [The digression which contains his "affectionate appeal" (see note above) ends with verse 20, after which he resumes. G. A.] * [" 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.]