Galatians 4

4. Suffering: believers are as a lily among thorns; as the dove among the birds of prey. The wicked have an antipathy against the righteous, and secret hatred will break forth into open violence (Galatians 4:29). He that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born aft…

3. A third slight, or cheat seducers have, is a laboring to vilify and nullify sound orthodox teachers; they would eclipse those that bring the truth; like the black vapors that darken the light of heaven: they would defame others that themselves may be more admired. Thus the fa…

It was real flesh Christ took. Not the image of a body, (as the Manichees erroneously held) but a true body; therefore Christ is said to be made of a woman (Galatians 4:4). As the bread is made of the wheat, and the wine is made of the grape; so Christ was made of a woman; his b…

Well, but how shall we know? Response 1. If Christ be praying for us, then his Spirit is praying in us (Galatians 4:6). He has sent forth his Spirit into your heart, crying, Abba Father.

14. We glorify God by laboring to draw others to God; we convert others, and so make them instruments of glorifying God. We should be both diamonds and lodestones, diamonds for the luster of grace, and lodestones for our attractive virtue in drawing others to Christ (Galatians 4…

1. God adopts us to a state of liberty; adoption is a state of freedom. A slave being adopted is made a free man (Galatians 4:7): You are no more a servant, but a son. Question. How is an adopted son free?

You know the fiery serpents did sting Israel. These have the sting of the serpent; they have a sting in their tongues, stinging the people of God with bitter slanders and invectives, calling them factious and seditious; and they sting with their indictments and excommunications…

Isaiah 53:8. Who shall declare his generation? Christ is a Son to the Father, yet so, as he is of the same nature with the Father, having all the incommunicable properties of the Godhead belonging to him: but we are sons of God by adoption and grace; Galatians 4:5. That we might…

Many baptized Christians are no better than heathens. O, labor to find the fruits of baptism, that Christ is formed in us! (Galatians 4:19) That our nature is changed, we are made holy and heavenly; this is to be baptized into Jesus (Romans 6:3).

Are our sins the transgression of the holy and righteous law in every part of it? And did not Jehovah who gave and made that law, to make himself our righteousness, 'make himself under the law' (Galatians 4:4) and to make up a full righteousness, 'fulfill every part of it' (Roma…

For, though you yourself cannot bear it; yet trust undoubtedly, that Christ who bears with you, will give you strength to undergo it, unto victory. Thirdly, if the afflictions of a Christian, be the afflictions of Christ; then it is a fearful sin for any man to mock or reproach…

Thirdly and lastly, let us here know and learn, that this holy Matron, Sarah, figureth unto us mystically the spiritual Jerusalem, the Church of GOD. Allegories are charily and sparingly to be taught; else much unsound Doctrine may cumber men's consciences: but this is sound and…

Now from the birth of Christ to this day are 1592 years, and adding these together, the whole time amounts. And God would have the very time of the beginning of the world to be revealed, first that it might be known to the church, when the covenant of grace was first given by Go…

Jesus Christ is a rich heir (John 16:15). He is Lord of all (Galatians 4:1; Hebrews 1:2), and the saints are co-heirs, they go sharers with Christ. 9. God calls them the luminaries of the world: they give light by their precepts and example (Philippians 2:15).

This should be our wisdom and ambition, not only to have the presence of God with us, but the Spirit of God in us. Gal. 4. 6. God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. 2. If God be in the midst of his Church to uphold and preserve it, then let not Gods people g…

A common truth, yet a truth fundamental to the Gospel, of which we are not to think the less or the worse because it is a common truth. When the fullness of time came (says the apostle, Galatians 4:4), God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the Law; who, as it is in…

We know in Scripture our and us are sometimes extended to all mankind, so we are all lost in Adam, and sin has a dominion over us all; and that part of the words (verse 6), All we like sheep have gone astray, may well be extended to all mankind. Sometimes it is to be restricted…

2. The respect that a faithful minister has to the people's souls, has influence on this; A tender shepherd will watchfully care for, and wish the sheep well, and be much affected when they are in an evil condition, and where the relation is of a more spiritual nature, and the f…

Because, not any Saint on earth can be so united personally to God, as the Son of Man; for he being made of a woman, of the seed of David, the Son of Man, he, and not any but he, is the eternal Son of God, God blessed for ever. The Child born to us, is the mighty God, the Father…

Christ so condescends to work upon the will, as with art, and unawares the will is taken, and made sick of love for Christ, and the man intended no such thing; as sickness comes on men besides their knowledge or intention: So Christ makes himself and heaven so lovely, and such a…

1. Election to glory is particular: few are chosen (Matthew 22:14; John 10:26, 29; Ephesians 1:4; Romans 9:11). The promise is particular to the sons of the promise (Romans 9:8-9), made to Christ and his seed only (Galatians 3:16-18; Galatians 4:22-23, etc.). The calling particu…

First, faith directs you to pray only to him, upon whom you have believed (Romans 10:14). We only believe on God the Father, and on his Son Jesus Christ, and the blessed Spirit, and therefore upon the Lord; faith only directs us to call; he teaches us not to pray to our Mother,…

He not only beholds them with an eye of providence, but his people with an eye of fatherly compassion, and lifts us up to become sons and daughters to himself, and helps us to believe it that we are so. This is the first ground of the certainty and confidence of the hearing of o…

If a man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. And notable to this purpose is that in (Galatians 4:6). Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts; and [reconstructed: verse 4-5].

That is, such as are begotten of some promise of God or other, every Isaac is a son of the promise. And lest you should think it peculiar to Isaac alone, the Apostle opens it sweetly, in (Galatians 4:28). As a thing common with Isaac to all the people of God; it is a like privil…

Seeing that it is for your eternal Salvation that he is appointed to watch and labor; and seeing his Business is to do the Work of Christ for you, it is natural and easy to infer, that your Reception and Entertainment of him should in some Respect imitate the Church's Reception…

This glory God will not suffer to be given to another. And therefore the Apostle shows the wretched estate of the Galatians (Galatians 4:8). When you knew not God, you did service to them, that by nature are no Gods; that is, they worshipped for Gods those things, which really w…

They that believe in him shall be blessed with faithful Abraham: they are the sons and heirs of God. Thus (I say) have you known God (Galatians 3:9; Galatians 4:7). Verse 9. Indeed rather are known of God, etc.

Nowe if this be so, men are bound by the same right to maintaine their spirituall fathers in Christ, that have begotten them a new by the preaching of the word: as Paul says, He trauelled in paine of the Galatians, till Christ wasformed in them. Gal. 4. and that he begat Onesimu…

For he comprehends not the multitude of children which came of Abraham according to the flesh, seeing all were not partakers of this blessing. Ishmael was rejected (Galatians 4:30). Esau was hated (Malachi 1:3).

However it be, he boldly pronounces that they were patiently to wait with meek and quiet spirits, until it pleased God to stretch forth his hands. Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Romans 16:26, and to the Galatians 4:4, calls this year the fullness of time. We have also seen pre…

Certain it is, that confidence in the Son alone, as Mediator, inspired the holy fathers with confidence to employ so honorable an address. That more complete knowledge, of which we are now speaking, is elsewhere explained by Paul to mean, that we are now at liberty not only to c…

Paul explains the design, “Finem.” — “La fin ou le but de ceste soumission de Jesus Christ;” —”the end or design of this submission of Jesus Christ.” when he says, that Christ was “made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,” (Galatians 4:4, 5.) By undergoing cir…

“In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee.” Paul calls it the fullness of the time, (Galatians 4:4,) that believers may learn not to indulge in excessive curiosity, but to acquiesce in the will of God, — and that we may rest satisfied…

It is true, indeed, that a catalogue, divided into three equal numbers, is more easily remembered. But it is also evident that this division is intended to point out a threefold condition of the nation, from the time when Christ was promised to Abraham, to "the fullness of the t…

But we ought especially to beware lest the unity of faith be destroyed, or the bond of charity broken, on account of outward ceremonies. Almost all labor under the disease of attaching undue importance to the ceremonies and elements of the world, as Paul calls them, (Galatians 4…

But he was manifested gradually, and by regular steps, and was not revealed in his true character “Until the time appointed by the Father,” (Galatians 4:2). At the same time, it deserves our attention, that when wicked men do their utmost to extinguish the glory of God, they are…

I reply: As we are engrafted by faith into the body of Christ, we are adopted by God as his children, and of this adoption the Spirit is the witness, seal, earnest, and pledge, so that with this assurance we may freely cry, Abba, Father, (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6.) Now though…

And, indeed, there is nothing that inflicts a more painful wound on pious minds than when ungodly men, in order to shake their faith, upbraid them with being deprived of the assistance and favor of God. This is the harsh persecution with which, Paul tells us, Isaac was tormented…

And out of them he brings the figure of Noah his Ark, which he also explains. It is very comfortable and proper, to fetch similitudes from such manner of examples as this: which order Saint Paul also followed: (Galatians 4) where he records the mystery of the two sons of Abraham…

The apostle Paul speaks of affections in the Galatians, which had been exceedingly elevated, and which yet he manifestly speaks of, as fearing that they were vain, and had come to nothing. Galatians 4:15. Where is the blessedness you [reconstructed: spoke of]? For I bear you rec…

In many Places they are transported with Rage, and Fury, so as to stir up Persecution against such as are really anointed with the Spirit of Christ, and that for no other Reason but because they are so. Gal. 4. 29. Other things indeed are pretended by them, but but all the World…

Rom. 1. 4. Gal. 4. 4. Phil. 2. 6, 7.

It inlayes them in the Mind, and thereby conforms the whole Soul to them; See Rom. 6. 17. Gal. 4. 19. Tit. 2. 11, 12. 1 Cor. 3. 11. 2 Cor. 3. 18.

They are not only sons of God by regeneration, but by a kind of communion in the sonship of the eternal Son. This seems to be intended in Galatians 4:4-6: 'God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive…

How careful was Abraham of this duty? Genesis 18:19 and David? 1 Chron. 28:9 We have some of us had Parents, who might say to us, as the Apostle, Galatians 4:19 My little Children, of whom I travail again in birth till Christ be formed in you. As they longed for us before they h…

Or rather secondly, for their piety and holiness by which they resemble God, and in which they serve God as a son does the Father. Indeed the Apostle affirms that the privilege of sonship was brought in by the Incarnation of Christ, who is said, in the fullness of time to be mad…

But he came quite in another manner: He was seen in the likeness of sinful flesh, Romansans 8 3. In the form of a servant, Philippians 2:10. being made of a woman, made under the law, Galatians 4:4. What he endured, suffered, underwent in that state and condition, is in some mea…

And this very point may serve to stay our hearts, when we shall bee persecuted for the profession and embracing of the Gospel of Christ; for the world does hate Gods Church, and will doe to the end: there must be enmitie betweene the seed of the serpent, and the seede of the wom…

She describes her sufferings, 1. In the instruments of them. 2. The cause of them. 3. The nature of them. The actors are not heathens, but mothers' children; the visible Church is the common mother, who has children born after the flesh, as well as after the Spirit; these childr…