Paul now passes from a personal appeal to an allegorical argument from the Law. As legalists, they are asked it' they will not hear the Law which in its history really condemns them as children of the bondwoman and not children of the freewoman. For such an allegorical interpretation we are content with Paul's authority, since he was inspired of God in his handling of Scripture as well as in writing additions to it. His rabbinical education would incline him to allegory; but we would not in consequence take any liberties with Scripture on the same track. Still, as we face the history as given in Genesis 21. with Paul's help in our hands, it gives a very interesting and beautiful application of it.

I. LET US CONSIDER THE CHILD OF THE BONDWOMAN IN HIS EARLY YEARS. (Ver. 23.) Ishmael, as the child of Abraham, had for thirteen years a happy and interesting life. He was the issue of a union promoted by Sarah in her own despair. Upon him the patriarch looked with all an old man's pride; and, had not God expressly forbidden it, Abraham would have looked no further than Ishmael for a son and heir. Hagar naturally played the haughty part before her mistress and despised the beautiful woman because of her barrenness. But as soon as Isaac came to gladden the aged pair, Hagar and Ishmael fell of necessity into the background. In due time there is the weaning feast. "Hagar and her son heard the merriment," says Robertson, "and it was gall to their wounded spirits; it looked like intentional insult; for Ishmael had been the heir presumptive, but now, by the birth of Isaac, had become a mere slave and dependant; and the son of Hagar mocked at the joy in which he could not partake." Now, Ishmael all these years was the type of the legalist who prides himself on his observance of the ceremonies. Just as the boy thought that he was son and heir by undisputed right and title, so the legal spirit imagines that in God's house his rights cannot be disregarded. In the pride of self-satisfaction he sees no rival in the house and is disposed to brook none. And yet a touch of fate will make him realize at once his slavery and outcast condition.

II. CONSIDER NEXT THE SON OF PROMISE. (Ver. 23.) But for the promise of God, Isaac never would have been born. He belonged consequently to a different order from Ishmael. Ishmael was the son of nature; Isaac was the product of grace. In this Isaac is the type of the son of the gospel, as Ishmael is the type of the son of the Law. Isaac is born to freedom, to honour, to inheritance; while Ishmael is cast out as the slave who has no recognized rights in the household. So is it with the free-born son of the gospel as contrasted with the legalists of Paul's time. The believer is God's son through the freewoman; he has his inalienable rights in God's household; he may be persecuted and mocked by the Ishmaels who are but bondslaves; but he is destined to keep the field of privilege in spite of foes and triumph over them at last.

III. LEGALISM AND GOSPEL FREEDOM ARE INCOMPATIBLE. (Vers. 24-30.) One house could not hold both Ishmael and Isaac. They could not get on together. No more can the legal and the gospel spirit. Self-righteousness and faith in Christ are irreconcilable. Hence the war between the legalists and the apostle. It was war to the bitter end. The principles are antagonistic, and the one must triumph over the other. And liberty is sure to triumph over legalism in the end, as Isaac triumphed over Ishmael.

IV. THE CONSEQUENT DUTY OF MAINTAINING OUR CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. (Galatians 5:1.) Paul calls upon the Galatians not to go back to bondage, but to maintain the freedom which Christ has given them. If he has fulfilled the ceremonies, why should they go back to the bondage of observances? If they are born as children of promise, why go back to the birth of bondslaves? It is like emancipated slaves insisting on surrendering their freedom. What the liberty bestowed by Christ is in its length and breadth may be realized from the close and climax of one of Liddon's masterly sermons. "It is freedom from a sense of sin, when all is known to have been pardoned through the atoning blood; freedom from a slavish fear of our Father in heaven, when conscience is offered to his unerring eye morning and evening by that penitent love which fixes its eye upon the Crucified; freedom from current prejudice and false human opinion, when the soul gazes by intuitive faith upon the actual truth; freedom from the depressing yoke of weak health or narrow circumstances, since the soul cannot be crushed which rests consciously upon the everlasting arms; freedom from that haunting fear of death, which holds those who think really upon death at all,' all their lifetime subject to bondage,' unless they are his true friends and clients who by the sharpness of his own death ' opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.' It is freedom in time, but also and beyond freedom in eternity." May we realize our rights as children of the free! - R.M.E.

I must profess that since I observed the course of the world, and the concord of the Word and providences of God, I took it for a notable proof of man's fall, and of the verity of the Scripture, and the supernatural origin of true sanctification, to find such a universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed, and to find Cain and Abel's case so ordinarily exemplified, and him that is born after the flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit. And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian faith. But that which is much remarkable in it is, that nothing else in the world, except the crossing of men's carnal interest, doth meet with any such universal enmity. A man may be as learned as he can, and no man hate him for it. If he excel all others, all men will praise him, and proclaim his excellency; he may be an excellent linguist, an excellent philosopher, an excellent physician, an excellent logician, an excellent orator, and all commend him. Among musicians, architects, soldiers, seamen, and all arts and sciences, men value, prefer, and praise the best; yea, even speculative theology, such wits as the schoolmen and those who are called great divines are honoured by all, and meet, as such, with but little enmity, persecution, or obloquy in the world. Though I know that even a Galilaeus, a Campanella, and man such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors, that was not so much in enmity to their speculations or opinions, as through a fear lest new philosophical notions should unsettle men's minds and open the way to new opinions in theology, and so prove injurious to the kingdom and interest of Rome. I know also that Demosthenes, Cicero, Seneca, Lucan, and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of tyrants. But this was not for their learning, but for their opposition to those tyrants' wills and interests. And I know that some religious men have suffered for their sins and follies, and some for their meddling too much with secular affairs, as the counsellors of princes, as Funetius, Justus Jonas, and many others. But yet no parts, no excellency, no skill or learning, is hated commonly, but honoured in the world; no, not theological learning, save only this practical godliness and religion, and the principles of it, which only renders men amiable to God, through Christ, and saves men's souls.

(R. Baxter.)

One who was persecuted in Queen Mary's time wrote thus: "A prisoner for Christ! What is this for a poor worm? Such honour have not all His saints. Both the degrees which I took in the university have not set me so high as the honour of becoming a prisoner of the Lord."

Paul and Silas had their prison songs in their prison sufferings. Those caged birds sing with as much melody as any that have sky liberty. Thus Ignatius, in his epistle, glorified, saying: "The wild beasts may grind me as corn between their teeth: but I shall by that become as choice bread in the hand of my God."

(Archbishop Secker.)

A young Christian soldier in the army was often assaulted by his tent-mates while at prayer at night. He sought advice of the chaplain, and, by his counsels, omitted his usual habit. But his ardent soul could not endure this. He chose rather to have prayer with persecution than peace without it, and resumed his old way. The result was, that after a time all his tent-companions knelt in prayer with him. In reporting to the chaplain he said, "Isn't it better to keep the colours flying?"

A certain person, on seeing a Christian woman go cheerfully to prison, said to her, "O, you have not yet tasted of the bitterness of death." She as cheerfully replied, "No, nor never shall; for Christ has promised, that those who keep His sayings shall never see death."

In these words the apostle doth present to our eye the true face of the Church in an allegory of Sarah and Hagar, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Mount Sinai and Mount Sion. Take the full scheme and delineation in brief.

1. Here is Sarah and Hagar; that is, servitude and freedom.

2. Here are two cities: "Jerusalem that now is," the synagogue of the Jews; and that "Jerusalem which is above," "the vision of peace," and "mother of all" the faithful. For by the new covenant we are made children unto God.

3. Here is the law promulgated and thundered out on Mount Sinai; and the gospel, the covenant of grace, which God published, not from the mount, but from heaven itself, by the voice of His Son. In all, you see a fair correspondence and agreement between the type and the thing, but so that "Jerusalem our mother" is still the highest; the gospel glorious with the liberty it brought, and the law putting OH a yoke, breathing nothing but servitude and fear; Isaac an "heir," and Ishmael "thrust out"; the Christian more honourable than the Jew.The veil is drawn, and you may behold presented to your view and consideration a double parallel.

1. Of the times; "But as then, so now."

2. Of the occurrences, the acts and monuments, of these times, divided between two, the agent and the patient, "those that are born after the flesh" persecuting, and "those that are born after the Spirit" suffering persecution.

I. THOUGH THE PRIVILEGES AND PREROGATIVES OF THE CHURCH BE MANY, YET WAS SHE NEVER EXEMPTED FROM PERSECUTION, BUT RATHER HAD IT ENTAILED ON HER AS AN INHERITANCE.

1. In the persons themselves.

2. This will yet more plainly appear from the very nature and constitution of the Church, which is best seen in her blood, when she is militant; which is more full and expressive than any other representation of the title that she hath.

3. "As it was then, so it is now." St. Paul doth not say, "It may be so," or "It is by chance," but "So it is," by "the providence of God, which is seen in the well-ordering and bringing of every motion and action of man to a right end," which commonly runneth in a contrary course to that which flesh and blood, human infirmity, would find out. Eternity and mortality, majesty and dust and ashes, wisdom and ignorance, steer not the same course, nor are they bound to the same point, "My ways are not your ways, nor My thoughts yours," saith God, by His prophet, to a foolish nation who in extremity of folly would be wiser than God. We must first be made more spiritual by the contradiction of "those who are born after the flesh"; more Isaacs than before, for the many Ishmaels. So perfection is not only agreeable to the wisdom of God, but convenient to the weakness of man. And it is a beatitude: Blessed poverty, blessed mourning, blessed persecution (Matthew 5:3, 4, 10-12). Blessedness is set upon these as a crown, or as rich embroidery upon sackcloth, or some coarser stuff. Thus you see the Church is not, cannot be, exempt from persecution, if either we consider the quality of the persons themselves, or the nature and constitution of the Church, or the providence and wisdom and mercy of God.

II. Let us now LOOK BACK UPON THIS DREADFUL BUT BLESSED SIGHT, AND SEE WHAT ADVANTAGE WE CAN WORK, what light we can strike, out of this cloud of blood to direct and strengthen us in this our warfare, that we may "be faithful unto death, and so receive the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10).

1. Let us not be dismayed when we see that befall the Church which befalleth all the kingdoms and commonwealths in the world, when we see the face of the Church gather blackness, and not shine in that beauty in which formerly we beheld her. For what strange thing is it that Ishmael should mock Isaac? that a serpent should bite, or a lion roar? that the world should be the world, or the Church the Church? The Church, so far as she is visible, in respect of her visibility and out. ward form, is as subject to change as any other thing that is seen, as those things which we use to say are but the balls of fortune to play with.

2. And that we may not marvel, let us, in the next place, have a right judgment in all things, and not set up the Church in our fancy, and shape her out by the state and pomp of this world, but "be transformed by the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12:2). We must not make the world the idea and platform of a Church.

3. Therefore let us cast down these imaginations, these bubbles of air blown up by the flesh the worse part which doth soonest bring on a persecution, and doth soonest fear it; and let us, in the place of these, build up a royal fort, build ourselves up in our holy faith, and so fit and prepare ourselves against the fiery trial.

4. "Be ye therefore ready; for, in an hour when you think not, the Son of man," the Captain of your salvation, may come (Matthew 24:44), and put you into the lists. Though the trumpet sound not to battle, yet is it not peace. And now, to conclude, "What saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman."To cast out is an act of violence; and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part; but yet she may cast them out, and that with violence; but then it is with the same "violence we take the kingdom of heaven," a violence upon ourselves (Matthew 11:12).

1. By laying ourselves prostrate, by the vehemency of our devotion, by our frequent prayers that God would either melt their hearts, or shorten their hands; either bring them into the right way, or strike off their chariot wheels. 2 By our patience and long-suffering. Patience worketh more miracles than power.

3. We cast them out by our innocency of life, and sincerity of conversation.

4. Lastly: We may cast them out by "casting our burden on the Lord" (Psalm 55:22); by putting our cause into His hands who best can plead it, by citing our persecutors before His tribunal who is the righteous Judge. If we thus cast it upon Him, we need no other umpire, no other revenger. If it be a loss, He can restore it; if an injury, He can return it; if grief, He can heal it; if disgrace, He can wipe it off: and He will certainly do it, if we so cast it upon Him as to trust in Him alone; the full persuasion of God's power being that which "awaketh Him as one out of sleep," putteth Him to clothe Himself with His majesty, setteth His power a working, to bring mighty things to pass, and make Himself glorious by the delivery of His people.

(A. Farindon, D. D.)

When the powers of the world give any rest, yet the carnal seed will be mocking and scoffing, and bringing God's holy ways into contempt, branding them with censures and calumnies. The reasons of this are partly because men are drunk with the delusions of the flesh, and so cannot judge of spiritual things; and partly to excuse themselves. Men will be quarrelling at religion when they have no mind to practise it, and dispute away duties when they are unwilling to perform them; partly they take occasion from the failings of God's people, though there is no reason why they should do so. An art should not be condemned for the workman's want of skill; but they do so. If Christians be serious then religion is counted an uncomfortable thing. If there be any differences among God's people, because of their several degrees of light, oh, then there are so many sects and factions and controversies about religion, they suspect all. If any creep into the holy profession, and pollute it with their scandals, then all strictness in religion is but a pretence and imposture. If men be strict and would avoid every ordinary failing incident to mankind, then they are more nice than wise, and this is preciseness and indiscretion.

(T. Manton, D. D.)

A soldier in the East Indies — a stout, lion-hearted man — had been a noted prizefighter, and a terror to those who knew him. That man sauntered into the mission chapel, heard the gospel, and was converted. The change in his character was most marked and decided. The lion was changed into a lamb. Two months afterwards, in the mess-room, some of those who had been afraid of him before began to ridicule him. One of them said, "I'll put it to the test whether he is a Christian or not;" and, taking a basin of hot soup, he threw it into his bosom. The whole company gazed in breathless silence, expecting that the lion would start up, and murder him on the spot. But after he had torn open his waistcoat, and wiped his scalded breast, he calmly turned round, and said, "This is what I must expect if I become a Christian. I must suffer persecution." His comrades were filled with astonishment.

(Biblical Treasury.)

Do they cast us out of the city? They cannot cast us out of that which is in the heavens. If they who hate us could do this, they would be doing something real against us. So long, however, as they cannot do this, they are but pelting us with drops of water or striking us with the wind.

( Gregory Nazianzen.)

Agar, Galatians, Hagar, Isaac, PaulGalatia, Jerusalem, Mount SinaiBirth, Born, Child, Common, Course, Cruel, Due, Flesh, Nature, Ordinary, Persecute, Persecuted, Power, Spirit, Yet1. We were under the law till Christ came, as the heir is under the guardian till he be of age.
5. But Christ freed us from the law;
7. therefore we are servants no longer to it.
14. Paul remembers the Galatians' good will to him, and his to them;
22. and shows that we are the sons of Abraham by the freewoman.

Galatians 4:29

     3203   Holy Spirit, and assurance
     8795   persecution, nature of

Galatians 4:21-31

     5078   Abraham, significance
     6661   freedom, and law

Galatians 4:22-31

     1680   types
     7142   people of God, NT

Galatians 4:24-31

     4269   Sinai, Mount

Galatians 4:29-30

     5672   concubines

May 7. "I Travail in Birth Again Until Christ be Formed in You" (Gal. Iv. 19).
"I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. iv. 19). It is a blessed moment when we are born again and a new heart is created in us after the image of God. It is a more blessed moment when in this new heart Christ Himself is born and the Christmas time is reproduced in us as we, in some real sense, become incarnations of the living Christ. This is the deepest and holiest meaning of Christianity. It is expressed in Paul's prayer for the Galatians. "My little children, for whom I …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Fourth Sunday in Lent
Text: Galatians 4, 21-31. 21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? 22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewomen. 23 Howbeit the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise. 24 Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. 25 Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

The Allegories of Sarah and Hagar
We shall attempt this morning to teach you something of the allegories of Sarah and Hagar, that you may thereby better understand the essential difference between the covenants of law and of grace. We shall not go fully into the subject, but shall only give such illustrations of it as the text may furnish us. First, I shall want you to notice the two women, whom Paul uses as types--Hagar and Sarah; then I shall notice the two sons--Ishmael and Isaac; in the third place, I shall notice Ishmael's conduct …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

Adoption --The Spirit and the Cry
The divinity of each of these sacred persons is also to be gathered from the text and its connection. We do not doubt tee the loving union of all in the work of deliverance. We reverence the Father, without whom we had not been chosen or adopted: the Father who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We love and reverence the Son by whose most precious blood we have been redeemed, and with whom we are one in a mystic and everlasting union: and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 24: 1878

God's Inheritance
GAL. iv. 6, 7. Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. This is the second good news of Christmas-day. The first is, that the Son of God became man. The second is, why he became man. That men might become the sons of God through him. Therefore St. Paul says, You are the sons of God. Not--you may be, if you are very good: but you are, …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Luther -- the Method and Fruits of Justification
Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation, was born at Eisleben in 1483, and died there 1546. His rugged character and powerful intellect, combined with a strong physique, made him a natural orator, so that it was said "his words were half battles." Of his own method of preaching he once remarked: "When I ascend the pulpit I see no heads, but imagine those that are before me to be all blocks. When I preach I sink myself deeply down; I regard neither doctors nor masters, of which there are in the church …
Various—The World's Great Sermons, Volume I

The Faithful Steward
We are now prepared to present in detail that general system of beneficence, demanded alike by Scripture and reason, and best fitted to secure permanent and ever-growing results. While universal, it must be a system in its nature adapted to each individual, and binding on the individual conscience; one founded on, and embracing, the entire man,--his reason, his heart and will, including views and principles, feelings and affections, with their inculcation, general purposes and resolutions, with corresponding …
Sereno D. Clark—The Faithful Steward

"Ye are not in the Flesh," Says the Apostle...
"Ye are not in the flesh," says the apostle, "but in the Spirit"; but then he adds, as the only ground of this, "if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you"; surely he means, if so be ye are moved, guided, and governed by that, which the Spirit wills, works and inspires within you. And then to show the absolute necessity of this life of God in the soul, he adds, "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." And that this is the state to which God has appointed, and called all …
William Law—An Humble, Affectionate, and Earnest Address to the Clergy

Here are Two Most Important and Fundamental Truths Fully Demonstrated...
Here are two most important and fundamental truths fully demonstrated, First, that the truth and perfection of the gospel state could not take place, till Christ was glorified, and his kingdom among men made wholly and solely a continual immediate ministration of the Spirit: everything before this was but subservient for a time, and preparatory to this last dispensation, which could not have been the last, had it not carried man above types, figures and shadows, into the real possession and enjoyment …
William Law—An Humble, Affectionate, and Earnest Address to the Clergy

But one Sometimes Comes to a Case of this Kind...
24. But one sometimes comes to a case of this kind, that we are not interrogated where the person is who is sought, nor forced to betray him, if he is hidden in such manner, that he cannot easily be found unless betrayed: but we are asked, whether he be in such a place or not. If we know him to be there, by holding our peace we betray him, or even by saying that we will in no wise tell whether he be there or not: for from this the questioner gathers that he is there, as, if he were not, nothing else …
St. Augustine—On Lying

Introductory Note to the Epistle of Barnabas
[a.d. 100.] The writer of this Epistle is supposed to have been an Alexandrian Jew of the times of Trajan and Hadrian. He was a layman; but possibly he bore the name of "Barnabas," and so has been confounded with his holy and apostolic name-sire. It is more probable that the Epistle, being anonymous, was attributed to St. Barnabas, by those who supposed that apostle to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and who discovered similarities in the plan and purpose of the two works. It is with …
Barnabas—The Epistle of Barnabas

The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

How Can I Obtain Faith?
May the Spirit of God assist us while we meditate upon the way by which faith cometh. This shall be followed by a brief indication of certain obstructions which often lie in that way; and then we will conclude by dwelling upon the importance that faith should come to us by that appointed road. I. First, then, THE WAY BY WHICH FAITH COMES TO MEN. "Faith cometh by hearing." It may help to set the truth out more clearly, if we say, negatively, that it does not come by any other process than by hearing;--not …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

The Blood of Sprinkling
Our apostle next tells us what we are come to. I suppose he speaks of all the saints after the death and resurrection of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost. He refers to the whole church, in the midst of which the Holy Spirit now dwells. We are come to a more joyous sight than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire. The Hebrew worshipper, apart from his sacrifices, lived continually beneath the shadow of the darkness of a broken law; he was startled often by the tremendous note of the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886

"But Ye have Received the Spirit of Adoption, Whereby we Cry, Abba, Father. "
Rom. viii. 15.--"But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God," 1 John iii. 1. It is a wonderful expression of love to advance his own creatures, not only infinitely below himself, but far below other creatures, to such a dignity. Lord, what is man that thou so magnified him! But it surpasseth wonder, that rebellious creatures, his enemies, should have, not only …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"For as Many as are Led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. For Ye have not Received the Spirit of Bondage
Rom. viii. s 14, 15.--"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The life of Christianity, take it in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject unto, for this of necessity must be the force and efficacy of true religion, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Moral Reactions of Prayer
The Moral Reactions of Prayer All religion is founded on prayer, and in prayer it has its test and measure. To be religious is to pray, to be irreligious is to be incapable of prayer. The theory of religion is really the philosophy of prayer; and the best theology is compressed prayer. The true theology is warm, and it steams upward into prayer. Prayer is access to whatever we deem God, and if there is no such access there is no religion; for it is not religion to resign ourselves to be crushed …
P. T. Forsyth—The Soul of Prayer

Christ's Humiliation in his Incarnation
'Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.' I Tim 3:16. Q-xxvii: WHEREIN DID CHRIST'S HUMILIATION CONSIST? A: In his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross. Christ's humiliation consisted in his incarnation, his taking flesh, and being born. It was real flesh that Christ took; not the image of a body (as the Manichees erroneously held), but a true body; therefore he …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Her virginity Also Itself was on this Account More Pleasing and Accepted...
4. Her virginity also itself was on this account more pleasing and accepted, in that it was not that Christ being conceived in her, rescued it beforehand from a husband who would violate it, Himself to preserve it; but, before He was conceived, chose it, already dedicated to God, as that from which to be born. This is shown by the words which Mary spake in answer to the Angel announcing to her her conception; "How," saith she, "shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" [2031] Which assuredly she would …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

But if Moreover any not Having Charity, which Pertaineth to the Unity of Spirit...
23. But if moreover any not having charity, which pertaineth to the unity of spirit and the bond of peace whereby the Catholic Church is gathered and knit together, being involved in any schism, doth, that he may not deny Christ, suffer tribulations, straits, hunger, nakedness, persecution, perils, prisons, bonds, torments, swords, or flames, or wild beasts, or the very cross, through fear of hell and everlasting fire; in nowise is all this to be blamed, nay rather this also is a patience meet to …
St. Augustine—On Patience

Therefore at that Time, when the Law Also...
27. Therefore at that time, when the Law also, following upon the days of the Patriarchs, [2010] pronounced accursed, whoso raised not up seed in Israel, even he, who could, put it not forth, but yet possessed it. But from the period that the fullness of time hath come, [2011] that it should be said, "Whoso can receive, let him receive," [2012] from that period even unto this present, and from henceforth even unto the end, whoso hath, worketh: whoso shall be unwilling to work, let him not falsely …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Marriage

Letter xiv (Circa A. D. 1129) to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln
To Alexander, [15] Bishop of Lincoln A certain canon named Philip, on his way to Jerusalem, happening to turn aside to Clairvaux, wished to remain there as a monk. He solicits the consent of Alexander, his bishop, to this, and begs him to sanction arrangements with the creditors of Philip. He finishes by exhorting Alexander not to trust too much in the glory of the world. To the very honourable lord, Alexander, by the Grace of God, Bishop of Lincoln, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes honour more …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Eighth Sunday after Trinity Living in the Spirit as God's Children.
Text: Romans 8, 12-17. 12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: 13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

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