I. IF WE SEEK FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS BY MEANS OF LAW WE MAKE NO USE OF THE GRACE OF GOD. Here are two rival methods for obtaining righteousness. The first is wide and various, by means of Law, any law - the Levitical system, ascetic discipline, rites of heathen mysteries, Stoic philosophy, our own attempts to conform to an outside rule. The second is specific, the grace of God, the grace shown in the gospel, the grace that comes through the sacrifice of Christ. These two methods are mutually exclusive. They run in opposite directions. The Judaizing party was trying to combine them. The Roman Catholics made the same attempt when they regarded justification as the result of works wrought by means of grace. But, though grace does lead us to conformity with Law, it can only do so in its own way by changing the heart and planting principles of righteousness, not by assisting the old servile effort to keep certain external ordinances. The old stage-coach can be of no assistance to the express train. By so much of the distance as you go by road you leave the rail and therefore lose ground. The mistake of neglecting grace for Law is
(1) foolish, for we thus lose a help freely offered;
(2) ungrateful, for we refuse the gift of God; and
(3) dangerous, for we shall be to blame for the failure that could have been avoided had we not declined to avail ourselves of God's method of righteousness.
All attempts, then, to increase holiness by monastic rules, regulations of a religious order, specific vows, or restraints of formal Church discipline are unchristian. The higher righteousness must be attained by the same means through which the first elements were secured. Any other method is poorer and weaker. We begin with grace; we can never improve upon grace.
II. IF RIGHTEOUSNESS WERE ATTAINABLE BY MEANS OF LAW, CHRIST'S DEATH WOULD HAVE BEEN TO NO PURPOSE.
1. The method of Law was the older method. If this had been successful there would have been no need to add another. If the Old Testament were enough the New Testament need never have been produced.
2. The method of Law was the less costly method. We do not turn to more expensive methods if no superior advantage is to be gained by them. The new method is only possible at the greatest possible cost. The righteousness by Law required no special sacrifice. The righteousness by grace required the death of the Son of God. How much superior must God consider it to be willing to pay so heavy a price in order to secure it to us! We may be sure that, if by any easier way the same results could have been reached, God would have spared his own Son. Yet they who neglect this grace for the old method of Law proclaim by their actions that the great sacrifice was unnecessary. For themselves, too, they do make it a useless thing. This is the pathetic side of their error. Refusing to avail themselves of the grace of God, they bring it to pass that, as far as they are concerned, Christ died in vain. - W.F.A.
I do not frustrate the grace of God.
1. The idea of salvation by the merit of our own works is exceedingly insinuating. When it gains the least foothold, it soon makes great advances. The only way to deal with it is to stamp it out. War to the knife. No surrender.
2. This error is exceedingly plausible. Said to encourage virtue. But where will you find a devout and upright man who glories in his own works?
3. Self-righteousness is natural to our fallen humanity. Hence it is the essence of all false religions.
4. This erroneous idea arises partly from ignorance:
(1)of the law of God;(2)of what holiness is;(3)of themselves.5. It arises also from pride.
6. And from unbelief.
7. It is evidently evil, for it makes light of sin.
8. No comfort in it for the fallen. It gives to the elder son all that his proud heart can claim, but for the prodigal it has no welcome. What, then, is to become of the guilty?
()
1. He that hopes to be saved by his own righteousness rejects the grace or free favour of God, regards it as useless, and in that sense frustrates it. If we can keep the law and claim to be accepted as a matter of debt, it is plain that we need not turn supplicants and crave for mercy. Grace is a superfluity where merit can be proved2. He makes the grace of God to be at least a secondary thing. Many think they are to merit as much as they can, and that God will make up for the rest by His grace. Every man his own saviour, and Jesus Christ and His grace make-weights for our deficiences.
3. He who trusts in himself, his feelings, his works, his prayers, or in anything except the grace of God, virtually gives up trusting in the grace of God altogether. God will never share the work with man's merit. You must either have salvation wholly because you deserve it, or wholly because God graciously bestows it though you do not deserve it.
4. This doctrine takes off the sinner from confidence in Christ. So long as a man can maintain any hope in himself, he will never look to the Redeemer.
5. This doctrine robs God of His glory. If man can save himself, then the glory is his own, not God's. What an awful crime, then, is this doctrine of salvation by human merit. It is a sin so gross that even the heathen cannot commit it.. They have never heard of the grace of God, and therefore they cannot put a slight upon it: when they perish it will be with a far lighter doom than those who have been told that God is gracious and ready to pardon, and yet turn on their heel and wickedly boast of innocence, and pretend to be clean in the sight of God. It is a sin which devils cannot commit. With all the obstinancy of their rebellion, they can never reach to this. They have never had the sweet notes of free grace and dying love ringing in their ears, and therefore they have never refused the heavenly invitation. What has never been presented to their acceptance cannot be the object of their rejection.
()
I. TWO GREAT CRIMES ARE CONTAINED IN THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. The frustration of the grace of God. The self-righteous
(1)reject it as baseless;(2)make it at least a secondary thing;(3)virtually give up trusting in it;(4)renounce their confidence in Christ;(5)rob God of His glory.2. The making of Christ to be dead is vain.
(1)Christ's finished work is rendered imperfect;(2)the covenant sealed with Christ's death is rejected;(3)each person in the Trinity is sinned against;(4)fallen man is sinned against, who can have no mercy but; through Christ;(5)the saints are sinned against, who have no hope but through Christ.II. THE TWO CRIMES ARE COMMITTED BY MANY PEOPLE. By —
1. Triflers with the gospel.
2. The senseless as to guilt.
3. The despairing.
4. Those who have misgivings about the power of the gospel.
5. Apostates.
III. NO TRUE BELIEVER WILL BE GUILTY OF THESE CRIMES.
()
How can a man trust in his own righteousness? It is like seeking shelter under one's own shadow. We may stoop to the very ground; and the lower we bend, we still find that our shadow is beneath us. But if a man flee to the shadow of a great rock, or of a widespreading tree, he will find abundant shelter from the rays of the noonday sun. So human merits are unavailing; and Christ alone can save.()
The rejection of the grace of God may take place(1) by a denial of the perfect satisfaction of Christ;(2) by setting alongside of it our own merits, worthiness and righteousness, as popery does in doctrine, and many Protestants do in fact;(3) by abusing this grace to favour presumption, and to supersede sanctification;(4) when even sincere souls, in the feeling of their unworthiness, are much too timorous to appropriate grace to themselves, and think they must first have arrived at this or that degree of holiness, before grace can avail them anything;(5) when tempted ones from a lack of feeling conclude that they have fallen out of grace again.()
I. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE LAW TO PROMOTE RIGHTEOUSNESS.1. It was never instituted for that purpose.
(1)It is a standard of righteousness,(2)and therefore a constant and irritating reminder of unrighteousness, and(3)has no moral power.2. Men have never found righteousness by the law.
(1)All have sinned and broken it.(2)The best morality falls below its requirements.3. On the assumption of its sufficiency
(1)God's grace is frustrated;(2)Christ is dead in vain.II. Hence THE NECESSITY OF SOME BETTER PROVISION FOR THE PROMOTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. Men yearn after it.
2. It is God's will that man should be righteous or He would never have made him so.
3. Righteousness is the law and harmony of the universe which sin has broken.
III. GOD HAS MADE THIS PROVISION IN THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
1. That death has atoned for sin, and when accepted by faith past unrighteousness is remitted and man is justified (Romans 3:25).
2. By that death the Holy Spirit is secured who makes man actually righteous, and gives the power to fulfil all righteousness.
If people can make themselves good by doing what is called their duty, then the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ constitute the greatest mistake that ever was made in the universe. If a man can be really good, can make himself all that God can possibly desire him to be, of his own motion and will and by the resources of his own invention and energy, then the mediation of Jesus Christ was a great and generous expenditure of pain and life and sorrow, and an expenditure that ended in nothing.()
While in the case of two mutinous seamen who, having long resisted every effort on the part of the captain to reform them, have at last, through their continued intemperance, fallen overboard, one grasps the rope thrown out by his master's mercy, and is saved, while the other rejects it, or depends on his own efforts and is drowned; has the former ground to boast that he is his own saviour? There was assuredly more mad wilfulness in his hardened companion who refused the proffered aid; but the recklessness of the latter imparts no merit to the former. While the one can ascribe his deliverence to nothing in himself "moving" his captain "thereunto," but solely to his master's compassion, the other had equal mercy shown to him, but his destruction was entirely his own doing. When the prodigal returned would his sense of the entire freeness of his father's goodness and of his own absolute demerit have been at all diminished by learning that another brother who had run the same course of riot as himself refused to cast himself into those arms by which he himself had been so warmly welcomed? Would the greater obduracy and in. fatuated perverseness of his brother extenuate, in the pardoned son's eyes, his own guilt, or lead him less to ascribe his own forgiveness to free unmerited grace?()
Let the law stand for any attempt at duty doing with a view to self-salvation. I do not say that a man cannot wash his hands; I am not here to reason that it is not possible for a man to put on a good deal of external decoration. I believe that it is quite within his power to say to some of his appetites, "Now you shall be starved for six months. I will touch no intoxicant for the rest of my life, and never more go into any associations which I believe to be corrupting, and will do my best to conform to the highest moral standard. What more can you expect me to do?" Well, what have you done? Outside work; you have washed your hands, but you have not cleansed your heart. As between man and man you have done a good deal. But seeing that the question is not primarily between man and man, but between you and God, you have done nothing but confound righteousness with morality.()
If Satan, the great Judaizer as well as antinomian, tempts us to trust in our own endeavours we fly to the cross. If conscience, the advocate of Sinai, reminds us of our multiplied offences and failures we say, "Were it ten thousand times worse there can be no condemnation." Hardest of all, if, in times of despondency our innumerable and peculiar sins, not against the law, but against the very gospel that saves from the law, are pressed upon our spirits, we can still take refuge in the cross and think, "I have paid my own debt in Him who died not only to discharge the obligation to clerical law, but also to expiate offences against the gospel itself, who atoned for sins against the atonement, and suffered on the cross for dishonour done to the very cross on which He suffered;" and there is, or will be, a time to every one of us, when amidst the thick darkness that divides time from eternity, we shall find no greater consolation than this: I am crucified with Christ; I do not frustrate the grace of God; Christ hath not died for me in vain.()
A benevolent rich man had a very poor neighbour, to whom he sent this message: "I wish to make you the gift of a farm." The poor man was pleased with the idea of having a farm, but was too proud at once to receive it as a gift. So he thought of the matter much and anxiously. His desire to have a home of his own was daily growing stronger; but his pride was great. At length, he determined to visit him who had made the offer. But a strange delusion about this time seized him; for he imagined that he had a bag of gold. So he came with his bag, and said to the rich man, "I have received your message, and have come to see you. I wish to own the farm; but I wish to pay for it. I will give you a bag of gold for it." "Let us see your gold," said the owner of the farm. "Look again: I donor think it is even silver." The poor man looked, tears stood in his eyes, and his delusion seemed to be gone; and he said, "Alas! I am undone: it is not even copper; it is but ashes. How poor I am! I wish to own that farm; but I have nothing to pay. Will you give me the farm?" The rich man replied, "Yes: that was my first and only offer. Will you accept it on such terms?" With humility, but with eagerness, the poor man said, "Yes: and a thousand blessings on you for your kindness!"()
I was once invited out to tea by a poor widow, and I took something in my pocket. But I'll never do it again. It was two cakes; and, when I brought them out and laid them on the table, she picked them up and flung them out into the street, and said, "I asked you to tea; I didn't ask you to provide tea for me." And so with Christ. He asks, He provides, and He wants nothing but ourselves; and if we take aught else He'll reject it. We can only sup with Him when we come as we are. Who will accept salvation? Who'll say, "I take the blessing from above, And wonder at Thy boundless love"?().
People
Barnabas,
Cephas,
Galatians,
James,
John,
Paul,
Peter,
TitusPlaces
Jerusalem,
Syrian AntiochTopics
Acquittal, Aside, Attainable, Christ, Dead, Death, Died, Effect, Frustrate, Gained, Grace, Guilt, Justification, Law, Needlessly, Nothing, Nought, Nullify, Obtainable, Purpose, Righteousness, Vain, VoidOutline
1. He shows when he went up again to Jerusalem, and for what purpose;3. and that Titus was not circumcised;11. and that he resisted Peter, and told him the reason;14. why he and others, being Jews, believe in Christ to be justified by faith, and not by works;20. and that they live not in sin, who are so justified.Dictionary of Bible Themes
Galatians 2:21 1055 God, grace and mercy
5776 achievement
6512 salvation, necessity and basis
6668 grace, and Christ
6669 grace, and salvation
6677 justification, necessity
6678 justification, Christ's work
Galatians 2:14-21
8316 orthodoxy, in NT
Galatians 2:17-21
5775 abuse
Galatians 2:19-21
2414 cross, centrality
Galatians 2:20-21
1436 reality
7797 teaching
8822 self-justification
Library
February 10. "I am Crucified with Christ; Nevertheless I Live" (Gal. Ii. 20).
"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live" (Gal. ii. 20). Christ life is in harmony with our nature. A lady asked me the other day--a thoughtful, intelligent woman who was not a Christian, but who had the deepest hunger for that which is right: "How can this be so, and we not lose our individuality! This will destroy our personality, and it violates our responsibility as individuals." I said: "Dear sister, your personality is only half without Christ. Christ was made for you, and you were …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth September 25. "The Faith of the Son of God" (Gal. Ii. 20).
"The faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20). Let us learn the secret even of our faith. It is the faith of Christ, springing in our heart and trusting in our trials. So shall we always sing, "The life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Thus looking off unto Jesus, "the Author and Finisher of our faith," we shall find that instead of struggling to reach the promises of God, we shall lie down upon them in blessed repose and be borne up by them …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth
December 18. "The Faith of the Son of God" (Gal. Ii. 20).
"The faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20). Faith is hindered most of all by what we call "our faith," and fruitless struggles to work out a faith which is but a make-believe and a desperate trying to trust God, which must ever come short of His vast and glorious promises. The truth is that the only faith that is equal to the stupendous promises of God and the measureless needs of our life, is "the faith of God" Himself, the very trust which He will breathe into the heart which intelligently expects …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth
From Centre to Circumference
'The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.'--GAL. ii. 20. We have a bundle of paradoxes in this verse. First, 'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.' The Christian life is a dying life. If we are in any real sense joined to Christ, the power of His death makes us dead to self and sin and the world. In that region, as in the physical, death is the gate of life; and, inasmuch as what we die to in Christ is itself …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
The Duty of Remembering the Poor
POVERTY is no virtue; wealth is no sin. On the other hand, wealth is not morally good, and poverty is not morally evil. A man may be a good man and a rich man; it is quite certain that very frequently good men are poor men. Virtue is a plant which depends not upon the atmosphere which surrounds it, but upon the hand which waters it, and upon the grace which sustains it. We draw no support for grace from our circumstances whether they be good or evil. Our circumstances may sometimes militate against …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856
"And if Christ be in You, the Body is Dead Because Sin,"
Rom. viii. 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because sin," &c. This is the high excellence of the Christian religion, that it contains the most absolute precepts for a holy life, and the greatest comforts in death, for from these two the truth and excellency of religion is to be measured, if it have the highest and perfectest rule of walking, and the chiefest comfort withal. Now, the perfection of Christianity you saw in the rule, how spiritual it is, how reasonable, how divine, how …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Nor have I Undertaken that in the Present Discourse...
25. Nor have I undertaken that in the present discourse, as it more pertains to thee, who hast laid open the hiding-places of the Priscillianists, so far as relates to their false and perverse dogmas; that they may not seem to have been in such sort investigated as if they were meet to be taught, not to be argued against. Make it therefore more thy work that they be beaten down and laid low, as thou hast made it, that they should be betrayed and laid open; lest while we wish to get at the discovery …
St. Augustine—Against Lying
Or are we Indeed to Believe that it is for any Other Reason...
41. Or are we indeed to believe that it is for any other reason, that God suffers to be mixed up with the number of your profession, many, both men and women, about to fall, than that by the fall of these your fear may be increased, whereby to repress pride; which God so hates, as that against this one thing The Highest humbled Himself? Unless haply, in truth, thou shalt therefore fear less, and be more puffed up, so as to love little Him, Who hath loved thee so much, as to give up Himself for thee, …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.
Thus the Spirit of Man, Cleaving unto the Spirit of God...
29. Thus the spirit of man, cleaving unto the Spirit of God, lusts against the flesh, that is, against itself: but for itself, in order that those motions, whether in the flesh or in the soul, after man, not after God, which as yet exist through the sickness man hath gotten, may be restrained by continence, that so health may be gotten; and man, not living after man, may now be able to say, "But I live, now not I, but there liveth in me Christ." [1916] For where not I, there more happily I: and, …
St. Augustine—On Continence
So Great Blindness, Moreover, Hath Occupied Men's Minds...
43. So great blindness, moreover, hath occupied men's minds, that to them it is too little if we pronounce some lies not to be sins; but they must needs pronounce it to be sin in some things if we refuse to lie: and to such a pass have they been brought by defending lying, that even that first kind which is of all the most abominably wicked they pronounce to have been used by the Apostle Paul. For in the Epistle to the Galatians, written as it was, like the rest, for doctrine of religion and piety, …
St. Augustine—On Lying
Neither do they Confess that they are Awed by those Citations from the Old...
7. Neither do they confess that they are awed by those citations from the Old Testament which are alleged as examples of lies: for there, every incident may possibly be taken figuratively, although it really did take place: and when a thing is either done or said figuratively, it is no lie. For every utterance is to be referred to that which it utters. But when any thing is either done or said figuratively, it utters that which it signifies to those for whose understanding it was put forth. Whence …
St. Augustine—On Lying
Introduction to Apologia De Fuga.
The date of this Defence of his Flight must be placed early enough to fall within the lifetime, or very close to the death (§1. n. 1), of Leontius of Antioch, and late enough to satisfy the references (§6) to the events at the end of May 357 (see notes there), and to the lapse of Hosius, the exact date of which again depends upon that of the Sirmian Council of 357, which, if held the presence of Constantius, must have fallen as late as August (Gwatk. Stud. 157, n. 3). Athanasius not only …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius
The Main Current of the Reformation
I One of the greatest tragedies in Christian history is the division of forces which occurred in the Reformation movements of the sixteenth century. Division of forces in the supreme spiritual undertakings of the race is of course confined to no one century and to no one movement; it is a very ancient tragedy. But the tragedy of division is often relieved by the fact that through the differentiation of opposing parties a vigorous emphasis is placed upon aspects of truth which might otherwise have …
Rufus M. Jones—Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Whether God Became Incarnate in Order to Take Away Actual Sin, Rather than to Take Away Original Sin?
Objection 1: It would seem that God became incarnate as a remedy for actual sins rather than for original sin. For the more grievous the sin, the more it runs counter to man's salvation, for which God became incarnate. But actual sin is more grievous than original sin; for the lightest punishment is due to original sin, as Augustine says (Contra Julian. v, 11). Therefore the Incarnation of Christ is chiefly directed to taking away actual sins. Objection 2: Further, pain of sense is not due to original …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Bread and Wine Cont.
(4) We have yet to ask the great question, what is the specific blessing expressed by the elements, and therefore surely given to the faithful by the sacrament. Too many are content to think vaguely of Divine help, given us for the merit of the death of Christ. But bread and wine do not express an indefinite Divine help, they express the body and blood of Christ, they have to do with His Humanity. We must beware, indeed, of limiting the notion overmuch. At the Supper He said not "My flesh," but "My …
G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark
The Great Debt She Owed to Our Lord for his Mercy to Her. She Takes St. Joseph for Her Patron.
1. After those four days, during which I was insensible, so great was my distress, that our Lord alone knoweth the intolerable sufferings I endured. My tongue was bitten to pieces; there was a choking in my throat because I had taken nothing, and because of my weakness, so that I could not swallow even a drop of water; all my bones seemed to be out of joint, and the disorder of my head was extreme. I was bent together like a coil of ropes--for to this was I brought by the torture of those days--unable …
Teresa of Avila—The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Relation ii. To one of Her Confessors, from the House of Dona Luisa De La Cerda, in 1562.
Jesus. I think it is more than a year since this was written; God has all this time protected me with His hand, so that I have not become worse; on the contrary, I see a great change for the better in all I have to say: may He be praised for it all! 1. The visions and revelations have not ceased, but they are of a much higher kind. Our Lord has taught me a way of prayer, wherein I find myself far more advanced, more detached from the things of this life, more courageous, and more free. [2] I fall …
Teresa of Avila—The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus
Estimate of the Scope and Value of Jerome's Writings.
General. The writings of Jerome must be estimated not merely by their intrinsic merits, but by his historical position and influence. It has already been pointed out that he stands at the close of the old Græco-Roman civilisation: the last Roman poet of any repute, Claudian, and the last Roman historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, died before him. Augustin survived him, but the other great Fathers, both in the East and in the West, had passed away before him. The sack of Rome by Alaric (410) and …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Galatians.
The Commentary is in three books, with full Prefaces. Book I., Ch. i. 1-iii. 9. Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, a.d. 387. The Preface to this book begins with a striking description of the noble Roman lady Albina, which is as follows: Only a few days have elapsed since, having finished my exposition of the Epistle of Paul to Philemon, I had passed to Galatians, turning my course backwards and passing over many intervening subjects. But all at once letters unexpectedly arrived from Rome with the …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome
Twentieth Day. Holiness and Liberty.
Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness: now present your members as servants of righteousness unto sanctification. Now being made free from sin, and become servants unto God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.'--Rom. vi. 18, 19, 22. 'Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.'--Gal. ii. 4. 'With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.'--Gal. v. 1. There is no possession more …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ
Charity and Rebuke.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13. The second main point of difference between a true and a false Charity, we want to remark, is, Divine Charity is not only consistent with, but it very often necessitates, reproof and rebuke by its possessor. It renders it incumbent on those who possess it to reprove and rebuke whatever is evil--whatever does not tend to the highest interests of its object. This Charity conforms in this, as …
Catherine Booth—Godliness
Second Great Group of Parables.
(Probably in Peræa.) Subdivision A. Introduction. ^C Luke XV. 1, 2. ^c 1 Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing hear unto him to hear. 2 And both the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. [For publicans see p. 76, and for eating with them see p. 349. The Pharisees classed as "sinners" all who failed to observe the traditions of the elders, and especially their traditional rules of purification. It was not so much the wickedness of …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
The Critical Reconstruction of the History of the Apostolic Age.
"Die Botschaft hör' ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube." (Goethe.) Never before in the history of the church has the origin of Christianity, with its original documents, been so thoroughly examined from standpoints entirely opposite as in the present generation. It has engaged the time and energy of many of the ablest scholars and critics. Such is the importance and the power of that little book which "contains the wisdom of the whole world," that it demands ever new investigation and sets …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I
This Question I Should Briefly Solve, if I Should Say...
24. This question I should briefly solve, if I should say, because I should also justly say, that we must believe the Apostle. For he himself knew why in the Churches of the Gentiles it was not meet that a venal Gospel were carried about; not finding fault with his fellow-apostles, but distinguishing his own ministry; because they, without doubt by admonition of the Holy Ghost, had so distributed among them the provinces of evangelizing, that Paul and Barnabas should go unto the Gentiles, and they …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.
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