On the Galatians, “But, alas, how soon the face of things was altered! How soon, as to many of them, were their views of the grace of God, and of their justification before him, darkened! For Satan, that arch enemy of God and man, quickly began to sow the seeds of destructive error, and to raise up instruments to propagate a perverted gospel. He transformed himself into an angel of light, and pleaded the necessity of obedience to the law, in order to acceptance with God. Thus were they deceived, under a specious pretence of greater sanctity, and of a more than ordinary zeal for the divine commands. The righteousness of Christ, which Paul had described as the one thing needful for the justification of sinners, and which they had regarded as the only ground of their hope; they became afraid to trust, supposing it insufficient. They were taught by the false apostles, and were persuaded in their own deceived hearts, that they were under the necessity of seeking a supplementary aid from their own duties. This doctrine, so flattering to their own vanity, so favourable to human worthiness, and not including a professed rejection of Christ and his work, they received with all readiness. For it is much more agreeable to the pride of nature, and a far more popular way of seeking acceptance with God; to use our own skill, and exert our own endeavours, as co-efficients with divine grace and the great Redeemer, than to rely entirely on the righteousness of another, and be absolutely beholden to a foreign, undeserved assistance.—They entered, therefore, on a vain pursuit of happiness, in this plausible and self-pleasing, but delusive method. They clave to the law. They relied on their own duties, as co-partners with Jesus, in performing the greatest of all works, in obtaining the noblest of all blessings, their justification before the Almighty. The awful consequences of which were they embraced another gospel; made void the necessity of our Lord's death; and virtually renounced all interest in him.” —Abraham Booth @BaptistBooks