from grace; and in the most solemn terms he pronounced a curse
on those who were thus destroying the temple of God which he had built.

157. Paul Crushes the Judaizers.--He was not, however, the man to
allow such seduction to go on among his converts without putting forth
the most strenuous efforts to counteract it. He hurried, when he
could, to see the churches which were being tampered with; he sent
messengers to bring them back to their allegiance; above all, he wrote
letters to those in peril--letters in which the extraordinary powers of
his mind were exerted to the utmost. He argued the subject out with
all the resources of logic and Scripture; he exposed the seducers with
a keenness which cut like steel and overwhelmed them with sallies of
sarcastic wit; he flung himself at his converts' feet and with all the
passion and tenderness of his mighty heart implored them to be true to
Christ and to himself. We possess the records of these anxieties in
our New Testament; and it fills us with gratitude to God and a strange
tenderness to Paul himself to think that out of his heart-breaking
trial there has come such a precious heritage to us.

158. It is comforting to know that he was successful. Persevering as
his enemies were, he was more than a match for them. Hatred is strong,
but stronger still is love. In his later writings the traces of his
opposition are slender or entirely absent. It had given way before the
crushing force of his polemic, and its traces had been swept off the
soil of the Church. Had the event been otherwise, Christianity would
have been a river lost in the sands of prejudice near its very source;
it would have been at the present day a forgotten Jewish sect instead
of the religion of the world.

159. Christian Jews and the Law.--Up to this point the course of this
ancient controversy can be clearly traced. But there is another branch
of it about the course of which it is far from easy to arrive at with
certainty. What was the relation of the Christian Jews to the law,
according to the teaching and preaching of Paul? Was it their duty to
abandon the practices by which they had been wont to regulate their
lives and abstain from circumcising their children or teaching them to
keep the law? This would appear to be implied in Paul's principles.
If Gentiles could enter the kingdom without keeping the law, it could
not be necessary for Jews to keep it. If the law was a severe
disci