ing to plant churches of
circumcised Gentiles themselves, but starting up behind him as soon as
his back was turned, and spoiling his work.

This Epistle is the memorial of that foot-to-foot feud. It is of
perennial use, as the tendencies against which it is directed are
constant in human nature. Men are ever apt to confound form and
substance, to crave material embodiments of spiritual realities, to
elevate outward means into the place of the inward and real, to which
all the outward is but subsidiary. In every period of strife between the
two great opponents, this letter has been the stronghold of those who
fight for the spiritual conception of religion. With it Luther waged his
warfare, and in this day, too, its words are precious.

My text contains Paul's condensed statement of his whole position in the
controversy. It tells us what he fought for, and why he fought, against
the attempt to suspend union to Christ on an outward rite.

I. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith
working by love makes a Christian.

The antithesis of our text appears in somewhat varied forms in two other
places in the Apostle's writings. To the Corinthians he says,
'Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping
of the commandments of God.' His last word to the Galatians--the
gathering up into one strong sentence of his whole letter--is, 'In
Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision, but a new creature.'

Now, all these assertions embody substantially the same opposition
between the conception of Christianity as depending upon a ceremonial
rite, and as being a spiritual change. And the variations in the second
member of the contrast throw light on each other. In one, the essential
thing is regarded from the divine side as being not a rite performed on
the body, but a new nature, the result of a supernatural regeneration.
In another, the essential thing is set forth as being not an outward
act, but an inward principle, which produces appropriate effects on the
whole being. In yet another the essential thing is conceived as being
not a mere ceremonial, but practical obedience, the consequence of the
active principle of faith, and the sign of the new life. There is an
evident sequence in the three sayings. They begin with the deepest, the
divine act of a new creation--and end with the outermost, the last
result and object of both the others--deeds of confor