nce resulting in a
heart raised into fellowship with him in heaven is the inward seal
assuring us that our faith is not vain. "Ye Gentiles, who formerly
were afar off, are now made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between Jews and
Gentiles, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, namely, the
law of commandments in ordinances, in order to make in himself of
twain one new man. For through him we both have access by one
spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the
household of God." Circumcision was of the flesh; and the vain
hope of salvation by it was confined to the Jews. Grace was of the
spirit; and the revealed assurance of salvation by it was given to
the Gentiles too, when Christ died to the nationalizing flesh,
rose in the universalizing spirit, and from heaven impartially
exhibited himself, through the preaching of the gospel, to the
appropriating faith of all.

The foregoing positions might be further substantiated by applying
the general theory they contain to the explication of scores of
individual texts which it fits and unfolds, and which, we think,
cannot upon any other view be interpreted without forced
constructions unwarranted by a thorough acquaintance with the mind
of Paul and with the mind of his age. But we must be content with
one or two such applications as specimens. The word "mystery"
often occurs in the letters of Paul. Its current meaning in his
time was "something concealed," something into which one must be
initiated in order to understand it.

13 Martineau, Liverpool Controversy: Inconsistency of the Scheme
of Vicarious Redemption.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, for instance, were not necessarily any thing
intrinsically dark and hard to be comprehended, but things hidden
from public gaze and only to be known by initiation into them.
Paul uses the term in a similar way to denote the peculiar scheme
of grace, which "had been kept secret from the beginning of the
world," "hidden from ages and generations, but now made manifest."
No one denies that Paul means by "this mystery" the very heart and
essence of the gospel, precisely that which distinguishes it from
the law and makes it a universal method of salvation, a wondrous
system of grace. So much is irresistibly evident from the way and
the connection in which he uses the term. He writes thus in
explanation o