pistle to the Galatians where Paul says the free
Isaac and the bond woman Hagar were an allegory, teaching that
there were two covenants, one by Abraham, the other by Moses. The
Mosaic covenant of the law "answers to the Jerusalem which is on
earth, and is in bondage with her children," and belongs only to
the Jews. The Abrahamic covenant of promise answers to "the
Jerusalem which is above, and is free, and is the mother of us
all." In the former, we were "begotten unto bondage." In the
latter, "Christ hath made us free."

We will notice but one more text in passing: it is, of all the
proof texts of the doctrine of a substitutional expiation, the one
which has ever been regarded as the very Achilles. And yet it can
be made to support that doctrine only by the aid of arbitrary
assumptions and mistranslations, while by its very terms it
perfectly coincides with nay, expressly declares the theory which
we have been advocating as the genuine interpretation of Paul. The
usual commentators, in their treatment of this passage, have
exhibited a long continued series of perversions and sophisms,
affording a strong example of unconscious prejudice. The correct
Greek reading of the text is justly rendered thus: "Whom God set
forth, a mercy seat through the faith in his blood, to exhibit his
righteousness through the remission of former sins by the
forbearance of God." For rendering [non-ASCII characters]
"mercy seat," the usus loquendi and the internal harmony of meaning
are in our favor, and also the weight of many orthodox authorities,
such as Theodoret, Origen, Theophylact, OEcumenius, Erasmus, Luther,
and from Pelagius to Bushnell. Still, we are willing to admit the
rendering of it by "sin offering." That makes no important
difference in the result. Christ was a sin offering, in the
conception of Paul, in this sense: that when he was not himself
subject to death, which was the penalty of sin, he yet died in
order to show God's purpose of removing that penalty of sin
through his resurrection. For rendering [non-ASCII characters]
"through," no defence is needed: the only wonder is, how it ever
could have been here translated "for." Now, let two or three facts
be noticed.

First, the New Testament phrase "the faith of Christ," "the faith of
Jesus," is very unfairly and unwarrantably made to mean an
internal affection towards Christ, a belief of men in him. Its
genuine meaning is the same as "the gospel of Christ," or the
re