9. Here therefore these men
too evil, while they essay to make void the Law, force us to
approve these Scriptures. For they mark what is said, that they who
are under the Law are in bondage, and they keep flying above the
rest that last saying, “Ye are made empty1715
of
Christ, as many of you as are
justified in the
Law; ye have fallen from
Grace.”
1716
We grant
that all these things are true, and we say that the
Law is not
necessary,
save for them unto whom
bondage is yet profitable: and
that the
Law was on this account profitably enacted, in that men,
who could not be recalled from
sins by reason, needed to be
restrained by such a
Law, that is to say, by the
threats and
terrors of those punishments which can be seen by
fools: from which
when the
Grace of
Christ sets us free, it condemns not that
Law,
but invites us at length to yield obedience to its
love, not to be
slaves to the
fear of the
Law. Itself is
Grace, that is free
gift,
1717
which they
understand not to have come to them from
God, who still desire to
be under the
bonds of the
Law. Whom
Paul deservedly
rebukes as
unbelievers, because they do not believe that now through our
Lord
Jesus they have been set free from that
bondage, under which they
were placed for a certain time by the most just appointment of
God.
Hence is that saying of the same
Apostle, “For the
Law was our
schoolmaster in
Christ.”
1718
He therefore gave to men a
schoolmaster to
fear, Who after gave a Master to
love. And yet in
these
precepts and commands of the
Law, which now it is not allowed
Christians to use, such as either the
Sabbath, or
Circumcision, or
Sacrifices, and if there be any thing of this
kind, so great
mysteries are contained, as that every pious person may understand,
there is nothing more
deadly than that whatever is there be
understood to the letter, that is, to the word:
1719
and nothing more healthful than
that it be unveiled in the Spirit. Hence it is: “The letter
killeth, but the Spirit quickeneth.”
1720
| 1720 Vid. Retr. l. i. c. 14. n.
l. “In this book I said, ‘in which &c.’ but I have
otherwise explained those words of the Apostle Paul, and as far as
I can see, or rather as is apparent from the plain state of the
case, much more suitably, in the book entitled De Spiritu et
Literâ, though this sense too is not to be utterly
rejected.” 2 Cor. iii. 6 |
Hence it is, “That same
veil
remaineth in the reading of the Old Testament, which
veil is not
taken away; since it is made
void in
Christ.”
1721
For there is made
void in
Christ,
not the Old Testament, but its
veil: that so through
Christ that
may be understood, and, as it were, laid bare, which without
Christ
is obscure and covered. Forasmuch as the same
Apostle straightway
adds, “But when thou shalt have passed over to
Christ, the
veil
shall be taken away.”
1722
For he saith not, the
Law shall be
taken away, or, the Old Testament. Not therefore through the
Grace
of the
Lord, as though useless things were there hidden, have they
been taken away; but rather the covering whereby useful things were
covered. In this manner all they are dealt with, who earnestly and
piously, not disorderly and shamelessly,
seek the sense of those
Scriptures, and they are carefully shown both the order of events,
and the causes of
deeds and words, and so great
agreement of the
Old Testament with the New, that there is left no jot
1723
that
agrees not; and so great secrets of figures, that all the things
that are drawn forth by interpretation force them to confess that
they are wretched, who will to condemn these before they learn
them.
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