Already, in the fourth chapter, this tendency had led him to seem to rest his doctrine of justification by faith upon the case of Abraham, whereas, in truth, it needs all the good will in the world, and some effort of ingenuity, even to bring the case of Abraham within the operation of this doctrine. That righteousness is life, that all men by themselves fail of righteousness, that only through identification with Jesus Christ can they reach it,--these propositions, for us at any rate, prove themselves much better than they are proved by the thesis that Abraham in old age believed God's promise that his seed should yet be as the stars for multitude, and that this was counted to him for righteousness. The sanction thus apparently given to the idea that faith is a mere belief, or opinion of the mind, has put thousands of Paul's readers on a false track. But Paul's Judaising did not end here. To establish his doctrine of righteousness by faith, he had to eradicate the notion that his people were specially privileged, and that, having the Mosaic law, they did not need anything farther. For us, this one verse of the tenth chapter: _There is no difference between Jew and Greek, for it is the same Lord of all, who is rich to all that call upon him_,--and these four words of another verse: _For righteousness, heart-faith necessary!_--effect far more for Paul's object than his three chapters bristling with Old Testament quotations. By quotation, however, he was to proceed, in order to invest his doctrine with the talismanic virtues of a verbal sanction from the law and the prophets. He shows, therefore, that the law and the prophets had said that only a remnant, an _elect remnant_, of Israel should be saved, and that the rest should be blinded. But to say that peace with God through Jesus Christ inspires such an abounding sense of gratitude, and of its not being our work, that we can only speak of ourselves as _called_ and _chosen_ to it, is one thing; in so speaking, we are on the ground of personal experience. To say, on the other hand, that God has blinded and reprobated other men, so that they shall not reach this blessing, is to quit the ground of personal experience, and to begin employing the magnified and non-natural man in the next street. We then require, in order to account for his proceedings, such an analogy as that of the clay and the potter.