It was the temptation of Israel of old to put Circumcision in the place of faith, love, and holiness, instead of in its right place, as the divine imperial seal upon the covenant of grace, the covenant to be claimed and used by faith. It is the temptation of some Christians now to put the sacred order of the Church, and particularly its divine Sacraments, the holy Bath and the holy Meal, in the place of spiritual regeneration, and spiritual communion, rather than in their right place as divine imperial seals on the covenant which guarantees both to faith. For us, as for our elder brethren, this paragraph of the great argument is therefore altogether to the purpose. "Faith is greater than water," says even Peter Lombard,[26] the _Magister_ of the medieval Schools. So it is. And the thought is in perfect unison with St Paul's principle of reasoning here. Let it be ours to reverence, to prize, to use the ordinances of our Master, with a devotion such as we might seem sure we should feel if we saw Him dip His hand in the Font, or stretch it out to break the Bread, and hallow it, and give it, at the Table. But let us be quite certain, for our own souls' warning, that it is true all the while--in the sense of this passage--that "he is not a Christian which is one outwardly, neither is that Baptism, or Communion, which is outward; but he is a Christian which is one inwardly, and Baptism and Communion are those of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter." Sacred indeed are the God-given externals of Christian order and ordinance. But there are degrees of greatness in the world of sacred things. And the moral work of God direct upon the soul of man is greater than His sacramental work done through man's body. [20] There is no practical doubt that εἰ δὲ not ἴde ("_Behold_") is the right reading here. [21] Μόρφωσις: we need not understand by this word a reference to _mere formalism_. Μορφή on the contrary regularly means shape expressive of underlying substance. And μόρφωσις means not shape but shap_ing_. He means that the Pharisee really _has_, in the Law, God's formed and formative model of knowledge and reality. Still, 2 Tim. iii. 5 justifies our also seeing here a side suggestion of the possibility of dissociating even the divine model from the corresponding "power." [22] Τῦς γνώσεως, τῦς ἀληθείας:--the adjective "_real_" in our rendering represents the Greek definite article, though with a slight exaggeration. [23] Τὸν Θεόν. We represent the definite article here by "_your_," and just below by "_our_"; not without hesitation, as it somewhat exaggerates the definition. [24] See A. M'Caul's _Old Paths_ (נתיבות עולם), p. 230, etc. [25] So Bernard, _Sermo in Cœnâ_, c. 2. [26] See _Sententiæ_, iv., iv., 3-7. CHAPTER VIII _JEWISH CLAIMS: NO HOPE IN HUMAN MERIT_ ROMANS iii. 1-20