2. _Faith is a spiritual exercise revealing itself in active love._--"Faith worketh by love" (ver. 6). In ver. 5 we have the _statics_ of the religion of Christ; in ver. 6 its _dynamics._ Love is the working energy of faith. "Love gives faith hands and feet; hope lends it wings. Love is the fire at its heart, the life-blood coursing in its veins; hope the light that gleams and dances in its eyes." In the presence of an active spiritual Christianity, animated by love to Christ and to men, ritualism diminishes into insignificance. "In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision" (ver. 6). The Jew is no better or worse a Christian because he is circumcised; the Gentile no worse or better because he is not. Love, which is the fulfilling of the law, is the essence of Christianity, and gives it the superiority over all external rites. +Lessons.+--1. _Externalism in religion imposes intolerable burdens._ 2. _To prefer external rites is an insult to Christ._ 3. _The superiority of Christianity is its spiritual character._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Vers. 2-4. _Christianity nullified by Legalism._ +I. To accept legalism is to reject Christ+ (vers. 2, 4). +II. Legalism demands universal obedience to its enactments+ (ver. 3). +III. Legalism is a disastrous abandonment of Christianity.+--"Ye are fallen from grace" (ver. 4). Vers. 5, 6. _Righteousness attained by Active Faith._--1. No personal righteousness entitles us to the blessed hope of the heavenly inheritance, but only the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith. It is only the efficacious teaching of God's spirit which can sufficiently instruct us in the knowledge of this righteousness and make us with security and confidence venture our hope of heaven upon it. 2. To impose the tie of a command on anything as a necessary part of Divine worship wherein the Word has left us free, or to subject ourselves to such command, is a receding from and betrayal of Christian liberty. 3. The sum of a Christian's task is faith; but it is always accompanied with the grace of love. Though faith and love are conjoined, faith, in the order of nature, has the precedency.--_Fergusson._ Ver. 6. _Religion is Faith working by Love._ +I. External and bodily privileges are of no use and moment in the kingdom of Christ.+--1. We are not to esteem men's religion by their riches and external dignities. 2. We are to moderate our affections in respect of all outward things, neither sorrowing too much for them nor joying too much in them.