Now, legality is nothing more nor less than Judaism. It is seeking salvation after the pattern of the Old Testament, and not after that of the New. It is a matter of works, and not a matter of faith. It inquires "What good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" It is the child of the bondwoman and not that of the free. It is Ishmael and not Isaac. It is Sinai and not Calvary. And so it happens that many Christians are simply good Jews. They may even possess circumcised hearts, and may yet serve the Lord in the spirit of bondage, as did good Jews of old. They fail to realize that they have been called unto liberty, which liberty does not, by any means, signify license; it does not signify the liberty of making our own choices, but the liberty of accepting gladly and submissively God's choices; it does not mean the liberty of doing either right or wrong as we may prefer, but the liberty of always preferring to do right and never wrong, and so to spend our years on earth, doing right in all directions, and doing wrong in none. This, beloved, is the glorious liberty of the children of God. After the birth of Ishmael, we may well suppose that Hagar's chief employment in Abraham's house was to look after the said Ishmael, to care for him and to restrain him. Mark, it was never her business to care for or to restrain Isaac. He was the child of promise, the child of faith, the son of the lawful wife and the free woman, and when Ishmael's persecuting spirit broke forth at the weaning of Isaac, then the command was "Cast out the bond woman and her son." Both must go together or stay together. Ah! beloved, when inbred sin is cast out, there is no more need of the law either to restrain or constrain. Perfect love casts out fear; it also casts out sin, and becomes the motive power of the whole spiritual man. "The love of Christ constraineth us." So Paul shows us that both Gentiles and Jews had failed to attain unto the law of righteousness, because of inbred sin, which caused the former to put out the light which they had, and the latter to fall short of keeping the law, which was their only hope of salvation, but which was never intended by its Divine Author to save men, but to show them how utterly incapable they were of saving themselves. But Paul does not leave them there. After putting both classes of the human family into the same position of failure and condemnation, and declaring that there is no difference, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," he adds, "Being justified fully by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." When man's helplessness and inability have been sufficiently demonstrated, then God comes to his rescue. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all."