_Ans._ Are the ten commandments such a yoke as is not to be borne? Is it a yoke to have no other God but Jehovah, and to abstain from murder, theft, adultery, and the like? For so it must be, if you judge that the whole law is here slighted. But the thing under discussion here is, whether such and such laws are to be kept or not, and the stress that is laid upon the keeping of them, namely, the pressing of them as things without which they could not be saved, as in Acts 15:1; and therefore the Apostle, in answer to this, shows that the Gentiles had received the gospel and did believe, God having given to them the Holy Ghost, and put no difference between them and the Jews, purifying their hearts by faith, (verses 7-9,) and that through the grace of Jesus Christ both Jews and Gentiles should be saved, (verse 11;) and as the Apostle opposeth the keeping of these laws for such a purpose as to be saved thereby, so the bare keeping of them is forbidden. And therefore James saith, (verses 19, 20,) _My sentence is, that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned unto God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication, from things strangled, and from blood._ So that the Apostle's judgment is, that the Gentiles should keep some part of the law. And therefore the question was not, whether any part of the law should be kept; and the reason why they would write no more seems to be in verse 20, _For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day._ So the apostles and elders write, in verse 24, _Forasmuch as we have heard that certain men that went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment._ Now can we be so gross as to think, that it is subverting men's souls, and contrary to the commandments of the apostles and elders, to bid them love the Lord their God with all their hearts and with all their strength, and to worship him alone, and not to take his name in vain, and the like? This is to keep the law. But the difference was about other laws as well as circumcision, and they are as really forbidden to keep them, as they are forbidden circumcision; and therefore it cannot be the law of the ten commandments, but the law of shadows, as is manifest by chapter 21. When Paul came to Jerusalem, the brethren told him that it was reported that he taught all the Jews which were among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying, _that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs_, (verse 21;) therefore they counseled Paul to purify himself, with some others, that it might be seen that he walked orderly and kept the law. Verse 24. _But as touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such things._ Verse 25. So that it is very clear,