that "all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6: 33), the sense is "superadded",

added in addition. It is easy for a reader of Galatians to say "surely it means that the law

of Moses" was super-added to the "promise" made to Abraham; but there are strong

objections to this namely, the promise was given 430 years previously and there is no hint

in Exod. 19: and 20: that either Israel or Moses spake or thought of the nature of the

promise to Abraham which it seems they must have done, if the law of Sinai was actually

superadded to that promise, and there is no apparent relation between the promise of

Abraham and the law of Moses. Here is "no epidiatheke, but a totally fresh institution"

(Meyer). The provisions of the promise are diametrically opposed to those of the law,

and says Gwynne:  "How this can with any propriety of language be said to be

`superadded' to it, is a mystery which I am unable to solve."

When giving credit to Gwynne for directing our attention to the idea that the word

"added" in Gal. 3: 19 refers to the adding of the ceremonial law to the existing

commandments on the tables of stone, we suggested that even he had not observed that

there is waiting for us a reference that, if studied, leads us out into even fuller light and

certainty. That reference is Heb. 12: 18, 19. Before quoting this and following up its

implications, the writer went through the commentaries that were immediately

accessible--Lightfoot, Alford, Bloomfield, Ellicott, Webster and Wilkinson, McKnight,

Valpy, Conybeare and Howson, Ramsay, Sadler, Lewin, Wordsworth and the Companion

Bible, but not one of these valuable and helpful works makes so much as a passing

reference to Heb. 12: 18, 19.

If the reader says "why should they?" the answer is that whoever attempts to interpret

and explain a passage of Scriptures without putting forward prominently the principle

"comparing spiritual things with spiritual" will necessarily, deprived of that light and

authority, be compelled to depend upon his own sagacity, and the opinion of others. So it

is that men of learning and understanding are found following one another in a blind

circle, instead of humbly yet boldly enquiring at the Fountain Head. Every Greek

concordance gives a list of prostithemi, commencing with Matt. 6: 27 as the first

occurrence in the New Testament and ending with Heb. 12: 19 as the last.

In the presence of the names cited above, the present writer must retire if it be a matter

of learning, erudition or scholarship, but however modest he may well be, the fact

remains that the observance of the principle of I Cor. 2: 13 leads straight to the heart of

truth, whereas the learning and the scholarship that ignored this principle never reached

clear light. This moment of apparent boasting is allowed us, for what such simple

observance can do for the writer, it can do for the reader, however retiring and unlearned

he may be.

Let us now turn to Heb. 12::