Viewed in this light, the Bible promises assume a practical aspect and a personal application, and we see what is meant by being Children of Promise. We are no longer under bondage to Law --- that is, to those laws of sequences which arise from the relations of existing things to one another --- but have risen into what the Bible tells us is the Perfect Law, the Law of Liberty; and so according to the symbolism of the two representative mothers, Hagar and Sarah, we are no longer children of the bond-woman but of the free (Gal. 4:31).

Only, to be "heirs according to promise" we must be descendants of Abraham. I am not prepared to say that the majority of readers of this book are not so literally, though they may not be aware of the fact; but that is another branch of the subject with which I deal elsewhere

[See"Salvation is of the Jews" in The Doré Lectures --- Ed].

Setting aside this historical question, let us here consider the question of spiritual principles. On this point the teaching of the Bible is very plain. It is that they are children of Abraham who are of the faith of Abraham; they are his seed according to promise --- that is, they are living by the same principle which is set forth as forming the groundwork of Abraham's life: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3).

Two Results

Now what will be the fruit of such a root? It must necessarily produce two results in our inner life