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The apostle, in these words, compares the church of God, under the Old Testament, to an infant or child in its minority and nonage; partly with respect to their weakness in understanding, and want of the means of knowledge, comparatively to what we enjoy; and partly, with respect to the discipline they were under from their rigid schoolmaster, the ceremonial law. "Now, says the apostle, as a child, though he be heir to, and owner of all his father's inheritance in hope, yet so long as he is a minor, and under age, he differeth nothing from a servant in point of subjection, but is under the management of tutors and directors. In like manner the church, when in its infant state, under the Old Testament, was kept in bondage and subjection under the rigid administration, and rigorous exaction of the law, and tied to almost a numberless number of ceremonial observances, by which it pleased Almighty God to instruct the former ages of his church."
Learn hence, that the Jewish church, in its infant state, was obliged to learn and practice the elements of a religion chiefly consisting in visible and bodily performances of the ceremonial law, which were but rudiments, in respect of that heavenly doctrine concerning spiritual life which the gospel now reveals, and clearly makes known unto us: When we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world.