ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE ROMANS. BY THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. & LL.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL STREET. 1843. ADVERTISEMENT. A SERIES of pulpit discourses on the obvious subject-matter of Scripture, is of a different character from those critical and expository works, the object of which is to fix and ascertain the meaning-even of the more obscure and controverted, as well as of the clearest passages. The following is a record of the Sabbath preparations of many years back-now given without change or improvement to the world; and the appearance of which in their present state is very much owing to the frequently expressed desire of my old hearers, to have the Lectures which I delivered on the Epistle to the Romans, set before them in a more permanent form. But it may be right to mention that the pulpit lectures which were delivered during my incumbency in the parish of St. John's, Glasgow, from September, 1819, to November, 1823, extend only a little way into the tenth chapter, and that the remaining lectures, with the exception of the one on xiv. 17, have been only prepared now for the completion of this work. Edinburgh, January, 1842. LECTURES ON THE ROMANS. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. It is possible to conceive the face of our be a twofold process begun and carried world overspread with a thick and mid- forward, and at length brought to its full night darkness, and without so much as a and perfect termination. Light must be particle of light to alleviate it, from any poured upon the earth, and the faculty of one quarter of the firmament around us. seeing must be conferred upon its inhabiIn this case, it were of no avail to the tants. One can imagine, that, instead of people who live in it, that all of them were the light being made instantaneously to in possession of sound and perfect eyes. burst upon us in its highest splendour, The organ of sight may be entire, and yet and, instead of the faculty being immedinothing be seen from the total absence of ately bestowed upon us in full vigour to external light among the objects on every meet and to encounter so strong a tide of side of us. Or in other words, to bring effulgency-that both these processes were about the perception of that which is with- conducted in a way that was altogether out, it is not enough that we have the gradual-that the light, for example, had power of vision among men; but, in ad- its first weak glimmering; and that the dition to this, there must be a visibility in eye, in the feebleness of its infancy, was the trees, and the houses, and the moun- not overcome by it-that the light adtains, and the living creatures, which are vanced with morning step to a clearer now in the ordinary discernment of men. brilliancy; and that the eye, rendered But, on the other hand, we may reverse able to bear it, multiplied the objects of the supposition. We may conceive an its sight, and took in a wider range of entire luminousness to be extended over perception-that the light shone at length the face of nature-while the faculty of unto the perfect day; and that the eye, sight was wanting among all the indivi- with the last finish upon its properties and duals of our species. In this case, the its powers, embraced the whole of that external light would be of as little avail variety which lies within the present comtowards our perception of any object at a pass of human contemplation. We must distance from us, as the mere possession see that if one of these processes be graof the sense of seeing was in the former dual, the other should be gradual also. instance. Both must conspire to the effect By shedding too strong a light upon weak of our being rendered conversant with the eyes, we may overpower and extinguish external world through the medium of the them. By granting too weak a light to eye. And if the power of vision was not him who has strong eyes, we make the faenough, without a visibility on the part of culty outstrip the object of its exercise, the things which are around us, by God and thus incur a waste of endowment. saying let there be light-as little is their By attempering the one process to the visibility enough, without the power of other, we maintain, throughout all the vision stamped as an endowment by the stages, that harmony which is so abundhand of God, on the creatures whom He antly manifested in the works of Nature has formed. and Providence, between man as he actually is, and the circumstances by which man is actually surrounded. Now we can conceive that both these defects or disabilities, in the way of vision, may exist at the same time-or that These preliminary statements will we all the world was dark, and that all the trust be of some use for illustrating the people in the world were blind. To progress, not of natural, but of spiritual emerge out of this condition-there must light, along that oath which forms the suc |