have it specifically to be the calling of the Gentiles, and for countenance to this their explanation of it, would refer to Ephesians, iii, 9, and Colossians, i, 26. We have no doubt ourselves, that generally it is the subject-matter of the gospel.

'But now is made manifest.' That which was profoundly hidden before is now made manifestfirst in a dimmer and lesser degree by the prophets to the Jews; and afterwards in the fuller light of gospel times made known to all nations. We are not to wonder that the revelation made to the prophets should be spoken of as only made now. At the time when this revelation was first given its meaning was little known even to the prophets through whom it passed. Though ministered by them it was not unto themselves but unto us.1 It had been given in words to the world centuries before the appearance of our Saviour-yet was only made known for the first time to the disciples of Emmaus, when He opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures-beginning with Moses and the Prophets. What our Saviour did in person to these disciples upon earth, He afterwards did to believers in general by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, and whose office it is to make the sure word of prophecy obvious to their view, by causing the day to dawn and the day-star to arise in their hearts. The gospel might well have been said by the apostle to be manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets only now-for only now were these Scriptures made manifest.

6

According to the commandment of the everlast

11 Peter, i, 12.

ing God made known unto all nations for the obedience of faith.' To perfect the revelation of the gospel, the work of apostles had to be superadded to that of prophets. The gospel had been witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets-when it lay in enigma till cleared up by the more explicit statements of those who were commissioned to go and preach it unto every creature.

These three verses (25, 26, and 27) might be rendered thus- Now to Him who is able to establish you in the discipleship of my gospel, which is nothing else than the gospel of Jesus Christ Himself or in the discipleship of that revelation whereby there has been divulged the truth that was before hidden, and kept back from men in the earlier ages of the world; but is now made manifest, both by the prophetic writings which we in these days have been made more fully to understand— and also by the proclamation of the same agreeably to the commandment of the everlasting God, amongst all nations, for the purpose of obtaining their submission to the faith-To Him, the only wise God, be glory for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

We may be assured that there is nothing misplaced or inappropriate in the epithets employed by the apostle; and more especially in those which he applies to the Divinity. In particular, when he applies different epithets to Him at different times, there must, we apprehend, be a discriminative reason for his so doing. In the 26th verse he denominates Him the everlasting God; and in the 27th, the

God only wise. The epithet everlasting seems to have been suggested to the mind of the apostle, when he had in view the different and distant ages at which God had His different dealings with men from the beginning of the world—as keeping them in ignorance at its earlier periods, and at length in due time making known the scheme of His salvation. He, the King Eternal, who knows the end from the beginning, knows what is best and fittest to be done at each of the successive stages in the process of that great administration whose goings forth have been of old, and whose issues are from everlasting to everlasting. And He is denominated the only wise, that we, the short-lived creatures of a day, might learn to receive with unquestioning silence all the intimations which He has been pleased to have given us. In particular, it should reconcile the Jews to the termination of that economy under which they had hitherto lived, and under which they had vainly arrogated to themselves an exclusive and ever-during superiority over the rest of the species-whereas it appeared that the middle wall of partition was now to be broken down; and that their fancied monopoly of the divine favour was but a temporary evolution in the history of the divine government. And so he concludes his epistle, by calling on both parties in the church to which he writes it, to unite with him in the one ascription of glory to the Father through the Son; and that verily a glory which shall never end.