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name. Among these nations are ye Ro- | and called to be saints, do I wish grace mans also the called of Jesus Christ, and and peace from God our Father and the to all of you in Rome, beloved of God, Lord Jesus Christ."

LECTURE III.

ROMANS i, 8-17.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my Spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; making request Of by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God) to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

It does not require much in the way of is one sense assigned to this expression, exposition to set forth the meaning of very consistent certainly with the general these verses. The spiritual gift, men- truth of the gospel-but which can scarcely tioned in the 11th verse, is one of those be admitted in this place, save by that kind gifts by the Holy Ghost, which the apos- of hurried acquiescence, which is too fles had it in their power to transmit to often rendered on the part of those, who their disciples-a power which seems to like no better way of disposing of a pashave signalized them above all the Chris-sage than to get over it easily. The righttians of that period. Many could speak eousness of God is certainly that, in which tongues and work miracles; but they He hath appointed us sinners to appear could not make others either speak tongues before Him; and which is the only rightor work miracles. The gifts themselves eousness that He will accept of at our it was competent for them to have, but not hands, as our meritorious title to His fathe faculty of communicating them. This vour and friendship. Now it is very true, seems to have been the peculiar preroga- that this righteousness becomes ours tive of apostles-which Simon Magus de- wholly by faith, that by faith it is receivsired to have, but could not purchase. It ed on our part, and by faith it is retained was thus, perhaps, that an apostolical visit on our part; and that neither works bewas necessary for the introduction of fore faith, nor works after it, have any these powers into any church or congre- part in our justification-and that, theregation of Christians; and, if so, we would fore, it is not by passing onwards from infer that the season of miracles must faith to works that we further the concern have passed away with those Christians, of our justifying righteousness before who had been in personal contact with, God; but only by holding fast the beginand were the immediate descendants of the ning of our confidence even unto the end, apostles of our Lord. They left the gift and not casting it away; and if there be of miracles behind them-but if they did any lack in our faith, perfecting that not leave the power of transmitting this which is lacking therein so that it may gift behind them, it might have disappear- hold true of us, as it did of the primitive ed with the dying away of all those men Christians, of whom it was recorded that on whom they had actually laid their their faith groweth exceedingly. And hands. with these views in their mind, do some In the 14th verse, the phrase 'I am hold, that the righteousness of God being debtor,' may be turned into the phrase- revealed from faith to faith, signifies that 'I am bound' or 'I am under obligation,' as it is made known and discerned at first laid upon me by the duties of my office, in the act of our believing, so the revelato preach both to Greeks and Barbarians, tion of it becomes more distinct and maboth to the wise and the unwise. Woe nifest, just as the faith becomes stronger unto me if I preach not the gospel'-a-the things to be discerned being seen in necessity is laid upon me.

The only other phrase that requires explanation, and about which indeed there is a difference of interpretation, is in the 17th verse- from faith to faith.' There

greater brightness and evidence, as the ' organ of discernment grows in clearness and power-not, say they, from faith unto works, but from faith to faith-marking what is very true, that our righteousness

before God, regarded as the giver of a perfect and incommutable law, is wholly by faith.

been prevented, that I might have some effects of my ministry among you also, even as among the other nations where I have laboured. I have not yet visited the seat of philosophy, nor come into contact with its refined and literary people. But I count myself as much bound to declare the gospel to Greeks, or to men of Attic cultivation and acquirement, as to rude and ignorant barbarians-as much to the learned in this world's wisdom, as to the unlearned. So that, as far as it lies with me, I am quite in readiness to preach the gospel even to you who are at Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ

2. Nothwithstanding however of all the undoubted truth and principle which stand associated with this interpretation, we think that there are others more simple and obvious. Paul had already spoken of a transmission of faith from himself to those whom he was addressing, and of a constant mutual faith between himself and them and he tells us elsewhere of faith coming by hearing, and asks how can people believe unless preachers be sent; and he announces his determination to preach the gospel to those who are in-and, in the work of declaring it, am as Rome also; and professes his own faith in the gospel, under the affirmation that he is not ashamed of it; and declares its great subject to be the righteousness of God, revealed, as some are disposed to understand it, from the faith of the preacher to the faith of the hearers. Others would have it to mean that this righteousness is revealed by the faithfulness of God, to the faith of men.

3. But to our mind the best interpretation is obtained by conjoining the term righteousness with the phrase in question. For therein is revealed, the righteousness of God from faith, to faith. We shall thus have revealed in the gospel, δικαοσύνη εκ του πιστεως, which is the righteousness from of or by faith; and the gift of which is is TV or to faith. This is quite at one with the affirmation of a subsequent passage, that "the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all and upon all that believe," or the righteousness which is by faith is unto those who have the faith. As it is written, the righteous live, or hold that life which was forfeited under the law and is restored to them under the gospel, by faith.

We now offer the following paraphrase. First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is in the mouths of all. For God whom I serve with my whole heart, in the business that He has committed to me of forwarding His Son's gospel, can testify that I never cease to make mention of you in all my prayers-making request, if it now be possible in any way, that I may at length, arter unlooked for delay, have with His will a prosperous journey to you at Rome. For I long to see you, that I may in person and as a sign of my apostleship, impart to you some gift of the Holy Ghost, in order to confirm your minds in the faith of this gospel. Or rather, that I may be comforted, as well as you be confirmed, by the exercises and the sympathies of our mutual faith. Now you must know, brethren, that it has been long my purpose to come to you, but I have hitherto

ready to face the contempt and the selfsufficiency of science, as to go round with it among those more docile and acquiescing tribes of our species, who have less of fancied wisdom in themselves with which to confront it. For it is the power of God unto the salvation of all who believe. It is that, which, however judged and despised as a weak instrument by the men of this world, it is that to which He, by His power, gives effect for the recovery of that life which all men had forfeited and lost by sin-and which can only be restored by a righteousness which will do away the whole effect of this sin. Whosoever believeth in the gospel shall be saved, by having this life rendered back to him, whether he be Jew or Greek. For the gospel makes known the righteousness appointed by God-a righteousness by faith, and which is unto all who have faith-as it is written that the righteous, and those only are so who have that righteousness. which God will accept, have it unto spiritual life here and unto eternal life hereafter by faith.'

It will not be our general practice to embarrass you with many interpretations of the same passage; and we do it at present, only for the purpose of ushering in the following observation. There do occur a few ambiguous phrases in Scripture; and this is quite consistent with such a state of revelation there, as that the great and essential truths which are unto salvation shall stand as clearly and as legibly on the face of the evangelical record, as if written with a sun-beam. And whereas there may enter into your minds a feeling of insecurity, when you behold men of scholarship at variance about the meaning of one of those doubt ful expressions, we call you to remark how much the controversy between thei is, in many instances, restricted merely to what the subject of the expression is, and not to what the doctrine of the Bible is upon that subject. Thus controversialists may all be at one about the scriptural doctrine on every given topic, though they

by men who, in thus dissenting from each other on particular passages, evince that to each of them there belongs the habit of independent thinking-and who thus stamp the value of so many distinct and independent testimonies, on those great doctrines which they have received from the light of many passages, and by which they are united in the profession of one Faith and one Lord and one Baptism.

Let us now pass on from our exposition of the meaning of words, to our application of the matter that is conveyed by them. And here we have only time to advert to the affection and the strenuousness with which the apostolic mind of Paul gave itself up to apostolic businesshow he rebukes by his example those who make the work of winning souls to Christ a light and superficial concernhow his whole man seems to have been engrossed by it-making it a matter of gratitude when he heard of its prosperity

may not be at one as to the questionwhat is the topic which in this particular clause is here adverted to. The first class of interpreters, about the meaning of the ambiguous phrase in the 17th verse of this chapter, may think that it relates to the doctrine of our justification being wholly of faith; and that it retains this as its alone footing, throughout the whole course of an advanced Christian, as he makes progress both in faith and in the A controversy about the doctrine of a works of righteousness; and they may particular passage is one thing. A connot think that it relates to the topic as- troversy about the truth of a particular signed, either by the second or third class doctrine is another. The one implies a of interpreters; and yet they may be en- difference of understanding, about the tirely at one with both, in the judgment sense of one passage. The other may and understanding they have on each of imply a difference of understanding, about the topics-concurring with the second in the general voice and testimony of Scripthe general truth that a frequent and es-ture as made up of many passages. tablished way for the propagation of faith in the world, is by its passing from him who speaks to him who listens, and who in the act of listening becomes a believer -and concurring also with the third in their general principle, that the righteousness appointed by God for a sinner to appear in His presence, is constituted, not by working but by believing, and that it is transferred as a possession unto all who believe. They, one and all of them, may have the same mind upon the same topics -because shone upon in the same way, by the light of many other express and undoubted testimonies about these topics, which lie up and down in the Bible; and the only question of disputation between them may be, which of these particular topics happens to be the theme of the apostle in the passage before us-a very subordinate question, you will observe, to that more vital and essential one, which relates to the meaning of an article of faith-a question about which there may be varieties of sentiment among men, who are substantially at one in all that relates to the doctrines of Christianity. And we think that it ought to quell your apprehensions, and to reduce the estimate you may have previously made of those controversies among good men, which some would represent as quite endless and inextricable, when you are thus made to understand, that, in a very great number of cases they refer, not to what the whole amount of the Bible testimony is about this one or that other portion of the theological creed-but to what the position is which is specially taken up or adverted to in some of the incidental or subordinate passages. There is nothing to alarm or to unsettle in those lesser diversities which we are now alluding to. Nay it ought rather to establish your confidence, when you see that these diversities are held by the very men who hold the great principles of Christianity in common

making it a matter of prayer when he desired its furtherance-making it a matter of active personal exertion when it required his presence or his labour. To this work he gave himself wholly; and, by adding prayer to the ministry of the word, teaches us how much the effect of this ministry is due to those special influences, which are called down from Heaven by the urgency of special applications sent up from believers in the world. There is one trait of his mind, which frequently breaks out in his communications with his own converts. He is sometimes obliged to affirm his apostolic superiority over them, or to say something which implies it. But it is evident how much he recoils from such an assumption; and how it sets him to the expressions and the expedients of delicacy, with a view to soften the disparity between himself and his disciples; and how he likes to address them in the terms of equal and friendly companionshipdropping upon all possible occasions the character of the teacher in that of the fellow Christian; and never feeling so comfortably in his intercourse with them, as when he places himself on the level of their common hopes and common sympa. thies and common infirmities. It is altogether, we apprehend, such a movement of humility on the part of Paul, that lies at the transition from the eleventh verse

which signalizes him above the whole | ded from conversation-if a visible embar-
church to the twelfth which brings him rassment run through a company, when its
down to a participation of the same faith
and the same comfort with them all.

piety or its doctrine is introduced among
them-if, among beings rapidly moving
towards immortality, any serious allusion
to the concerns of immortality stamps an
oddity on the character of him who brings
it forward-if, through a tacit but firm
compact which regulates the intercourse of
this world, the gospel is as effectually
banished from the ordinary converse of
society, as by the edicts of tyranny the
profession of it was banished in the days
of Claudius from Rome:-then he who
would walk in his Christian integrity
among the men of this lukewarm and
degenerate age-he who would do all and
say all in the name of Jesus-he who, in
obedience to his Bible, would season with
grace and with that which is to the use of
edifying the whole tenor of his communi-
cations-he, in short, who, rising above
that meagre and mitigated Christianity,
which is as remote as Paganism from the
real Christianity of the New Testament,
would, out of the abundance of his heart,
without shrinking and without shame,
speak of the things which pertain to the
kingdom of God-he will find that there
are trials still, which, to some tempera-
ments, are as fierce and as fiery as any in
the days of martyrdom: and that, however
in some select and peculiar walk he may
find a few to sympathize with him, yet
many are the families and many are the
circles of companionship, where the per-
secution of contempt calls for determina-
|tion as strenuous, and for firmness as
manly, as ever in the most intolerant ages
of our church did the persecution of direct
and personal violence.

We shall not at present, bring forth any remark on a phrase, which occurs frequently in this epistle, 'the righteousness of God'-for we shall have a freer and a fuller opportunity of doing so afterwards. But let us not pass over the intrepidity of Paul, in the open and public avowal of his Christianity. We call it intrepidity, though he speaks not here of having to encounter violence, but only of having to encounter shame. For, in truth, it is often a higher effort and evidence of intrepidity, to front disgrace, than it is to front danger. There is many a man who would march up to the cannon's mouth for the honour of his country-yet would not face the laugh of his companions for the honour of his Saviour. We doubt not that there are individuals here present, who if the Turkish armada were wafted on the wings of conquest to our shores, and the ensigns of Mahomet were proudly to wave over the fallen faith of our ancestors, and they were plied with all the devices of eastern cruelty to abjure the name of Christian, and do homage to the false prophet-there are individuals here, whose courage would bear them in triumph through such a scene of persecuting violence; and yet whose courage fails them every day, in the softer scenes of their social and domestic history. The man who under the excitements of a formal and furious persecution, was brave enough to be a dying witness to the truth as it is in Jesus, crouches into all the timidity of silence under the omnipotency of fashion; and ashamed of the Saviour and His And let it be remarked too, that, in words, recoils in daily and familiar con- becoming a Christian now, the same tranversation from the avowals of a living sition is to be made from one style of senwitness for His name. There is as much timent to another, which was made by the of the truly heroic in not being ashamed apostle. It is as much the effort of nature, of the profession of the gospel, as in as it ever was of a corrupt and ignorant not being afraid of it. Paul was neither: Judaism, to seek to establish a righteousand yet when we think of what he once ness of its own; and, in passing from a was in literature; and how aware he state of nature to that of grace, there must must have been of the loftiness of its con- still be a renouncing of that righteousness, tempt for the doctrine of a crucified and a transference of our trust and of Saviour; and that in Rome the whole our entire dependence to another. Now, power and bitterness of its derisions were in the act of making that passage, there awaiting him; and that the main weapon is also the very same encounter with this with which he had to confront it was world's ridicule and observation, which such an argument as looked to be foolish- the apostle had to brave; and which, on ness to the wisdom of this world-we the strength of right and resolute princidoubt not that the disdain inflicted by ple, the apostle overcame. The man who philosophy, was naturally as formidable to hopes to get to heaven by a good life, and the mind of this apostle, as the death in- who professes himself to be secure on the flicted by the arm of bloody violence. So strength of his many virtues and his many that even now, and in the age when Chris- decencies, and who dislikes both the mystianity has no penalties and no proscrip-tery and the seriousness which stand astions to keep her down, still, if all that sociated with the doctrine of salvation by deserves the name of Christianity be explo- faith alone-such a man has no more

Christianity, than what he may easily and familiarly show-and in sporting such sentiments, even among the most giddy and unthinking of this world's generations he will neither disgrace himself by singularity nor be resisted as the author of any invasion whatever on the general style and spirit of this world's companies. But should he pass from this condition, which is neither more nor less than that of a Pharisee in disguise; and, struck by a sense of spiritual nakedness, flee for refuge to another righteousness than his own; and seek for justification by faith, a privilege which is rendered to faith; and profess now, that he hopes to get to heaven by the obedience unto death which has been rendered for him by their great Mediator such a style of utterance as this, would serve greatly more to peculiarize a man among the conversations of society-these are the words of Christ of which he is greatly apt to be more ashamed. A temptation meets him here, which no doubt met the apostle, when his Christianity first came to be known among those fellow-students who had been trained along with him at the feet of Gamaliel; and it is at that point when, for the Jewish principle of self-righteousness he adopts the evangelical principle of justification by faith--it is then that he becomes more an outcast than before, from the toleration and sympathy of unconverted men.

Let the same consideration uphold such that upheld the mind of the apostle. All that you possibly can do, for the purpose of substantiating a claim upon Heaven, is but the weakness of man, idly straining after a salvation which he will miss. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and, however simple the expedient, the power and the promise of God are on the side of your obtaining salvation which will certainly be accomplished. The Syrian was affronted when told to dip himself in Jordan for the cure of his leprosy; and to many in like manner is it a subject of offence, when told to wash out their sins in the blood of the atonement-calling on the name of the Lord. But the same power which gave efficacy to the one expedient, gives efficacy to the other; and in such a way too, as to invest that method of salvation which looks meanness and foolishness to the natural eyeto invest it with the solemn venerable imposing character of God's asserted majesty, of God's proclaimed and vindicated righteousness.

And here let us remark the whole import of the term salvation. The power of God in the achievement of it was put forth in something more than in bowing down the Divinity upon our world, and there causing it to sustain the burden of the world's atonement-in something more than the conflicts of the garden or the agonies of the cross-in something more than the resurrection of the crucified Saviour from His tomb-in something more than the consequent expunging of every believer's name from the book of condemnation, and the inscribing of it in the book of life. There is a power put forth on the person of believers. There is the working of a mighty power tc usward who believe. There is the achievement of a spiritual resurrection upon every one of them. By the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, the power of which is applied to every soul that has faith, there is a cleansing of that soul from its moral and spiritual leprosy. And hence a connection between two things, which to the world's eye looks incomprehensible--a connection between faith, which it might be feared would have led to indolent security on the one hand, and a most thorough substantial pervading reformation of heart and conduct on the other. The expedient does not appear a likely one to the eye of nature. But the power of God stamps an efficacy upon it; and He has multiplied in all ages of the church the living examples of marked and illustrious virtue in the person of believers; and has held them forth to the world as trophies of the power of the gospel; and has put to silence the gainsayers; and afforded matter of glory to the friends of the truth; and upheld them in the principle and purpose not to be ashamed of it.

We conclude with that awful denunciation of the Saviour. "He who is ashamed of me before this evil and adulterous generation-of him will I be ashamed before my holy angels."

In the last clause "the just shall live by faith"-we are apt to conceive of justice as a personal and inherent attribute. In the original, the term for just has the same root with the term for righteousness

and this strengthens our impression of the true meaning here, which is, that they who are righteous with the righteousness of God, mentioned in the same verse, and who in virtue of being so have a title and a security for life, hold that life by faith.

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