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 2. Nothwithstanding however of all the have laboured. I have not yet visited the undoubted truth and principle which stand seat of philosophy, nor come into contact associated with this interpretation, we with its refined and literary people. But think that there are others more simple I count myself as much bound to declare and obvious. Paul had already spoken the gospel to Greeks, or to men of Attic of a transmission of faith from himself to cultivation and acquirement, as to rude those whom he was addressing, and of a and ignorant barbarians-as much to the constant mutual faith between himself learned in this world's wisdom, as to the and them and he tells us elsewhere of unlearned. So that, as far as it lies with faith coming by hearing, and asks how me, I am quite in readiness to preach the can people believe unless preachers be gospel even to you who are at Rome. For sent; and he announces his determination I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ 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 ready to face the contempt and the selfin the gospel, under the affirmation that sufficiency of science, as to go round with he is not ashamed of it; and declares its it among those more docile and acquigreat subject to be the righteousness of escing tribes of our species, who have less God, revealed, as some are disposed to of fancied wisdom in themselves with understand it, from the faith of the preach- which to confront it. For it is the power er to the faith of the hearers. Others of God unto the salvation of all who bewould have it to mean that this righteous-lieve. It is that, which, however judged ness 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, δικαοσυνη εκ του πιστεως, which is the righteousness from of or by faith; and the gift of which is is motiv 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, after 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 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 doubtful expressions, we call you to remark how much the controversy between them 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 A controversy about the doctrine of a particular passage is one thing. A controversy about the truth of a particular doctrine is another. The one implies a difference of understanding, about the sense of one passage. The other may imply a difference of understanding, about the general voice and testimony of Scripture as made up of many passages. 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 strenuous 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 question- by men who, in thus dissenting from each what is the topic which in this particular other on particular passages, evince that clause is here adverted to. The first class to each of them there belongs the habit of interpreters, about the meaning of the of independent thinking-and who thus ambiguous phrase in the 17th verse of stamp the value of so many distinct and this chapter, may think that it relates to independent testimonies, on those great the doctrine of our justification being doctrines which they have received from wholly of faith; and that it retains this the light of many passages, and by which as its alone footing, throughout the whole they are united in the profession of one course of an advanced Christian, as he Faith and one Lord and one Baptism. makes progress both in faith and in the works of righteousness; and they may not think that it relates to the topic assigned, either by the second or third class of interpreters; and yet they may be entirely at one with both, in the judgment and understanding they have on each of the topics-concurring with the second in the general truth that a frequent and established 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 with which the apostolic mind of ness 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 sympathies 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 embarchurch, 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 communications-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 temperaments, are as fierce and as fiery as any in the days of martyrdom: and that, however 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 vio-in some select and peculiar walk he may lence; 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 proscriptions to keep her down, still, if all that deserves the name of Christianity be explo find a few to sympathize with him, yet many are the families and many are the circles of companionship, where the persecution of contempt calls for determination 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. tery and the seriousness which stand associated with the doctrine of salvation by 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 to 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. LECTURE IV. ROMANS i, 18-24. "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imagina tions, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves." V. 19. "That which is knowable of God, is manifest among them." THE word translated here to hold,' eousness. They have the truth-they are signifies not merely to hold, but to hold in possession of it. But they keep it down. fast. Now this may be done for the pur- They chain it, as it were, in the prisonpose of keeping in secure possession that hold of their own corruptions. They which you wish to retain. And so this is throw the troublesome adviser into a dunthe word in that place where they who geon-just like a man who has a conreceive the word are said to "keep it, and science to inform him of what is right, but bring forth fruit with patience;" and who stifles its voice, and brings it under where the Corinthians are praised by bondage to the domineering ascendancy Paul because they observed "to remember of passion and selfishness and all the lawhim in all things, and to keep the ordi- less appetites of his nature. Thus it is nances which he had delivered them;" with men who restrain the truth, or supand where he tells them, that they are press the truth in unrighteousness. saved if they "keep in memory, that which he had preached unto them ;" and where he bids the Thessalonians "hold fast that, which is good;"; and where he informs the Hebrews, that Christ dwelleth in them, if they "hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end;" and also that we are made partakers of Christ, if "we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end," and finally, where he encourages them to "hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering."** It is not in the sense of the word in any of these passages that we are to understand it here. They who hold the truth in unrighteousness, do not hold it for the sake of keeping it in possession, as an article which they valued; and therefore were desirous of retaining in safe and cherished custody. V. 20. "For ever since the creation of the world, that great manifestation of God's power and Godhead, these invisible things of Him are clearly seen." V. 21. "In their reasonings." The following then is the paraphrase of this passage. For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who stifle the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which might be known of God is manifest among them-for God hath shown it to them. For the invisible things respecting Him, even His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seenbeing discernible from the things that are made, so as to render them inexcusable. Because when they did know God, they Or one may hold fast for the pupose of did not do Him glory as to God, neither confining or keeping down, so as to im- were they thankful to Him; but departpede and repress that which is thus con- ing from the grave and solemn and simfined, from the putting forth of its ener-ple reliance that was due to the Creator, gies. And accordingly this is the very they went into vain reasonings about word which Paul uses, when he says to Him, and so changed the truth into a dethe Thessalonians, "And now ye know ceitful imagination, and their foolish heart what withholdeth that he might be revealed was darkened. In the profession, and in in his time. For the mystery of iniquity the prosecution of wisdom, they became doth already work; only he who now fools: And changed the glory of the inletteth will let until he be taken out of the corruptible God into an image made like way." He alludes to something that so to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourconfined Antichrist, as to keep him back-footed beasts and creeping things.' so that he came not out into full and immediate manifestation. It is in this second sense that men hold the truth in unright Luke viii, 15. Our first remark on the subject matter of this passage, is founded on the way, in which the revelation of the righteousness of God unto faith, stands as a counterpart ↑ 1 Cor. xi, 2. 1 Cor. xv, 2. to the revelation of the wrath of God unto || Heb. iii, 6. Heb. iii, 14. tt 1 Thess. ii, 6, 7. all ungodliness and unrighteousness of |