man," is reiterated upon the Jew, through- | inferior animals, of affection for your out the whole of the second and the Father who is in heaven. The man who greater part of the third chapter-it being has thrown off the allegiance of loyalty, the main object of our apostle to assail may feel no inclination to walk the whole the opposition in that quarter where it round of disobedience to the laws; and looked to be most impregnable-to extend yet upon the temptation of one single opthe conviction of sin from the Gentile portunity, and by the breaking forth of whom he had laid prostrate before him, one single expression, may he bring down to the Jew who still kept a boastful atti- the whole vengeance of Government upon tude, on the ground of that self-sufficiency his person. The man who has thrown off which the apostle labours to cut away- the allegiance of Religion, may neither to prove, in short, that all were under sin, have the occasion nor the wish to commit and all were in need of a Saviour; that all the offences which it prohibits, or to all were partakers of the same guilt, and utter all the blasphemies which may be must be partakers of the same grace, ere vented forth in the spirit of defiance they could be restored to acceptance with against the Almighty's throne. And yet that God whom in common they had all the principle of defiance may have taken offended. full possession of his heart; and irreligion may be the element in which he breathes. And in every instance, when his will comes into competition with the will of God, may the creature lift himself above the Creator; and though, according to the varieties of natural temperament these instances may be more manifold and various with one man than with another-yet that which essentially constitutes the character of moral and spiritual guilt may be of equal strength and inveteracy with both-Making it as true of a reputable member of society in our day, as it was of the formal and observant Pharisee, that he only conformed to the law of God, when, though walking all the while in the counsel of his own heart, conformity is that which he would; and always trampled upon this law, whenever, walking in the same counsel, conformity is a thing which he would not. Ungodliness, in short, is not a thing of tale and measure. It is a thing of weight and of quality. It may be as thoroughly infused through the character of him who is observant of all the civilized decencies of life, as of him whose enormities have rendered him an outcast from all the common regards of society. Heaven's sanctuary is alike scorned and alike neglected by both; and on the head of each, will there be the same descending burden of Heaven's righteous indignation.

In order that you feel the force of the apostle's demonstration, there is one principle which is held to be sound in human | law, and which in all equity ought to be extended to the law of God. The principle is this-that, however manifold the enactments of the law may be, it is possible, by one act or one kind of disobedience, to incur the guilt of an entire defiance to the authority which framed it; and therefore to bring rightfully down upon the head of the transgressor, the whole weight of the severities which it denounces against the children of iniquity. To be worthy of death, it is not necessary to commit all the things which are included in the sad enumeration of human vicesany more than it is necessary for a criminal, to add depredation to forgery, or murder to both, ere a capital sentence go out against him, from the administrators of the law upon which he has trampled. You may as effectually cut with a friend by one hostile or insolent expression, as if you had employed a thousand; and your disownal of an authority may be as intelligibly announced, by one deed of defiance as by many; and your contempt of Heaven's court be as strongly manifested, by your wilful violation of one of the commandments, as if you had thwarted every requirement of its prescribed and published ceremonial. It is true that there are gradations of punishments; but these are measured, not according to the multiplicity of outward offences, but according to the intensity of the rebellious principle that is within. In virtue of an honourable feeling, you may never steal; and this is the deduction of one external iniquity from the history of the doings of the outer man. But it is not on that account an alleviation of the ungodliness of the inner man. You may have natural affection, and never abandon either a child to the exposure of its infancy, or a parent to the helplessness of his age; and yet your heart be as destitute as that of any of the

Among the varieties both of taste and of habit which obtain with the different individuals of our species, there are modifications of disobedience agreeable to one class and disgustful to another class. The careful and calculating economist may never join in any of the excesses of dissipation; and the man of regardless expenditure may never send an unrelieved petitioner from his door; and the religious formalist may never omit either sermon or sacrament, that is held throughout the year in the place of his attendance; and the honourable merchant may never flinch or falsify, in any one of the transactions

of business. Each has such points of conformity as suits him, and each has such other points of non-conformity as suits him; and thus the one may despise or even execrate the other, for that particular style of disobedience by which he indulges his own partialities; and the things which they respectively do, differ there can be no doubt as to the matter of them-but as to the mind of unconcern about God which all of them express, they are virtually and essentially the same. So that amid the censure and contempt which so currently pass between men of various classes and characters in society, there is one pervading quality of ungodliness which they hold in common; and in virtue of which the condemnation that one pronounces upon another, may righteously be turned upon himself; and it be said of him in the language of the apostle, therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest dost the same things.'

Romans ii, 1-12. This passage requires almost nothing in the way of verbal criticism. The term for 'despise' in the 4th verse needed not to have been so rendered as to denote an active contempt -but rather a mere disregard and negligence of the opportunity, which God in His forbearance had afforded to sinners, for returning and making their peace with Him. The term 'patient' again, in the 7th verse, signifies, both here and in other places of Scripture, something more active than the mere patience under suffering. They who bring forth fruits with patience, are they who do so with perseverance. They who run their race with patience, are they who persevere in so running. They who maintain a patient continuance, are they who maintain a persevering continuance in well-doing.

The whole passage is so plain, that it scarcely admits of elucidation even from a paraphrase. But let the following be offered to you.

up to yourselves wrath against the day of wrath, and against the day when the righteousness of God's judgments shall be rendered manifest? God will render to every man according to his deeds-to them who by a course of perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them who of contention and obstinacy do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be rendered indignation and wrath: tribulation and anguish, upon every son of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God on that day, whatever apparent preference he may make of one man over another, and of one people over another in the present stage of His administrations. He will then judge every man according to the light that was in his mind, according to the law which spake its authority to his conscience, and which he himself recognizes to be of rightful obligation.'

It may be remarked that 'tribulation' simply denotes affliction; and is the same here in the original, as in the passage, 'we are troubled on every side'-and that anguish' signifies the affliction from which there is no hope of our being extricated; and is the same in the original, as in the passage, that though troubled on every side we are not distressed.'*

At the outset of this chapter, the apostle appeals to a principle which is vigour ously at work in every bosom; and, from its felt and conscious existence within us, would he press upon our belief the reality of the same principle, as residing in the Godhead-as applied by him to every creature who is capable of exercising it in his own mind; and leading to a result, that will be verified on the great day of the winding up of this world's administration. By nature we are slow to self-condemnation; and, beset with the engrossments of our passion and our own interest, we see not in ourselves the criminality of Therefore, O man, thou art without the same things which we reprobate in excuse, whosoever thou art, that judgest; others; and conscience either passes no for, in judging another, thou condemnest verdict at all, or in such a faint and thyself-secing that thou who judgest gentle whisper that it is not heard, when doest the same things. And we are sure, it takes a rare and a feeble cognizance of that God's judgment is according to truth, our own character. But the self-love, against those who commit these things. which deafens the voice of conscience in And dost thou think, O man, who judgest its application to our own case, lays no them that do such things, and doest the such barrier in its way when it pronounces same, that thou shalt escape God's judg- on the case of others. And hence the ment? Or do you despise His goodness familiar spectacle, of, not merely an and forbearance and long-suffering, inad- adverse judgment, but even of a wrath vertent of this, that it is His goodness and an indignation in the mind of one which affords to you a season of repent-man against the vanity or the dishonesty ance? But, instead of this, do you, after

your hard and impenitent heart, treasure

and pervading faculty which belongs | it also. The truth is, that a want of beto God, as the judge of all and the lief in God as a Judge, is nearly as prevalawgiver of all. Be assured that there lent as the want of belief in Christ as a is a presiding justice in His administra- Saviour. Could the one be established tion; that there is a moral government within you, it would create an inquiry founded on a righteousness, the lessons of and a restlessness and an alarm, which which are more or less known by all, and might soon issue in the attainment of the the sanctions of which will be accordingly other. But the general habit of the world fulfilled upon all. Your very power of proves, that, in reference to God as a God judging others, proves that its lessons are of judgment, there is a profound and a in some degree known to you. And think prevailing sleep among its generations. not, O man which judgest those who do The children of alienated and degenerate such and such things, and doest the same, Nature, arc no more awake to the law in that thou wilt escape the judgment of all the unchangeableness of its present God. authority, and in all the certainty of its coming terrors-than they are awake to the gospel in the freedom of its offers, and in the sureness of its redemption, and in the exceeding greatness and preciousness of all its promises. There is just as little sense of the disease as there is little of esteem for the remedy. Theologians accordingly tell us of the faith of the law, and of the faith of the gospel. By the one we believe what the law reveals, in regard to its own requirements and its own sanctions. By the other we believe what the gospel reveals, in regard to its own proposals and its own invitations and its own privileges. Faith attaches itself to the law as well as to the gospel; and obedience to the gospel as well as to the law. The apostle here speaks of our not obeying the truth-and the psalmist says"Lord, I have believed thy command

God, in the day of final account, will find out in the case of every human Being whom He does condemn, the materials of his valid condemnation. These materials may in a great measure be hidden from us now; and yet the palpable fact of each being able morally to judge another, and to pass his moral opinion upon another, however little he may be disposed to scrutinize himself, forms a very palpable disclosure of the fact, that there is in our hearts the sense of a moral law-a monitor who, if we do not follow him as our guide here, will be our accusing witness hereafter. And from every feeling of reprobation, if not from every feeling of resentment towards others of which we are capable, we may gather assurance of the fact, that there does exist within us such a sense of the distinction between right and wrong, as, if not acted on in our own con-ments." The truth is, that, among the duct, will be enough to convict us of a latent iniquity, and to call down upon us a rightful sentence of condemnation.

So long as self is the subject of its overseership, the moral sense may be partial or reluctant or altogether negligent of its testimonies. But if it can give those testimonies clearly enough and feelingly enough,. when it casts a superintending eye over the conduct of others, this proves that an inward witness could speak also to us, but does not, because we have bribed him into silence. In other words, it will be found on the last day, that we had light enough to conduct us if we would have followed, and to condemn us if we have either refused or wilfully darkened its intimations. So that God will be clear when He speaketh and justified when He judgeth. He will wipe His hands of every outcast on that great and solemn occasion; and make it evident that the guilt of all the iniquities for which he is punished is at his own door-that there is no unrighteousness of severity with God, but that His judgment is indeed according to truth when it is against them who commit such things.'

The apostle affirms his own sureness of this, and with a view to make us sure of

men of our listless and secure species, there is no realizing sense of their being under the law-or of their being under the haunting control and inspection of a Lawgiver. Their habit is that of walking in the counsel of their own hearts and in the sight of their own eyes-nor do they feel, in the waywardness of their self-originating movements, that they are the servants of another and amenable to the judgment of another. Let a man just attend to the current of his thoughts and purposes and desires, throughout the course of a whole day's business; and he will find how lamentably the impression of a divine superintendence, and the sense of a heavenly and unseen witness, are away from his heart. This will not excuse his habitual ungodliness-due, as we have often affirmed it to be, to the wilful smothering of convictions, which, but for wilful depravity, he might have had. But such being the real insensibility of man to his own condition as a responsible and an amenable creature, it is well that by such strenuous affirmations as those of the apostle, he should be reminded of the sureness wherewith God will appoint a day in righteousness; and institute a judgment over the quick and the dead.

shaking of the ground from under us— but, instead of these, why it is that all is going on in its wonted order, and the sun moves as steadily, and the seasons roll as surely, and all the successions of nature follow each other with as undisturbed

so to persevere even unto eternity.

We know not the theory of ungodly men upon this subject, but their practice speaks most intelligibly what they feel about it. They tread upon this world's surface as firmly, as if the world stood on a secure and everlasting foundation. They prosecute this world's objects as strenuously, as if in the gaining their little portion of it, they gained a value which in exchange would be greater than the value of men's soul's. They toil and calculate and devise for this world's interests, with as intense and undivided earnestness, as if they and the world were never to be separated. In the face of evidence-in the face of experience-in the face of all they know about death, and of all that has been revealed to them about judgment and retribution and the final wreck of the present system of things, do they assign a character of perpetuity to what is seen and sensible around them; nor could they possibly labour more devotedly in the pursuits of time, though they themselves were to continue here for ever, and all things to continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Unbelief is not so much a dissent of the mind from any one particular truth or doctrine of revelation, as a darkness of the mind which intercepts a realizing view of all the truths and all the objects that lie spread over the region of spirituality. The clearing away of this dark-regularity, as if destined so to abide, and ness renders these objects visible; and it is a variation in the order of their disclosure which forms one chief cause of the varieties of religious experience. Some catch in the first instance a view of the law, scattering, as if from the mouth of a volcano, its menaces and its terrors on all the children of disobedience; and it is not till after a dreary interval of discomposure and distress, that they behold the mantle lifted away from that stronghold into which all of them flee as an escape and a resting place. Others again catch at the outset a milder and a quieter ray from the light of the Sun of Righteousness; and it is not till they have been conducted within the fold of a most sure and ample mediatorship, and from whence they may look tranquilly and at a safe and protected distance on all around them —it is not till then, that they are made to see the hatefulness of sin, and all the dread and all the dignity of God's fiery denunciations against it. These things follow each other by a different succession with different individuals; but certain it is that the most partial glimpse of the smallest portion of the whole territory of faith, is greatly more to be desired, Such is the practical impression of a than the deep and sunken and unallevia- natural man about the life that he lives in ted carnality of him, who is wholly given the world; and all his habits of life and unto things present and things sensible; business are founded upon it. But how and even he, to whom the guilt and dan- different from the revelation of its design ger alone have been unfolded, is far more and purpose as given by the apostles. It hopefully conditioned, than he, who, alike is a suspension of the wrath of God insensible to the wrath of God the Judge, against sinners, that space may be allowand to the beseeching voice of God the ed for repentance. It is that He, not willSaviour, has taken up with time as his ing that any should perish, but that all portion and his all; and, living as he should return, forbears the infliction of lists, lives in the enjoyment of a peace, His final vengeance till they have got which, if not broken up ere he dies, a few their opportunity. The perverse interpreyears will demonstrate to have been in-tation which a worldly man puts upon the deed a fatal and then irrecoverable delusion.

The 4th verse of this chapter has been referred to by Peter in his second epistle -wherein he also explains why it is that God does not cut short the present stage of His administration-why it is, that He tolerates so long the succession of one sinful generation after another-why it is, that He sweeps not away such a moral nuisance as our rebellious world, and so have done with it-why it is, for example, that at this very hour we see not the symptoms of dissolving nature, and hear not the trumpet of preparation for the solemnities of the last day, and feel not the heat of melting elements, or the

continuance of the world, is, that the world is worthy of all his affections; and that it is his wisdom to rear upon its basis the fabric of his hopes. He misses the altogether different conclusion which should be drawn from it-that this continuance is due to the goodness of God, lengthening out to him and to us all the season of an offered indemnity, and of a proclaimed pardon, and of an inviting gospel with the whole of its privileges and blessings-and so, not knowing that this goodness, instead of rivetting him more to the world should lead him to forsake the love of it for the love of its Maker, does he misunderstand and misapply the bearing of time upon eternity.