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LECTURE LXVII.

ROMANS, viii, 35-39.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribula tion, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written, For thy sake we are. killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

To have the precise understanding of this passage, you should remember that the love of Christ in ver. 35, and afterwards the love of God in ver. 39, may be understood in two senses-either as signifying His love to us, or our love to Him. The whole context seems to decide for the first of these meanings—as in that part of it which goes before, it is of God's dealings with, and regards to His elect; it is of His being upon their side; it is of the surrender that He made in their behalf, when He gave up His Son unto the death, and with Him shall freely give them all things; it is of Christ dying and interceding for our good; it is of the love that is felt in heaven and is pointed downwardly to earth, and

not of the love that is felt on earth and is pointed upwardly to heaven-that the argument is held: And in that part of the context which follows, it is still of Him who loved us that he speaks. Notwithstanding however, we shall find, I think, on a narrower examination of the whole passage, that our love to Him is embraced therein, though it be His love to us that is more directly and obviously expressed by it.

You will observe that there is nothing in all the adversities which Paul enumerates, that would in the first instance tend to effect a separation between Christ's love to us and our own persons. The tribulation and the distress and the pesecution and the famine and the nakedness and the peril and the sword, to all of which the Christians of that day lay so peculiarly exposed-there was nought in these that could of themselves alienate the regard of the Saviour from those who had enlisted themselves as His followers and friends; but every thing, on the contrary, to enhance the interest and the tenderness which He felt for them. But though they did not effect such a separation, yet they might indicate it. At least, they who were weak in the faith might be discouraged into such a conclusion. They might be led to infer, that, as the ills and adversities of life were the portion of those who embraced the Saviour, there could be little love on His part towards those whom He had the power to rescue from these, but did not choose to put it forth. When they saw that it was for His sake they were

so pursued even unto the death, their courage and their confidence might have given way, and they have stood in doubt of there being any regard on Heaven's part towards them. The terrors and trials of that distressing period might have prevailed against them; and they, trusting no longer to the affection of Christ for their persons or their interests, might have renounced their faith and along with this their affection for the Saviour.

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Now St. Paul in the passage before us, is bearing up his own mind, and that of his converts, against the despondency of this unbelief. He, as it were, is not suffering himself to think, that all these dark and lowring adversities manifest either the decay or the dissolution of any love for them on the side of their merciful High Priest. He comes, in fact, to the very opposite conclusion. Nay in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.' He looks back to the great fight of afflictions that they had formerly been involved in. He recalls the manifold escapes, or, what is more characteristic of victory, the occasions on which they had been armed with intrepidity for the contest, and were enabled to face all the hostilities and hardships of the Christian profession and to endure them. And he connects the inspiration of all that courage by which they had been upholden so nobly, with Him from whom it descended. They were conquerors, only through Him that loved them. It was He who nerved them for the conflict. It was He who gave them either wisdom to overcome

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argument, or strength to suffer under the inflictions of personal violence. It was a moral warfare in which they were engaged, and in this He enabled them to conquer. It was a struggle between pain and principle; and He so succoured and sustained the latter, as that they could bid defiance to the fiercest assaults of the former-causing the spiritual to prevail over the animal nature; and between these two elements, the infused heroism of the new man and the creeping fearfulness of the old, enabling the grace to make head in this internal conflict against the corruption and to carry it.

And here it is of great practical importance to remark, that the way in which God often manifests His protecting and fatherly care of us, is, not by obtaining for us the safety of a flight; but, better and nobler than this, the triumph of a victory. In plainer words, He may neither withdraw the calamity from us, nor us from the calamity; but, leaving it to bear with full weight upon our spirits, He pours a strength into our spirits which enables them to bear up under it. It is in this way frequently, that He makes good the promise of not suffering us to be tried beyond what we are able to bear. He does not lighten the suffering, but He adds to the strength; and, as it were, cradles us, by the education of a severe spiritual discipline, into a state of spiritual maturity. After that the apostles had been threatened by the Jewish rulers to desist from preaching, they did not pray that no more threats might be uttered, or that the power of exe

cuting their menaces should be taken away. They did not pray for a deliverance from the outward trial; but for a supply of inward resolution, that they might be upheld against it. "And now Lord behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word." And so with Christians of all ages. They estimate the kindness of God towards them by His spiritual, rather than by His temporal blessings. They count not that God has separated or withdrawn Himself, because His earthly comforts have abandoned them. The most distressing separation to them were to be abandoned by the aids of His grace. That they fell into suffering, were to them no indication of His faded or expiring regards for them; but, should they fall into sin, this were the sad and sorrowing evidence of an angry or of a withdrawing God. When He puts some dark adversity to flight, this may prove that He has made them to be safe. But higher far when He discharges this adversity upon them, and they come out, of erect and unhurt spirit, from the onset and the uproar of its violence-this proves that He maketh them to conquer, and to be more than conquerors.

The great object in fact with every true Christian, is, not that the life of sense shall be regaled with pleasures or protected from annoyance; but above this and ulterior to this, that the life of grace shall flourish and advance under all the varieties whether of sensible pain or sensible enjoy