:^ >»: :^^JR^ » ->»-■' i>M;*P HP >X'-' >a>5R> f 1 ;» -»^ >-:^>3^i.^ W A*^'-' '-^^Sp?^ » - »--' . ^ -"^^ T^-rifci » »>-^'>>^^ ^ » >>:>3t:^ > ^^?->^s^ -:> .:3^?^-";^^S i^ ::p»|3^^>:^ J !s :^>>^^>i>^ 5 of ">5i >^a^ > ■:S >•■>>> 3,> F?:> >i';:>:3 5>^ l??;^$33f . )> v> i> >i> 3.- i^^-*-'-'^^:^':- * o. > ^^S^^'^^ -^ '>^ W '-'> ^^--'' ^ SEP 2t> 1900 *j Scct:f- •u. LECTURES EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE ROMANS. THOMAS ikALMERS, D.D. & LL.D., PROFESSOR OP THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OP EDINBURGH, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROTAI. INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. FOURTH 'THOUSAND. NEW YORK : PUBLISHED BY ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL STREET. PITTSBURG:— THOMAS CARTER. 1843. ADVERTISEMENT. A SERIES of pulpit discourses on the obvious subject-matter of Scripture, is of a different character from those critical and expository works, the object of which is to fix and ascertain the meaning — even of the more obscure and controverted, as well as of the clearest passages. The following is a record of the Sabbath preparations of many years back — now given with- out change or improvement to the world 5 and the appearance of which in their present state is very much owing to the fre- quently expressed desire of my old hearers, to have the Lec- tures which I delivered on the Epistle to the Romans, set before them in a more permanent form. But it may be right to mention that the pulpit lectures which were delivered during my incumbency in the parish of St. John's, Glasgow, from September, 1819, to November, 1823, extend only a little way into the tenth chapter, and that the remaining lectures, with the exception of the one on xiv. 17, have been only prepared now for the completion of this work. Edinburgh^ January^ 1842. LECTURES ON THE ROMANS. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. It is possible to conceive the face of our world overspread with a thick and mid- night darkness, and without so much as a particle of light to alleviate it, from any one quarter of the firmament around us. In this case, it were of no avail to the people who live in it, that all of them were in possession of sound and perfect eyes. The organ of sight may be entire, and yet nothing be seen from the total absence of external light among the objects on every side of us. Or in other words, to bring about the perception of that which is with- out, it is not enough that we have the power of vision among men ; but, in ad- dition to this, thei'e must be a visibility in the trees, and the houses, and the moun- tains, and the living creatures, which are now in the ordinary discernment of men. But, on the other hand, we may reverse the supposition. We may conceive an entire luminousness to be extended over the face of nature — v/hile the faculty of sight was wanting among all the indivi- duals of our species. In this case, the external light would be of as little avail towards our pei'ception of any object at a distance from us, as the mere possession of the sense of seeing was in the former instance. Both must conspire to the effect of our being rendered conversant witli the external world through the medium of the eye. And if the power of vision was not enough, without a visibility on the part of the things which are around us, by God saying let there be light — as little is their visibility enough, without the power of vision stamped as an endowment by the hand of God, on the creatures whom He has formed. Now we can conceiye that both these defects or disabilities, in the way of vi- sion, may exist at the same time-r-or that all the world was dark,'' and that all the people in the world were blind. To emerge out of this condition — there must be a twofold process begun and carried forward, and at length brought to its full and perfect termination. Light must be poured upon the earth, and the faculty of seeing must be conferred upon its inhabi- tants. One can imagine, that, instead of the light being made instantaneously to burst upon us in ils highest splendour, and, instead of the faculty being immedi- ately bestowed upon us in full vigour to meet and to encounter so strong a tide of effulgency — that both these processes were conducted in a way that was altogether gradual— that the light, for example, had its first weak glimmei-ing ; and that the eye, in the feebleness of its infancy, was not overcome by it — that the light ad- vanced with morning step to a clearer brilliancy ; and that the eye, rendered able to bear it, multiplied the objects of its sight, and took in a wider range of perception — that the light shone at length unto the perfect day ; and that the eye, with the last finish upon its properties and its powers, embraced the whole of that variety which lies within the present com- pass of human contemplation. We must see that if one of these processes be gra- dual, the other should be gradual also By shedding too strong a light upon weak eyes, we may overpower and extinguish them. By granting too weak a light to him who has strong eyes, we make the fa- culty outstrip the object of its exercise, and thus incur a waste of endowment. By attempering the one process to the other, we maintain, throughout all the stages, that harmony which is so abund- antly manifested in the works of Nature and Providence, between man as he ac- tually is, and the circumstances by which man is actually surrounded. These preliminary statements will we trust be of some use for illustrating the progress, not of natural, but of spiritual light, along that nath which forms the sue INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. cessive history of our world. Whatever discernment Adum had of the things of God in Paradise, the fall which he expe- rienced was a fall into the very depth.s of the obscurity of midnight. The faculties he had in a state of innocence, made him able to perceive, that the Creator, who formed him, took pleasure in all that lie had formed ; and rejoiced over thern so long as he saw that they were good. But when they ceased to be good, and became evil — when sin had crept into our world in the shape ot a novelty as yet unheard, and as yet unprovided for — when the re- lation of man to his Maker was not merely altered, but utterly and diametrically re- versed— when, from a loyal and aifcction- ate friend, he had become at first a daring, and then a distrustful and affrighted rebel — Adam may, when a sense of integrity made all look bright and smiling aiid se- rene around him, have been visited from Heaven with the light of many high com- munications; nor could he feel at a loss to comprehend, how He, who was the Fountain of moral excellence, should cherish, with a Father's best and kindest regards, all those whom He had filled and beautified and blest with its unsullied emanations : But, after the gold had be- come dim, how He whose eye was an eye of unspotted holiness could look upon it with complacency — after the sentence had been incurred, how, while truth and un- changeableness were the attributes of God, it ever could be reversed by the lips of Him who pronounced it — after guilt with all its associated terrors had changed to the view of our first parents the aspect of the Divinity, how the light of His coun- tenance should ever beam upon them again with an expression of love or ten- derness— these were the mysteries which beset and closed and shrouded in thickest darkness, the understandings of those who had just passed out of innocence into sin. Till God made this first communi- cation, there was no external light, to alleviate that despair and dreariness which followed the first visitation of a feeling so painful and so new as the con- sciousness of evil. And, if the agitations of the heart have any power to confuse and to unsettle the perceptions of the un- derstanding— if remorse and perplexity and fear, go to disturb the exercise of all our judging and all our discerning facul- ties— if, under the engrossment of one great and overwhelming apprehension, we can neither see with precision nor contemplate with steadiness — above all, if, under the administration of a righteous God, there be a constant alliance between spiritual darkness and a sense of sin un- pardoned or sin unexpiated — then may we be sure that an obscurity of the deep- est character lay upon the first moments in the history of sinful man ; and which required both light from Heaven upon his soul, and a renovation of its vitiated and disordered faculties, ere it could be eflFec- tually dissipated. From this point then, the restoration of spiritual light to our benighted world takes its commencement — when Adam was utterly blind ; and the canopy over his head, was palled in impenetrable dark- ness. To remove the one disability, was in itself to do nothing — to remove the other disability was in itself to do nothing. Both must be removed, ere Adam could again see. Both may have been removed instantaneousl)'^ ; and by one fiat of Om- nipotence, such a perfection of spiritual discernment may have been conferred on our first parents, and such a number of spiritual truths have been made by a direct communication from heaven to stand around him, as in a single moment would have ushered him into all the splen- dours of a full and finished revelation. But this has not been God's method in His dealing.s with a sinful world. Spiritual light and spiritual discernment, were not called foi'th to meet each otlier, in all the plenitude of an unclouded brilliancy, at the bidding of His immediate voice. The outward truth has been dealt out by a gradual process of revelation — and the inward perception of it has been made to maintain a corri;.sponding pace through a process equally gradual. A greater num- ber of spiritual objects has been intro- duced, from one tinie to another, into the field of visibility — and the power of spiritual vision has from one age to ano- ther been made to vary and to increase along with them. Those truths, which make up the body of our written revelation, may be regarded as so many objects, on which visibility has been conferred by so many succes- sive communications of light from Heaven. They were at first few in number ; and these few were offered to mankind, under the disguise of a rather vague and ex- tended generality. The dawn of this ex- ternal revelation, was marked by the solitary announcement, given to our out- cast progenitors, that the seed of the wo- man should bruise the head of the ser- pent. To this, other announcements were added in the progress of ages — and even the great truth, which lay enveloped in the very first of them, had a growing illu- mination cast upon it in the lapse of gene- rations. The promise given to Adam, brightened into a more cheering and in- telligible hope, when renewed to Abra- ham, in the shape of an assurance, that, through one of his descendants, all the families of the earth were to be blest ; and INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. to Jacob, that Shiloh was to be born, and that to Him the gathering of the people should be ; and to Moses, that a great Prophet was to arise like unto himself; and to David, that one of his house was to sit upon his throne for ever ; and to Isaiah, that one was to appear, who should be a light unto the Gentiles, and the salvation of all the ends of the earth ; and to Daniel, that the Messiah was to be cut off, but not for himself, and that through Him reconciliation was to be made for iniquity, and an everlasting righteousness was to be brought in ; and to John the Baptist, that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and the Prince of that kingdom was immediately to follow in the train of his own ministrations ; and to the apos- tles in the days of our Saviour upon earth, that He with whom they companied was soon to be lifted up for the healing of the nations, and that all who looked to Him should live ; and finally, to the apostles after the day of Pentecost, when, fraught with the full and explicit tidings of a world's atonement and a world's regene- ration, they went forth with the doctrine of Christianity in its entire copiousness, and have transmitted it to future ages in a book, of which it has been said, that no man shall add thereto, and that no man shall take away from it. This forms but a faint and a feeble out- line of that march, by which God's exter- nal revelation hath passed magnificently onwards, from the first days of our world, through the twilight of the patriarchal ages — and the brightening of the Jewish dispensation, aided as it was by the secon- dary lustre of types and of ceremonies — and the constant accumulation of Prophe- cy, with its visions every century becom- ing more distinct, and its veil becoming more transparent — and the personal com- munications of God manifest in the flesh, who opened His mouth amongst us, but still opened it in parables — insomuch that when He ascended from His disciples. He still left them in wonder and dimness and mystery — till, by the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit from the place which He had gone to occupy, the evidence of inspira- tion received its last and its mightiest en- largement, which is now open to all for the purpose of perusal, but so shut against every purpose of augmentation, that in this respect it may be said, its words are closed up and sealed to the time of the end. The Epistle to the Romans, forms one of the most complete and substantial pro- ducts of this last and greatest illumination. In this document, the visibility of external revelation is poui'ed forth not merely on the greatest variety of Christian doctrine, but on that doctrine so harmoniously blended with the truths of human experi- ence— so solidly reared from the founda- tion of Jesus Christ and of Him crucified, into a superstructure at once firm and graceful and stately — so branching forth into all the utilities of moral and practi- cal application — and, at length, from an argument bearing upon one great conclu- sion, so richly efflorescing into all the virtues and accomplishments which serve both to mark and to adorn the person of regenerated man — Such is the worth and the density and the copiousness of this epistle — that, did our power of vision keep pace at all with the number and the value of those spiritual lessons which abound in it, then indeed should we become the children of light, be rich in a wisdom that the world knoweth not, in a wisdom which is unto salvation. But the outward light by which an ob- ject is rendered visible is one thing — and the power of vision is another. That these two are not only distinct in respect of theoretical conception, but were also experimentally distinct from each other in the actual history of God's communica- tions to the world, will, we trust, be made to appear from several passages of that revealed history in the Bible ; and from one single appeal which we shall make to the experience of our hearers. The first passage is in 1 Peter i. 10 — 12. "Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of tlie grace that should come unto you. Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now reported unto you, by them that have preached the gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things the angels desire to look into." This passage sets the old pro- phets before us in a very striking attitude. They positively did not know the mean- ing of their own prophecies. They were like men of dim and imperfect sight, whose hand was guided by some foreign power to the execution of a picture — and who, after it was finished, vainly attempted, by straining their eyes, to explain and to as- certain the subject of it. They were the transmitters of a light, wliich, at the same time, did not illuminate themselves. They uttered the word, or they put it down in writing, as it was given to them — and then they searched by their own power, but searched in vain for the signification of it They enquired diligently what the mean- ing of the Spirit could be, when it testified of the sufferings of Christ and the glory 8 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of Christ. But till that Spirit gave the power of discernment, as well as set be- fore them the objects of discernment — their attempts were nugatory. And in- deed they were sensible of this, and ac- quiesced in it. It was told them by reve- lation, that the subject matter of their pro- phecy was not for themselves, but for others — even for those to whom the gospel should be preached in future days, and who, along with the ministration of the external word, were to receive the minis- tration of the Holy Ghost — whose office it is to put into tiie mouths of prophets the things which are to be looked to and believed, and whose office also it is to put into the hearts of others the power of seeing and believing these things. And it serves clearly to mark the distinction between these two offices, that the pro- phets, alluded to in this passage, present- ed to the world a set of truths which they themselves did not understand — and that again the private disciples of Peter, who were not so learned as to be made the original and inspired authors of such a communication, were honoured with the far more valuable privilege of being made to understand it. This we think will appear still more clearly from another passage of tlie same apostle in 2 Peter i. 19 — 21. " We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise m your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." No prophecy is of private interpretation. It was not suggested by the natural sense of him who uttered it — and as little is it under- stood, or can it be explained, by the na- tural powers of the same person. lie was the mere recipient of a higher influ- ence ; and he conveyed what he had thus received to the world — speaking not of his own will but just as he was moved by the Holy Ghost — and enabled to discern or to expound the meaning of what he had tlius spoken, not of his own power, but just as the same Holy Ghost who gave him the materials of contemplation, gave him also the faculty of a just and true contempla- tion. The light of which he was barely the organ of transmission, shone in a dark place, so long as it shone upon the blind ; and, not till the blind was made to see — not till the eyes of those, who were taking heed to the letter of the prophecy, were opened to perceive the life and meaning and spirit of the prophecy — not till that day which has dawned, and that day-star which had arisen on tlie outward page of revelation, had also dawned and arisen upon their own hearts — not, in short, till the great agent of all revelation, even the Holy Spirit who had already furnished the object of perception in the word, had also furnished the organ of perception in the understanding — not till then, were the in- quirers after the truth as it is in Jesus etfoctually introduced, to a full acquaint- ance with all its parts, — or to the full be- nefit of all its influence. We cannot take leave of this passage, without adverting to the importance of that practical injunction which is contain- ed in it. They who are still in darkness are called upon to look, and with earnest- ness too, to a particular quarter ; and that is the word of God — and to do so until the power of vision was granted to them. If a blind man were desirous of beholding a landscape, and had the hope at the same time of having his sight miraculously re- stored to him, he might, even when blind, go to the right post of observation, and turn his face to the right direction, and thus wait for the recovery of that power which was extinguished. And, in like manner, we are all at the right post, when we are giving heed to our Bibles. We are all going through a right exercise, when, with the strenuous application of our natural powers, we are reading and pondering and comparing and remember- ing the words of the testimony — and if asked, how long we should persevere in this employment, let us persevere in it with patience and prayer until, as Peter says, the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts. That John the Baptist should not know himself to have been he who was to come in the spirit and power of Elijah ; and hence, in reply to the question Art thou Elias 1 should say that I am not — whereas our Saviour affirmed of him, that he was the Elias who should come— this ignor- ance of his may be as much due to the want of outward information about the point, as to any lack in the faculty of discernment. The same thing however can scarcely be said of his ignorance of the true character of the very Messiah whom he himself foretold — insomuch, that, though he had baptized him and attested him to be the Lamb of God, and had seen the Spirit descending upon him like a dove— yet he seems afterwards to have been so much startled by the obscurity of his circumstances, and by the style of his companionship which looked unsuitable to the character of a great Prince and Deliverer, that, in perplexity about the matter, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask whether he was the person who should come or they had to look for another' INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. He laboured under such a disadvantage, whether of darkness or of blindness about the whole nature of the new dispensation, that though, in respect of light, he was greater than the greatest of the prophets, who haci gone before him — yet, in the very same respect, he was less than the least in the kingdom of heaven ; or less than the least enlightened of the Christian disciples who should come after him. The constant misapprehension of our Saviour's own immediate disciples, of which we read so much in the Gospels, was certainly due as much to their being blind as to their being in the dark — to their defect in the power of seeing, as to any defect in the visibility of what was actually set before them. We read of our Saviour's sayings being hid from them, that they perceived not — and of His dealing out the light of exter- nal truth to them, as their eyes were able to bear it — and of His averring, in spite of all he had dealt out in the course of his personal ministrations upon earth, of His averring, at the close of these ministra- tions, that as yet they knew nothing, though if they had had the power of dis- cernment, they might surely have learned much from what is now before us in the Gospels, and of which they were both the eye and the ear witnesses. We further read, that after the resurrection, when He met two of his disciples, and the eyes of their body were holden that they should not know Him, just as the eyes of their mind were holden that they should not know the things which were said in Moses and the prophets and all the Scriptures concerning Himself, they at length came to recognize His person — not by any ad- ditional light thrown upon the external object, but simply by their eyes being opened ; and they also came to recognize Him in the Scriptures — not by any change or any addition to the word of their testi- mony, but simply by their understandings being opened to understand them. We also read of the descent of the Holy Ghost in the day of Pentecost — that event on which our Saviour set such an import- ance, as to make it more than an equiva- lent for His own presence in the way of teaching and enlightening the minds of his apostles. "If I go not away, He will not come unto you-^but if I depart, then Him who is not yet given, because I am not yet glorified, I will send unto you. And He will guide you into all truth, and take of my things, and show them unto you." There is no doubt that He showed them new things, which we have in the Epistles ; and so made the light of exter- nal revelation shine more fully and brightly upon them. But there is as little doubt, that, in His office as a Rcvealcr, 2 He made them see old things more clearly than before ; and that, by a direct work on the power of rnental perception, He brought them to their remembrance ; and He made them skilful in the discernment of Scripture — a term applied exclusively at that time to the writings of the Old Testament ; and He, not only cleared away the external darkness which rested on that part of Christian doctrine that was still unpromulgated, but He strength- ened and purified that organ of discern- ment through which the light both of things new and old finds its way into the heart — insomuch that we know not two states of understanding which stand more decidedly contrasted with each other, than that of the apostles before, and of the same apostles after the resurrection — so that from being timid, irresolute, confused, and altogether doubting and unsatisfied inquirers, they became the brave un- shrinking and consistent ministers of a spiritual faith — looking back both on the writings of the Old Testament, and on our Saviour's conversations with other eyes than they had formerly, and enabled so to harmonize them all with their subsequent revelations, as to make them perceive an evangelical spirit and an evangelical meaning even in those earlier communi- cations, which, of themselves, shed so dim and so feeble a lustre over the patriarchal and the prophetic ages. So that the office of the Holy Ghost with the apostles, was, not merely to show them things new respecting Christ, but to make them see things both new and old. The former of His functions, as we said before, has now ceased — nor have we -reason to believe, that, during the whole currency of our present world, there will another article of doctrine or information be given to us, than what is already treasured up in the written and unalter- able word of God's communications. But the latter function is still in full exercise. It did not cease with the apostolic age. The external revelation is completed. But, for the power of beholding aright the truths which it sets before us, we are just as dependent on the Holy Ghost as the apostles of old were. His miraculous gifts and His conveyances of additional doctrine ai-e now over. But His whole work in the church of Christ is not nearly over. He has shed all the light that He ever will do over the field of revelation. But He has still to open the eyes of the blind ; and, with every individual of the human race, has He to turn him from a natural man who cannot receive the things of the Spirit, to a spiritual man by whom alone these things can be spiritu- ally discerned. There is with many amongst us, an un- 10 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. dervaluing of this part of the Christian dispensation. The office of the Holy Ghost as a rcvealer is little adverted to, and therefore little proceeded upon in any of our practical movements. We set our- selves forth to the work of reading and understanding the Bible, just as we would any human composition — and this is so far right — for it is only when thus em- ployed that we have any reason to look for the Spirit's agency in our behalf But surely the fact of His agency being essential, is one, not of speculative but of practical importance — and ought to ad- monish us, tliat there is one peculiarity, by which the book of God stands distin- guished from the book of a human author, and that is that it is not enough it should be read with the spirit of attention, but with the spirit of dependence and of prayer. We should like if this important part in the process of man's recovery to God, held a more conspicuous place in your estima- tion. We should like you to view it as a standing provision for the church of Christ in all ages. It was not set up for a mere temporary purpose, to shed a fleeting brilliancy over an age of gifted and illu- minated men that has now rolled by. Such is the value, and such the perma- nency of this gift of the Holy Ghost, that it almost looks to be the great and ulti- mate design of Christ's undertaking, to obtain the dispensation of it, as the ac- complishment of a promise by His Father. And when Peter explained to the multi- tude its first and most wondrous exhibition on the day of Pentecost, he did not restrict it to one period or to one country of the world. But the gift of the Holy' Ghost is "unto you," he says, "and to your chil- dren, and to as many as the Lord our God shall call." We think that if we saw Christ in person, and had the explanation of our Bibles from His own mouth, this ■would infallibly conduct us to the highest eminences of spiritual wisdom. But bless- ed be they who have not seen, but yet have believed — and Christ hath expressly told us, that it is better He should go away from the world, for " if He did not go away the Spirit would not come — but that if He went away He would send Him." What the mysterious connection is be- tween Christ's entrance into heaven, and the free egress of the Holy Ghost upon earth, it is not for us to enquire. But such is the revealed fact, that we are in better circumstances for being guided unto all truth by having a part and an interest in this promise, than if we had personal ac- cess to the Saviour still sojourning and still ministering amongst us. Let us not despise that which has so mighty a place assigned to it in the counsels of God — and if heretofore, a darkness has hung over the pages of the word of His testimony — let us feel assured that in Him or in His communications there is no darkness at all. It is not because He is dark, but be- cause we ai'c blind that we do not under- stand Him ; and we give you, not a piece of inert orthodoxy, but a piece of infor- mation which may be turned to use and to account on your very next perusal of any part of the Bible— rwhen we say that it is the office of the Spirit to open the eye of your mind to the meaning of its inti- mations, and that God will not refuse His holy Spirit to those who ask Him. This brings us by a very summary pro- cess to the resolution of the question How is it that the Spirit acts as a revealer of truth to the human understanding! To deny Ilim this office, on the one hand, is, in fact, to set aside what by the fullest testimony of the Bible is held forth as the process, in every distinct and individual case, whereby each man at his conversion is called out of darkness into marvellous light. On the other hand, to deny such a fulness and such a sufficiency of doctrine in the Bible, as if beheld and believed is enough for salvation, is to count it neces- sary that something should be added to the words of the prophecy of this book, which if any man do, God will add unto him all the plagues that are written there- in. There is no difficulty in effecting a reconciliation between these two parties. The Spirit guides unto all truth, and all truth is to be found in the Bible — The Spirit therefore guides us unto the Bible. He gives us that power of discernment, by which we are wisely and intelligently conducted through all its passages. His office is not to brighten into additional splendour the sun of revelation, or even to clear away any clouds that may have gathered over the face of it. His office is to clarify our organs of perception, and to move away that film from the spiritual eye, which, till He begins to operate, ad- heres with the utmost obstinacy in the case of every individual of our species. The ebbs and the alternations of spiritual light in our world, are not due to any fluctuating movements, in the flame, which issues from that luminary that has been hung out as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths. It is due to the variations which take place, of sound- ness or disease, in the organs of the be- holders. That veil which was at one time on the face of Moses, is now upon the heart of the unconverted Israelites. The blindness is in their minds, and they are in darkness, just because of this veil be- ing yet untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. When they turn to the Lord, there will be no change made either in the Old Testament or in the INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 11 New — but this veil which is now upon their faculties of spiritual discernment, will simply be taken away. The uncon- verted of our own country, to whom the gospel is hid, do not perceive it, not be- cause there is a want of light in the gos- pel which would need to be augmented, but because the God of this world hath blinded their own minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them. God hath already commended all the ex- ternal light of revelation, which he ever purposes to do, in behalf of our world — and that light shines upon all to whom the word of salvation is sent. But though it shines upon all, it does not shine into all. He hath already commanded the light to shine out of darkness — and we now wait for that opening and purifying of the organ of conveyance which is upon •our person, that it may shine into our hearts and thence give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. The period of the new dispensation has been a period of light, as much from the increase of vision as from the increase of visibility. The va- cillation of this light from one age to another, is not from any periodical changes in the decay or the brightening of the outward luminary. It is from the partial shuttings and openings of a screen of interception. And, in those millennial days, when the gospel, in full and un- clouded brilliancy, shall shine upon the world — it will not be because light came down to it from heaven in a tide of more copious supply — but because God will destroy the face of the covering that is cast over all people ; and the veil that is spread over all nations. The light is exceedingly near to every one of us, and we might even now be in the full and satisfactory enjoyment of it — were it not for a something in ourselves. All that is necessary is, that the veil, which hangs over our own senses, be de- stroyed. The obstacle in the way of spiritual manifestation, does not lie in the dimness of that which is without us — but in the state of our own personal faculties. Let the organ of discernment be only set right ; and the thing to be discerned will then appear in its native brightness, and just in the very features and complexion which it has worn from the beginning, and in which it has offered itself to the view of all whose eyes have been opened by the Spirit of God, to behold the wondrous things contained in the book of God's law. His office is not to deal invariable revela- tions to a people sitting in darkness. It is to lift up the hieavy eyelids of a people who are blind, that they may see the cha- racters of a steady unchangeable and ever-during record. The light is near us, and round about us ; and all that remains to be done for its being poured into the innermost recesses of every soul, is the destruction of that little tegument which lies in the channel of communication, be- tween the objects which are visible and him for whose use and Vv^hose perception they are intended. To come in contact with spiritual ligh^ we have .not to ascend into heaven, and fetch an illuminated torch from its upper sanctuaries — we have not to descend into the deep, and, out of the darkness of its hidden mysteries, bring to the openness of day some seQret thing that before was inaccessible. All that we shall ever find is in that word which is nigh unto us, even in our mouth ; and v/hich, by the penetrating energies of Him in whose hand it becometh a sword, can find its way through all the dark and ob- structed avenues of nature, and reach its convictions and its influences and its les- sons to the very thoughts and intents of the heart. If you be longing for a light which you have not yet gotten — it is worth your knowing, that the firmament of a man's spiritual vision is already set round with all its splendours — that not one additional lamp will for your behoof be hung out from the canopy of heaven — that the larger and the lesser lights of revelation are already ordained, and not so much as one twinkling luminary will either be added or expunged from this hemisphere of the soul, till this material earth and these material heavens be made to pass away — and therefore, if still sitting in the region and under the shadow of death, there be any of you who long to be ushered into the manifestations of the gos- pel, know that this is done, not by any change in that which is without, but by a change in that which is within — by a medicating process upon your own facul- ties— by the si mplicity of a personal ope- ration. This is something more than the mere didactic affirmation of a speculative or scholastic Theology. It contains within its bosom the rudiments of a most impor- tant practical direction, to every reader and every inquirer. If I do not see, not because there is a darkness around me, but because there is a blindness upon me adhering in the shape of a personal attri- bute— it were a matter of great practical account to ascertain, if this defect do not stand associated with other defects in my character and mind which are also per- sonal. And when we read of the way in which the moral and the intellectual are blended together in the doctrines of the New Testament— how one apostle affirms, that he who hateth his brother is in blind- ness; and another, that he who lacketh 12 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. certain virtues is blind and cannot see afar off; and another, that men who did not, up to what they knew, award the glory and the gratitude to God, had their foolish hearts darkened, so as to have that which they at one tinne possessed taken away from them ; and our Saviour resolv- ing the condemnation of men's unbelief into the principle that they loved the darkness, and therefore wilfully shut their eyes to the truth that was offered — all this goes to demonstrate, that presumptuous sin stands in the way of spiritual discern- ment ; that evil deeds, and the indulgence of evil affections, serve to thicken that film which has settled upon the mental eye, and obscures its every perception of the truths of revelntion. And this much at least may be turned into a matter of sure and practical inference from all these elucidations — that the man who is not yet awakened to a sense of his iniquities, and not evincing it by putting forth upon them the hand of a strenuous and determined reform ; that the man who stifles the voice of conscience within him, and, the slave of his inveterate habits, never, either in practice or in prayer, makes an honest struggle for his own emancipation; that he who makes not a single effort against the conformities or the associations of worldliness ; and, far more, he who still persists in its dishonesties or its grosser dissipations — he may stand all his days on the immediate margin of a brightness that is altogether celestial, and yet, in virtue of an interposed barrier which he is doing all he can to make more opake and impenetrable, may he, with the Bible before his eyes, be groping in all the darkness and in more than all the guilt of heathenism. These sins infuse a sore and a deadly distemper into his organs of per- ception, and by every wilful repetition of them is the distemper more fixed and per- petuated— and therefore it is that we call upon those who desire for light, tochori.sli no hope whatever of its attainment, while they persist in any doings which they know to be wrong. We call upon them to frame their doings in turning to the Lord if they wish the veil to be taken away — and, instead of hesitating about the order of precedency between faith and practice, or about the way in which they each reciprocate upon the other, we call upon them simply and honestly to betake themselves to the apostolical order of "Awake, O sinner, and Christ shall give thee light." There is Tinother set of passages which may be quoted as a counterpart to the former, and which go to demonstrate the connection between obedience and spiri- tual light — even as the others prove a connection between sin and spiritual darkness. ' He who is desirous of doing God's will shall know of Christ's doctrine that it is of God.' ' He whose eye is sin- gle shall have the whole body full of light.' ' Light is sown unto the upright, and breaketh forth as the morning to those who judge the widow and the father- less.' ' To him who hath, more shall be given' — and 'he who keepeth my sayings, to him will 1 manifest myself These are testimonies which clearly bespeak, what ought to be the conduct of him who is in quest of spiritual manifestation. They will serve to guide the seeker in his way to that rest, which all attain who have at- tained an acquaintance with the unseen Creator. It is a rest which he labours to enter into — and, in despite of freezing speculation, does he turn the call of re- pentance to the immediate account of urg- ing himself on to all deeds of conformity with the divine will, to all good and holy services. But more than this. It is the Spirit who opens the understanding ; and He is af- fected by the treatment which He receives from the subject on which He operates. It is true that He has been known at times to magnify the freeness of the grace of God, by arresting the sinner in the full speed and determination of his impetuous career ; and turning him, in despite of himself, to the refuge and the righteous- ness of the gospel. But, speaking gener- ally, He is grieved by resistance, He is quenched by carelessness. He is provoked by the constant baffling of His endeavours, to check and to convince and to admon- ish. On the other hand He is courted by compliance ; He is encouraged by the fa- vourable reception of His influences ; He is given in larger measure to those who obey Him ; and He follows up your do- cility under one dictate and one sugges- tion, by freer and fuller manile-stations. In other words, if to thwart your con- science be to thwart Him, and if to act with your conscience be to act with Him — what is this to say, but that every in- quirer after the way of salvation, has something to do at the very outset in the furtherance of his object? What is this to .say, but that a nascent concern about the soul should instantly be associated with a nascent activity in the prosecution of its interests] What is this to say, but that the man should, plainly and in good earnest, forthwith turn himself to all that is right? If he have been hitherto a drunkard, let him abandon his profliga- cies. If he have been hitherto a profaner of the Sabbath, let him abandon the habit of taking his own pleasure uyjfin that day. If he have been hitherto a dcfrauder, let him abandon his deceits and his depreda- tions. And though in that region of spir- INTK.ODUCTOE.Y LECTURE. 13 itual light upon which he is entering, he will learn that he never can be at peace with God till he lean on a better righte- ousness than his own — yet such is the in- fluence of the doctrines of grace on every genuine inquirer, that, from the first dawning of his obscure perception of them, to the splendour of their full and finished manifestation, is there the break- ing and the stir and the assiduous effort of a busy and ever-doing reformation — carrying him onwards from the more pal- pable rectitudes of ordinary and every- day conduct, to the high and sacred and spiritual elevation of a soul ripening for heaven, and following hard after God. We know that we are now standing on the borders of controversy. But we are far more solicitous for such an impression as will lead you to act, than for any spe- culative adjustment. And yet how true it is, that, for the purpose of a practical ef- fect, there is not one instrument so power- ful and so prevailing as the peculiar doc- trine of the gospel. It is the belief that a debt unextinguishable by us has been ex- tinguished by another — it is the know- ledge that that God, who can never lay aside either His truth or His righteousness, has found out such a way for the dispen- sation of mercy as serves to exalt and to illustrate them both — it is the view of that great transaction by which He laid on His own Son the iniquities of us all, and has thus done away an otherwise invincible barrier which lay across the path of ac- ceptance— it is the precious conviction that Christ has died for our sins accord- ing to the Scriptures, and thus has turned aside the penalties of a law, and by the very act wherewith He has magnified that law and made it honourable — it is this, which seen, however faintly by the eye of faith, first looses the bond of despair, and gives a hope and an outlet for obedi- ence. The subtile metaphysics of the question, about the order of succession with the two graces of faith and of repent- ance, may entertain or they may perplex you. But of this you may be very cer- tain, that, where there is no repentance, all the dogmas of a contentious orthodoxy put together will never make out the re- ality of faith — and, where there is no faith, all the drudgeries of a most literal and laborious adherence to the outward matter of the law will never make out the reality of repentance. Life is too short for controversy. Charg- ed with all the urgency of a matter on hand, we tell you to turn and flee and make fast work of your preparation for a coming eternity. The sum and substance of the preparation is, that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you. Bestir yourselves, for the last messenger is at the door. There is not time for cold criticisms, or laborious investigations, or splendid oratory, or pro- found argument — when death has broke loose amongst us, and is spreading his havoc amongst our earthly tabernacles — when he is wresting away from us the de- lights and the ornaments of our society upon earth — when he is letting us see, by examples the most aff'ecting, of what frail and perishable materials human life is made up — and is dealing out another and another reproof to that accursed delay, which leads man to trifle on the brink of the grave, and to smile and be secure, while the weapons of mortality are flying thick around him. When will we be brought to the beginning of wisdom — to the fear of God — to the desire of doing His will — to the accomplishment of that desire, by our believing in the name of His only- begotten Son, and loving one another even as He has given us com- mandment? Let us work while it is day — and, set in motion by the encourage- ments of the gospel, let us instantly bo- come the followers of them who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises. You occasionally meet in the New Tes- tament, with an express reference to a certain body of writings, which are desig- nated by the term of Scriptures. We now apply this term to the whole Bible, But,, in those days, it was restricted to that collection of pieces which makes up the Old Testament. For the new was only in the process of its formation, and was not yet completed ; and it was not till some time after the evangelists wrote their nar- ratives, and the apostles their communi- cations, that they were gathered into one volume, or made to stand in equal and co- ordinate rank with the inspired books of the former dispensation. So that all which is said of the Scrip- tures in the New Testament, must be re- garded as the testimony of its authors to the value and importance of those writings which compose the Old Testament. And it would therefore appear from Paul's epistle to Timothy, that they are able to make us wise unto salvation. There can be no doubt, however, that one ingredient of this ability is, that they refer us in a way so distinct and so autho- ritative to the events of the New Dispen- sation. They give evidence to the com- mission of our Saviour, and through Him to the commission of all His apostles. The wisdom which they teach, is a wis- dom which would guide us forward to the posterior revelations of Christianity. The Old Testament is a region of comparative dimness. But still there is light enough there, for making visible the many in- 14 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. dices which abound in it, to the more illu- minated region of the New Testament — and, by sending us forward to that region, by pointing our way to Christ and to the apostles, by barely informing us where we are to get the wisdom that we are in quest of — even though it should not con- vey it to us by its own direct announce- ments, it may be said to be able to make wise unto salvation. The quotation taken in all its complete- ness is in full harmony, with the statement which we have now given. 'From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, . through the faith that is in Christ Jesus.' But there is more in it than this. The same light from heaven by which the doctrine of the New Testament has been made visible, has also made more visible the same doctrine, which in the Old lay disguised under the veil of a still unfinished revelation. In the first blush of morning, there is much of the landscape that we cannot see at all — and much that we do see, but see imperfectly. The same ascending luminary which re- veals to us those more distant tracts that were utterly unobserved, causes to start out into greater beauty and distinctness, the fields and the paths and the varied forms of nature or of art that are imme- diately around us — till we come to per- ceive an extended impress of the charac- ter and the goodness of the Divinity, over the whole range of our mid-day contem- plation. It is thus with the Bible. That light, in virtue of which the pages of the New Testament have been disclosed to observation, has shed both a direct and a reflected splendour on the pages of the Old — insomuch that from certain chapters of Isaiah, which lay shrouded in mystery both from the prophet himself and from all his countrymen — as in reading of Him who bore the chastisement of our peace, and by whose stripes we are healed, and who poured out His soul unto the death, and made intercession for transgressors-^ we now draw all the refreshing comfort that beams upon the heart, from an intelli- gent view of our Redeemer's work of me- diation ; and behold plainly standing out, that which lay wrapt, in a kind of hiero- glyphic mantle, from the discernment of the wisest and most righteous of men under a former dispensation This power of illumination reaches upward, beyond the confines of the letter of the New Tes- tament ; and throws an evangelical light upon the remotest parts of an economy which has now passed away. The rays of our brightest sun have fallen in a flood of glory over the oldest and most distant of our recorded intimations; and a Christian can now read the very first pro- mise in the book of Genesis, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent,' which only served to light up a vague and general expectation in the minds of our first parents — he can now read it with the same; full intelligence and comfort, wherewith he reads in the book of the Romans that ' the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your fuet shortly.' But there is still more in it than this. If there be any truth in the process whereby the Holy Spirit adds to the power of discernment, as well as to the truths which are to be discerned — then this increased power will enable us to see more — not merely in the later, but also in the earlier truths of revelation, than we would otherwise have done. It is like a blind man, in full and open day, gradually recovering his sight as he stands by the margin of a variegated parterre. With- out any augmentation whatever of the ex- ternal light, is there a progress of revela- tion to his senses, as to all the beauty and richness and multiplicity of the objects which are before him. What he sees at first, may be no more than a kind of daz- zling uniformity, over the whole length and breadth of that space which is in- scribed with so many visible glories ; and, afterwards, may plants and flowers stand out in their individuality to his no- tice : and then may the distinctive colours of each come to be recognized ; and then may the tints of minuter delicacy call forth his admiration — till all which it is competent for man to perceive, of what has been so profusely lavished by the hand of the great Artist, either in one general blush of loveliness, or in those nicer and more exquisite .streaks of beauty which He hath pencilled in more hidden characters, on the specimens of flowers and foliage taken singly, shall all be per- ceived and all be rapturously enjoyed by the man, whose eyes have just bt!en open- ed into a full capacity for beholding the wondrous things, whicli lie a spread and a finished spectacle before him. And it is the same with the Bible. That book which stands before the eye of many an accom- plished disciple in this world's literature, as transfused throughout ail its extent with one pervading and indiscriminate charac- ter of mysticism, gradually opens up to the eye of him who is rescued from the power of the god of this world, and whose office it is to blind the minds of tliem who believe not ; and he beholds one general impress both of wisdom and of moral beauty upon the whole ; and he forms a growing and more special intimacy with its individual passages; and feels a weight of significancy in many of them, which he never felt before; and he is touched INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 15 with the discernment of a precious adap- tation in this one and that other verse to his own wants and his own circumstances ; and this more minute and microscopic acquaintance with tiie truths, and percep- tion of the excellencies of revelation, ap- ply as much to the verses of the Old as it does to the verses of the New Testament — so that if he just grow in spiritual clear- sightedness, he will have as growing a relish and observation for the one part of Scripture as he has for the other : And thus it is, that, unlike to any human com- position, an advancing Christian ever reads the Bible and the whole Bible, with a new light upon his understanding, and a new impression upon the affections and the principles of his nature. The books of the former dispensation never stand to him in place of the rudiments of a school- boy, which he may now abandon. But written as they are for our admonition on whom the latter ends of the world have come ; and maintaining to this very hour the high functions and authority of a teacher, all whose sayings ai-e given by inspiration from God, and all are profita- ble; and still instrumental, in the hands of the Spirit for conveying the whole light and power of His demonstrations into the understanding — let us rest assur- ed that the Old Testament is one of the two olive trees planted in the house of God, and which is never to be removed; one of the two golden candlesticks lighted up for the church of Christ upon earth, and which while that church has being, will never be taken away. It may illustrate this whole matter, if we look to the book of Psalms, and just think of the various degrees of spirituality and enlargement with which the same composition may be regarded by Jewish and by Christian eyes — how in the praise which waiteth for God in Zion — and in the pleasure which His servants took in her stones, so that her very dust to them was dear — and in the preference which they made of one day in His courts to a thousand elsewhere — and in the thirsting of their souls to appear before God — and in their remembrance of that time when they went to His house with the voice of joy and praise, and with the multitude that kept holiday — and when exiles from the holy city, they were cast down in spi- rit, and cried from the depths of their banishment in the land of Jordan — and when longing for God, in a dry and thirsty land where no water was, they followed hard after the privilege of again seeing His power and His glory in the sanctuary — and in the songs of deliverance with which they celebrated their own restora- tion, when their bands were loosed, and their feet were set in a sure place, and they could offer their vows and their thanksgivings in the courts of the Lord's house, and 'in the midst of thee, oh Jeru- salem'— in all this, a Jew might express the desires of a fainting and an affection- ate heart, after that ceremonial in which he had been trained, and that service of the temple which he loved ; and yet in all this, there is enough to sustain the loftiest flights of devotion in the mind of a Christian. There is a weight of expres- sion, altogether commensurate to the feel- ings and ^he ardours and the extacies of a soul exercised unto godliness. There is a something to meet the whole varied expe- rience of the spiritual life, in these ages of a later and more refined dispensation. And such is the divine skilfulness of these compositions, that, while so framed as to suit and to satisfy the disciples of a ritual and less enlightened worship, there is not a holy and heavenly disciple of Jesus in our day, who will not perceive in the effu- sions of the Psalmist, a counterpart to all the alternations of his own religious his- tory— who will not find in his very words, the fittest vehicles for all the wishes and sorrows and agitations to which his own heart is liable — and thus be taught by a wrher far less advanced in spirituality than himself, the best utterance of desire for the manifestation of God's counte- nance, the best utterance of gratitude for the visitations of spiritual joy, the best and most expressive prayers under the dis- tress and darkness of spiritual abandon- ment. Let us read over without any comment the whole of the 84th Psalm — and just simply ask you to consider how those very materials which form a most congenial piece of devotion for a Jew, admit of be- ing so impregnated with the life and spirit of"a higher economy, that they are able to sustain all the views, and to express all the aspirations of the most spiritual and exercised Christian. "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts i My soul longeth, yea, even fainleth for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for her- .self, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them, who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also fill- eth the pools. They go from strength to strength ; every one of them in Zion ap- peareth before God. O Lord God of Hosts, hear my prayer : give ear, O God of Jacob. Behold, O God our shield, and 16 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thou- sand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory : no good thing will IIo withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee." We think it necessary to say thus much — lest the Old Testament should ever be degraded below its rightful place in your estimation — lest any of you should turn away from it, as not fitted to augment the faith and the holiness of those, who lie imder a better and a brighter dispensation — lest you should abstain from the habit of reading that letter of the Old Testa- ment, which is abundantly capable of being infused with the same evangelical spirit, that gives all its power to the letter of the New Testament. And be assured, that, if you want to catch in all its height and in all its celestial purity the raptures of a sustained and spiritual intercourse with Him who sitleth upon the throne, we know nothing fitter to guide your ascend- ing way, than those psalms and those prophecies, which shone at one time in a dark place ; but may now, upon the earnest heed of him who attentively regards them, cause the day to dawn and the day-star to arise in his heart. In turning now to one of the fullest expositions of Christian doctrine which is to be found in the New Testament ; and which was drawn up for the edification of the most interesting of the early churches ; and where, in the conduct of his argument, Paul seems to have been fully aware of all those elements both of intolerance and philosophy which were in array against him; and where, as his manner was, he suits and manages his reasoning, with the full consciousness of the kind and metal of resistance that were opposed to him ; and where he had to steer his dexterous way through a hetero- geneous assemblage of Gentiles on the one hand, enlightened up to the whole literature and theology of the times, and of Jews on the other, most fiercely and proudly tenacious of that sectarianism which they regarded as their national glory — in such an epistle, written in such circumstances by the accomplished Paul, when we may be sure he would bring up his efforts to the greatness of the occasion, it is natural to look for all the conviction and all the light that such an able and intellectual champion is fitted to throw over the cause which he has undertaken. And yet what would be the result in a discussion of science or politics or law, we will not find to be the result in a discus- sion of Christianity, without such a pre- paration and such an accompaniment as are not essential to our progress in this world's scholarship. To be a disciple in the school of Christ, there must be an affectionate embracing of truth with the heart ; and there must be a knowledge which putfeth not up, but humbles and edifies ; and there must be a teaching of the Spirit of God, distinct from all those unsanctified acquirements, which we la- bour to win and to defend, in the strife it may be of logical contention. For, let it be observed, that the wisdom of the New Testament is characterized by moral attributes. It is pure and peaceable and gentle, and easy to be entreated, and full of mercy and good fruits, and without partiality and without hypocrisy. Let us not confound the illumination of natural argument, with that which warms the heart as well as informs the understand- ing— for it is a very truth, that the whole demonstration of orthodoxy may be as- sented to by him, who is not spiritual but carnal. And while we arc yet on the threshold of by far the mightiest and closest of those demonstrations, that ever were offered to the world, let us " bow the knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would grant us according to the riches of His glory, to be strength- ened with might by His Spirit in tho inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith ; that, being rooted and grounded in love, we may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is tho breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God." 17 LECTURE II. Romans i, 1 — 7. " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holi- ness, by the resurrection from the dead : by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name : among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ : To all that be in Rome be- loved of God : Grace to you and peace fronx God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." We now enter upon the work of expo- sition. People, in reading the Bible, are often not conscious of the extreme listiessness with which they pa.ss along the familiar 'and oft repeated words of Scripture, with- out the impression of their meaning being at all present with the thoughts — and how, during the mechanical currency of the verses through their lips, the thinking power is often asleep for whole passages together. And you will therefore allow me, at least at the commencement of this lectureship, first to read over a paragraph ; and then to fasten the import of certain of its particular phrases upon your atten- tion, even though these phrases may heretofore have been regarded as so in- telligible, that you never thought of bes- towing an effort or dwelling one moment upon their signification ; and then of i^eading the passage over again, in such Extended or such substituted language, as may give us another chance of the sense /of it at least being rivetted on your under- / standings. We shall generally endeavour to press home upon you, in the way of application, some leading truth or argu- ment which may occur in any such por- tion of the epistle as we may have been enabled to overtake. V. 1, " Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of God." An apostle — one who is sent, one who obtains, not a commision to do, but a com- mission to go — 'Go and preach the gospel unto every creature.' Jesus Christ is an apostle — because sent — and is therefore called not merely the High Priest, but the Apostle of our profession. God sent his Son unto the world. The call of Paul you read of several times in the Acts, both in the direct narrative of that book, and in his own account of it. And it is to be remark- ed that as he got his commission in a pe- culiar way, so he evidently feels himself more calleti upon than the other apostles, to assert and to vindicate its authenticity. _ 'Separated unto' — set apart to a par- ticular work. You know that holiness, in its original meaning, just signifies separa- tion from the mass. It is thus that the vessels of the temple are holy — it is thus that the terms, common and unclean, are 3 held, in the language of the ceremonial law, to be synonymous. And it is thus that the devoting, or setting apart of an apos- tle to his office, is expressed by the con- secration of him to it ; and even, in one part of the New Testament, by the sancti- fying of him to it. This explains a pas- sage that might be otherwise difficult, John xvii, 17 — 20. " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth." To sanctify here is not applied to the personal, but the official character. It is not to moral- ize the heart, but merely to set apart to an employment ; and thus bears applica- tion to the apostle Christ, as to the apos- tles whom he was addressing. ' Gospel,' a message of good news. V. 2. "Which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy scriptures." ' Which' refers to gospel — which gospel he had promised. V. 3. " Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." This verse gives us the subject of the message, or what the message is about — or, omitting the second verse as a paren- thesis, ' separated unto the work of pro- mulgating God's message of good news, about His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' The phrase ' which was made' might have been rendered ' which became' of the seed of David in respect of His flesh, or His human nature. He took it upon Him. He received from this descent all that other men receive of natural faculty — or, in other words, the term flesh comprehends the human soul as well as the human body of our Redeemer. ' According to/ is, ' in respect of,' V. 4. " And declared to be the Son of God with power according the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." ' Declared,' or dcterminately marked out to be the Son of God and with power. The thing was demonstrated by an evi- dence, the exhibition of which required a putting forth of power, which Paul in another place represents as a very great and strenuous exertion. " According to the working of His mighty power when He raised Him from the dead." 'The spirit of holiness' — or the Holy Spirit. It was through the operation of the Holy 18 LECTURE II. CHAPTER I, 1 7. Spirit, that the divine nature was infused into the human at the birth of Jesus Christ ; and tlie very same agent, it is re- markable, was employed in the work of the resurrection. 'Put to death in the flesh,' says Peter, 'and quickened by the Spirit.' We have only to do with the facts of the .case. lie was demonstrated to be the Son of God, by the power of the Spirit having been put forth in raising Him from the dead. V. 5. " By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name." 'Grace,' sometimes signifies the kind- ness which prompts a gift, and sometimes the gift itself. We say that we receive kindness from a man, when, in fact, all that we can personally and bodily lay hold of, is the fruit of his kindness. Here, it signifies the fruit — a spiritual gift — ' ability, in fact, to discharge the office of an apostleship, or other duties attached to an apostle's commission. He laboured with success at this vocation, because he could strive mightily according to His working that wrought in him mightily. This commission was granted to him for the purpose of producing an obedience unto the faith among all nations, for the purpose of rendering all nations obedient unto the faith — and all this for the further purpose of magnifying His name. V. 6. "Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ." ' Called' externally — if addressing the whole church, of whom it is very possible that some may not have been called effec- tually. Or if restricted as in the follow- ing verse, only the latter — though he might presume to address all in visible communion with the church as beloved of God and as called to be saints. V. 7. "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints : Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." Loving kindness to you is manifested in those peculiar influ- ences which the Spirit confers on believ- ers ; and either real peace, or a sense of it in your hearts, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So minute an exposition may not be called for afterwards : we may not there- fore persevere in it long. Vve have now gone in detail over the words that seemed to require it, to prepare the . way for repeating the whole passage to you, either in extended or in substituted language. But before we do so, we would bid you remark a peculiarity, which we often meet with in the compositions of this apostle. He deals very much in what might be called the excursive style. One word often suggests to him a train of digression from the main current of his argument; and a single word of that train often suggests to him another ; and thus does he accumulate one subsequent clause of an episode upon a foregoing ; and branches out in so many successive de- partures, till, after a period of indulgence in this way of it, he recalls himself and falls in again to the capital stream of his observations. The interval between the first and seventh verses may be looked to, as filled up with a set of parentheses ; and they will read therefore very well in succession. 'Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, to all that be in Rome beloved of God called to be saints : grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." In like manner, several of the intermediate verses are capable of being omitted, with- out breaking the line of continuity. But the occurrence of the term Gospel at the end of the first verse, is followed up in the second by his mention of the antiquity of it, and in the third by his mention of the subject of it; and in this verse the single introduction of our Saviour's name, leads him to assert in this and the follow- ing verse His divine and human natures, and to state in the fifth verse that from Him he had received a commission to preach unto all nations, and to instance in the sixth verse the people whom he was addressing as one of these nations. And it is not till after he has completed this circle of deviations, but at the same time enriched the whole of its course with the effusions of a mind stored in the truths of revelation, that he resumes in the seventh that rectilineal track, by which the writer who announced himself in the first verse, sends in the seventh his Chris- tian salutations to the correspondents whom he is addressing. We conclude with the following para- phrase. ' Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and set apart to the work of conveying God's message of good tidings — which message He had promised before in His holy scriptures, and which message relates to His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who in respect of His human nature, was descended of David — but was evinced to be descended of God in respect of that divine nature with which the Holy Spirit impregnated His humanity at the first ; and which He afterwards, by His power, still associated with His humanity, in raising Him from the dead. By this Jesus Christ have I received the favour to be an apostle, and ability for the office of spreading obedience unto the faith among all nations for the glory of His LECTrRE in. CHAPTER I, 8 17. 19 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, j Lord Jesus Christ." LECTURE III. Romans i, 8 — 17. "First, I thank my God througli Jesns Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God ii my witness, whom I serve with my Spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make men- tion of you always in my prayers ; making request (,f by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by tlie will of God) to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual fift, to the end ye may be established ; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith oth of you a.id 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 tlje Barbarians, both to the viise 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 a.'hamed 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 exposition to set forth the meaning of these verses. The spiritual gift, men- tioned in the 11th verse, is one of those gifts by the Holy Gho.st, which the apos- tles had it in their power to transmit to their di.sciples — a power which seems to have signalized them above all the Chris- tians of that period. Many could speak tongues and work miracles ; but they could not make others either speak tongues or work niiracles. The gifts themselves it was competent for them to have, 6^ut not the faculty of communicating them. This seems to have been the peculiar preroga- tive of apostles — which Simon Magus de- sired to have, but could not purchase. It was thus, perhaps, that an apostolical visit was necessary for the introduction of these powers into any church or congre- gation of Christians ; and, if so, we would infer that the season of miracles must have passed away with those Christians, who had been in personal contact with, and were the immediate descendants of the apostles of our Lord. They left the gift of miracles behind them — but if they did not leave the power of transmitting this gift behind them, it might have disappear- ed with the dying away of all those men on whom they had actually laid their hands. In the 14th verse, the phrase *I am debtor,' may be turned into the phrase — 'I am bound' or 'I am under obligation,' laid upon me by the duties of my office, to preach both to Greeks and Barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise. ' Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel' — a necessity is laid upon me. The only other phrase that requires ex- planation, and about which indeed there is a difference of interpretation, is in the 17th verse- -' from faith to faith.' There is one sense assigned to this expression, very consistent certainly with the general truth of the gospel — but which can scarcely be admitted in this place, save by that kind of hurried acquiescence, which is too often rendered on the part of those, who like no better way of disposing of a pas- sage than to get over it easily. The right- eousness of God is certainly that, in which He hath appointed us sinners to appear before Him ; and which is the only right- eousness that He will accept of at our hands, as our meritorious title to His fa- vour and friendship. Now it is very true, that this righteousness becomes ours wholly by faith, that by faith it is receiv- ed on our pari, and by faith it is retained on our part ; and that neither works be- fore faith, nor works after it, have any part in our justification — and that, there- fore, it is not by passing onwards from fiiith to works that we further the concern of our justifying righteousness before God; but only by holding fast the begin- ning of our confidence even unto the end, and not casting it away ; and if there be any lack in our faith, perfecting that Avhich is lacking therein — so that it may hold true of us, as it did of the primitive Christians, of whom it was recorded that their faith grovveth exceedingly. And with these views in tlieir mind, do some hold, that the righteousness of God being revealed from faith to faith, signifies that as it is made known and discerned at first in the act of our believing, so the revela- tion of it becomes more distinct and ma- nifest, just as the faith becomes stronger — the things to be discerned being seen in 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 20 LECTURE III. — CHAPTER I, 8 — 17. before God, regarded as the giver of a perfect and incommutable law, is wholly by faith. 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 Rome also; and professes his own faitli 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 preach- er to the faith of the hearers. Others would have it to mean that this righteous- ness is revealed by the faithfulness of God, to the faith of men. 3. But to our mind the best interpreta- tion 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, 6iKaotavvri ck Tov TTtTTsoji, whlch is thc righteousness from of or by faith ; and the gift of which is £ij Tnarriv ov 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 righteous- ness which is by f.iith is unto those who have the faith. As it is written, the righte- ous live, or hold that life which was for- feited 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 ray whole heart, in the business that He has committed to mc 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 unlocked for delay, have with ilis will a prosperous journey to you at Rome. For I long to see you, that I may in per- son and as a sign of my apostloship, im- part 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 con- firmed, by the exercises and the sympa- thies of our mutual faith. Now you must know, brethren, that it has been long my purpose to come to you, but I have hitherto been prevented, that I might have some effects of my ministry among you also, even as among the other nations where I have laboured. 1 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 — and, in the work of declaring it, am as ready to face the contempt and the self- sufliciency of science, as to go round with it among those more docile and acqui- escing 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 be- lieve. 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. Who- soever 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 tlie 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 Scrip- ture; 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 betweep them is, in man)'^ 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 LECTURE III. — CHAPTER I, 8 17. 21 may not be at one as to the question — what 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 works of righteousness ; and they may not think that it relates to the topic as- signed, either by the second or third class of interpreters ; and yet they may be en- tirely 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 es- 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 prmciple, that the righteous- 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 tlie 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 appre- hensions, and to reduce the estimate you may have previously made of those con- troversies among good men, which some would represent as quite endless and in- extricable, 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 theo- logical creed — but to what the position is which is specially taken up or adverted to in some of the incidental or subordi- nate 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 priaciples of Christianity in common — 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. A controversy about the doctrine of a particular passage is one thing. A con- troversy 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 Scrip- ture as made up of many passages. Let us now pass on from our exposition of the meaning of words, to our applica- tion of the matter that is conveyed by them. And here we have only time to advert to the aflection and the strenuous- ness with which the apostolic mind of Paul gave itself up to apostolic business — how he rebukes by his example those who make the work of winning souls to Christ a light and superficial concern — how his whole man seems to have been engrossed by it — making it a matter of gratitude when he heard of its prosperity — making it a matter of prayer when he desired its furtherance — making it a mat- ter 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 appli- cations sent up from believers in the world. There is one trait of his mind, which frequently breaks out in his com- munications with his own converts. He is sometimes obliged to affirm his apostolic superiority over them, or to say some- thing which implies it. But it is evident how much he recoils from such an as- sumption ; and how it .sets him to the expressions and the expedients of deli- cacy, with a view to soften the disparity between himself and his di.sciples ; and how he likes to address them in the terms of equal and friendly companionship — dropping upon all ppssible 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 alto- gether, we apprehend, such a movement of humility on the part of Paul, that lies at the transition from the eleventh verse 22 LECTURE in. — CHAPTER I, 8 — 17. which signalizes him above the whole church, to the twelfth which brings him down to a participation of the same faith and the same comfort with them all. We shall not at present, bring forth any remark on a phrase, which occurs fre- quently 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. 3 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 cryelty 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- 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 words, recoils in daily and familiar con- versation from the avowals of a living witness for His name.) There is as much of the truly heroic in not being ashamed of the profession of the gospel, as in not being afraid of it. Paul was neither: and yet when we think of what he once was in literature ; and how aware he must have been of the loftiness of its con- tempt for the doctrine of a crucified Saviour ; and that in Rome the whole power and bitterness of its derisions were awaiting him ; and that the main weapon with which he had to confront it was such an argument as looked to be foolish- ness to the wisdom pf this world — we doubt not that the disdain inllicted by philosophy, was naturally as formidable to the mind of this apostle, as the death in- flicted by the arm of bloody violence. So that even now, and in the age when Chris- tianity has no penalties and no proscrip- tions to keep her down, still, if all that deserves the name of Christianity be explo- ded from conversat)on — if a visible embar- rassment run through a company, when its 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 tiie 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 eflectually 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 tiie 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 Christianit)^, 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 agc^s of our church did the persecution of direct and personal violence.^ And let it be remarked too, that, in becoming a Christian now, the same tran- sition is to be made from one style of sen- timent to another, wliich was made by the apostle. It is as much the cllbrt of nature, as it ever was of a corrupt and ignorant Judaism, to seek to establish a righteous- ness of its own; and, in passing from a state of nature to that of grace, tlierc must still be a renouncing of that rigJiteousness, and a transference of our trust and of our entire dependence to another. Now, in the act of making that passage, there is also the very same encounter with this world's ridicule and observation, which the apostle had to brave ; and which, on the strength of right and resolute princi- ple, the apostle overcame. The man who hopes to get to heaven by a good li.fe, and who professes himself to be secure on the strength of his many virtues and his many decencies, and who dislikes both the mys- tery and the seri(5usncss which stand as- sociated with the doctrine of salvation by faith alone — such a man has no more LECTURE III. CHAPTER I, 8 17. 23 Christianity, than what he may easily and familiarly show — and in sporting such sentiments, even among the most giddy and unthinitingof this world's generations he will neither disgrace himself by singu- larity 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 foith.a privi- lege 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 pecu- liarize 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 cer- tainly be accomplished. The Syrian was affronted when told to dip himself in Jordan for the cure of his leprosy ; and to ruany 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 mean- ness and foolishness to the natural eye — to invest it with the solemn venerable imposing character of God's asserted majesty, of God's proclaimed and vindi- cated righteousness. And here let us remark the whole im- port 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 achieve- ment of a spiritual resurrection upon every one of them. By the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, the power of which is ap- plied to every soul that has faith, there is a cleansing of that soul from its moral and spiritual leprosy. And hence a con- nection 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 reforma- tion 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 illus- trious 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 princi- ple and purpose not to be ashamed of it. We conclude with that awful denuncia- tion of the Saviour. "He who is ashamed of me befoi'e 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 jus- tice 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 r^hteous 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. 24 LECTURE rV. CHAPTER I, 18 — 24. LECTURE IV. Romans i, 18—24. "For (he wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unriehtcousncss ; because tliat which may be known of God is manifest in them : for God hath showed it unto tlicm. l^or the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eti'rnal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse ; because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neitlierwere thankful; but became vain in their imagina- tions, and their foolish heart was darkened. I'rofe.-ising themselves to 1 e 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 l)easts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to unclianness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves." The word translated here 'to hold,' signifies not merely to hold, but to hold fast. .Now this may be done for the pur- pose of keeping in secure possession that which you wish to retain. - And so this is the word in that place where they who receive the word are said to ^'■'keej) it, and bring forth fruit with patience ;"''= and where the Corinthians are praised by Paul because they observed " to remember him in all things, and to keep the ordi- nances which he had delivered them ;"f and where he tells them, that they are saved if they ^'keej) in memory, that which he had preached unto them ;"t and where he bids the Thessalonians "/loZfZ fast that which is good ;"5 and where he informs the Hebrews, that Christ dvvelleth in them, if they '■'■hold fast the conlidence 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 ;"ir and finally, where he encourages them to "hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering."** It is not in the sense of tlie word in any of these passages that we are to understand it liere. They who hold the truth in unrighteousness, do not hold it for the sake of keeping it in possession, as an article wiiich they valued ; and therefore were desirous of retaining in safe and cherfshed custody. Or one may hold fast for the pupose of confining or keeping down, so as to im- pede and repress that which is thus con- fined, from the putting forth of its ener- gies. And accordingly this is the very word which Paul uses, when he says to the Tliessalonians, "And now ye k