and by means of the creature, and the creature is nothing to him without God.-Baxter. An astronomer, who had long idolized his favourite science, became a zealous convert to spiritual Christianity. His intimate friend, knowing his extreme devotion to astrono mical study, asked him, 'What will you now do with your astronomy?' His answer was worthy of a Christian philosopher: 'I am now bound for heaven,' said he, and I take the stars in my way.' The true use of the visible is to assist us in our aspirations after the eternal.-Leisure Hour. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; V. 28. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.'-No higher proof of corruption can be given than this. God is infinitely excellent and lovely. A good mind naturally regards Him as infinitely more desirable than all other objects; and delights to contemplate, love, and obey Him, in entire preference to all other enjoyments. A gross and guilty mind, therefore, is the sole cause of this apostasy and rebellion. The degree of this guilt is strongly seen in the completeness of the apostasy. God has been totally banished; and creatures totally opposite to Him in every attribute have been worshipped in His stead. Thus the mind has loved to recede as far as possible from its Maker; and not only refused its proper love and homage to Him, but rendered them to the vilest and most unworthy of His creatures.-Dwight. The mere remembrance of what is already known is a much easier mat 29 ter than the discovery of what is previously unknown; especially if the memory is assisted by frequent repetitions, and multiplied manifestations, of the same truth. Men were originally possessed of the true knowledge of God. However inexcusable they might have been, had they been left, in a state of entire ignorance, to gather this knowledge, in the way of discovery, from the works of God, this was not, in fact, their situation. All that was to be effected by the numberless displays of the Divine power and Godhead, was only to keep them in remembrance of what they already knew. Yet they not only did not learn, but rejected and forgot what they had been taught; not only did not discover what was unknown, but lost what was known; and, instead of being led by the creature to the Creator, put the creature in the Creator's place!-Dr. Wardlaw. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, V. 30. Haters of God'!-An intelligent spirit, hating God, is the most frightful prodigy in universal Nature! If all men's limbs were distorted, and their whole outer man transformed into the most hideous shapes, 'twere a trifle, in comparison of this deformity of a man's soul!-Howe. 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 'Without natural affection.' The apostle here seems to have had the Stoics in his eye, who recommended their apathy, or freedom from all affection and passion, as the highest pitch of virtue and who reckoned the affection between parents and children, husbands and wives, and the like, among the vices. But their tenets are here condemned with the greatest reason; for the very best men need the impulses of affection and passion to move them to what is good; and God hath implanted these in our nature for that very purpose.-Macknight. Some persons have endeavoured utterly to root out and abolish all natural affection, or any special affection to their near relations, under a notion that no other love ought to be allowed but spiritual love, and that all other love is to be abolished as carnal, and that it becomes Christians to love none but those in whom the image of God is seen, and in such proportion. They might as well argue that a man ought to disallow, and endeavour to abolish, all appetite to his daily food, under a notion that it is a carnal appetite, and that no other appetite should be tolerated but spiritual appetites. Why should any strive after that, as a high attainment in holiness, which the apostle here mentions as one instance wherein the heathen had attained to the most horrid pitch of wickedness? Some have doubted whether they might pray for the conversion and salvation of their children, any more than for that of others; because the salvation of others would be as much for God's glory as the salvation of their children; and they have supposed that to pray most for their own salvation would show a selfish disposition! In this they evidently aim to go beyond the Divine rule.Pres. Edwards. 'Implacable'—that is, that cannot be reconciled; if once there be a grudge, it is everlasting-a fixed thing. Oh, this cannot belong to the God-like seed, to be of an irreconcileable spirit; it hath the essence of hell in it; the devil as the parent of it appears in this countenance, nothing more plain; the very show of that countenance discovers who is the father; an implacable spirit! malicious, vindictive, and then implacable!—Howe. 82 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. V. 32. There is an important distinction to be observed between the approbation of the judgment and conscience, and the approbation of the heart. The number is not small of those who approve the good, while they follow that which is evil. The feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation have been, perhaps, less affected by the fall than almost any other! The heart is sometimes sadly polluted, while the moral faculties retain a considerable portion at least of their primitive rectitude. It is the last item in the charge of the Inspired writer against those who held the Truth in unrighteousness, that they not only did those things which they knew to be worthy of death, but had pleasure in them that did them. Even this, however, intends rather that they loved their company, than that they approved their conduct.-Dr. Payne. To us it seems most certain, that nowhere is to be found a people, however fallen, so utterly debased as to have lost the power of moral discrimination. The Lacedemonian Institute is alleged against this. The vices of lying and thieving are said to have been inculcated by it as good and useful. But the entire tale of Sparta, allowing all its literal truth, is not an episode in the history of our species,. but an exception to it. The whole system supported itself in a thorough dethronement of nature. It formally interdicted all the laws and sympathies of humanity. It annulled marriage; it took possession of all offspring; it required, as the test of endurance, the self-infliction of the severest cruelties, &c. We wonder at no monstrous growth of license out of such circumstances. As reasonably might we expect the limb of beauty and strength, which from the birth had been cramped with ligature and chain, as hope to find the workings of nature in a scene contrived to withstand it. The objection becomes a triumphant argument that immorality is abhorrent to the standard of natural reason, until that be intimidated by power and debauched by crime.-Dr. R. W. Hamilton. Some men are prone to rejoice in the wickedness of others, from a great affection and inclination to the same kind of sins. They are glad of the patronage of evil-doers, and are too prone to justify themselves by their example: Others take their liberty, and why may not I?' And so they go, as Seneca says sheep do, the way which is trodden, not the way they ought.'Howe. One would think them indeed to be but half men, and scarce Christians at all, that can allow themselves so inhuman and unhallowed a pleasure as rejoicing in another's sin! 'Tis very unworthy of a man to take pleasure in seeing his fellow-man turning beast. There is little in it of the ingenuity that belongs to human nature, to delight in the harms of others, much less of the prudence, to make sport of a common mischief. And would a Christian rejoice in the disadvantages of his own cause? and in the dishonour and reproach of the very name which he himself bears?-Ibid. CHAP. II. THEREFORE thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. It has not unfrequently happened that a woodman having mounted a tree to lop its branches, has been so earnestly engaged in his work, that he has unconsciously cut off the bough on which he was standing. — Abp. Whately. It is very ordinary for a man to decry that in another, and smartly to declaim against it, which he all the while harbours himself. How severe was Judah against Tamar! he commands in all haste to burn her (Gen. Xxxviii. 24). Who would not have thought this man to be chaste? Yet he was the very person that had defiled her. There may be a great cheat in this piece of zeal. Thus many that are magistrates give the law to drunkards and swearers, merely to maintain the decorum of their place, and to shun the clamour that would arise from their neglect, who can possibly do both when they meet with place and company suited to their purpose. Some, again, inveigh against the faults of others, only the better to hide their own, that they may carry on their own designs with less suspicion. Absalom aspersed his father's government as a stirrup to help himself into the saddle. Jehu loved the crown more than he hated Jezebel's whoredoms, for all his loud cry against them. In a word -for it is impossible to hit all-there may be much revenge in it, but it is. the person that is shot at rather than his sin. This was observed of Anthony's zeal against Augustus, 'He hated the tyrant, but well enough loved the tyranny.'-Gurnall. Some persons who value themselves. on knowing men and manners, are full of complaints against a bad world, and indulge a spirit of censure against all mankind but themselves. Their ludicrous and merciless way of censuring shows they are only indulging the spirit of pride and malice. Sin is with them evidently a light matter, and an affair of merriment, after all. The spirit of such men is plain by this; they condemn others, but see not that they themselves are involved in the same condemnation.-Milner. A profane father, in one of the United States, one day learned that his little son had uttered some blasphemous expressions, doubtless a second edition of his own. He called the child to account for his vicious conduct, reproved him severely for his profanity, and then commenced whipping him and scolding him at the same time, and while whipping his son for his profanity, he swore several profane oaths himself!-Anecdotes. 3 2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? V. 4. The frost is seldom quite out thy days, when I have been all thy of the earth till the sun hath acquired days doing thee good; thou hast done some power in the spring to dissolve evilly against Me as thou could'st, its bands: neither will hardness of slighted My authority, and despised heart be removed until the soul be My mercy; I could plead My rebukes thoroughly warmed with the sense of against thee, with flames of fire; if I God's mercies (Ezek. xx. 43). A par- should whet My glittering sword, and don from the prince hath made some My hand take hold of vengeance, how weep, whom the sight of the block soon could I ease Myself of so feeble could not move. A sight of wrath inan adversary, and avenge Myself of so flames the conscience; but a sense of contemptible an enemy! But I formercy melts the heart and subdues the give thee now, upon thy repenting and will.-Gurnall. turning to Me with thy whole soul; I forgive thy ungodly prayerless life, thy having been alienated and an enemy in thy mind by wicked works. I forgive thee it all! Thy iniquity is all pardoned, thy sin covered, I no more impute anything of it to thee!' What rock would not this melt! What stony heart would it not dissolve and break in pieces !-Howe. The goodness and forbearance of God doth, as it were, take a sinner by the hand, leads him into a corner, and saith, Come, let thee and Me talk together; thus and thus vile hast thou been, and thus and thus long-suffering and merciful have I been to thee; thy heart hath been full of sin, the heart of thy God hath been full of pity and mercy.' This brings the sinner to tears, breaks his heart in pieces; if anything in the world will melt a hard heart, this will do it.-Flavel. O, how mighty a load does it remove from the soul of a sinner to hear his offended Lord say to him, 'Thou hast been sinning against Me hitherto all 5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Every man is treasuring up stores for eternity: the good are laying up treasures in heaven;' the evil and impenitent are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.' idea is this! Treasures of What an Whatever the impenitent man is doing, he is treasuring up wrath! He may be getting wealth; but he is treasuring up wrath! He may be getting fame; but he is treasuring up wrath! He may be forming pleasing connections; but he is also treasuring up wrath! Every day adds something to the heap! Every oath the swearer utters, every lie the liar tells, every licentious act the lewd man commits, there is something added to the treasure of wrath! When a wicked man lies down at night, he is richer in vengeance than when he rose in the morning!-J. A. James. As some exercise grace more than others, so there are greater traders in sin, that set more a-work than others, and return more wrath in a day than others in a month. Happy are suchin comparison of these-who are chained up by God's restraint upon their outward or inward man, that they cannot fill up so fast as these the measure of their sins!-Gurnall. The condemnation of the wicked is begun in this life. As heaven, so hell is in the seed, before it is in the fruit. The wicked on this side hell are turning and treasuring up that wrath which hereafter shall be broached and revealed. The wicked have even here hell in its causes. When thy lust asks, How canst thou want the pleasure?' let thy faith answer by asking another question, How can I bear the penalty?'-Anon. The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. There is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds these waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. -Pres. Edwards. Sinners now often cavil against the justice of God's dispensations, and particularly the punishment which He threatens for their sins-excusing themselves, and condemning Him ;but when God comes to manifest their wickedness in the light of the day of Judgment, then they will be speechless.-Ibid. The riches of God's forbearance' make way for the manifestation of the treasures of His wrath.' If God did bear but a little with the insolences of men, and cut them off after two or three sins, He would not have opportunity to show either the power of His patience, or that of His wrath; but when He hath a right to punish for one sin, and yet bears with them for many, and they will not be reclaimed, the sinner is more inexcusable, Divine justice less chargeable, and His wrath more powerful.-Charnock. As treasures of mercy are kept by God for us-He keeps mercy for thousands,' -so are treasures of wrath kept by Him to be expended, and a time of expense there must be: Patience will account to Justice all the good offices it hath done the sinner, and demand to be righted by Justice; Justice will take the account from the hands of Patience, and exact a recompense for every injury offered to it. When Justice comes to arrest men for their debts, Patience, Mercy, and Goodness will step in as creditors, which will make their condition so much more deplorable.-Ibid. 7 Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: The numerous assembly of the perfected spirits of the just have agreed in this common resolution; and did in their several generations, ere they had passed this state of trial, with an heroic magnanimity, trample this present world under their feet, and aspire to the glory of the world to come; relieving themselves against all the grievances they had suffered from those whose portion is in this life, with the simple hope and confidence of what they were to enjoy in another.Howe. Every service done to God is but the sacrifice of a fool, if not animated by the desire of final blessedness in Him. This desire is the life of Religion; all duties and exercises of piety are without it but empty formalities, solemn |