9 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: 10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: "For there is no respect of persons with God. The all-seeing Father,--He in whom we live and move, He, the impartial Judge of ail,regards Nations, and hues, and dialects alike. According to their works shall they be judged, When even-handed Justice, in the scale, Their good and evil weighs. Southey. How abasing and humbling to human pride is it to conceive that all have sinned, and, in the sight of God, are hell-deserving! What!' says the honourable man, must I take mercy upon no higher consideration than the thief on the cross?' Or, the highly virtuous dame, Must I sue for mercy upon the same terms as the prostitute?' The faithful answer to both is, Yes, or you must perish.-Geo. Offor. 12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; : The principle here is evident, viz., that all men, Pagans, and Jews, and Christians, are bound to avail themselves of the light they enjoy; and are responsible in exact proportion to the degree of that light; for responsibility rests not upon knowledge, but means of knowledge.-Dr. Payne. Those who live in the remotest parts of the world, without the Gospel, will not have it imputed to them as their sin that they had it not; but none of them will be excused from punishment if they have violated and resisted that law and light which they had. If any of them should go about to excuse themselves, 'We had not an express written law;' if they have sinned without law, they shall suffer without law. It will be but a 13 A clergyman once travelling in a stage coach, was abruptly asked by one of the passengers if any of the heathen would go to heaven: Sir,' replied the clergyman, I am not appointed Judge of the world,' and consequently I cannot tell; but if ever you get to heaven, you shall either find some of them there, or a good reason why they are not there.' A reply well fitted to answer an impertinent question, dictated, at best, by an idle curiosity.Anecdotes. (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) There is a natural morality—if I may so call it as well as a natural theology; that is, there is a knowledge of right and wrong, to which all men, left to the unaided efforts of their own faculties, may attain, and to which, in some degree, they do attain.-Dr. Payne. A prophet may reveal the secrets of heaven, and of futurity, but in his moral precepts he can only repeat the lessons of our own hearts.-Mavor. We can no more say, that because some men walk by a false rule, there is no such thing as conscience, than we can say that because men have errors in their minds, therefore they have no such faculty as an understanding; or because men will what is evil, they have no such faculty as a will.Charnock. Every man has the rule of right within him; a rule attended in the very notion of it with authority, and such as has the force of a direction and command from Him who made us what we are, what course of behaviour is suited to our nature, and which He expects that we should follow. This moral faculty implies also a presentiment and apprehension, that the judgment which it passes on our actions, considered as of good or ill desert, will hereafter be confirmed by the unerring judgment of God.Bp. Butler. Far be it from me to dispute the reality of a moral principle in the human heart. I feel its existence: I clearly discern its use and importance. But in no respect is it more important, than as it suggests the idea of a moral Governor.-Dr. Balguy. Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would be gone; he would have the same voyage to make, only his compass and chart would be overboard.-H. W. Beecher. was If every time conscience wronged, it sighed, and every time reason was perverted, it uttered complaints, no one could live for the moaning which would fill his soul.Ibid. 16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel. 17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, 18 And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; 19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, 20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. 21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? 22 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? V. 17-22. It is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it. A profane minister was converted by reading this text once; but how many have read it as well as he, who never trembled at the consideration of it as he did! Flavel. Let no man presume to give advice to others, that has not first given good counsel to himself.-Seneca. Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven: Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. Shakspeare. Examples will govern more than rules. The greatest obstructors of the success of the Word are those whose bad lives contradict their good doctrine;-who in the pulpit preach so well, that it is a pity they should ever come out and out of the pulpit live so ill, that it is a pity they should ever come in.-M. Henry. Sometimes when I have been going to preach upon some smart and searching portion of the Word, I have found the tempter suggest, What! will you preach this? this condemns yourself; of this your own soul is guilty; wherefore preach not of it at all; or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way for your own escape; lest, instead of awakening others, you lay that guilt upon your own soul which you will never get quit of.' But, I thank the Lord, I have been kept from consenting to these horrid suggestions, and have rather, as Samson, bowed myself with all my might, to condemn sin and transgression wherever I found it, yea, though therein also I did bring guilt upon my own conscience. Let me die,' thought I, 'with the Philistines, rather than deal corruptly with the blessed Word of God!'-Bunyan. 23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? 24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. 25 For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. V. 25. As to the main purposes of Religion, it is plainly no great matter what religion a wicked man is of. It is all one whether he be of a false religion, or falsely of the true; except only that his case, on this latter ac count, is worse. Thy baptism profits, if thou keep the Gospel; but if thou observe it not, thy baptism shall signify nothing. Though a man cannot be saved under any religion, yet he may perish under any one.-Howe. 26 Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision ? 27 And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? 28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. The ritual of the Jews, indeed, prescribed a multitude of perpetually-recurring observances. But, though burdened with ceremonies, it was highly significant of all that is spiritual and essential in the present economy. Piety, indeed, has always been com posed of the same elements, and issued in the same result-the production of spiritual men. For this the legal economy may be said to have travailed and been in birth. Yet, however laborious the process, and elementary the character it produced, it could be satis What a difference is there between the religion of one who is not thorough, and in good earnest, in the business of Christianity, and one who is a Christian indeed! To the former Religion is but as a sort of cloak. A man can easily lay aside his cloak if he finds it inconvenient, or a burden to him. It has no living union with himself, therefore it puts him to no pain or trouble at all to throw it away, if he finds thereby any inconvenience. But the religion of one that is truly and sincerely a Christian is a vital thing, and part of himself. And though a man can easily part with his cloak, yet he cannot so easily part with his skin. One that is only an outside professor hath put on a cloak of Christianity. To be called Christians by fellowmen, to be addressed indiscriminately as Christians from the pulpit, is nothing:- it will not make you what you are called. The question is not what you are called, but what you are: -the touchstone by which this must be determined is the Word of God; and on the answer to the inquiry depends, as to each of us, our happiness for eternity.-Dr. Wardlaw. CHAP. III. WHAT advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. The Bible is the most betrashed book in the world. Coming to it through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs. Our real commentators are our strongest traits of character; and we usually come out of the Bible with all those texts sticking to us which our idiosyncrasies attract.-H. W. Beecher. The testimony of the Church is highly to be reverenced, because to it are these Oracles of God delivered, to be kept as a sacred deposit; yea, it is called The pillar and ground of the Truth' (1 Tim. iii. 15); and the candlestick (Rev. i. 12), from whence the light of the Scriptures shines forth into the world. But who will say, that the proclamation of a prince hath its authenticity from the pillar it hangs on in the market-cross; or that the candle hath its light from the candlestick? The office of the Church is ministerial, to publish and make known the Word of God; but not magisterial and absolute, to make it Scripture or unmake it, as she is pleased.-Gurnall. The very silence of the Divine Oracles is instructive to us. It was said by one wise man of another, that more might be learned from his questions than from another man's answers. With yet higher truth might it be said that the silence of Scripture is oftentimes more instructive than the speech of other books; so that it has been likened to a dial in which the shadow as well as the light informs us.'Anon. 6 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the 4 faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. The notion of the goodness and righteousness of God, methinks, should stick so close to our minds, and create such a sense in our souls, as should be infinitely dearer to us than all our senses and powers; and we should rather choose to have our sight, hear ing, and motive power, or what not besides disputed, or even torn away from us, than ever suffer ourselves to be disputed into a belief that the holy and blessed God should be unfaithful or unjust.-Howe. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) "God forbid for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? * And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. 'Whatever is,' says Mr. Pope, 'is right.' Let the sentiment be restrained to the disposals of heaven, and I most readily subscribe to it. But if it be extended to the conduct of men, and the effects of their folly, I feel obliged to enter my protest against it. For whatever kindles the Divine indignation-is cause of final ruin to the author, is strictly forbidden by God's holy Word, is contrary to the whole design of His revealed will, and the very reverse of His essential attributes, -this cannot possibly be right, this is most undoubtedly wrong. Omnipotence, indeed, can over-rule it, and educe good from it. But the very notion of over-ruling supposes it to be absolutely wrong in itself.-Hervey. The most heinous sin ever committed by men was to crucify the Lord of glory. Nevertheless this crime, under the direction of Divine wisdom, proved in the event to be the most beneficial to mankind, in procuring their Redemption. How admirable is this! God makes the greatest wickedness that man could possibly commit the means of obtaining the greatest happiness which he is capable of enjoying. -Despagne. In this passage we are commanded to keep rectitude, not expediency, in view-a command directly at variance with the theory which founds virtue on utility. Dr. Payne. A Christian looks so much to his rule, as well as to his end, that he dare not say of heaven itself, that every means is lawful which seems to conduce to it. But some men think that anything is lawful that brings them gain, or makes them great.-Baxter. 'What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; 19 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: V. 13. Because an open sepulchre Psalmist uses that figure to represent sends forth a noisome stench, the the rotten infectious discourse which |