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and stands off at a great distance in his judgment from it, to hear it substantially argued and proved unto him, that God himself did preach the Gospel, and that in such passages of providence or revelations and discoveries of himself, which this person himself owneth and acknowledgeth, is a method or means of the greatest efficacy and power that lightly can be imagined, to work a perfect reconciliation between such a man's judgment and the Gospel. Now this is that which we affirm to be the Apostle's scope and intent in the chapter before us; as, namely, to demonstrate to the gainsaying Jews, that that very Gospel or doctrine of justification, which they so deeply abhorred and desperately opposed, was anciently preached unto them in their forefathers by God himself; and this in several passages of those very Scriptures, which themselves granted to be of divine authority, yea, and wherein they hoped, as our Saviour testified of them, to have eternal life. This we shall, God assisting, bring forth into a clear and perfect light in our traverse of the chapter.

4. Evident it is that a great part of the chapter, and particularly that part of it wherein the said doctrine of a personal election and reprobation from eternity is supposed to be handled, is bestowed and spent in giving satisfaction unto two main objections which the Jews had ever and anon in their mouths, as is most like, or, howsoever, were obvious and near at hand for them to take up into their mouths against the Apostle's doctrine of justification by faith. The former of these objections was to this effect: "If your doctrine of justification by faith be true, God and his word must needs be false or untrue; because God hath appointed, not faith in Christ, but the works of the law, to be the condition or means of obtaining justification and adoption; and hath nominated Abraham's seed and posterity for those that are to be his sons and heirs, and not the Gentiles, as your doctrine of justification by faith would imply." This objection of theirs against him and his doctrine. he insinuates in a way of anticipation: "Nevertheless it cannot be that the word of God hath taken no effect," or, as our later translation reads it, "Not as though the word of God hath taken no effect;" (verse 6;) as if he had said, Though I teach justification by faith, and deny it to be by the works of the law; yea, though by my doctrine of justification I exclude the greatest part of you Jews, who are Abraham's carnal seed, from

being the sons of God, and entitle the Gentiles to this great and blessed privilege, yet do I not hereby "make the word of God of no effect," as you vainly and untruly charge me to do. This I shall demonstrate from your own Scriptures unto you presently. The other great objection, in the strength whereof the Jews magnified themselves against Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, was this, that such a doctrine makes God to be unrighteous or unjust. This he insinuates, verse 14: "What shall we say then? is there unrighteousness with God?" as if he had said, What! doth any such thing as you pretend follow from that doctrine which I have now, and formerly in this Epistle, asserted concerning justification by faith, and not by the works of the law, namely, that God should be unjust? "God forbid ;" meaning, that his doctrine was far from being accessary to any such consequence or conclusion.

These being the two grand objections or absurdities wherewith the Jews burdened Paul's doctrine of justification, and from which he undertakes to vindicate this his doctrine in this chapter, we must needs conceive that his scope and intent was to deliver and insist upon such things which are effectual and proper to dissolve the force and strength of them; unless we shall suppose him to be extravagant and weak in his disputes, even beneath the line of ordinary men. If so, then certainly the asserting of such a doctrine of election and reprobation, which some men would make to be his scope in the chapter, cannot be it. For what though it should be granted, that God from eternity hath peremptorily elected some unto salvation, and consequently unto faith, and hath reprobated others from salvation, and so from faith, doth it at all follow from hence either, 1. That therefore God's word must needs take effect, and that justification by faith is no ways contrary unto his word? Or, 2. That there can be no unrighteousness in God? Who seeth not a palpable incongruity and incoherence between such premises and the conclusions specified, as well the one as the other? Therefore, certainly, the express and clear scope of the Apostle in the chapter under consideration is, to acquit and bring off his doctrine of justification with honour from the two objections mentioned, and not to assert any peremptory election or reprobation of persons from eternity.

5. The Apostle himself, towards the end of the chapter, briefly recollecting the sum and substance of what he had

argued in the former part hereof, in the brief result of it, plainly enough declareth that he had had nothing at all to do with such an election and reprobation of men from eternity as many suppose to be there held forth by him; but that his work and business had been to evince justification by faith, and that it was no ways contrary to the word of God that the Gentiles, believing, should be justified, or that the Jews, seeking to be justified by the law, should be condemned, and cast out of the sight of God. The words we mind are these: "What shall we say, then?" that is, What may we conclude and gather from what hath been lately said, but this, "that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? because they sought it, not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." (Rom. ix. 30-32.) Here is nothing of any affinity with, or relation unto, either an election or reprobation of men from eternity of mere will and pleasure, but a plain and right-down assertion of the justification of those who believe, though Gentiles, and of the non-justification of the Jews because they believed not, but sought justification by the law. Both these are here asserted as the natural and clear products of the preceding disputations. Therefore, the intent of these was, not to establish the doctrine of a peremptory and absolute election and reprobation of men from eternity, but to confirm and vindicate that great doctrine of justification by faith, about which there was so sharp a contest between him and those great adversaries of the Gospel, the Jews, and which he had had in hand from the beginning of the Epistle hitherto.

6. Such an election and reprobation, the explication and asserting whereof many imagine the Apostle setteth up for his scope and drift in this chapter, were never yet, I verily believe, (and this upon grounds to me fully satisfactory, and for which I shall account in due time,) substantially proved, either from this chapter, or any other place or places of Scripture whatsoever; nor yet by any competent or convincing argument otherwise. Now this, I presume, is not passable in any man's understanding, that the Apostle should fall short, or prove defective, in point of real and substantial proof of what he undertakes.

7. And, lastly, that which is as much as all this, if not more,

the words, phrases, and imports of the respective verses and passages of the chapter do very naturally and kindly fall in with that which we have asserted to be the Apostle's scope here, namely, a further proof or vindication of the doctrine of justification against such objections which either the Jews or others might very probably raise against it; whereas they cannot be drawn to a comport with the doctrine of such an election and reprobation as that which hath been oft mentioned without much unkind and hard usage by straining and wresting. This we shall, God assisting, make good as we pass along in the explication of the chapter, which beginneth as followeth :

1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh;

4 Who are Israelites, to whom, &c.

The chapter may be divided into two parts; the former consisting of the five first verses, the latter of the sixth, seventh, &c., to the end of the chapter. In the first, the Apostle, in a most serious, solemn, and sacred manner, professeth a transcendent ardency of affection towards his countrymen and brethren, the nation of the Jews; together with a reverend and high esteem of them in respect of those worthy privileges, with the investiture whereof they were highly honoured by God himself above all the world. In the second part he stands up to maintain his doctrine of justification formerly delivered against such objections which the Jews judged impregnable, and such whereby the said doctrine was sufficiently evicted of untruth. Of this part of the chapter we shall speak more particularly when we come to it.

Concerning the former, the occasion of that most pathetical and solemn profession and protestation made by the Apostle herein of his signal affection to his brethren the Jews, together with so particular and full an acknowledgment of their many and great privileges, may well be conceived to be, either the

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consideration of the matter last in hand, in the close of the ceding chapter, or else of the argument that he intended next to enter upon in the subsequent part of the chapter, together with the two chapters next following. If the former consideration ministered the occasion we speak of, it is to be conceived of after this manner. The Apostle, towards the latter end of the former chapter, having spoken very excellent and glorious things concerning the love of God in Christ Jesus towards those that believe, and set forth the great blessedness that accrues unto such persons hereby, on the sudden, and whilst he was yet in the sweetness of his contemplation, he remembers the most deplorable and sad condition of his dear friends and kinsmen the Jews; who, by the stubbornness of their unbelief, cut themselves off from all part and fellowship in so great and blessed a business. Loving them with such an intense and ardent affection as he did, he could not but be very intimously affected, sorely struck and pierced in his heart and soul, with the consideration of their wilful blindness and rueful folly, whereby they did not only make fast, as it were, with bars of iron, the door that leadeth into all joy and happiness against themselves but also desperately plunged themselves into the bottomless gulf of the wrath and indignation of God. Thus it often cometh to pass, that upon the mention or thought of something greatly desirable, we fall upon the remembrance of our dearest friends, and are either affected with joy for their sakes, as, namely, when we are in hope that they either do partake or are like to partake therein; or otherwise are apt to be troubled for them, as when we either know, or else have cause to fear, that they neither do nor shall partake thereof, but rather are in danger of suffering that evil which is contrary to it.

If the Apostle be conceived in the said proem of the chapter, contained in the five first verses, to mind the argument or subject-matter intended by him to be handled in the sequel of the present chapter, and in the tenth and eleventh chapters next unto it, which I rather incline unto, the relation or connexion. between them is this: Doctrines or sayings which are of any disparaging, sad, or threatening import unto those to whom they are spoken or delivered are ofttimes liable to a sinister interpretation, and apt to be construed by them as savouring rather of hatred than any good affection towards them in those by whom they are delivered. Now such was the doctrine, in reference to

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