exposed and undermined in those days, and will be finally crushed, by the Epistle to the Romans.

With eyes that only God can give, the Apostle views, in the first chapter, the mighty fabric of Heathen pretension to wisdom and virtue. The Capitol and Parnassus; the visible and invisible delusion; the glory of universal dominion; with all the heroes, lawgivers, philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets, which, so far above the pigmy splendours of Juggernaut, set off the pompous delusion, and covered the deep, damning depravity that caused "hell to open her mouth, and enlarge herself without measure,-"is beheld by him, in the light of God, as rubbish to be removed, with all its putrid decorations, "and given to the devouring flame." God in his wisdom allowed the trial. He permitted that great people to demonstrate what man could be, or do, without God; and gave them, in his providence, every thing that might polish and improve human nature; and the result is known." The world by wisdom knew not God." Their thirty thousand fabulous deities induced a true and horrible Atheism; while a profound science and a polished literature were attained, which is still the wonder of the world. Take this filth hence! Let "the foolishness of preaching" clear the ground, and lay "the sure Foundation of God, Christ crucified! the living Stone, elect and precious!-the only Name!-the

only Way!—the Salvation of God!"—becoming His infinite holiness, and suited to the guilt, depravity, and helplessness of man; a consciousness of which induces that "poverty of spirit," that humility, by which alone the Gospel can be received, but for which the copious Roman language did not even afford a name; but which our Lord places as the first step in the religion of God! Man thus appears before God in his true character; "and God commends his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for Deep answers to deep! The captive is delivered from going down into the pit! God has found a Ransom !"

us.

With a tender but firm mind, he contemplates those in the second and third chapters, who, like himself, in the days of his pride, "judged others, but judged not themselves." That people, for whom "God had shaken the earth, divided the sea," and caused the world, after a lapse of ages, to know that He was still Jehovah; and who were, in this way of mighty observation, made the depositaries of his holy Oracles. Full-orbed in these favours of their God, and inflated by their own proud imaginations, they saw not, they would not see, how that Law, in which they gloried, pronounced their death. The curse was not attended to, while passion, appetite, and pride, formed a "carnal mind, which is enmity against God," and

"which is not," and "cannot be, subject to his law." In this spirit they boasted to the world of a Messiah," who should bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron;" who should subjugate them to Abraham's seed, to the institutes of Moses, and to the God of their own vain imaginations. The Apostle wept over these proud pretenders to the "election of God," and over the ruin that awaited them. He declares, that "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," should be the "portion of every soul of man that doeth evil," inflicted by that "infinitely holy Judge, who is no respecter of persons;" and upon "the Jew first, who by the letter of the Law, and by circumcision," that mark of the Lord's peculiar covenant, so exceedingly "dishonoured God."

II. The Apostle, having thus "delivered his soul," launches, in the following chapters, into deep water, even into“ the height and depth, the length and breadth, of the love of Christ!" The infinite love which had rescued him, appears in the behalf of both Jews and Gentiles, in all its FULNESS, as he turns, from the poverty and vain pretensions of the creature, to the "unsearchable riches" of the Crea tor, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. "He that believeth shall be saved, and he," and only he, "who believeth not, shall be damned. There is none righteous; no, not one!" Were the possibility H

allowed, that one man had escaped the general contagion, the claim would be made by every child of Adam. The human race, as proud as impure, would each assert his fancied excellence, and no "mouth would be stopped," nor would "the world ever become guilty before God." Consequently there would be no place for "the righteousness of God." Nor could it have, in the noise of these carnal boastings, the credit of even "a cunningly-devised fable." But where are the believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, who, "when the commandment comes," acknowledge its divinity, and sink, “and die" under the declarations of God? Let them behold their remedy! "A righteousness without the Law," but having the same Divine authority, and "attested by the Law and the Prophets," awaits their labouring, burdened, sin-sick souls. A redemption altogether Divine, and wholly of God, by which the Deity is unveiled: God existing in Three Persons, "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," in whose name those humble, contrite, believing souls are to be baptized, is now proclaimed to them. "God the Father so loving the world, as to give his only-begotten Son;" God the Son so loving the world, as to "empty and humble Himself, and become obedient to death, even the death of the cross;" and God the Holy Ghost, so loving the world, as to wait and "knock" at the proud and car

nal heart of man, and even beg for admission! While "to believers who open the door," the heavenly Guest "bids the new creation be."

He shines, Father and Son to show!

"He witnesses with their spirits, that they are accepted in the Beloved," and so "children of God."

The fondly-supposed pretensions of the Jews, in behalf of their illustrious father Abraham, to a "justification by works," are examined in the fourth chapter, and found to have no place in the Oracles of Jehovah. All "justification" of men as sinners, is there "by faith;" nor is there any exception for those laborious strivers after "righteousness by the Law," so feelingly described, as having been his own case, in the seventh chapter. In all that conflict, we see that even where human pride is so abased that the man would gladly take the mould of God's Law, (the only mould known to such; for the atonement is not once brought forward during the whole dolorous description,) and even where the worldly spirit is so mortified that it "delights in the law of God after the inward man," still "the law of sin in the members," the bent to sinning, (a trifle, a nothing with philosophical Divines,) poisons all that they attempt, and spoils all that they perform. Still, however, they labour on in the fire, till subdued