views and rejudges its actions and motives. Man has sometimes been compared to a court, in which the heart is judge, conscience is the jury, consciousness and memory the witnesses, the thoughts the counsel, accusing and excusing one another. Consciousness and memory bear testimony as to the fact itself alleged. The thoughts busily suggest this or that thing in aggravation or extenuation of the offence. Conscience, as a jury, simply decides on the law and fact, whether the individual be guilty And the heart, or combined moral man, pronounces sentence according to the decision of the moral sense and the circumstances of the case, mingling mercy with justice. Such comparisons, however, are very liable to mislead, if pressed into too many particulars, and taken according to the letter and not the spirit. Analogies are very good for illustrations, but they make hazardous argu

or not.

ments.

16. In the day. A resumption of the subject of v. 12. "When" would express the simple sense of "the day," without its dramatic garb. The secrets of men, i. e. not only their open acts, but their hidden purposes and motives, will be subjects of judgment, for from these their open acts have proceeded. The decisions of human conscience would be corrected by the Divine tribunal. Eccles. xii. 14; 1 Cor. iv. 5.-By Jesus Christ. The distinct and independent personality of Christ, as another being than God, could not in any form of language be more explicitly announced than in the text. "By" expresses agency and subordination, and it is to be observed that this exercise of the office of judge is dated

in the future, indicating that the separate identity of Christ continues beyond this world. John v. 27.- Gospel. In its ecclesiastical, not historical sense. Paul, without a doubt, refers not to any Gospel he had written, but to his preaching of the Gospel. Rom. xvi. 25.

17. Behold. Griesbach and Tischendorf correct the text so that it reads "but if," which better suits the logic. The Apostle here tightens the chain of his reasoning in relation to the Jews, and unfolds more fully the bearing of his argument, that the greater were their opportunities of light and knowledge, the less excusable were they for doing what they condemned in the Gentiles; and that if the Mosaic law had thus failed of perfecting their life, how much was the greater motive-power of the Gospel needed! — Thou. He uses the singular number rhetorically, and thus makes his appeal more direct and pungent.-Art called, &c. Macknight writes "surnamed." The high distinction is thine of being called a Jew. No terms could be more opprobrious than those with which the Jews loaded the Gentiles. Paul selects the points of national pride among his countrymen with the unerring instincts of his own experience.

-Restest in the law. Stuart, "leanest on the law." The fallacy of the Jews was to rest in the law as final, when by its very nature it was progressive and prospective, and served only as a schoolmaster to bring them to a greater teacher, Christ.-Makest thy boast of God. Gloriest in God as peculiarly thy God, a local, national Divinity, not the Father of universal humanity. Deut. iv.

which the Hebrew commonwealth had been made the depositary. That a great depravation of manners and morals had crept into the Holy Land is sufficiently proved by the concessions of Josephus and other Jewish writers, as well as by the rebukes of Christ and his disciples and apostles. The various specifications of Paul are, however, rather to be received rhetorically than logically, though without question theft, adultery, sacrilege, and blasphemy were throwing, at that period, dark shadows over the Jewish name, and dishonoring Him whom they worshipped, among the heathen nations throughout which they were scattered abroad. As illustrative of this passage, consult the following: Matt. ii. 5-14; iii. 10; also, the vials of a holy indignation poured out in Matt. xxiii., Mark vii. 7 -13, from the lips of mercy itself.

24. As Paul was writing to the Jews in a considerable measure, he uses the argumentum ad hominem, the personal argument, and substantiates his positions out of the mouth of their own revered prophets. We may suppose that he had several passages in his mind, at the moment of writing, as well as the general strain of prophetic remonstrance. See 2 Sam. xii. 14; Neh. v. 9; Is. lii. 5; Ezek. xxxvi. 23.

25. It shows the immense transition through which the mind of the Apostle had passed in its moral revolution, to set such a declaration as this by the side of his blind zeal for Judaism and persecution of the Christian Church, that dated back but a few

years. No doubt circumcision to the true Jew was good, as an expression of fealty to God, a signature written in blood, of obedience to what he felt to be a divine command, as is every act, be it a sigh, or a tear, or a word, by which the soul indicates its relation to the Highest. But, of course, all the truth and efficacy of rites and ceremonies, under whatever system, older or later, depend on the sincerity and earnestness with which they spring from a moved soul at the time, and are indorsed by a good life afterwards. It is observable that circumcision stands for Judaism, as the cross for Christianity.

26. Paul carries his triumph still farther into the adversary's country. He had just rebuked the presumption of the faithless Jew; he now encourages the humility of the faithful Gentile. There is a running argument conveyed by implication all along in these verses. Its purport is, that if, even under the former dispensation, righteous uncircumcision was better than unrighteous circumcision, how much more would the same principle hold good under the spiritual system of Christianity, and how vain to require the Gentiles to be Jews before they could be recognized as Christians!

27. The tables would be turned. The Jews who began, ver. 1, with taking the bench of judgment, would find himself at the criminal's bar, while the man whom he had contemned as the culprit would be seen rising into the majesty of the judge. We must remember that this Epistle, though

addressed to the Romans, was intended for Roman Jews in general, or those who, once Jews, had then become Christians. Paul takes them on their own ground, and by holding up the high spiritual demands even of the Law, demolishes their boasted infallibility and sinlessness as Jews, and shows the superiority of the faithful heathen over the faithless Hebrew. He breaks to pieces their national idols, and, including all under the same category of disobedience, infers the universal need of Christ.

28, 29. The teeming mind of Paul is not content with following a single line of thought, but it throws out filaments of attachment and nutriment on every side, like a vigorous and deeply rooted tree. While the upshot of his Epistle is Christianity, he reflects back light on the Law, and defines the true Jew. At the very moment when he would lift the minds of his readers above the narrowness of that sectarian spirit among his Jewish brethren, which " "gave to party what was meant for mankind,” he dignifies the Law even more than its own upholders did, by analyzing its vital spirit, and detecting in it the immortal essence of truth, and in faithful obedience to it, an allegiance of the heart to God. For the doctrine which Paul here advocates, he could adduce numerous testimonies

from both the earlier and later dispensations, which agreed in laying the stress of obedience on the heart, and not on external conformity.— Neither is that circumcision, &c.; as if he had said, that is not circumcision which is only outward in the flesh. The Jewish observances, external as they were, had their only living roots in the heart, and if they failed of that spiritual hold, they proved but a "sere and yellow leaf." Unfaithful as the Jews often proved to this code of definite and imperative law, and therefore falling even below the better class of Gentiles, who were a law unto themselves, the Apostle clearly demonstrates the want of that quickening spiritual faith, which, as a moral principle, would accomplish what a mere legal principle never could effect, a regenerated and progressive life of the soul, a steady assimilation to the Father through the Son.

CHAPTER III.

Another link of the argument is presented. If the Jew were entitled to no precedence over the Gentile in receiving the new gift of God in the Christian dispensation, then the objector would cavil at the advantage of being a Jew at all and living under the Law and the Prophets. To this disputant the unflinching Apostle

now addresses himself, and adopts the Socratic method of question and

answer.

1. The Jewish adherent is supposed to speak and catechize the Apostle as to the proud preeminence of his nation, as one favored by God, and whose distinguishing badge and symbol was circumcision.

2. This verse begins the reply to the above objection. Discarding the numerous privileges of the Jews, which he recounts in chap. ix. 4, 5, Paul seizes upon the Scriptures as a sufficient answer on this occasion, constituting as they did so rich a source of spiritual life and inspiration. They are called elsewhere, Acts vii. 38, the lively, or life-giving oracles.

3. But might not this advantage of possessing the Scriptures be overruled. For of what use was the instrument if it were not received and applied in faith? The truth was, as hinted in the first clause, that some, many, did not believe, but that sin could not render ineffectual the faith, or, better rendered, the faithfulness of God. His benevolent purpose stood, though man failed in doing the part assigned to him. Macknight and some other critics assign this verse to the Jewish objector, rendering the last question, "shall not their unbelief," &c.

4. God forbid. There is no word God in the Greek; it is simply, Let it not be, or may it not be so.- Let God be true, &c. It is better to sup

pose God is faithful, even if it should drive us to the conclusion that all men were steeped in falsehood. At all hazards, we know and are sure, that, if there is evil on any hand, it is not in God. That thou mightest be justified. Ps. li. 4. Every examination into the works or ways or word of the All-Perfect One can of course only reveal more distinctly his glorious goodness and justice.

5. The opponent again speaks. If all the sin and evil in the world only enhance the justice and glory of God, because they call forth those attributes to aid in overcoming them, then why should such useful servants of the Almighty suffer condemnation? It is a natural and powerful objection. As Paul asks, Paul only could answer it. Commend, i. e. illustrate, or honor. — I speak as a man. Humanly speaking; speaking as men do.

6. The reply of the Apostle is abbreviated and suggestive; as if he had said, What righteous judgment could there be upon such principles ? and we know that the Judge of all the earth will do right. Gen. xviii. 25. The fact of such a boundless authority as is invested in God excludes the possibility of his confounding right with wrong, as the above supposition would imply. In such principles the fact of a righteous administration of the affairs of God's moral government must be given up, because men would not be responsible.