24. Wherefore God also gave them up, &c. See also similar phraseology in verse 26. This language cannot, of course, be intended to signify that God does really forsake even the most abandoned; but it is a mode of speaking of him from a human point of view. We may desert God, but God never deserts us. We must be careful in these cases not to make logic out of the old Hebrew rhetoric. The Jews, deeply penetrated with the conviction of the dependence of all things on God, referred to him and his working all events, and they at times seemed to annihilate the free agency of man, when they really designed only to express their consciousness of the superintending providence and love of God over all, from the greatest to the least. The Aposte uses the idioms of his nation. The attempt to make "the theology of the heart" stand for "the theology of the intellect" has been productive of not a little evil and error in Biblical criticism. The laws of God are vindicated in the punishments as well as the rewards of moral actions; and that they who do wrong should go on from bad to worse, is a result which takes place as naturally, under his providence, as that they who do well should go on from good to better and best. Ecclus. iv. 19. The system is God's; under which he that hath gains more, and he that hath not loses even that he hath. The language in Eph. iv. 19 is, "have given themselves over," &c.- Through the lusts, &c. Symonds says in, and Tholuck to, the lusts. This revolting picture of moral corruption reminds us how common a feature licentiousness is of all forms of gross error and

absurdity in religion. It would appear as if an abandonment of a temperate and rational faith were the signal to plunge into the foulest sties of pollution. Witness the history of modern fanaticisms, as well as the idolatries of the ancient world. When the central light of creation is put out, men undertake to walk by the guidance of the phosphoric glare of their own most depraved passions.

25. Truth of God into a lie. Philo, in speaking of the amazement of Moses at the Israelites for making the golden calf, says, "What a lie they had substituted for how great a reality!" Idols were called "lies," "vanities," nothings. Jer. xvi. 19, 20; Amos ii. 4. - Worshipped and served. Better, reverenced and worshipped; the first verb referring to the sentiment, and the other to its expression in worship, or some other mode. More than, or, rather than. The proneness of the world to idolatry, as proved by all past history, should make the Christian Church extremely guarded, both in its doctrines and its ritual, against any competition between any thing created and that eternal and uncreated and all-glorious Intelligence from whom all things have proceeded. It is to be feared, however, that even the disciples of Him who said, “Our Father who art in heaven," have not kept entirely clear of this insidious perversion of true worship. And in view of the corruptions of the Christian Church, both doctrinal and practical, we can say with another sense and application than the writer had, "What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple to haunt the senate

or the market. Literature becomes frivolous; science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, and when men die, we do not mention them." Who is blessed for ever. Amen. Paul here shows his education at the feet of Gamaliel. After anything that might seem to be irreverent, both Jews and Mahometans are accustomed to insert a doxology, as if to deprecate any participation in such impiety. Rom. ix. 5; 2 Cor. xi. 31; Gal. i. 5. Tholuck mentions that, in a history of heresies sprung from Islamism, the pious author, as often as he introduces a new sect, adds, "God be exalted above what they say!" The word Amen is derived from a Hebrew verb, it is certain, true, and implies assent to what has been said, and a prayer that it may come true. The Masonic expression is similar, "So

And the history of modern idolatry, as given by travellers and missionaries, presents evidence of corruption and gross sensuality scarcely less horrible. But if it be said, as it sometimes is done, by way of objection to, or disparagement of, Christianity, that the licentiousness of modern cities in Christendom is equal in enormity to any tales of ancient or idolatrous countries, it should be considered that these dreadful sins do not, as in heathenism, receive permission or encouragement from religion, but exist under protest and in spite of it, and that the whole aim and spirit of the Gospel is to purify the bodies as well as the souls of men, to carry the beauty of holiness into all the relations of the sexes, and to throw the check of self-denial over all the animal instincts. Lev. xviii. 22, 23; 2 Kings xxiii. 7; 2 Mac. vi. 4. The depth of degradation is set forth in these verses, as it was not lust merely, but unnatural lust, of which the Apostle brings an accusation against the Gentile world. · That recompense of their error which was meet. An inevitable retribution of course followed such violations of the natural laws, both in the body diseased and in the mind corrupted.

28. They were so abandoned they seemed to be God-forsaken. See comments on verses 18, 24, 26. The natural consequences which resulted from transgressing the laws and econ

omy of the physical and moral world are set down in the Hebrew style as a divine judgment. Reprobate. An adjective derived from the verb above, "did not like." Either a mind incapable of moral judgment or discrimination, or one vile and depraved, and deserving reprobation. "It is properly used of adulterated coin."

Not convenient. Not becoming, fit, decent. The original conveys a stronger sense than the English translation. The progress of wickedness, from its incipient stages to its final points, is given with great vividness and Hogarthian fidelity and plainness in this whole passage. It unrolls from point to point, like a panorama. Beginning with suppression of the innate sense of the divine in the soul, and the rejection of the testimony of nature to the being and character of God, and proceeding through various lapses of pretended philosophy and practical idolatry, the heathen fell, step by step, into deeper and deeper degradation, until they realized the hideous condition described in verses 29-32 by the brilliant, cumulative style of Paul, in which one strong word is piled upon another, like Pelion upon Ossa. The fact that Paul had travelled far and wide over the Eastern world, and dwelt in the great cities of the most polished nations, must add much weight to his testimony over that of one who had never looked beyond the windows of his own hermitage.

29. Being filled with all unrighteousness. Violation of the elemental law of love to God by idolatry, and of love to man by unnatural lust, spread disorder through all the de

tails of moral duty, and made every point at which man came into contact and relation with man a sore and a sin.

Each word of this dark sentence conveys a distinct signification. Unrighteousness. A general term covering the whole ground.-Fornication. All illicit intercourse. Griesbach and Tischendorf's editions exclude this word. Wickedness. Malice, evil disposition.— Covetousness. Love of one's own, to the exclusion of the good of another. Maliciousness. Injurious treatment, a habit of doing mischief to others. Full of envy. A rhetorical variation, naturally introduced to relieve the mind. Envy is the evil spirit that grows up among the inequalities of the human condition. - Murder. Public and private, wholesale and retail; in war, the amphitheatre, and by assassination.-Debate, i. e. strife, sharp contention.- -Deceit. Juvenal says in his Satires, "What shall I do at Rome? I cannot lie."- Malignity. More particularly, misrepresentation, a devil of great power in modern days.- Whisperers. Slanderers in secret.

30. Backbiters. Not so, but slanderers in public; the reverse of whisperers. The want of a correct English version of the sacred Scriptures renders it necessary to give a considerable amount of mere verbal criticism, which would otherwise be entirely superfluous. — Inventors of evil things. I. e., in the corrupt age of Grecian decay and Roman luxury, of new pleasures, vices, and cruelties, in which the history of that period shows that kings and their parasites abounded. A high premium was

The present chapter advances in the line of argument commenced in the last one. The Gospel was a free gift to all men. All who received it on conviction would be saved by it. It was a free gift. Neither Jews nor Gentiles had done anything to merit this Divine interposition, for both had sunk into great wickedness. But as no claim existed by reason of their depravity, so, on the other hand, no obstacle in either case existed on account of that same depravity. The mercies of God were not purchased by merits, nor excluded by sins. Having in a few ghastly outlines sketched the horrible corruption of the heathen world, of man in a state of nature, Paul now abruptly turns round, and virtually asks a Jewish objector, whom he might readily imagine was carping by his side at the gross wickedness of the Gentiles, (putting his question in the second person to give force to his address,) But is the case much better with you, boasted children of Abraham? If the heathen have been unfaithful to the light of nature, have not you been almost equally so to the law of Moses and its moral spirit? Is not your claim as preposterous as theirs? But Paul in the discussion does not limit himself to the solitary topic of the ground on which the Christian revelation was given; for, breaking away

in the freedom of a zealous interpreter of all God's dealings with man, he justifies the ways of Providence in all directions, and announces the equitableness of the whole Divine administration, as commenced in this world and to be continued in the next. It is still a great service, even at this late day, to show that the natural sentiment of justice has not been wounded by the varying gifts of either Nature, Providence, or Revelation, whether bestowed on individuals or nations. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Well does Milton pray, at the beginning of Paradise Lost,

"What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to man."

1. Therefore. This indicates too close a logical sequence, where scarcely any exists. It is rather a gently transitional than a closely consecutive term, and would be better worded by moreover, then, accordingly. Though, if there be a closer connection, it must be, as Neander says, in this way: As the Apostle had said, i. 32, that the height of wickedness was that they not only did evil, but took pleasure in others that did the same, thus showing a deliberate, conscious corruption of heart; so those who know the law of God well enough to judge others, condemn themselves in the very act of judging, because they do the same things; all the while showing by the fact that they set themselves up as judges, that they know what is good, though they pursue the wrong. The inference, if there be any, is from the guilt of approving sin in others, the Gentiles having a certain light of nature, to the guilt of condemning sin in others, the Jews having the