may be, though it be in darkness and solitude, yet he is open to the inspection of One who will bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or evil, and that the decisions of this judgment will be more perfectly carried out in the world of spirits than they can be in this infancy of our being!

13. Luke vi. 37. There is a paronomasia, a play upon words, here: Judge not one another, but judge or decide this point, &c. He wished to persuade the stronger to bear with the weaker, and to refrain even from practices which might be innocent in themselves, for the sake of those who would be led astray by their example. Tholuck remarks, that "the disposition which Paul evinces in these exhortations proves what a mighty influence the Christian faith had had in making him indulgent and humble; for if we reflect upon his natural character, we can well suppose that he would have been more disposed to kindle into anger at the weak and scrupulous, and to treat them with severity. But the spirit of Christ had taught him to be weak with the weak. And in the Christian Church, which is never composed but of those who bear and those who are borne, this is the only way in which the bond of perfectness and of peace can subsist; to wit, when the child aspires to manhood, and the man becomes a child. Such mutual subordination and forbearance is a salutary medicine for pride. 14. By the Lord Jesus. Either by personal communications, of which in

stances are given in Acts ix. 4, 5, 1 Cor. xi. 23, 2 Cor. xii. 1, or by the natural action of the Gospel upon his character in giving him refinement of thought, and charity, and gentleness of heart.- Unclean; i. e. common. Matt. xv. 11. As much as to say, the ritual standard of the Jews is an artificial one; but to one whose conscience has been educated in that school, some things are lawful, and others are unlawful, and he must abide by his own personal conviction; for if anything is common to him, or unclean, he must act accordingly, and respect the decisions of his own mind. For if he does not regard his own rule, then he is not in a condition to become a good subject of any other kingdom. Luke vi. 37.

15. But, while the rule of the weak brother is plain, and he must obey the present dictate of conscience, the rule also of the strong brother is just as plain; namely, that he should treat these scruples tenderly, and refrain from wounding in the slightest degree one who was punctilious in meats and drinks and days. Jesus set the example of even dying that he might save, not the strong, but the weak, and call, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. A savor of his compassionate and all-sacrificing spirit was to be the ameliorating influence to act on these relations between Christians at different stages of progress and spiritual culture. - Destroy not him, &c. I. e. peril not his salvation by inducing him to adopt a course of conduct against his own conscience. 1 Cor. viii. 11.

16, 17. Your good. By which may be understood the superior intelligence and liberty of those who were not embarrassed by such scruples. They must not, by their want of charity, or disposition to shock the prejudices of their less advanced brethren, forfeit their own lofty position of independence, and bring it into ill-repute. 1 Cor. viii. 8; x. 29, 30.- The kingdom of God, &c. The strong antithesis is put between the observances in question and those master principles in which the essence of Christianity consisted. The category of non-essentials might be much enlarged, and we might truly say, The kingdom of God not only does not consist in meat and drink, but it standeth not in creeds, in ceremonials, in names, in dogmas, in human rules, in ecclesiastical authority, about which there have been such endless contentions, and which, by one or another party, have been set up as pillars of the Church. But the Apostle seizes upon the spiritual points as the vital ones, and enumerates three, righteousness, peace, and spiritual joy, as comprehending the leading features of the new and glorious kingdom. Words become, by long and peculiar use, so technical that we can scarcely penetrate below them, and reach the living fountain of meaning which plays at the bottom. But in the first word he determines the prominent object of the Gospel to be, not what Luther and his followers have asserted, justification by faith, but righteousness; the ardent and thorough-going soul of Paul would not stop short of the most substantial good, the reality of realities. In peace or peaceableness

is summed up the true position towards others, as in righteousness is contained that pertaining to one's self, and in holy spiritual joy, joy in the Holy Ghost, a right posture of soul so far as happiness and hope are concerned. Not that such enumeration by any means exhausts the whole subject, but we may suppose that the Apostle uses the most pregnant words, and instinctively selected each one as the representative of a salient point in the Christian style of character.— Holy Ghost. As the first letters of these words are commonly printed in capitals, the impression is made that a person is meant, the so-called third person of the Trinity. But that this is not necessarily the interpretation is evident from the writings even of some Trinitarian critics; for Le Clerc, Limborch, and Schleusner refer the phrase to the spirit of the Gospel, in fact to Christianity, as the holy principle and energy which gives true enjoyment to man's heart. See Wilson's Concessions, on this passage. The words Holy Ghost may also be applied to righteousness and peace, as well as to joy. The holy spirit of the Gospel would dilate and sanctify all these words with a new and fuller signification. Lardner understands the Apostle, not as speaking of the joy which we possess ourselves, but of that which we are instrumental in imparting to others, the satisfaction which we procure to our fellow-men.

18, 19. The three lines of action, service to Christ, acceptableness with God, and favor among men, are, when rightly balanced, harmonious with one another. Natural piety and faith in Jesus and morality in society are kindred each with the other. We

here have a declaration as to what is the ground of justification or acceptance with God; namely, spiritual righteousness, peaceableness, and happiness. Eph. iv. 3. The clear and potent duty of a Christian, therefore, is to promote friendly and pacific feelings, and mutual improvement in spiritual things. To edify one another was to build up one another in the Christian life, after the usual figure of the Apostle. Instead of thwarting this great purpose, either by harsh condemnation on one side, or by silent contempt on the other, the disciples were to unite all their spiritual forces to help one another; for if Christianity can be expressed by any one word, that word is love.

20, 21. He perseveres in his theme of charity and forbearance. Above, it was, Destroy not the work of Christ, ver. 15; here, it is, Destroy not the work of God, by indulgence in an unimportant matter of food; for though you may be able to do it with a clear conscience yourself, yet to another man it has the rank odor of guilt. Abstractly considered, one kind of food may be as innocent as another, but as men are educated, what is harmless to one is laden with sin to another. Conscience is not a fixed quantity, but a movable term, a fluxion; for though it exists in all, it is as various in form and texture as the features of the face. Perhaps the human being could not be found who does not recognize something as right and something as wrong, something as good and something as evil; but the particular things called right and good, or wrong and evil, will be found to

vary widely in different ages, countries, and religions. Charity, therefore, must go with conscience as its appropriate balance-wheel. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, &c. The very important principle is here introduced, that we should give up even innocent gratifications in themselves, for the sake of helping our brother more effectually in his work of reformation and selfimprovement. One of the specifications is no longer applicable,- that of eating flesh; but the other, the drinking of wine, or any spirituous liquors, though for different reasons than those which existed in the time of Paul, still stands as good as ever. The Temperance reformation has brought this idea into great prominence and use. And were such a thing possible as that we could ourselves use the articles as a beverage with perfect impunity, it would remain as an act of virtue, and as a Christian duty, according to the lofty standard of Paul's morality, to abstain totally from them for the sake of our neighbor, who may be addicted to bad habits, and who may be capable of being restored to the paths of sobriety and reason if he meet with proper sympathy and pure examples and high principle among those able to befriend him. The ancient Christian was to abstain from wine, lest its use should scandalize his weaker brother, who looked upon it as a horrible profanation to drink what might have been procured to be used as a libation in the idol-worship. The modern Christian is, by the same rule of tender solicitude for his brother's virtue

and sobriety, to abstain from the same article, if by such an act he can save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins.

22, 23. By faith in these verses is not meant the religion of Jesus in general, but rather a personal conviction of what is right. It is a sentiment, which is to be cherished as between the soul and its Maker, as too dear and precious a thing to be at the beck of fashion or caprice, or to be adopted as an imitation of other men. 1 John iii. 21. While having this personal confidence that what you are doing is right, do not carry it out in such a way as to cause your brother-man to sin. Be willing to concede a point to his scruples, if it is a matter in which you will not violate your sense of duty.—Hast thou faith? Griesbach and Tischendorf read it without the interrogation, Thou hast faith.— Happy is he, &c. St. Paul has here laid down the true method of the culture of a sound and a delicate conscience; namely, in things positively commanded by the law of God, to yield unhesitating obedience, but in things indifferent to follow the leadings of conscience, to obey carefully what on the whole seems to be for the best; and thus, by doing the nearest duty, the path of life grows clearer, and the discriminating power of conscience is increased. But while all this work is faithfully and sedulously carried on within the confines of the heart, externally, in our treatment of other men and our example and influence with them, we are with as much jealousy to avoid overriding their honest scruples, though they may

seem to us to be weak and immaterial, as we should guard against suffering our own to be trampled under foot. While, then, conscience is the keeper of peace at home, charity is the keeper of peace abroad. — He that doubleth is damned, &c., is condemned. Thus Neander paraphrases: "An individual who, though not sufficiently advanced in Christian knowledge to attain the conviction that the eating of meat sacrificed to idols is in itself indifferent, is yet seduced by worldly considerations to partake of it, acts in a manner deserving of condemnation, since he does not act according to his convictions. And, ver. 15, whoever eats of flesh offered to idols, following his own inclination, and taking no account of the scruples of his weak brother, and thus seduces him to follow his example without a firm conviction of its rectitude, troubles his brother's conscience, and acts himself contrary to the law of love, and sins." 1 Cor. viii. 12.- For whatsoever is not of faith is sin; i. e. whatever is not done with a persuasion of its lawfulness is sinful. This rule applies just as much to the uninstructed as to the instructed conscience. The philosophy and the morality of Paul's doctrine are alike sound and rational. For conscience is given to each man, and he must follow his own, and not another man's, standard of duty. If it is a dark, or a scrupulous, or a morbid conscience, still it is the best he has, and he must follow it notwithstanding its imperfections. And if he thus faithfully adheres to its dictates, it will grow clearer and more intelligent, and its decisions will more

and more come into unison with the everlasting right and truth. For he who truly obeys conscience will obey one of its ceaseless requisitions, which is, that he should not hearken to obstinate self-will, or prejudice, but that he should seek every means in his power of enlightening his sense of duty, as well as of rigidly obeying it, and should call in the service of the intellect and the heart as necessary assistants to a clear and comprehensive conscientiousness, such as is constantly becoming conformed to the unerring standard of right in the moral government of God.

It is most interesting and beautiful to see how the truth as it is in Jesus and his Apostles thus matches the moral and spiritual constitution of man, so that not the light is more harmonious and pleasant to the eye, nor the bread more strengthening to the digestive organs. We perceive that there is, so to speak, a dim native Christianity in the soul, which only requires to be brought into union with the Christianity of the New Testament to come out in clear and luminous outlines, and to glow with a divine beauty and sanctity. For does not reason always darkly teach even in the lowest? Does not conscience command with more or less authority? Does not hope spring eternal in the breast? Does not love ever keep a coal burning on even the humblest altar of the heart? But how soon, when Jesus speaks the word of energy and progress to these ever-living and ever-working powers, do they put on such new and more heavenly forms, acquire such superi

ority over the lower propensities and the superficial desires of the animal nature, that we say, Behold, a new birth, a new man! For a son of man and of the earth, we have a son of God and heaven, and it doth not yet appear what he shall be.

CHAPTER XV.

At the close of the fourteenth chapter, Griesbach appends the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of chapter sixteen, as properly belonging there, and he has many distinguished Biblical critics with him in this opinion. But the reasons, both from manuscripts and from versions, and also from the internal character of the passage and its most probable position on the whole, decide the question the other

way.

1-13. This paragraph is occupied with the subject of the last chapter, the proper treatment of the disciples by one another in the internal relations of the Church, and the mutual conciliation of Jews and Gentiles. Their peculiar position required the full exercise of those graces of tenderness, gentleness, forbearance, respect, and patience, which properly belong to the Christian character. "His object was, on the one hand, to check the free-thinking Gentile Christians from self-exaltation in relation to their weaker Jewish brethren in the faith; and, on the other hand, to remind the Jewish Christians that the admission of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God was no infringement of the rights of the Jewish people, and that it was in unison with the predictions of the Old Testament."