is to be made known, not to Israel only, but to the benighted races of Gentilism. 20. But it must be observed, that the rejection of Israel has never been total; because even already a part of them had believed. Nor is the rejection of that people final or irreversible: for the mediatorial reign of the common Saviour places them, like all the other families of mankind, in a state of rehabilitation; and their literal conversion to Christianity is one of the certainties of the future. Meantime, the light of the gospel, which had waned away from the unbelieving Jews, had arisen on the Gentiles, to whom their coming restoration will be the means of yet greater advantage. 21. Even now the spectacle of the reprobation of so many of this once-favoured people, is full of impressive interest to believers, as an intelligible admonition to humility and watchfulness; while the study of these dealings of the Almighty with our redeemed world, presenting as they do a solemn exhibition of his wisdom, rectitude, and mercy, must produce in the thoughtful the profoundest emotions of admiration and gratitude. The experience Unanimity and 22. Practical exhortations founded on the preceding doctrines. Self-consecration to God. and exemplification of renewing grace. co-operation for the common profit. ren, sympathy, kindness, placableness. be shown even to enemies. Love to the breth- 23. Submission to secular government. An honest and honourable deportment in life. Fulfil the spirit of the moral law in practical benevolence. 24, 25. Be in earnest to be saved from all sin. Be tolerant one of another as to minor differences of opinion and observance; and be seriously careful of making these differences an occasion or hinderance to true Christian progress. 26. We are bound to observe this mutual forbearance, even should it demand self-denial, thus proving ourselves the true disciples of Jesus. These exhortations to mutual forbearance and brotherly communion, obligatory on Christians through all time, had a special bearing on the circumstances of the Roman church, consisting as it then did of converted Jews and Gentiles. With an eye to this state of things, and to prevent the evil effects of national prejudices, the apostle points both parties to Jesus Christ as the centre of their union, and affirms, that his personal ministry on earth, though confined to the Jews, did, nevertheless, (by calling into existence the Christian church originally composed of converted Jews, and appointing of their number his ministers and apostles for the evangelization of the Gentiles,) lay the basis for the fulfilment of the promise to the patriarch Abraham, that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. Thus the Jew has a claim on the respect of his Gentile brother of no ordinary power, while the Gentile can demonstrate his joint interest with the Jew in the privileges and blessings of redemption. 27. The apostle expresses his personal esteem for the brethren at Rome, and enters into certain details on his own ministerial movements, and his projected visit to themselves. 28. The commendation of the deaconess, who brings the document. Various salutations, counsels, and encouragements. The epistle concludes with a solemn and beautiful doxology and benediction. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. A CHURCH had been founded by St. Paul, in Corinth, the highly civilized, but depraved, metropolis of Achaia, about the year 51. (Acts xviii.) This first epistle was written about six years after, from the city of Ephesus. 1. Introduction. Unity and blessedness of the saints. The graces of the church, a subject of thankfulness to the apostle, and of hope for futurity; yet were they in peril of suffering loss by a tendency to partisanship and schism. St. Paul disclaims the homage of a party. 2, 3. Christ crucified,-that theme of opprobrium to the Jew, and of contempt to the Gentile,—the great subject of apostolic preaching; the rallying-word of the faithful. The world is scandalized by the cross, and the church saved by it. The simplicity of the apostle's preaching contrasted with its mighty effects, demonstrates a divine presiding power, which wields the gospel as its instrument for human salvation. The Christian theology, however, is replete with the highest mysteries of wisdom; they were given by revelation to the apostles, and communicated by them to the disciples, according to their capacity and advancement in the spiritual life. 4. But the differences and divisions which reigned among the Corinthians, had restrained St. Paul from indoctrinating them with the higher teachings of the faith. He remonstrates with them. The true foundation had been laid by his ministry, but it was possible an unworthy and perishable superstructure might be reared upon it by others. 5. The guilt and punishment of interfering with the completion of the spiritual temple. Humility and selfdistrust inculcated. The folly of sectarian contractedness of mind, when all the intellect of the church, and the entire provisions of the covenant of grace, are intended for our profit in common. The true point of view in which the apostles would be regarded: all their faculties were derived from, and dependent upon, Christ; they themselves were but the servants and stewards of the Lord, and solemnly alive to their great responsibility. 6. Hence, to have their names made the mere ensigns of party, could not but be grievous to them. Such distinction no part of their destiny. Their experience was that of abasement and suffering. He reminds them of these truths from a principle of parental affection. 7, 8. After speaking of the mission of Timothy, and of his own contemplated visitation, the apostle proceeds to his judgment of a notorious cause of scandal in the church at Corinth, in the fact, that a member of it had contracted marriage with his own mother-in-law. The apostolic sentence upon this offender. An earnest exhortation to the church, redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, to cleanse itself from moral defilement; and, without affecting a misanthropic seclusion from human society in general, to discountenance, nevertheless, the irregular conduct of lax professors, by entirely abstaining from communion with them. 9. Adjudicature and decision of their occasional difference, to be sought in the courts of the church, rather than at the Heathen tribunals. Competency of the church to arrange these matters. These quarrels were disgraceful to themselves, and a cause of scandal in the eyes of the world; inasmuch, too, as they involved injustice on one side, they compromised the religion of the parties engaged in them, and endangered their very salvation. Yet, the faithful warning given here is joined with the encouragement to aspire to a more hopeful state, from the consideration of what grace had already effected in some of them. 10. Against sensuality :-a most solemn exhortation. 11. Counsels respecting the married life. While the position of the church at that time rendered celibacy not inexpedient, the marriage-bond already subsisting, though between Christian and Heathen, was to be regarded as inviolate. A Hebrew convert should not be required to renounce the external prerogatives of the Abrahamic vocation, nor a Gentile to conform to the peculiarities of Judaism. The essence of religion does not exist in these things; neither is it identified with secular freedom or servitude, as such. The slave and the freeman, if numbered with the saved, are on one moral elevation as the ransomed servants of Christ. 12. The advices relating to celibacy and marriage are here amplified, and applied to specific cases. 13, 14. We are to regard the conscientious scruples of our fellow-disciples, even though it shall demand of us the exercise of habitual self-denial. This principle is exemplified with respect to the feeble-minded view which some took of eating of the flesh of animals slaughtered at the Heathen altars. This, though in itself a matter of indifference, might nevertheless exercise a perverting effect on the conscience of the weak, so as even to lead to their final undoing. Alarming intimation of the power of human influence, which in such instances may render even redemption itself of no avail; hence the reckless in these matters are in danger of sinning at once against the soul and its Saviour. St. Paul is led to assert, against the detractions of an adversary at Corinth, the validity of his apostleship, and his right to the temporal support which is due from the church to those who serve it in the ministry; but a right that, in the case of the Corinthians, he had reasons for placing in abeyance. But to this forbearance he attached no merit for he preached the gospel in obedience to an inward conviction of obligation, in the fulfilment of which he laid himself out in manifold efforts and appliances to gain men of every class; while, in securing his own salvation and obtaining the crown of life, he used the most strenuous effort, and submitted to every sacrifice. 15. The subject of meats sacrificed to idols resumed. In exhorting these Christians of Corinth to abstain from |