to the filial relation to the Deity into which they have been admitted by adopting grace. Of this relation they have an internal consciousness; the Spirit bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, and heirs because sons. In the prospect of their great inheritance, the afflictions of time become inconsiderable, while the Spirit of faith enables the believer not only to anticipate his own deliverance from sorrow, but to enter into the import of the prophetic intimations of a coming era, when the universe at large shall be one scene of repose and felicity.

The gracious work of the Holy Ghost in our sanctification is further unfolded in the assistance he gives us in prayer.

15. Characteristics and privileges of the saved. They love God; they are conformed to Christ; they realize the saving purposes of the unchangeable Jehovah; they are such as he designed to glorify, they having obeyed his call and received justification. In this blessed state (their fidelity being always implied) they may, with the utmost confidence, expect the endless joys which have been obtained by the mediatorial death of the unspared Son. What adverse power shall triumph against the omnipotence which is at work to save them? Who shall separate them from the love of a covenant God?

But in proportion to the excellency of the privileges of believers, was the distress felt by the apostle on behalf of his Hebrew kindred, who, through unbelief, are accursed from Christ, and for whose salvation he could himself become a sacrifice.

16. For while the Gentiles, for the possibility of whose salvation he had at first to argue, had, by their obedience to the call of the gospel, become an elect people of the Lord; the Jews, notwithstanding their ancient preroga

tives, by being disobedient to the heavenly calling, had been rejected and made reprobate.

Meantime, the purpose of the divine favour to Israel, as such, had not become null; for the unbelieving Jews are Israel only in name; mere carnal descent from Abraham not being saving in itself. Of the literal progeny of Abraham, and after him of Isaac, One only became the father of a consecrated people. Nor in the choice or rejection of peoples, in the carrying out of his great designs, can the Almighty be thought to entertain an inequitable partiality, since he has the inalienable right to dispense his bounty (which he is under no obligation to give to any) according to the dictate of his own unerring wisdom.

17, 18. But in the contemplation of this display of mercy and of justice, we learn the necessity of simple and grateful submission to the terms of salvation enunciated in the gospel. We behold the Gentiles, at the voice of the Son of God, throwing off the blinding bandages and enslaving fetters of Heathenism, and made partakers of the privileges of the dispensation of grace: while Israel after the flesh, practically unmindful of the true nature and conditions of the Abrahamic covenant, and in earnest after the establishment of a self-imaged righteousness, to be won by obedience to the institutes of Mosaism, have fallen short of the inestimable prize.

19. Contrast of the legal and evangelical righteousness. The one could only be achieved by a meritorious obedience to the primeval law; the other is inseparable from salvation by faith. This the privilege of every man, without distinction, as was proclaimed by the Old-Testament prophets themselves. Faith, which has a natural developement in confession of Christ, is preceded by, and dependent on, the manifestation of divine truth to the mind through the gospel; which, in the purpose of God,

E

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.

22. Practical exhortations founded on the preceding doctrines. Self-consecration to God. The experience and exemplification of renewing grace. co-operation for the common profit. ren, sympathy, kindness, placableness. be shown even to enemies.

Unanimity and Love to the brethBeneficence to

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