are both justified freely, and yet through Christ; and also through faith, as the condition indispensably necessary on our part."

2. Through whom also-i. e. by baptism in His name, as the only appointed way to the Father; John xiv. 6—we have obtained our admission by faith into this grace of Church membership and communion with God (compare Acts ii. 42. 47. xiii. 43. 2 Cor. vi. 1), wherein we take our stand, as it were on a rock (compare 1 Cor. xv. 1), and exult in the hope of one day attaining to the glory of God, which, left to themselves, all men had too surely fallen short of (iii. 23). Compare our Church's daily thanksgiving "for God's inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory."

3. Nay, not only so-the Jews also gloried in their religious privileges (ch. ii. 17. 23), but they (as Macknight observes), applying to individuals the promises of national prosperity and the threatenings of national adversity which they found in their law, had accustomed themselves to consider prosperity as a mark of God's favour, and affliction as a token of His displeasure-but we exult also in our afflictions; knowing (such is our spiritual experience) that affliction worketh patience; and patience, proof of ourselves; and the proof that we so obtain of ourselves, hope. Compare, in illustration of this seeming paradox, Deut. viii. 3. Acts v. 41. 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. James i. 2, 3; and observe that, when the latter Apostle says τὸ δοκίμιον ὑμῶν τῆς πίστεως κατεργάζεται ὑπομονὴν, he is speaking of each one of that series of trials (just before mentioned as πειρασμοὶ ποικίλοι), the patient endurance of which, as they arise, gradually forms a habit of patience, which (when, as he adds, it has full operation) produces experimental proof of genuine Christian character: so that there is not, in fact, any contradiction here between St. Paul and St. James. And this operation and result of so many separate Soxíμa is doкyun, probation or proof, which Bishop Terrot on this passage translates a just estimate of our real state and qualities, and adds: "Christians in a state of temporal com

fort are apt to take for granted the extent and strength of their devotedness to God; but persecution or suffering calls it all into exercise, and enables them to judge of it accurately. And if upon this trial our devotedness be found strong, then have we a sure and reasonable hope that we are children of God.". And so, too, Dr. Bloomfield: "The sense seems to be (with an allusion to the dokun by which the goodness of certain articles was put to the proof) the same as that in which we sometimes use the word proof to denote something approved, and shown to be excellent by proof and test; as, for instance, arms of proof.' Thus it denotes that just estimate of ourselves and our spiritual state, which results from the self-examination that we are induced to institute by affliction." The translation that has been given above was suggested by 2 Cor. xiii. 5 : ἑαυτοὺς πειράζετε, εἰ ἐστὲ ἐν τῇ πίστει, ἑαυτοὺς δοκιμάζετε : to which add 2 Cor. ii. 9: τὴν Sokiμǹv vμ☎v, E. V. the proof of you; Phil. ii. 22: rv Sokiμǹν avтov, the proof of him; i.e., the genuine character of each.

5. And our hope is not one that tends to shame and disappointment-not likely to make us ashamed of having entertained it; Cf. ch. ix. 33. x. 11. 1 Pet. ii. 6-because it is the outpoured love of God that we find in our hearts (dià, in the form, or through the medium, of) conveyed to us in holy inspiration which has been granted unto us. "The Apostle argues that our hope is not vain, because we (i. e., true Christians)

already feel in our hearts those sanctifying influences which are the gift of God's love to us, and which are at once the preparation for and the foretaste of heaven." Terrot. Compare ch. viii. 16. 2 Cor. i. 22. Eph. i. 13, 14.

6. dolɛvwv, weak and helpless, properly through sickness, well describes the enfeebling influence of sin-even as the Evangelical Prophet had said: The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

— KATÀ KAιóν, in due time, or at the time appointed of the Father, called also the fulness of the time, Gal. iv. 2. 4; i. e.,

when the dispensations, whereby God prepared the way for the Gospel, had wrought their purpose.

7. ὑπὲρ δικαίου. Much has been said here of "three gradations of character, marked by the words ἀσεβῶν, δικαίου, and ayalou respectively; viz., the sinner, the man who simply does no harm, and the man who is actively benevolent ;" but the absence of the Article before Sukalov shews that not a character or person is intended, but the predicament in which he is supposed to stand, viz., as innocenta, and in nowise vπódikoç, that he should deserve to die; in direct contrast to what follows in ver. 8, ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων nuv and in ver. 10, x0poì oVTEC. Translate: Christ died for a godless race-and herein was love indeed (1 John iv. 10) -for hardly will one be found to die (emphatic, see John xv. 13) for another, when innocent-hardly, I say; for to save a good man, unjustly doomed to death (such, for example, as was Socrates in his day), peradventure there is that even has the heart to die; but God commendeth (brings home to all our hearts) His surpassing love (avrov, worthy of Himself, such as God only can feel) towards us, in that while we were yet sinners-offenders against Him, and therefore guilty (ὑποδίκων τῷ Θεῷ) - Christ died for us : δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, 1 Pet. iii. 18. Compare also Isa. liii. 11. Luke xxiii. 47. Acts iii. 14. vii. 52. xxiv. 15.

9. πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον. " Hic jam sequitur illatio majoris, i. e., magis credibilis rei." Rosenm. Much more then, now that we are absolved from past guilt-redeemed, set right with God, Sikaιol KaTaoTaĺέvτes—by the shedding of His blood,

a "The word signifying to be righteous does not so properly express the moral character of those to whom it is applied, as their relation to the law. It therefore often means to be in the right, to have the law on one's side, to be what the law requires; see Gen. xxxviii. 26. 'She is more in the right than I:' Job ix. 15. Though I were in the right, I would not answer.' Hence to justify is to pronounce one to be in the right, to be such as the law requires, and entitled to be treated accordingly; see Job xxxiii. 32. Isa. v. 23." Hodge on ch. iii. 20,

may we exult in the hope (ver. 2) that eventually we shall be saved through Him from the wrath to come (ch. i. 18. iii. 5).

From this verse it is plain to see that our dikaiwσis— less correctly rendered justification than absolution from past guilt, whereupon follows our state of acceptance with God (dikaloσúvn)—our being accounted righteous (i. e., simply innocent or guiltless) before God, our being by Baptism (wherein we wash away our original or birth-sin, and are born anew unto a life of faith) admitted among roùs σwhoμévovs (Acts ii. 47), and made expectant heirs of eternal life (κληρονόμοι κατ' ἐλπίδα Swns aiwvíov, Tit. iii. 7), is a distinct thing from our final salvation, or complete deliverance, as from the penalty, so also from the power and dominion of sin; in which higher sense of the word justification, i. e., being declared to be righteous before the judgment-seat of Christ, the Apostle says: We look for the hope of righteousness, as to be attained after a spiritual manner, by faith; Gal. v. 5 (compare Heb. xii. 23)—although of that first act also of grace (as including all the rest, if Man will but do his required part in working out his own salvation) he scruples not to say, lowoεv nμãç, He saved us (Tit. iii. 5); and so, too (1 Tim. iv. 10), He is the Saviour of all men, though in the fullest sense of the word (uáλiora) of such only as believe in Him for salvation.

10. katŋλλáynμɛv, we were reconciled, or made friends, in the same sense in which Abraham also was called the friend of God; James ii. 23. The ninth and tenth verses, says Bp. Terrot, "are evidently parallel, and express the same truth; yet there is a distinction between SikaiwƉévres and καταλλαγέντες. The former has reference only to what passes in the Divine mind, when God for just and sufficient cause acquits the sinner: the latter refers not only to this, but also to the change which takes place in the heart of the sinner towards God. Zwonoóμɛla refers to the final result of present justification and reconciliation, namely, eternal salvation; which result the reconciled sinner is prevented from forfeiting by the assistance of the Holy Spirit. And this assistance is derived from Christ, who, in that life which

D

He now lives at the right hand of the Father, maketh intercession for His people." Compare Heb. vii. 25.

11. Kavɣáμεvo is not to be understood (as in the English Version) to introduce here a new assertion (which, in fact, would be a mere repetition) of what was asserted in ver. 2, but to be connected grammatically with кaraλλayévтeç, as a further reason for our Christian hope, that through the continued mediation of our Redeemer we shall eventually be saved; seeing that not only, as the Apostle argues, have we had our sentence reversed-our sentence, namely, of condemnation (ver. 16) and consequent banishment from the presence of the Sovereign Lord of all (2 Thess. i. 9); for of the two nearly equivalent figures which the Apostle has employed, the one represents God as a monarch, the other as a judge-but more than this, seeing that, like His ancient people (Ps. xliv. 8), we make our boast in God as our Covenant Father (compare Isa. lxiii. 16) through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom even now we have received—i. e., by our faith in whom (ver. 2) we have already had conveyed to us as accepting parties; see on ver. 17-the covenant of reconciliation which He has effected for us; compare 2 Cor. v. 18-20. So we shall do better to interpret the Article as referring to the reconciliation set forth in karaλλayévrɛç, than with our English translators understand the great καταλλαγή, the Atonement; which, as Macknight remarks, “men do not receive the atonement is made to God." And now the transition is easy to the succeeding paragraph, in which the Apostle asserts that the grace conveyed to us through Christ has more than reversed the sentence entailed upon us through Adam. Wherefore-this being the case-even as by one man, &c. on which Bp. Terrot remarks: "The Apostle, having been led to speak of the benefit purchased for us by Christ as a reconciliation with God, naturally turns to consider the manner in which Man originally lost the favour of God; and proceeds partly to compare, and partly to contrast, the evil produced by Adam's transgression, with the benefit produced by Christ's death."