of delight in the Gospel, and thankfulness for the glorions office of an apostle, how do we feel our hearts burn within us at being permitted by the good providence of God to participate in the privileges so admirably extolled by the great apostle of the Gentiles. active life, with a mind stored with the most ample and various treasures of science and knowledge. He himself tells us, that the distinguished progress which he had made was known to all the Jews, and that in this literary career he left all his co-equals and contemporaries far behind him. I profited in the Jewish religion above my fellows. A person pos- "Occasionally, too, the student of the epistles is at once sessed of natural abilities so signal, of literary acquisitions astonished and delighted by a fervency of language unexamso extensive, of an activity and spirit so enterprising, and of pled in any other writer. Words of the most intense signi an integrity and probity so inviolate, the wisdom of Godfication are accumulated, and, by their very strength, are judged a fit instrument to employ in displaying the banners made to express their weakness when compared with the inand spreading the triumphs of Christianity among mankind. expressible greatness of their object. Our language canno A negligent greatness, if we may so express it, appears in express the force of 'g is irregbcan alwrior Begos d.Ens his writings. Full of the dignity of his subject, a torrent of (2 Cor. iv. 17.), which is but faintly shadowed forth in the sacred eloquence bursts forth, and bears down every thing translation of an eminent critic, an excessively exceeding before it with irresistible rapidity. He stays not to arrange and eternal weight of glory.' Numerous, and some, if pos and harmonize his words and periods, but rushes on, as his sible, still more striking examples occur, but cannot be adevast ideas transport him, borne away by the sublimity of his quately displayed in any, even the best translation. Even theme. Hence his frequent and prolix digressions, though the ordinary grammatical compounds are not sufficient for the at the same time his all-comprehensive mind never loses glowing ideas of the apostle. Thus, wishing to express his sight of his subject; but he returns from these excursions, own utter worthlessness considered in himself, he makes use resumes and pursues it with an ardour and strength of reason- of a comparative, found only in the most exalted sentences ing that astonishes and convinces." What a treasure of of the classic authors: iμc TW inaxisore, not unaptly rendivinity and morality is contained in his epistles! which, dered by our translators 'less than the least." "2 "as examples of a nervous, invigorating, commanding style, have seldom been equalled, never excelled. The instructions they contain are delivered with a simple gravity and concinnity that commands the attention, and is as much superior to high-wrought ornaments of professed rhetoricians as the native uncut diamond, to the furbished, glittering paste. Yet are they not deficient in those beauties which captivate the refined taste. Although professedly didactic, there are few pieces of composition that afford a richer variety of appropriate figure. There is scarcely a species of trope that has been noticed by rhetoricians that may not be found in one part or other of these books, and always in an apposite situation. 6 Another excellence in Saint Paul's writings is presented to our notice in the admirable art with which he interests the passions, and engages the affections of his hearers. Under the present depravity of human nature, our reason being enfeebled, and our passions consequently grown powerful, it must be of great service to engage these in the cause we would serve; and therefore, his constant endeavour w,— not only to convince the reason of his hearers, but alarm and interest their passions. And, as hope and fear are (with the bulk of mankind) the main-springs of human action, to these he addressed himself most effectually, not by cold speculation upon abstract fitnesses, but by the awful assu rances of a resurrection of the dead to an eternity of happiness or misery. With respect to the latter, who can hear heaven, with his mighty angels, in fluming fire, taking ven geance on the ungodly; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power! And the happiness of heaven he describes by words so strong, as to baffle the expression of all language but his own,-by a weight of glory infinite and eternal beyond all hyperbole or conception. "Nor are there wanting instances of a strength of figure only to be equalled by the importance of the sentiment ex-without trembling, that, the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from pressed. As such, the description of the powerful efficacy of the promises and threats of God may be produced. The word of God is living and energetic, and more cutting than any two-edged sword, dividing even to the separation of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' Again, when the apostle expresses his desire to be useful even to the death, to his converts; how noble and appropriate to men accustomed to Thus the apostle secured the passions of those to whom the sacrificial rites is his expression! Yea, and if I be he directed his epistles: and he equally engaged their affec poured out as a libation (du) upon the sacrifice and ser- tions by his endearing manner of address. Has he occasion vice of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.' And how to introduce any subject, which he is afraid will prejudice full of affection and exultation is his figurative appellation of and disgust his bigoted countrymen the Jews? He announces the Philippians; My brethren, beloved and longed for, my it with a humility and modesty that secures the attention, joy and my crown!' Is there any thing in any of the hea- and with an insinuating form of address to which nothing then moralists comparable to that fine description of charity can be denied. "This appears particularly in his Epistle to in the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians? the Romans, where we see with what reluctance and heartSpeaking with the tongues of men and of angels is nothing in felt grief he mentions the ungrateful truth of the Jews' recomparison of charity; and the tongues of men and of angels jection of the Messiah, and their dereliction by God for can never exceed this description. All the powers of logic their insuperable obstinacy. How studious is he to provoke and rhetoric are to be seen and felt in the fifteenth chapter them to jealousy and emulation by the example of the Gen of the same epistle; and what affecting solemnity does it add tiles, and how many persuasive and cogent arts and argu to that most solemn service of our liturgy, the burial of the ments does he employ to win them over to the religion of dead! But it is not in the use of figures only that the excel- Jesus! In these delicate touches, in these fine arts of moral lence of the apostle's style consists. For appropriate diction suasion, Saint Paul greatly excels. Upon occasion, also he is unrivalled, and occasionally he rises into a sublimity we find him employing the most keen and cutting raillery in of expression that carries his readers above themselves, and, satirizing the faults and foibles of those to whom he wrote. while it astonishes, convinces or persuades with a delight- With what sarcastic pleasantry does he animadvert upon the ful violence. When he undertakes to describe the goodness Corinthians for their injudicious folly, in suffering themselves of our Maker in providing for us the means of salvation, the to be duped by a false judaizing teacher! A more delicate reader is transported with gratitude, and overwhelmed with and poignant instance of irony, than the following passage, self-abasement. When he exultingly depicts the excellences is perhaps nowhere to be met with: What is it, says he to of the Gospel dispensation, he commands the enraptured the Corinthians, wherein you were inferior to other churches, mind, and we are lost in wonder, love, and praise !' When except that I myself was not burthensome to you (by taking he concisely describes his sufferings, the constancy, the joy- any acknowledgment for my labours)? do forgive me this ous triumphing in the midst of tortures, of the primitive pro-wrong. (2 Cor. xii. 13.)—To his eloquence, as a public pagators of Christianity, we require a new idea of the human speaker, we have the testimony of the Lycaonians, who (as mind; we are tempted to imagine the persons he speaks of we have already remarked)' foolishly imagining the gods to to be superior beings, and to render them our humble adora- have descended from heaven among them in the persons of tion, till recalled by the assurance that it is by the might of Barnabas and Paul, called the former Jupiter, and the latter the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the aid of the Holy Mercury, because he was the chief speaker. And though it Spirit, that these holy men so nobly won their heavenly When we read his exulting and fervent expressions erown 1 Harwood's Introduction, vol. 1. pp. 200. 202. a Gospel Advocate, vol. iv. p. 364. (Boston, Massachusetts, 324.) See an instance in his epistle to Philemon, which is particularly illus trated in Sect. XV. $$ III. V. infra. See p. 326. supra. is said his bodily presence was mean, and his speech contemptible, yet it ought to be remembered, that this was the aspersion of his enemies, the effusion of malignity, to defame and sink him, and ruin his usefulness." SECTION II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE APOSTOLICAL EPISTLES IN GENERAL, I. Importance of the Epistles.-Nature of these writings monarchy. This opinion was so deeply rooted in the minds of the apostles, that Jesus Christ did not think proper to eradicate it all at once, but rather chose to remove it by gentle and easy degrees. Accordingly, in compliance with their prejudices, we find him describing his kingdom, and the pre-eminence they were to enjoy in it, by eating and drinking at his table, and sitting on thrones, and judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke xxii. 30. Matt. xix. 28.) But after the Holy Spirit had given the apostles clear and distinct apprehensions of the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, and the real nature of its happiness, we find what noble reprefor true Christians, and what powerful arguments they derive sentations they give of the glories which are laid up in Heaven thence, in order to persuade them not to set their minds upon the things of this world. They describe the happiness of the world to come by an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Pet. i. 4.); by a new heaven, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Pet. iii. 13.), I. THE EPISTLES, or letters addressed to various Christian where God shall be all in all (1 Cor. xv. 28) he shall reign communities, and also to individuals, by the apostles Paul, with an absolute dominion, and it shall be our honour and hapJames, Peter, John, and Jude, form the second principal di- piness that God is exalted; and they exhort us not to set our vision of the New Testament. These writings abundantly minds upon the things that are seen, and are temporal, but on confirm all the material facts related in the Gospel and Acts those things which are not seen, and are eternal. (2 Cor. iv. 18.) of the Apostles. The particulars of our Saviour's life and Again, it was the same prejudice concerning the temporal death are often referred to in them, as grounded upon the un- glories of Christ's kingdom which caused his disciples to misdoubted testimony of eye-witnesses, and as being the foun- understand the meaning of his various clear and explicit disdation of the Christian religion. The speedy propagation courses concerning his sufferings, death, and resurrection. (See of the Christian faith, recorded in the Acts, is confirmed be- Mark ix. 10. Luke ix. 45. xviii. 34.) They vainly expected yond all contradiction by innumerable passages in the Epis- that their master would gain earthly conquests and triumphs, tles, written to the churches already planted; and the mira- and they could not apprehend how he should become gloculous gifts, with which the apostles were endued, are often rious through sufferings. In consequence of these mistaken appealed to in the same writings, as an undeniable evidence ideas, the doctrine of the cross and its saving effects were not of the divine mission of the apostles.2 Though all the essential doctrines and precepts of the understood by the apostles (Matt. xvi. 22.), until our Saviour Christian religion were unquestionably taught by our Saviour had opened their understandings by his discourses on this subject himself, and are contained in the Gospels, yet it is evident after his resurrection; and therefore we cannot expect so perfect an exposition of that great and fundamental article of Christo any person who attentively studies the Epistles, that they are to be considered as commentaries on the doctrines of the tianity in the Gospels as in the Epistles, in which Christ's dying Gospel addressed to particular Christian societies or persons, for our sins, and rising again for our justification, is every in order to explain and apply those doctrines more fully, to where insisted upon as the foundation of all our hopes; and the confute some growing errors, to compose differences and doctrine of the cross is there spoken of as a truth of such imschisms, to reform abuses and corruptions, to excite Chris-portance, that Saint Paul (1 Cor. ii. 2.), in comparison of it, tians to holiness, and to encourage them against persecutions. despises every other kind of knowledge, whether divine or human. And since these Epistles were written (as we have already Hence it is that the apostles deduce those powerful motives to shown) under divine inspiration, and have uniformly been obedience, which are taken from the love, humility, and conde received by the Christian church as the productions of in- scension of our Lord, and the right which he has to our service, spired writers, it consequently follows (notwithstanding some having purchased us with the price of his blood. (See 1 Cor. vi. writers have insinuated that they are not of equal authority 20. 2 Cor. v. 15. Gal. ii. 20. Tit. ii. 14. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.) Hencs with the Gospels, while others would reject them altogether) they derive those great obligations, which lie upon Christians to that what the apostles have delivered in these Epistles, as exercise the duties of mortification and self-denial; of crucifying necessary to be believed or done by Christians, must be as the flesh with the affections und lusts (Gal. v. 24. vi. 14. Rom. necessary to be believed and practised in order to salvation, vi. 6. 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2.); of patience under afflictions, and rejoicing as the doctrines and precepts delivered by Jesus Christ him- in tribulations (Phil. iii. 10. 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. 1 Pet. ii. 19. &c., self, and recorded in the Gospels: because in writing these iv. 13.); of being dead to this world, and seeking those things Epistles, the sacred penmen were the servants, apostles, am- which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. bassadors and ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mys- (Col. iii. 1. &c.) Thus, as our Saviour spoiled principalities teries of God, and their doctrines and precepts are the will, and powers, and triumphed over his enemies by the cross the mind, the truth, and the commandments of God himself. (Col. ii. 15.), so the believer overcomes the world by being cruOn account of the fuller displays of evangelical truth con- cified to it; and becomes more than conqueror through Christ tained in this portion of the sacred volume, the Epistles have that loved him. by some divines been termed the DOCTRINAL BOOKS of the New Testament. That the preceding view of the Epistles is correct, will appear from the following considerations. In the FIRST place they announce and explain DOCTRINES, of, which our Saviour had not fully treated in his discourses, and which consequently are not clearly delivered in the Gospels. Once more, it is in the Epistles principally, that we are clearly taught the calling of the Gentiles to make one church with the Jews. Our Lord, indeed, had intimated this glorious event in some general expressions, and also in some of his parables (see Matt. viii. 1. xx. 1. Luke xv. 11. &c.); and the numerous prophecies of the Old Testament, which foretell the calling of the Gentiles, were sufficient to convince the Jews, that in the times of the Messiah, God would reveal the knowledge of himself and his will to the Thus there were some things which our Saviour did not fully and clearly explain to his disciples (John xvi. 12.), but accom-world more fully than ever he had done before. But the extraormodated his expressions to those prejudices in which they had been educated. Of this description were his discourses concerning the nature of his kingdom; which, agreeably to the erroneous notions then entertained by their countrymen, the apostles expected would be a temporal kingdom, and accompanied with the same pomp and splendour which are the attendants of an earthly Dr. Harwood's Introd. to the New Test. vol. i. p. 202. See also Michael is's Introduction, vol. i. pp. 149-159. Bp. Newton's Dissertation on St. Paul's Eloquence. (Works, vol. v pp. 248-271.) Dr. Kennicott's Remarks on the Old Testament and Sermons, pp. 369-379. Dr. A. Clarke on 1 Tim. vi. 15. and 2 Tim. iv. 8. dinary value which they had for themselves, and the privileges which they fancied were peculiar to their own nation, made them unwilling to believe that the Gentiles should ever be fellowheirs with the Jews, of the same body or church with them, and partakers of the same promises in Christ by the Gospel. (Eph. iii. 6.) This Saint Peter himself could hardly be persuaded to believe, till he was convinced by a particular vision vouchsafed to him for that purpose. (Acts x. 28.) And Saint Paul tells us that this was a mystery which was but newly revealed to the apostles by the Spirit (Eph. iii. 5.): and therefore not fully discovered by Christ before. Lastly, it is in the Epistles chiefly that the inefficacy of the law to procuro our justification in the sight of God, the cessation of the law, and the eternal and une nangeable nature of Christ's | ple of Saint Paul, and also because those Epistles are the priesthood are set forth. Compare Rom. iii. 20. 25. Gal. ii. 21. iii. 16. v. 2. 5. Heb. ix. 10. vii. 18. v. 5, 6. vii. 24, 25 SECONDLY, in the Epistles only we have instructions concerning many great and necessary Duties. Such are the following, viz. that all our thanksgivings are to be offered up to God in the name of Christ. The duties which we owe to our civil governors are only hinted in these words of Christ—“Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,” but are enlarged upon in Saint Paul's Epistles to the Romans (xiii.), and to Titus (iii. 1.), and also in the first Epistle of Saint Peter. (ii. 10. 17.) In like manner the duties, which we owe to the ministers of the Gospel (our spiritual governors), are more expressly taught in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (vi. 6.), the Thessalonians (1 Thess. v. 12, 13.), and to the Hebrews. (xiii. 17, 18.) Lastly, all the duties belonging to the relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, are particularly treated in the Epistles to the Ephesians (v. 28-33. vi. 1-9.), and the Colossians (iii. 1125.); but are scarcely ever mentioned in the Gospels. This is a convincing argument that the Holy Spirit, who influenced the pens of the apostles, not only regarded the particular exigencies of the Christians who lived in those times, but also directed the sacred writers to enlarge on such points of doctrine and practice as were of universal concern, and would be for the benefit of the faithful in all succeeding generations. It is true that the immediate occasion of several of the epistles was the correction of errors and irregularities in particular churches :3 but the experience of all succeeding ages, to our own time, has shown the necessity of such cautions, and the no less necessity of attending to the duties which are directly opposite to those sins and irregularities, and which the apostles take occasion from thence to lay down and enforce. And even their decisions of cases concerning meats and drinks, and the observation of the ceremonial law, and similar doubts which were peculiar to the Jewish converts, in the first occasion of them :-even these rules also are, and will always be, our surest guides in all points relating to church liberty, and the use of things indifferent; when the grounds of those decisions, and the directions consequent upon them, are duly attended to, and applied to cases of the like nature by the rules of piety and prudence, especially in one point, which is of universal concern in life, viz. the duty of abstaining from many things which are in themselves innocent, if we foresce that they will give offence to weak Christians, or be the occasion of leading others into sin. longest and fullest. To them succeeds the Epistle to Titus, who was an evangelist; and that to Philemon is placed last, as he was supposed to have been only a private Christian. Last of all comes the Epistle to the Hebrews, because its authenticity was doubted for a short time (though without Dr. Lardner also thinks that it was the last written of all any foundation, as will be shown in a subsequent page); St. Paul's Epistles. Some learned men, who have examined the chronology of Saint Paul's Epistles, have proposed to arrange them in our Bibles, according to the order of time: but to this classifica tion there are two serious objections, viz. 1. The order of their dates has not yet been satisfactorily or unanimously settled; and, 2. Very considerable difficulty will attend the alteration of that order which has been adopted in all the editions and versions of the New Testament. This was the received arrangement in the time of Eusebius, who flourished in the beginning of the third century, and probably also of Irenæus, who lived in the second century. Consequently it is the most ancient order in Dr. Lardner's judgment it is the best that can be adopted; and therefore we have retained the received order in the subsequent part of this work. As, however, a knowledge of the order in which Saint Paul's Epistles were written, cannot fail to be both instructive and useful to the biblical student, we have deemed it proper to subjoin a TABLE of their CHRonological Order (as established in the subsequent pages), which exhibits the places where, and the times when, they were in all probability respectively written. The dates, &c. assigned by Dr. Lardner and other learned men, are duly noticed in the following pages. EPISTLES. 1 Thessalonians Galatians 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Ephesians Hebrews 1 Timothy 2 Timothy EPISTLES. James 1 Peter 1 John PLACES. - Corinth - - Ephesus A. D. At the close of 52 or early in About the end of 57 (or the beginning of 58 (perhaps from Philippi) ( Rome - Rome Rome Rome Italy (perhaps from Rome) Macedonia - Rome S Before the end of 62 or the beginning of 63 62 About the end of 62 or early in About the end of 62 or early in 65 About the beginning of 65 (perhaps Ephesus)} 68 or early in 69 68 II. The Epistles contained in the New Testament are III. The Catholic Epistles are reven in number, and contain twenty-one in number, and are generally divided into two the letters of the apostles Jar es, Peter, John, and Jude. classes, the Epistles of Saint Paul, and the Catholic Epis- They are termed Catholic, that is, general or universal, betles. Of these apostolical letters, fourteen were written by cause they are not addressed to the believers of some partithe great apostle of the Gentiles; they are not placed in our cular city or country, or to individuals, as Saint Paul's EpisBibles according to the order of time when they were com- tles were, but to Christians in general, or to Christians of posed, but according to the supposed precedence of the socie-several countries. The subjoined table exhibits the dates of ties or persons to whom they were addressed. Thus, the the Catholic Epistles, and also the places where they were epistles to churches are disposed according to the rank of written, agreeably to the order established in the following the cities or places whither they were sent. The Epistle to pages. the Romans stands first, because Rome was the chief city of the Roman empire: this is followed by the two Epistles to the Corinthians, because Corinth was a large, polite, and renowned city. To them succeeds the Epistle to the Galatians, who were the inhabitants of Galatia, a region of Asia Minor, in which were several churches. Next follows the Epistle to the Ephesians, because Ephesus was the chief city of Asia Minor, strictly so called." Afterwards come the Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians; for which order Dr. Lardner can assign no other probable reason than this, viz. that Philippi was a Roman colony, and, therefore, the Epistle to the Philippians was placed before those to the Colossians and Thessalonians, whose cities were not distinguished by any particular circumstance. He also thinks it not unlikely that the shortness of the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, especially of the second, caused them to be placed last among the letters addressed to churches, though in point of time they are the earliest of Saint Paul's Epistles. Among the Epistles addressed to particular persons, those o Timothy have the precedence, as he was a favourite disci 1 Compare Eph. v. 8. 20. 1 Thess. v. 18. Heb. xiii. 14, 15. 2 Whitby, vol. ii. p. 1. Lowth's Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Scriptures, pp. 199-211. 2 and 3 John or early in 69 64 or 65 is, first, to discuss and decide the controversy, or to refute the IV. The general plan on which the Epistles are written erroneous notions, which had arisen in the church, or among the persons to whom they are addressed, and which was the occasion of their being written; and, secondly, to recommend the observance of those duties, which would be necessary, and of absolute importance to the Christian church in every age, consideration being chiefly given to those particular graces or virtues of the Christian character, which the disputes that occasioned the Epistles might tempt them to neg lect. In pursuing this method, regard is had, first, to the nature and faculties of the soul of man, in which the under standing is to lead the way, and the will, affections, and active powers are to follow; and, secondly, to the nature of religion in general, which is a reasonable service, teaching us that we are not to be determined by superstitious fancies, Dr. Lardner's Works, Svo. vol. vi. pp. 646-649., 4to. vol. iii. pp. On the origin and reasons this appellation, see Chapter IV. Sect.. Such were the corrupting of Christianity with mixtures of Judaism and philosophy, apostacy from the faith which they had received, conten- 407, 408. tions and divisions among theraselves, neglect of the assemblies for public worship, and misbehaviour in them, the dishonouring of marriage, &c. &c. | §1. infra. nor by blind passions, but by a sound judgment and a good understanding of the mind and will of God; and also showing us the necessary union of faith and practice, of truth and holiness. The pious, affectionate, and faithful manner in which the apostles admonish, reprove, exhort, or offer consolation, can only be adequately appreciated by him, who, by patient and diligent study, is enabled to enter fully into the spirit of the inspired authors. V. Explicit as the Epistles unquestionably are in all fundamental points, it is not to be denied that some parts of them are more difficult to be understood than the Gospels. The reason of these seeming difficulties is evident. In an Epistle many things are omitted, or only slightly mentioned, because they are supposed to be known by the person to whom it is addressed; but, to a person unacquainted with such particulars, they cannot but present considerable difficulty. The affairs discussed by Saint Paul were certainly well known to the persons to whom he wrote; who consequently would easily apprehend his meaning, and see the force and tendency of his discourse. As, however, we who live at this distance of time, can obtain no information concerning the occasion of his writing, or the character and circumstances of the persons for whom his Epistles were intended, except what can be collected from the Epistles themselves, it is not strange that several things in them should appear obscure to us. Further, it is evident from many passages, that he answers letters sent, and questions proposed to him, by his correspondents; which, if they had been preserved, would have illustrated different passages IV. Occasion.-V. Internal state of the church at Rome. — VI. Scope.-VII. Synopsis of its contents.-VIII. Observations on this Epistle. I. THE Epistle to the Romans, though fifth in order of time, is placed first of all the apostolical letters, either from the pre-eminence of Rome, as being the mistress of the world, or because it is the longest and most comprehensive of all Saint Paul's Epistles. Various years have been assigned for its date. Van Til refers it to the year 55; Langius, Bishop Pearson, Drs. Mill and Whitby, Fabricius, Reinec cius, Professor Stuart, and others, to the year 57: Baronius, Michaelis, Lord Barrington, Drs. Benson and Lardner, and Bishop Tomline to the year 58; Archbishop Usher and our Bible chronology, to the year 60; Dr. Hales to the end of 58, or the beginning of 59; and Rosenm ller to the end of the year 58. The most probable date is that which assigns this Epistle to the end of 57, or the beginning of 58; at which time Saint Paul was at Corinth, whence he was preparing to go to Jerusalem with the collections which had been made by the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia for their poor brethren in Judæa. (Rom. xv. 25-27.) The Epistle was dictated by the apostle in the Greek language' to Tertius his amanuensis (xvi. 22.), and was sent to the church at Rome, by Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea (xvi. 1.), whose journey to Rome afforded Saint Paul an opportunity of writing to the Christians in that city. That he wrote from Corinth is further evident from Romans xvi. 23. where he sends salutations from Erastus the chamberlain of Corinth (which city, we learn from 2 Tim. iv. 20. was the place of his residence), and from Gaius, who lived at Corinth (1 Cor. i. 14.), whom Saint Paul terms his host, and the host of all the Christian church there. II. That this Epistle has always been acknowledged to be a genuine and authentic production of Saint Paul, is attested not only by the ancient Syriac and Latin versions, but by the express declarations and quotations of Irenæus, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian,' Origen,10 and by all subsequent ecclesiastical writers. It was also cited or alluded to by the apostolic fathers," Barnabas,12 Clement of Rome,13 Ignatius, Polycarp,'s and by the churches of Vienna and Lyons.1 much better than all the notes of commentators and critics. SECTION III. ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 14 The genuineness of chapters xv. and xvi. has been of late years impugned by Heumann, Semler, Schott, and Eichhoru. Their arguments have been examined in detail, and most satisfactorily refuted by Professor Stuart, in his Introduction to the Epistle to the Romans, the result of whose researches proves, first, that there is no internal evidence to prove that these chapters are spurious; and secondly, that no external evidence of any considerable weight can be adduced in favour of this supposition. All the manuscripts which are of any authority (with some variety as to the position of xvi. 25-27., and with the omission of these verses in a few cases) are on the side of the genuineness of these chapters. Jerome mentions, that he knew of some manuscripts which omitted xvi. 25-27.; and Wetstein cites a Codex Latinus which also omits those verses. But in regard to all the rest of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, no authority from manuscripts, fathers, or versions, warrants us in sus 18 III. The Scriptures do not inform us at what time or by whom the Gospel was first preached at Rome. Those who assert that the church in that city was founded by Saint Pe ter, can produce no solid foundation for their opinion: for, if he had preached the Gospel there, it is not likely that such This opinion is satisfactorily vindicated at considerable length, by Dr. J. F. Flatt, in a dissertation, De tempore, quo Pauli epistola ad Romanos scripta sit (Tubingæ, 1789); reprinted in Pott's and Ruperti's Sylloge Com mentationum Theologicarum, vol. ii. pp. 54-74. Latin, but this notion is contradicted by the whole current of Christian Bellarmine and Salmeron imagined that this epistle was written in antiquity; and John Adrian Bolton, a German critic, fancied that it was I. Date, and where written.-II. Genuineness and authenticity of this Epistle; particularly of chapters XV. and XVI.— III. The church at Rome, when and by whom founded.-written in Aramaic, but he was amply refuted by Griesbach. Viser, Herm. The following remark of a late excellent writer, on the Scriptures in general, is particularly applicable to Saint Paul's Epistles.-"Difficulties Indeed there are, but the life-directing precepts they contain are suffi ciently easy; and he who reads the Scriptures with an unprejudiced mind, must be convinced, that the whole end they have in view is to lead mankind to their truest and best happiness, both here and hereafter. They inform our reason, they guide our consciences; in short, they have the words both of temporal and eternal life." Gilpin's Sermons, vol. iv. p. 335. See also Mrs. More's Essay on Saint Paul, vol. i. pp. 59-72. 2 Locke's Essay for the understanding of Saint Paul's Epistles (Works, vol. iii.), p. 275. et seq. See also Dr. Graves's Essay on the Character of the Apostles and Evangelists, pp. 146-163., for some useful remarks on the obscurity of Saint Paul's Epistles. Beo Vol. I. Part II. Chap. V. Nov. Test. pars ii. p. 354. Rosenmüller, Scholia, vol. iii. p. 359. That Greek was the original language we have already proved, supra, Vol. I. pp. 193, 194. Lardner's Works, 8vo. vol. ii. pp. 163-165.; 4to. vol. i. pp. 368, 369. 11 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. pp. 471, 472.; 4to. vol. i. p. 535. 19 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. pp. 17, 18.; 4to. vol. i. pp. 236, 257. 13 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 35.; 4to. vol. i. p. 296. 14 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 74.; 4to. vol. i. p. 318. 15 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 94.; 4to. vol. i. p. 329. 16 Ibid. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 151.; 4to. vol. i. p. 17 Stuart's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans pp. 42-60, 10 Hieronymi Comm. in Eph. iii. 5 an event would have been left unnoticed in the Acts of the Apostles, where the labours of Peter are particularly related with those of Paul, which form the chief subject of that book. Nor is it probable that the author of this Epistle should have made no reference whatever to this circumstance, if it had been true. There is still less plausibility in the opinion, that the church was planted at Rome by the joint labours of Peter and Paul, for it is evident from Romans i. 8. that Paul had never been in that city previously to his writing this Epistle. As, however, the fame of this church had reached him long before he wrote the present letter (xv. 23.), the most probable opinion is that of Dr. Benson, Michaelis, Rambach, Rosenmüller, and other critics, viz. that the Gospel was first preached there by some of those persons who heard Peter preach, and were converted at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost: for we learn from Acts ii. 10. that there were then at Jerusalem, strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes. These Roman Jews, on their return home, doubtless preached Christ to their countrymen there, and probably converted some of them: so that the church at Rome, like most of the churches in Gentile countries, was at first composed of Jews. But it was soon enlarged by converts from among the religious proselytes to Judaism, and in process of time was increased by the flowing in of the idolatrous Gentiles, who gave themselves to Christ in such numbers, that, at the time Saint Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, their conversion was much spoken of throughout the world. (i. 8.) Among the earliest messengers of the faith or promoters of its doctrines, Andronicus and Junia may be enumerated (Rom. xvi. 7.), and also Rufus, the same, perhaps, whose father assisted Jesus Christ in bearing the cross. (xvi. 13. Mark xv. 21.) IV. The occasion of writing this Epistle may easily be collected from the Epistle itself. It appears that Saint Paul, who had been made acquainted with all the circumstances of the Christians at Rome by Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. xvi. 3.), and by other Jews who had been expelled from Rome by the decree of Claudius (Acts xviii. 2.), was very desirous of seeing them, that he might impart to them some spiritual gift (Rom. i. 8-13. xv. 14. xvi. 1.); but, being prevented from visiting them, as he had proposed, in his journey into Spain, he availed himself of the opportunity that presented itself to him by the departure of Phoebe to Rome, to send them an Epistle. (Rom. xvi. 1, 2.) Finding, however, that the church was composed partly of Heathens who had embraced the Gospel, and partly of Jews, who, with many remaining prejudices, believed in Jesus as the Messiah; and finding also that many contentions arose from the Gentile converts claiming equal privileges with the Hebrew Christians (which claims the latter absolutely refused to admit unless the Gentile converts were circumcised), he wrote this Epistle to compose these differences, and to strengthen the faith of the Roman Christians against the insinuations of false teachers; being apprehensive lest his involuntary absence from Rome should be turned by the latter to the prejudice of the Gospel. V. In order fully to understand this Epistle, it is necessary that we should be acquainted with the tenets believed by those who se errors the apostle here exposes and confutes. It is clear that he wrote to persons, who had been either Gentiles or Jews, and that his grand design was to remove the prejudices entertained by both these descriptions of persons. The greater part of the GENTILES, who lived in gross ignorance, did not trouble themselves much concerning the pardon of their sins, or the salvation of their souls; and the rest believed that their virtues deserved the favour of their gods, either in this world or in the next, if there were any thing to expect after death. They also thought that their vices or sins were expiated by their virtues, especially if they were truly sorry for the crimes they had committed; for they declared a man to be innocent who repented of his fault. In order to expiate the most atrocious crimes, they had recourse to purifications and sacrifices, and sometimes offered human victims; but the wisest among them maintained that nothing was more fit to appease the Divinity than a change of life. The Jews, on the other hand, divided all mankind into three classes. The first was composed of righteous men whose righteousness exceeded their sins; the second com At this time there were great numbers of Jews at Rome. Josephus relates that their number amounted to eight thousand (Antiq. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 12.); and Dion Cassius (lib. xxxvii. c. 17.) informs us that they had obtained the privilege of living according to their own laws. prised those whose righteousness was equal to their sins; and the third contained wicked men, whose sins were more in number than their good deeds. They thought, however, that there was no person so righteous as not to stand in need of pardon: but they believed that they should obtain it by repentance, by confession of their sins, by aimsgiving, by prayer, by the afflictions which God sent them, by their purifications, sacrifices, and change of life, and above all by the solemn sacrifice which was annually offered on the great day of atonement; and if there yet remained any thing to be pardoned, every thing (they said) would be expiated by death. Further, the most zealous among the Jews entertained various erroneous opinions relative to their justification, to the election of their nation, and to the Roman government, which it is important to consider, as Saint Paul has refuted them at considerable length in this Epistle. 1. The Jews assigned three grounds of justification, by which they were delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin; viz. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs, and the cove (1.) The extraordinary piety and merit of their ancestors, nant God made with them; for the sake of which piety, as He had promised to bless their posterity, they thought that this futed by Saint Paul in the ninth chapter, where he shows that covenant obliged Him to forgive their sins. This error is conGod's promises were made only to the faithful descendants of Abraham; and in the latter part of the fifth chapter, which con firms his assertion in chapter iii. 29, 30. that God was alike the God of the Jews and Gentiles; and that the covenant, broken by their common father Adam, should be restored to both by the common Head of the new covenant, Jesus Christ. : (2.) Their knowledge of God through the law of God, ana their diligence in the study of that law which they estimated so highly as to make it a plea for the remission of their sins. In opposition to this notion, Saint Paul proves, in the second chapter, that man is justified, not by the knowledge, but by the observance of the law. (3.) The works of the Levitical law, which were to expiate sin, especially circumcision and sacrifices; whence the Jews inferred that the Gentiles must receive the whole law of Moses, in order to be justified and saved, in other words, that there was no salvation out of the Jewish church. In opposition to this erroneous tenet, Saint Paul teaches that the Levitical law does not expiate, but only reveals sin; and that it exemplifies on the sacrificed beasts the punishment due to the sinner. (iii. 20. v. 20.) 2. The doctrine of the Jews concerning election was, that as God had promised Abraham that he would bless his seed, that He would give it not only the true spiritual blessing, but also the land of Canaan, and that he would suffer it to dwell there in prosperity, and consider it as his church upon earth; therefore this blessing extended it to their whole na tion. They asserted that God was bound to fulfil these promises to every Jew, because he was a descendant of Abraham, whether he were righteous or wicked, faithful or unbe lieving. They even believed that a prophet ought not to pronounce against their nation the prophecies with which he was inspired, but was bound to resist the will of God, by praying, like Moses, that his name might be expunged from the book of life. These Jewish errors illustrate that very difficult chapter (the ninth), and show that the question dis cussed by Saint Paul, relative to predestination and election, is totally different from that debated by Christians since the fourth century, and which now unhappily divides the Christian world. 3. It is well known that the Pharisees, at least those who were of the party of Judas the Gaulonite or Galilæan, che rished the most rooted aversion to foreign magistrates; and from a false interpretation of Deut. xvii. 15., thought it unlawful to pay tribute to, or to acknowledge, the Roman emperor. Expecting a Messiah who would establish a tem poral kingdom, and liberate them from the dominion of the Romans, they were ripe for rebellion, and at all times ready to throw off the yoke. Even the Jews at Rome had already begun to create disturbances which occasioned the edict of Claudius, that all Jews should depart from Rome;1 and as, 3 ⚫ Compare Matt. xxii. 15-22. with Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. E was a maxim with the Jews that the world was given to the Israelites; that they should have the supreme rule every where, and that the Gentiles should be their vassals. Josephus de Bell, Jud. lib. vii. c. 31. Suetonius in Vespasiano, c. 4 Tacitus, Hist. lib. ij. c. 5. • Acts xviii. 2. Suetonius in Claudiano, c. 25. |