'First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is in the mouths of all. For God whom I serve with my whole heart, in the business that He has committed to me of forwarding His Son's gospel, can testify that I never cease to make mention of you in all my prayers— making request, if it now be possible in any way, that I may at length, after unlooked for delay, have with His will a prosperous journey to you at Rome. For I long to see you, that I may in person and as a sign of my apostleship, impart to you some gift of the Holy Ghost, in order to confirm your minds in the faith of this gospel. Or rather, that I may be comforted, as well as you be confirmed, by the exercises and the sympathies of our mutual faith. Now you must know, brethren, that it has been long my purpose to come to you, but have hitherto been prevented, that I might have some effects of my ministry among you also, even as among the other nations where I have laboured. I have not yet visited the seat of philosophy, nor come into contact with its refined and literary people. But I count myself as much bound to declare the gospel to Greeks, or to men of Attic cultivation and acquirement, as to rude and ignorant barbarians-as much to the

learned in this

world's wisdom, as to the unlearned.

So that, as

far as it lies with me, I am quite in readiness to preach the gospel even to you who are at Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christand, in the work of declaring it, am as ready to face the contempt and the self-sufficiency of science, as to go round with it among those more docile and

acquiescing tribes of our species, who have less of fancied wisdom in themselves with which to confront it. For it is the power of God unto the salvation of all who believe. It is that, which, however judged and despised as a weak instrument by the men of this world, it is that to which He, by His power, gives effect for the recovery of that life which all men had forfeited and lost by sin-and which can only be restored by a righteousness which will do away the whole effect of this sin. Whosoever believeth in the gospel shall be saved, by having this life rendered back to him, whether he be Jew or Greek. For the gospel makes known the righteousness appointed by God-a righteousness by faith, and which is unto all who have faith-as it is written that the righteous, and those only are so who have that righteousness which God will accept, have it unto spiritual life here and unto eternal life hereafter by faith.'

It will not be our general practice to embarrass you with many interpretations of the same passage; and we do it at present, only for the purpose of ushering in the following observation. There do occur a few ambiguous phrases in Scripture; and this is quite consistent with such a state of revelation there, as that the great and essential truths which are unto salvation shall stand as clearly and as legibly on the face of the evangelical record, as if written with a sun-beam. And whereas there may enter into your minds a feeling of insecurity, when you behold men of scholarship at variance about the meaning of one of those doubtful expressions, we call you to remark how much the contro

versy between them, is, in many instances, restricted merely to what the subject of the expression is, and not to what the doctrine of the Bible is upon that subject. Thus controversialists may all be at one about the scriptural doctrine on every given topic, though they may not be at one as to the question—what is the topic which in this particular clause is here adverted to. The first class of interpreters, about the meaning of the ambiguous phrase in the 17th verse of this chapter, may think that it relates to the doctrine of our justification being wholly of faith; and that it retains this as its alone footing, throughout the whole course of an advanced Christian, as he makes progress both in faith and in the works of righteousness; and they may not think that it relates to the topic assigned, either by the second or third class of interpreters; and yet they may be entirely at one with both, in the judgment and understanding they have on each of the topics-concurring with the second in the general truth that a frequent and established way for the propagation of faith in the world, is by its passing from him who speaks to him who listens, and who in the act of listening becomes a believer-and concurring also with the third in their general principle, that the righteousness appointed by God for a sinner to appear in His presence, is constituted, not by working but by believing, and that it is transferred as a possession unto all who believe. They, one and all of them, may have the same mind upon the same topics-because shone upon in the same way, by the light of many other express and undoubted

testimonies about these topics, which lie up and down in the Bible; and the only question of disputation between them may be, which of these particular topics happens to be the theme of the apostle in the passage before us-a very subordinate question, you will observe, to that more vital and essential one, which relates to the meaning of an article of faith a question about which there may be varieties of sentiment among men, who are substantially at one in all that relates to the doctrines of Christianity. And we think that it ought to quell your apprehensions, and to reduce the estimate you may have previously made of those controversies among good men, which some would represent as quite endless and inextricable, when you are thus made to understand, that, in a very great number of cases they refer, not to what the whole amount of the Bible testimony is about this one or that other portion of the theological creed— but to what the position is which is specially taken up or adverted to in some of the incidental or subordinate passages. There is nothing to alarm or to unsettle in those lesser diversities which we are now alluding to. Nay it ought rather to establish your confidence, when you see that these diversities are held by the very men who hold the great principles of Christianity in common-by men who, in thus dissenting from each other on particular passages, evince that to each of them there belongs the habit of independent thinking-and who thus stamp the value of so many distinct and independent testimonies, on those great doctrines which they have received from the light of many

passages, and by which they are united in the profession of one Faith and one Lord and one Baptism.

A controversy about the doctrine of a particular passage is one thing. A controversy about the truth of a particular doctrine is another.

The one

implies a difference of understanding, about the sense of one passage. The other may imply a difference of understanding, about the general voice and testimony of Scripture as made up of many passages.

Let us now pass on from our exposition of the meaning of words, to our application of the matter that is conveyed by them. And here we have only time to advert to the affection and the strenuousness with which the apostolic mind of Paul gave itself up to apostolic business-how he rebukes by his example those who make the work of winning souls to Christ a light and superficial concernhow his whole man seems to have been engrossed by it-making it a matter of gratitude when he heard of its prosperity-making it a matter of prayer when he desired its furtherance-making it a matter of active personal exertion when it required his presence or his labour. To this work he gave himself wholly; and, by adding prayer to the ministry of the word, teaches us how much the effect of this ministry is due to those special influences, which are called down from Heaven by the urgency of special applications sent up from believers in the world. There is one trait of his mind, which frequently breaks out in his communiIcations with his own converts. He is sometimes