In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins;' 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin;' 'My blood is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins,' said our Lord himself to his apostles. From these and many other expressions of like import, it should seem that the blood of Christ had some direct and proper efficacy to expiate the guilt of men, independent of any remote effect upon their actions. In the second clause, the resurrection of Christ is connected with our justification, in the same manner as in the first clause his death is connected with our sins; as our Lord's death was, in the plan of providence, the consequence of our sins, so, by the same plan of providence, his resurrection was the consequence of our justification. It follows, therefore, that our justification is a thing totally distinct from the final salvation of the godly; it is some part of the wonderful business of redemption, which was to be finished before our Lord, consistently with the plan of his great undertaking, could rise from the dead. Christ died as the proxy of guilty man; as he died not for any delinquency of his own, there was nothing to detain him in the grave, when once the atonement for our sins was made, and the justice of our offended God was satisfied; so soon as the expiation was complete, justice required that the Redeemer's sufferings should terminate, and his resurrection to life and glory was the immediate consequence. Our justification is quite a distinct thing from the final absolution of good men in the general judgment; every man's final doom will depend upon the diligence which he uses, in the present life, to improve under the means and motives of improvement which the Gospel furnishes-our justification is the grace in which we now stand' it is that general act of mercy which was previously necessary on the part of God, to render the attainment of salvation possible by those who had once been wilfully rebellious, and to the last continue liable to the surprises of temptation. This act of mercy is the immediate benefit of Christ's death; it hath no respect to any merits of the individual to whom it is applied; its very foundation is that all are concluded under sin; it embraces all without distinction, and is procured by the sole merit of our Lord's atonement. If the purpose of the

Redeemer's death was to procure this mercy, it is evident, that when he had endured what was necessary to procure it, the purpose of his death was answered, and his resurrection could not but ensue." This view of the passage, which is strengthened by the authority of Barrow and of Pearson, I have adopted for the following reasons: first, because the apostle appears to have had Isaiah liii. present to his mind when writing this passage. Now the prophet there announces, that the exaltation and triumph of Messiah should follow close upon the sufferings by which he made atonement for our transgressions, and should be the reward of those sufferings,

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and of that atonement. "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge (the knowledge of him) shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (or as it is in the Greek, was delivered for their transgressions"). Bishop Lowth's translation differs a little from this, but equally shows that our Lord's sufferings should be rewarded with honour and triumph; the glory not only follows immediately on the suffering, but follows in the way of direct consequence. "He shall prolong his days," is a promise of his resurrection; the atonement made on Calvary was so complete, that justice, having no further claim on the victim, released him without his seeing corruption; "he shall see his seed, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand," is a prediction of the salvation of many sinners, as the result of Christ's work. In the second place, that our justification, so far as depended on our Lord, was antecedent to his resurrection, is implied in these words of St. Paul, “God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us; much more then now that we have been justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him" (chap. v. 8, 9). Paul says to the Corinthian church, "If Christ be not risen, vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. xv. 17), that is, ye have not been justified, divine justice has not been satisfied by his sufferings and death. Lastly, our blessed Lord himself, after assuring his disciples (John xvi. 8-10) that the Spirit whom he should send would convince the world of the three leading doctrines of the Gospel, namely, the sinfulness of man, the remedy provided for sin in the justification which he was then about to accomplish, and the judgment which awaited those who should reject that great salvation, adds, as the evidence which should be afforded that the justification wrought by him had been accepted, the fact of his return to the Father, that is, of his rising from the dead, and resuming the glory which he had before the world was made-ελεγξει τον κοσμον περι ἁμαρτιας και περι δικαιοσυνης και περι κρίσεως. περι δικαιοσυνης ότι προς τον πατερα ὑπαγω, και ουκ ετι θεωρειτε με. And thus, also, St. Paul, when he says that Jesus" was raised from the dead because of our justification," means that our Lord, having fully satisfied the claims of divine justice on our behalf, could no longer be detained in the prison of the grave, and that by his triumph over death he demonstrated the completeness of the work of our redemption.

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Thirdly, St. your faith is

CHAP. V.

Verse 1.-Nearly all the ancient MSS. read exwμev here instead of Exoμev. Chrysostom, who seems to have received that reading without suspicion, explains the passage thus:—ἵνα μη τις νομιση ραθυμιας ὑποθεσιν ειναι τα λεγομενα φησιν ειρηνην εχωμεν, τουτ' εστι μηκετι ἁμαρτανωμεν μηδε προς τα προτερα επανερχωμεθα, τουτο γαρ εστιν πολεμον εχειν προς τον Θεον. "Lest any one should think that his statements" (in support of justification by faith, without the works of the law) "afford a ground for sloth, the apostle says, 'let us have peace,' that is, let us sin no more, nor return to our former conversation, for that would be to have war with God." But neither this, nor any other interpretation of which the subjunctive mood is susceptible, can be made to harmonise with the adjoining context. I can account for the remarkable concurrence of MSS. in support of exwuev only by supposing that κavywμela, in verses 2, 3, was mistaken for the subjunctive mood, and exoμev changed to accord with it. joicing in tribulation" is a state of Christian grace, the attainment of which is so difficult, that it might be thought that young converts would rather be exhorted to aspire to it as the noblest triumph of faith, than be reminded of it as matter of present experience.

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“We have peace.” παιδεια ειρηνης ἡμων επ' αυτον (Isaiah liii. 5). "The chastisement by which our peace is effected was laid upon him" (see Eph. ii. 13-16; Col. i. 20).

Verse 2.-EσTηкаμev suggests the idea of a condition that is stable and

secure.

Verses 3 to 5.-The apostle's train of thought assumes the form of a logical sorites; for similar constructions see chap. viii. 29, 30; x. 13–18; Hosea ii. 21, 22; Joel i. 4. ουκ ειπε δεδοται, αλλ' εκκεχυται, το δαψιλες εμφαίνων.-Chrysostom. "The apostle did not say has been given,' but has been 'shed abroad,' to show the rich abundance of the gift" (Acts ii. 17; Joel ii. 28). "The Spirit was given at the day of Pentecost once for all to mankind, as a whole, but it is not, therefore, shed abroad in every individual; for this the personal appropriation of the work of Christ is first needed. The addition of Tov dobεvтos μv expresses the possibility which is provided for every one of receiving the Holy Spirit poured forth into his heart."-Olshausen.

Verses 6 to 10.-In these verses the apostle uses three terms descriptive of our alienation from God, each rising above the preceding, to mark more

forcibly the obstacles which the strong love of Christ surmounted on our behalf-aσeßwv, "ungodly," negatively wicked; åμaprwλwv, “sinners,” positively wicked; expo, "enemies," hating God and goodness (as in Demosthenes de Corona-παμπονηρος ανθρωπος και θεοις εχθρος). The psalmist describes the gradations of wickedness by a like succession of terms (Psalm i. 1), where, in place of expo, the LXX. have λouwv, "pestilent men," a term not less expressive.

Verses 9, 10-" Evidently express the same truth, yet there is a distinction between δικαιωθεντες and καταλλαγεντες; 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 that takes place in the heart of the sinner towards God. ownσqμeda refers to the final result of present justification and reconciliation, namely, eternal salvation."-Bishop Terrot. There is a double reconciliation to be effected before our salvation can be complete, a reconciliation of God to man, and a reconciliation of man to God; the former has been effected by the atonement made to divine justice upon the altar of the cross (see note on verse 1); it remains for us to be reconciled to God-to put away that enmity against him which dwells in the natural heart, and which the contemplation of God's love, manifested in Christ, can alone, by divine grace, enable us to overcome (see 2 Cor. v. 18-21). Mr. Alford maintains that expoɩ, in verse 10, can only be taken as passive, "hated by God," "because," as he says, "the apostle is speaking of the death of Christ, and its effects, as applied to all time, not merely to those believers who then lived;" but the same persons who are here called ex@pol, are, in verse 8, termed άuaρTwλot, which surely implies active enmity to God, and it was of the apostle himself and his contemporaries the words were written, although they are applicable to believers in every age.

Verse 11.- που μονον εσωθημεν φησιν αλλα και καυχωμεθα δι' αυτο τουτο δι ̓ ὁ νομίζει τις ἡμας εγκαλύπτεσθαι. Chrysostom. “ Not only have we been saved, says the apostle, but we even exult on account of that for which one might think that we should hide our heads in shame," scil., the death of our Lord upon the cross. St. Paul uses καυχωμενοι, scil., εσμεν, for κavywμela, perhaps as more expressive of an abiding state. It is a form of expression of frequent occurrence in the LXX. (see note, chap. xii. 9, Appendix).

Verse 12.-και ovтws., "and so," that is, because of the connexion of sin and death.

ep', followed by an infinitive, or by a future indicative, signifies "on condition that;" but this meaning will not apply here. Of the various meanings that have been assigned to the expression, none satisfies the exigencies of the context so well as "for that," "because," or 66 ' inasmuch as," which appears to be its meaning, also, in each of the other passages of St. Paul's epistles in which it occurs, although, in some of them, perhaps, not wholly free from uncertainty (see 2 Cor. v. 4; Phil. iii. 12; iv. 10; see also Acts iii. 16). It seems a palpable absurdity to say, that a man sinned, or did any act before he was called into existence; but Augustine, and other able and pious divines, translating e'&" in whom" (a meaning for which no authority can be adduced), maintain that all men sinned in Adam. Olshausen, who adopts this paradox, tries to support it by the following strange argument :-" The question, how in Adam all who were not yet in existence could sin with him, has difficulty in it, only so long as the isolation of individuals is maintained; if this be given up, all takes a simple form, and in Adam every one of his descendants sinned with him; just as in the act of one man, all his members and every drop of blood cooperate; and in an army, not the general only conquers or is defeated, but every warrior of the host conquers or is conquered with him." What he means by "giving up the isolation of individuals" does not appear, but it is perfectly clear that no analogy exists between the relation which the soldiers of an army bear to the general who directs their movements, or a man's members to his directing mind, and that which the non-existent posterity of Adam bore to their progenitor at the moment of his sin.

Verse 16.-The ellipses in this verse may be thus supplied—ovx' ús (TO κριμα το) δι ̓ ἑνος ἁμαρτήσαντος (όντως εστι) το δωρημα; and, again, after εξ ένος, supply παραπτωματος εγενετο, words which are suggested by the

context.

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Verse 17.- λaμßavovтes must be understood in an active sense; they that accept the proffered grace;" as in Matt. xii. 20—ỏ tov λoyov ακουων και μετα χαρας λαμβανων αυτον—and in John i. 12—ὅσοι δε ελαβον αυτον.

Verse 18.-The ellipses in this verse may be supplied thus-os dɩ évos παραπτώματος (το κριμα ηλθεν) εις παντας. . . . . δυτω και δι ἑνος δικαιωματος (το χαρισμα ηλθεν εις παντας. The most eminent theologians of the Romish church have been perplexed by this passage, standing, as it does, in clear contradiction to their theory of justification, which they hold to imply not only remission of sins, and acceptance with God, but also the

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