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human body of our Redeemer. According to,' is, in respect of.'

V. 4. "And declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead."

'Declared,' or determinately marked out to be the Son of God and with power. The thing was demonstrated by an evidence, the exhibition of which required a putting forth of power, which Paul in another place represents as a very great and strenuous exertion. "According to the working of His mighty power when He raised Him from the dead." The spirit of holiness'-or the Holy Spirit. It was through the operation of the Holy Spirit, that the divine nature was infused into the human at the birth of Jesus Christ; and the very same agent, it is remarkable, was employed in the work of the resurrection. Put to death in the flesh,' says Peter, and quickened by the Spirit.' We have only to do with the facts of the case. He was demonstrated to be the Son of God, by the power of the Spirit having been put forth in raising Him from the dead.

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V. 5. "By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name."

'Grace,' sometimes signifies the kindness which prompts a gift, and sometimes the gift itself. We say that we receive kindness from a man, when, in fact, all that we can personally and bodily lay hold of, is the fruit of his kindness. Here it signifies

the fruit-a spiritual gift―ability, in fact, to discharge the office of an apostleship, or other duties attached to an apostle's commission. He laboured with success at this vocation, because he could strive mightily according to His working that wrought in him mightily. This commission was granted to him for the purpose of producing an obedience unto the faith among all nations, for the purpose of rendering all nations obedient unto the faithand all this for the further purpose of magnifying His name.

V. 6. "

Among whom are ye also the called of

Jesus Christ."

'Called' externally-if addressing the whole church, of whom it is very possible that some may not have been called effectually. Or if restricted as in the following verse, only the latter-though he might presume to address all in visible communion with the church as beloved of God and as called to be saints.

V. 7. "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." Loving kindness to you is manifested in those peculiar influences which the Spirit confers on believers and either real peace, or a sense of it in your hearts, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So minute an exposition may not be called for afterwards: we may not therefore persevere in it long. We have now gone in detail over the words that seemed to require it, to prepare the way for

repeating the whole passage to you, either in extended or in substituted language. But before we do so, we would bid you remark a peculiarity, which we often meet with in the compositions of this apostle. He deals very much in what might be called the excursive style. One word often sugguests to him a train of digression from the main current of his argument; and a single word of that train often suggests to him another; and thus does he accumulate one subsequent clause of an episode upon a foregoing; and branches out in so many successive departures, till, after a period of indulgence in this way of it, he recalls himself and falls in again to the capital stream of his observations. The interval between the first and seventh verses may be looked to, as filled up with a set of parentheses; and they will read therefore very well in succession. 'Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, to all that be in Rome beloved of God called to be saints: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' like manner, several of the intermediate verses are capable of being omitted, without breaking the line of continuity. But the occurrence of the term Gospel at the end of the first verse, is followed up in the second by his mention of the antiquity of it, and in the third by his mention of the subject of it; and in this verse the single introduction of our Saviour's name, leads him to assert in this and the following verse His divine and human natures, and to state in the fifth verse that from Him he had received a

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commission to preach unto all nations, and to instance in the sixth verse the people whom he was addressing as one of these nations. And it is not till after he has completed this circle of deviations, but at the same time enriched the whole of its course with the effusions of a mind stored in the truths of revelation, that he resumes in the seventh that rectilineal track, by which the writer who announced himself in the first verse, sends in the seventh his Christian salutations to the correspondents whom he is addressing.

We conclude with the following paraphrase.

'Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and set apart to the work of conveying God's message of good tidings-which message He had promised before in His holy scriptures, and which message relates to His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who in respect of His human nature, was descended of David-but was evinced to be descended of God in respect of that divine nature with which the Holy Spirit impregnated His humanity at the first; and which He afterwards, by His power, still associated with His humanity, in raising Him from the dead. By this Jesus Christ. have I received the favour to be an apostle, and ability for the office of spreading obedience unto the faith among all nations for the glory of His name. Among these nations are ye Romans also the called of Jesus Christ, and to all of you in Rome, beloved of God, and called to be saints, do I wish grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.'

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LECTURE III.

ROMANS i, 8-17.

"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; making request (if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God) to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

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Ir does not require much in the way of exposition to set forth the meaning of these verses. spiritual gift, mentioned in the 11th verse, is one of those gifts by the Holy Ghost, which the apostles had it in their power to transmit to their disciples-a power which seems to have signalized them above all the Christians of that period.

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