here injustice fornication, Topvela, every species of uncleanness: wickedness, movngia, appears to signify mischievous craft and subtilty, the kind of wickedness for which the devil is eminent, and hence called ο πονηρος, the wicked one: "' covetousness, the excessive desire to have, either to spend or to hoard, and the gratification of the passion by appropriating the goods of others to their own use: maliciousness, Kаkia, an implacable and revengeful habit of mind: full, μeolos, another strong word to show how completely these evils had possession of their hearts, and how mature and rife they were in society: debate, egidos, strife: deceit, doxov, craft: malignity, maliciousness before mentioned, and kakoŋdeias, more properly signifies putting the worst construction upon any thing, and so being the more readily excited to acts of violence and revenge: whisperers, secret insinuators of calumny: backbiters, those who openly calumniate when the injured party is absent: haters of God, Koppe and others render "hated by God," which sense the word admits; but this is scarcely a description of character; whereas in proportion as men become vicious, their hatred of God and true religion becomes conspicuous, they are hated for their very purity despiteful, vßpiolas, insolent in words and deeds: proud, treating with haughty contempt all those supposed to be beneath them: boasters, arrogating to themselves and their country the most honourable qualities, and ascribing their good fortune to their own merits inventors of evil things, of new sins or modes of sinning, especially of unlawful pleasures, so that by some of their sensualists rewards were offered for the discovery of a new pleasure: disobedient to parents, to which there would be, from the mere force

of natural instinct, many exceptions; but in every age, and among every people so corrupt in morals, this must have been the effect to a frightful extent: without understanding, aσvvelo, a word which has cost interpreters some trouble, because deficiency of understanding cannot be well reckoned among the vices; but there is no need to run into strained meanings of the word, since, in its obvious signification, it is sufficiently expressive of the intention of the apostle. A want of understanding, that is, of discernment and prudence, is one of the uniform and most marked effects of an entire abandonment to vicious habits; the judgment becomes inattentive to the nature and consequences of things, darkened and perverted on all moral subjects, so that " darkness is put for light and light for darkness, good for evil and evil for good:" this is not a misfortune, but an awfully vicious state of mind, and characteristic therefore of the moral state of these enormous offendCovenant-breakers: without natural affection, where we may suppose he alludes to the exposure of infants, the frequent brutal treatment of near relations whom they were bound to cherish, and the neglect of parents in their old age: implacable, aσñoνdos is one who refuses to join in those libations which were the tokens of peace and friendship; hence it signifies one who will enter into no agreement, who refuses to lay aside his quarrels, but maintains perpetual enmity with those who have offended him: unmerciful, remorseless, without pity; which was sufficiently proved by the sanguinary charac ter of their wars, their slaughter of human beings for sport in their forums, and the reckless barbarities they inflicted upon their slaves.

ers.

Verse 32. The judgment of God.-God's

judicial decision as contained in his law. This law was never entirely obliterated among them; and therefore they are said to know the judgment, тo dikaiwμa, of God, which doomed to death all committing such things. Nevertheless, in defiance of the threat, they not only practised them, but took delight in them that did so; each being recommended to the other by the very excess of his vices, so that not only was there no effort made to stay this downward course of corruption, but it was encouraged by the example and influence of all ranks.

narrow a ground on which to build an argument in favour of the universal necessity of the gospel. Certainly the apostle must be allowed to assume, that forgetting God, and setting up idolatries and superstitions, are crimes every where, and in all ages, and such as produce overt acts of immorality. And this is indisputable; so that the argument of the apostle as to the actual guilt and judicial danger of the Gentile world cannot be impaired by alleging that he only looked at the state of society in his own day. That is doubtless true; but he refers to it only as an obvious and mature manifestation of the effect of the departure of mankind from God. The same idolatries are traceable, by veritable history, up at least to near the time of Abraham, to the nations of Canaan, Egypt, Chaldea, &c. They mingle themselves with the highest antiquity, and exhibit themselves in similar immoralities, though varying in degree as to the grossest of them, in different ages. And if we contemplate the subsequent history of idolatry, wherever this rejection of the knowledge of the true God, and the introduction of false worship, has prevailed,—and it has prevailed UNIVERSALLY, except where it has been displaced by the gospel,—there it has originated nothing but vice, mental and sensual; and therefore it has placed all men every where under wrath, the dikaiwμa, or sentence of God, of which the apostle speaks, and thus the argument as a universal one is established. The Greeks and Romans were under condemnation for these vices; these vices both comprehended and sprung from the sin of rejecting the knowledge of God, and the truths necessarily connected with it but the Gentiles of every age, and everywhere, were proved, by the universal prevalence of idolatry, to have departed from God in like manner; they had therefore placed themselves under the polluting influence of the same errors, exhibited the same

The question which arises out of this description of the corrupt state of the Gentiles, is, For what purpose is it introduced? It could not be to give information to the Roman Christians themselves, who lived in the midst of all the abominations referred to, and were too well acquainted with the manner of their city; nor was the design to give information to future times, by an historical record of the manners of the age. The apostle does not write historically; and he knew well that in both Greek and Roman authors all these evils had been dwelt upon too fully and too frequently for the memory of them to be lost. This view of the pagan world is a part of his great argument. He lays it down that the gospel is a divine provision for man's salvation; that every sinful man needs it, because "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men;" and that the whole Gentile world needed it, because they were all actually offenders, (of which the state of morals amongst them was a universal proof,) and as such worthy of death. This is the connexion of this black catalogue of pagan immoralities with his argument. But it may be said, that the actual vices of the age when the apostle lived, an age confessedly of great degeneracy, could only prove the need of the people of that day of this saving institution; which is too

general character of vice, were in the same condemnation, objects of the same "revealed wrath of God;" and to them therefore the gospel was both absolutely necessary as a dispensation of grace and mercy, and worthy of all acceptation from its evidence, suitableness, and glorious sufficiency.

CHAPTER II. Verse 1. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, &c.-The majority of commentators, ancient and modern, consider these words addressed to the Jews, as distinguished from the Gentiles. Certainly the discourse in the subsequent verses is expressly addressed to them; and the transition is best fixed here, although the Jews are not mentioned by name. That he now turns to his own countrymen, is also made clear, from his founding his address upon that severity of judgment against the Gentiles, in which we know that they indulged: Thou art inexcusable, O man, that judgest, pronouncest censure and condemnation upon the Gentiles. For not only was the phrase, “sinners of the Gentiles," continually in the haughty lips of that self-righteous people, but they regarded all the Gentiles as liable to eternal punishment. The judging of which the apostle speaks does not agree so well to the Gentiles; for it implies much more than the reproofs of moralists, the lash of satirists, and the occasional restraints put upon many vices by magistrates. They judged in the sense of condemning, as the context will show; they loudly and openly, among themselves, spoke of them

as obnoxious to the wrath of God, both in this and another life. In this view dio, wherefore, must be considered as merely marking, not a conclusion from what precedes, but a transition to another but yet cognate branch of the argument; for it was equally necessary, in laying down the claims of the gospel to universal acceptance, that the sinfulness and danger of the Jews should also be established.

Thou condemnest thyself.-The apostle gives great spirit to the discourse by singling out an individual Jew, and addressing him personally, as the representative of the rest. In the very act of judging or condemning another, Top ETEPOV, the other, the Gentile, thou condemnest thyself, thou declarest thyself also liable to the future wrath of God, for thou doest the same things. The immoralities of the Jews the apostle does not attempt to prove. This is important to mark, in or der to ascertain the connexion of what follows. He knew that they could not deny very gross corruption of manners, not generally to the same extent as the Gentiles; but all the pagan immoralities were more or less known among them, and all the ordinary vices, mental and sensual, of unrenewed nature. He does not deny the existence of virtuous persons either among Jews or Gentiles; but he speaks of the mass as practically sinful, which was a matter of notoriety, and in fact proves every thing; for it needs nothing more being granted than that the majority of men in all ages have been corrupt, to prove that this necessarily implies the fall of human nature itself,

and the corruption, in the largest sense, of THE HUMAN HEART. What of real virtue there was among Jews or Gentiles is to be traced to another source, of which we shall just now speak.

Although, however, St. Paul charges the Jews with practical sinfulness as well as the Gentiles, and by not stopping to offer any proof indicates that they neither could nor were disposed to deny the charge, he effected little by establishing that fact to convince them of the necessity and value of the gospel, considered as a divinely instituted means of salvation, so long as they believed that, notwithstanding their offences, they were on account of their privileges religiously safe. This indeed was the current and generally received doctrine; and it is the key to the meaning of the verses that follow. It was their fatal delusion, as it has been that of professed Christians in later times; and therefore the apostle assails it in the most solemn and powerful manner.

Verses 2, 3. The judgment of God, &c.The sentence of God in his law, whether the moral law as it existed from the beginning, or as preserved more exactly among the Jews, and which all acknowledge to connect punishment with sin, is, we know, we all agree, according to truth; that is, the threatenings of God are seriously uttered, as well as his promises; they are not words without meaning, but TRUE declarations of the purposes of the Lawgiver. Those who render "according to justice," or are without partiality miss the point. The Jews acknowledged the faithfulness and truth of God in his law; and, having conceded that, the apostle avails himself of it to bring the convinc

ing question which follows to bear upon their consciences. And thinkest thou this, O man, that condemnest another, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God,-this very judgment or sentence which thou acknowledgest, by contending for the divine authority of the law, to be according to truth; to be declared with perfect sincerity, as by "the God of truth?”

Verse 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness? &c.-Here the apostle goes to the root of the error: the Jews drew this false hope of impunity, and complete exception from the threatenings of the law, from the goodness of God to them as a people. We see this delusion opened in the discourse of John the Baptist. He preached repentance for their sins, and enforced it by setting before them “the wrath to come ;" and, knowing that they would steel their hearts against his exhortations, and hide their danger from themselves by referring to their peculiar national covenant, he cries out, "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father," &c. The doctrine which, in that age, they endeavoured corruptly to maintain and diffuse was, that no Israelite could be finally lost. Thus they encouraged themselves in sin and hardness of heart. This St. Paul calls despising the riches of his goodness. This is in his favourite but peculiar way of expressing himself. Of a similar use of the term riches, to mark exuberance and abundance in the strongest sense, his epistles afford many examples, and show the manner in which he was impressed with the benevolent character of God, and how well he comprehended the mighty

import of its manifestation in his dispensations of grace, whether under the law or the gospel. The riches of the goodness of God, as to the Jews, to which he refers, comprehends all those religious advantages, as well as other benefits, they had derived from their peculiar relation to him, by virtue of the covenant with Abraham; but with the apostle they were all connected with their true end, their salvation. It was in this that the riches of the goodness of God consisted, that provision had been specially made among them for the obtaining of pardon, the sanctifying influences of grace, and a title to the heavenly inheritance; they had therefore express moral instruction, a system of authorized propitiations, a typical service, and promises of a resurrection unto eternal life. To these eminent proofs of goodness, he adds forbearance, avoxn, enduring much disobedience, rebellion, and perverseness, before he issues his threatening, and declares his determination to punish. Longsuffering differs from forbearance in this, that it seems to have respect to the delay of the threatened punishment, so as to show reluctance to execute it, and to give opportunities of repentance. Of this the Jewish history had many affecting examples and whilst the apostle wrote, the nation was indeed under sentence, the sentence passed by our Lord himself; yet had it been singularly delayed, and the space filled with calls to repentance and overtures of reconciliation. To make therefore this goodness of God, as expressing itself in the gift of superior religious advantages, and in long bearing with their offences, so as not to be hasty to deprive them of them, an argument for continuing to sin against God, under the pretence that his very kindness showed that he made them exceptions from his displeasure, was a manifest despising of the goodness of God, which is the import of the word καταφρονειν ; for as the whole proceeded from unworthy notions of

:

God's goodness, as though it could be a weak favouritism, and connive at sin in particular persons and nations, that glorious attribute was in THE EFFECT contemned and despised; it had an unworthy motive assigned to it, which heightened the offences themselves it was resorted to

to excuse.

Not knowing that the goodness of God, &c.-Not to know, is here, as in many places, not to consider, so as to attain and be suitably impressed with the truth, that the goodness of God leadeth, aye, draws and allures, thee to repentance. Whatever displays of the benevolence of God take place as to sinners have a moral design, which is surely not to encourage them in their rebellion, but to lead them to repentance, by placing before them the gracious character of God, and affecting their hearts by it; for by this their sins are at once shown to be unnatural, and odiously ungrateful, and the hope of clemency is indicated, without which there can be no such repentance as springs from any nobler affection than fear. The judgments of God appeal to the fears; the goodness of God to gratitude, and hope, and selfabhorrence; and is intended to soften the heart, and to produce contrition, real sorrow and shame for sin, and strong desires to be delivered from the degradation of its pollution, as well as the terror of its punishment. Such was the use which the Jews ought to have made of the goodness of God; but they abused it, to lull their consciences to sleep, as do antinomians, under a notion of their being the peculiar favourites of God; and those who attach an unscriptural importance to the sacraments of the Christian church, as though they placed them in some mystical covenant-relation to God, scarcely by any means to be forfeited, although their lives should be spent in the practice of vice, and the habit of their affections be that of a worldly estrangement from God, do the same thing.

Verse 5. But after thy hardness and im