to the general object of this and of many of his epistles, viz. the right of the Gentiles to partake of the blessings of the gospel; endeavouring to persuade the Jewish Christians to bear with it, and even to rejoice in it.

1. By the strong, the apostle means those who were not subject to weak and unreasonable prejudices. Such persons are not to use their own full liberty, if it tends to ensnare and injure others.

3. What the apostle here quotes is an expression of David, who represents himself as suffering in the cause of God, and feeling for the injuries done to true religion. His language is here adapted to express what Christ suffered for the good of others.*

4. In this the apostle incidentally mentions the use which himself, and the Jews in general, made of the Scriptures, in applying the language of them to their own particular occasions, for the purpose of exhortation or encouragement. We should always bear in mind the original sense of any passage in the Scriptures, and not reason from them as if they had a proper and designed reference, different from what appears, from the nature of the case, to have been the true sense of the passages so quoted.

5. That is, according to the example of Jesus Christ, loving one another as he loved us.

6. We see here that all our works and duties respect the one true God; that they are what we owe to him; and also that this one true God is the same that is usually called the Father, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by no means Jesus Christ himself. Little could this.apostle have imagined that his writings could ever be thought to countenance any other doctrine. How would he have been. astonished if he had been told that, in time, both his Master and himself would become objects of worship to Christians; for the worship of dead men soon followed that of Christ. 7. That is, with love and affection.

8.§ The ministry of Christ himself was confined to Jews, that being the nation which God originally promised to take under his immediate protection, and to honour with peculiar

* See Ps. Ixix. 9. Le Clerc.

+ "That we might have the hope which the Scriptures afford." Bowyer.

God even the Father; "or the God and Father." Clarke, (S. D.) 462. Le Dieu et le père. S. Paul semble faire allusion au discours que Nôtre Seigneur tint, en parroissant à Marie. Jean xx. 17." Le Clerc.

"These words are plainly a parenthesis, and spoken with some emphasis, to restrain the Gentile converts of Rome, who, as it is plain from Ch. xiv. 3, were apt to set at nought and despise the converted Jews, for sticking to their ritual observances of meats and drinks, &c." Locke. See Le Clerc.

privileges, and on this account they are entitled to respect from all the world.

9-12. As in the last verse he reminds the Gentiles of the respect due to the Jews, he here admonishes the Jews that, according to their own scriptures, the Gentiles were to become worshippers of the true God as well as themselves; and for this purpose he quotes several passages of the Old Testament.*

None of the passages which the apostle here quotes are to be understood as signifying that the Gentiles, as such, and without circumcision, were to share in the privileges of the Jews, but they shew that the Jewish dispensation had respect, in some way or other, to all the world. It was not for their own sakes only that the Jews were so highly distinguished, but it was for the good of the whole, that some one nation, and God thought proper to make choice of this, should be made so conspicuous for the greatest purposes respecting all.

13. That is, may you rejoice in the faith and hope of that gospel which was confirmed by the gifts of the Spirit.†

15. That is, being favoured with the office of apostleship to the Gentiles.

16. The Gentile converts were sanctified, or devoted to God by the Holy Spirit, which descended upon the apostles and others in the form of fire, as victims were consecrated to God by the fire of the altar.

18. Meaning that he would confine himself within his proper province, which was to preach chiefly to the Gentiles. 21. Here the apostle adopts the language of the prophet,§ as suiting this particular case, but without the least appearance of his supposing that it had this reference originally.

24. It does not appear that this apostle ever was in Spain, notwithstanding his intention of going thither. After writ ing this epistle, he went to Jerusalem, where he was confined two years. He was then sent a prisoner to Rome, and in this state he continued there two years more. Whither

"Ps. xviii. 49; Deut. xxxii. 43; Ps. cxvii. 1; Isaiah xi. 10. "S. Paul a suivi la version des LXX." Le Clerc. See Doddridge.

"A foundation of hope to them, that they were, by believing, the children or people of God, as well as the Jews." Locke. "The endowments of the Holy Spirit were to those on whom they were graciously conferred, the earnest and pledge of immortality." Harwood, N. T. Gr. See Wakefield.

"Holiness of spirit." Wakefield. “S. Paul offroit à Dieu ceux qu'il avoit convertis comme des victimes vivantes et raisonnables. V. Ch. xii. 1." Le Clerc.

On vers. 16, 18, 19, Farmer remarks, " that the winning men over to the faith of Christ, was the design with which the miracles were performed, as well as the effect which they produced." Mir. (Ch. iii. Sect. vi.) p. 247. On vers. 13, 15, 16, see Com, and Ess. 1. p. 129.

§ See Dodson's Isaiah, (lii. 5,) p. 322.

he went upon his release we are not informed, but it is probable into the East, and soon after this he was put to death at Rome, being then perhaps on a progress westward as far as Spain.*

31. The apostle was fully apprized of the inveterate enmity which the unbelieving Jews at Jerusalem bore him, and even of his unpopularity with the believing Jews there, and at other places.

XVI. I have observed that the conclusions of most of Paul's epistles, though least valuable as to their direct use,. are highly valuable indirectly, and as an evidence for the truth of Christianity; so many particular persons and circumstances being mentioned as give them the most unsuspicious appearance of genuine epistles, and exclude all idea of forgery. Indeed, there are no epistles come down to us from ancient times that have such clear evidences of genuineness as these, and accordingly it does not appear that it was ever called in question.

If this case be considered, it will be found absolutely impossible to admit the genuineness of these epistles, that is, their having been actually written by the apostle Paul while he was engaged in preaching the gospel, in the midst of business, and so much contention, when all his motions were watched by his enemies and false friends, without admitting the truth of the facts which he mentions in them as at that time known to all, especially the miraculous gift of the Spirit, and such a reception of Christianity in that early period while the facts were recent and open to every man's examination. And the truth of these imply the truth of Christianity; that is, they necessarily lead us to conclude that they were facts admitted by those who were best qualified to examine their truth, and who had every motive for doing it with impartiality, that Christ preached the doctrines which are ascribed to him in the gospel history, that he wrought many miracles in proof of his divine mission, that he was publicly crucified, and that he actually rose from the dead; these facts, with those that are necessarily implied in them, are all that we ought to understand by Christianity.

1. Cenchrea was a sea-port to the city of Corinth. This Phœbe is supposed to have been the person who carried this epistle of Paul to Rome. In the Christian church there

VOL. XIV.

* See Acts xxviii. 30, Vol. XIII. pp. 501, 503.

S

were offices filled by women,* particularly widows. Their employment was of a secular nature, but owing probably to the scandal which in after times arose from it, it was discontinued.

2. We may perhaps infer from this circumstance that though this Phabe is called a servant of the church, she was not in indigent circumstances. Indeed, such a person cannot well be supposed to have had any business of her own that could carry her to Rome, and a woman would not have been sent as a public messenger. She was probably a person of considerable fortune, who chose to devote her time and her wealth to the service of Christianity, as many in that age did.

3. This Priscilla and her husband Aquila, are said [Acts xviii. 2] to have left Rome in consequence of an edict of Claudius, banishing all Jews from that city. Paul met them at Corinth. They were afterwards at Ephesus, and now in the reign of Nero, the edict of Claudius being no longer in force, were returned to Rome.

4. They are said to have been eminently useful to that eloquent person Apollos, whom they instructed in the gospel more fully than he had been before.‡

6. According to some MSS. it is, upon you.§

7. By kinsmen, the apostle perhaps may mean only Jews, all of whom he elsewhere calls kinsmen. Paul was fre

quently in prison, as appears in other parts of his epistle, though but little mention is made of this circumstance in the book of Acts. We see here that the term Christ is used to express Christianity, which is the case in other places:|| so that to be in Christ is the same thing as to be a convert to Christianity.

10. Aristobulus was probably a person of rank, and not a

*Deaconnesses. See N. T. 1729; Doddridge; Impr. Vers. Of whom, probably, Pliny thus speaks in his Epistle to Trajan :-"Necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis quæ ministræ dicebantur, quid esset veri et per tormenta quærere. (I judged it necessary to examine, and that by torture, two maid-servants, which were called ministers.") Lardner, VII. pp. 292, 293.

"Succourer seems here to signify hostess, not in a common inn, for there was no such thing as our inns in that country, but one whose house was the place of lodging and entertainment of those who were received by the church as their guests, and these she took care of." Locke. "A patroness of many." Le Clerc. See Grotius in Bowyer.

See Acts xviii. 26. On ver. 5, "Chrysostom says, that Aquila and Priscilla had made their house a church, by making all therein believers, and by opening it to all strangers.' Lardner, V. p. 145.

§ Wakefield. (P.)

See Gal. i. 22; 2 Cor. v. 17; Com. and Ess. I. p. 10, Note.

convert himself, but one who had in his family those who

were so.

11. Narcissus might be in the same situation with Aristobulus, having in his family those who were Christians.

13. It does not follow that the mother of this Rufus was the proper mother of Paul; but the apostle might use this term to denote the affectionate, and, as it were, motherly care which she had taken of him.

15. From the great number of persons to whom the apostle sends salutations at Rome, we see how well informed he was of the state of Christians there, and of the characters of those who composed that infant church.

It is well observed by Protestants, that, among so many salutations of Paul to the Christians at Rome, no mention is made of Peter, who, according to the Catholics, was then settled at Rome, and the proper bishop of the place, and from this it is reasonably inferred that he was not there at that time. Indeed, it is far from being probable, that he ever properly resided in that city, though, according to tradition, both he and Paul were afterwards at Rome together, and suffered martyrdom there.

16. This mode of salutation is said to have been derived from the custom of the Jews, and was given by the men apart, and the women apart, for in the synagogues the men and women always sit in separate places. Such also was probably the custom of the primitive Christians, and it is observed in many places of Christian worship at this day. This kiss of charity, as it was called, we find by early writers, was given immediately before the administration of the Lord's Supper, after the prayer which preceded it.

18. In this the apostle had probably a view to the Jewish teachers, such as had created him so much disturbance in other churches, and some of whom had embraced the Gnostic opinions. That the moral character of these persons was very indifferent, appears from other epistles of Paul, as well as from those of Peter, John and Jude. Their object was, in a great measure, popular applause and gain, and they also allowed themselves great sensual indulgence. At least this seems to have been the character of many of them. It could not be that of them all, for some of them affected great austerity; and, indeed, without something of this kind, it is not easy to account for the popularity which they acquired, and especially with such persons as the apostle could expect to have any influence with.

A noted freed-man of the emperor Claudius, was of that name. Le Clerc.