SUCH is the fpirit of the context. "I fay the truth in Chrift, I lie not, my confcience alfo bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heavinels and continual forrow in my heart.-For I could wish that myself were accurfed from Chrift, for my brethren, my kinfmen according to the flesh.

THE depreffing occafion of his grief, was the infidelity and obduracy of his nation-that they refused to hearken to reafon and evidence-were refolved to reject the only Savior; and the evils temporal and eternal, which he forefaw their tem per and conduct would bring upon them-therefore his " great heavinefs and continual forrow." In the text-I could wish that myself were accurf ed from Chrift, for my brethren, my kinfmen according to the flesh, the apoftle hath been thought to imprecate evil on himself for the benefit of his people! All the expofitors we have seen on this paffage, conceive him to have wifhed fome fore calamity to himself for the advantage of his nation! Though they have differed relpecting the magni. tude of the evil which he wished to fuffer for their fake.

DOCT. DODDRIDGE confiders him, as "wifhing to be made a curfe for them, as Chrift hath been made a curse for us, that fo they might be delivered from the guilt which they had brought on themselves, and be entitled to the bleffings of the rejected gospel.

DOCT. S. CLARK views him, as defirous of fuffering the calamities to which his people were doomed for rejecting and crucifying the Savior,

fo that, could they all centre in one perfon, he wifhed to be the perfon, that he might thereby procure falvation for them !"

GROTIUS and Pool understand him, as "wifh. ing to be separated from the church of Chrift for the fake of the Jews!" Which differs little from Doct. Hunter's fenfe of the paffage-to which Doct. Guyle adds, "a defire of every indignity from man, and to be cut off from communion with Chrift, for the fake of Ifrael;" whom he ftrangely confiders as prejudiced againft Chriftian. ity, in confequence of their prejudices against Paul !

BUT why fhould the apoftle wifh evil to himfelf for their fakes? What poffible advantage could his fufferings have been to his nation? Is it poffible that thofe learned expofitors fhould conceive that pains and penalties inflicted on him could have made atonement for their fins, and expiated their guilt! They muft never have read Paul's epiftles, or never have entered into the fpirit of them, who could entertain fuch views as thefe ; or even suspect that aught, fave the blood of Christ, can atone for human guilt. It is ftrange, therefore, that they could have imagined that he wifhed to fuffer with this view. And it is no lefs fo, that it should be thought that prejudices against Paul could have occafioned Jewish prejudices against Christianity, when it is fo evident that their prejudices against Paul were wholly occafioned by his attachment to Chriftianity-he having been high in their esteem till he became a Chriftian.

P

DAVID once afked to fuffer in Ifrael's ftead; but the circumftances of the cafe were then totally different from, thofe of the cafe now before us. Ifrael were fuffering for his fin in numbering the people; not for any particular fin of their own"I have finned and done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me."-But Paul had not finned, to bring evil on his people-the guilt was all their own.

EXPOSITORS having miftaken Mofes' prayer "to be blotted out of God's book," feem generally to have had that prayer in their eye when they have attempted to explain the text; and fuppofing that Mofes prayed to be made a facrifice for Ifrael, have thought that Paul had the fame fpirit, and here followed his example! But that neither of them ever entertained the thought of fuffering to expiate the fin of their people, and that the two paffages bear no kind of relation to each other, we conceive indubitably certain.

Bur let us confider the text and judge for ourfelves of its meaning.

PERHAPS the difficulties which have perplexed it, may have chiefly arifen from the tranflation. The filence of expofitors on this head, while puzzled with the paffage, is ftrange, if the difficulty might have been obviated by attending to the original. The tranflation is plaufible folely from this confideration.

MR. POOL is the only expofitor we have ever feen, who hath noted the difference between the

tranflation and the original; and he labors hard to bring them together, but, in our apprehenfion, labors in vain.

THE paffage literally tranflated ftands thusFor I myself boafted that I was a curfe from Chrift, above my brethren, my kinfmen according to the fl-fh.*

He

If we confider the context, and the part which had been formerly acted by the apostle, it will not be difficult to ascertain his meaning, nor ftrange that he fhould express himself as in the text. begins the chapter with ftrong expreffions of concern for his nation, who had rejected him "whose name alone is given under heaven," for the falvaΗχομην γαρ αύλος εγω αναθεμα είναι απο του Χρίστου υπερ των αδέλφων μου συ/γενων μου κατα σαρκα.

*

Huxouny, rendered in the tranflation by, I could wish, forms in the imperfect of the indicative mood, in the Attic dialect. Mr. Pool was too accurate a scholar not to obferve the difagreement of the tranflation with the original. "Some read it as in the indicative; but it is generally confidered as in the optative, and altered by a figure which takes an iota from the middle, and cuts off an ax from the end of the word forming Ηχομην, in ftead of ευχοίμην αν.” BUT what warrant have we for thefe alterations? They only ferve to darken a difficult text.

THE moft natural and common conftruction of exquat, from which muxon derives, is, to glory, or boaft. Gloriar is the first word used to exprefs the meaning of it in Schrevelius' Lexicon; and the meaning uxos, the theme of this verb juftifies the conftruction, in preference to that used by the tranflators. And the Greek prepofition TTEp, which is rendered for, is often used to fignify above, or more than.

FOR the juftice of the above criticifms we appeal to the learned. If they are juft, our fenfe of the text will be admitted.

+ Vid. Pool in lac.

tion of men.

If they continued to neglect the grace offered them in the gofpel, he knew that they could not escape. And when he looked on them and mourned over them, the dangers which a few years before had hung over himself, rose up before him. He had been an unbeliever, a blas phemer, and a perfecutor of the church of Chrift; had boasted his enmity to Chrift and oppofition to the gofpel; in which he had even exceeded the body of his nation-he had taken the lead against Christianity-been unrivalled in zeal against the cause, and rancour against the followers of the Lamb. When warned of his danger, and admonished to confider what would be his portion, should Jefus prove to be the Meffias, he feems to have derided the friendly warnings, and imprecated on himself the vengeance of the Nazerene !-to have defied him to do his worst! to pour his curfe upon him!

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Ir is not ftrange that witneffing the temper of his nation, fhould call these things to his remembrance that the confideration fhould affect himthat he should fhudder at the profpect of the defruction which hung over them, and at the recoltection of that from which himself had been fcarcely faved"-that he fhould exclaim, "God and my conscience witness my great heaviness and continual forrow, when I look on my breth. ren the Jews, and confider the ruin coming upon them, from which I have been faved, "fo as by fire!" Lately I was even more the enemy of Chrift than they, and boafted greater enmity a