Believe, then, O Gentile converts, that the happy day will at last arrive, when Jews and Gentiles will all rejoice together in Christ's universal church. For, as ye did not formerly believe in God, but have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so have these also now not believed, that, through your mercy, they also may obtain mercy. Even their rejection of the gospel has been the means of blessing you: how much more will your reception of the gospel be the means of blessing them? Sunk, as ye once were, in ignorant unbelief of the true God, ye received the mercy of Christ's salvation through that preaching, which was addressed to you because they would not hear it. Their turn to receive the mercy of Christ's salvation from you is yet to come. And surely their blessings will not be the result of your apostasy, as yours were of their unbelief. God forbid but rather of your mercy! They will behold your Christian happiness. They will contrast the blessedness of your faith with the wretchedness of their own faithlessness. Their obstinacy will at last give way. They will no longer endure to be excluded from the heavenly kingdom of light and love. And

a Here are two cases presented to us by the apostle, parallel in some respects, but differing in others. The Jews reject the gospel, and so occasion its being preached to the Gentiles, who thus become believers. The Gentiles, by the blessings bestowed on them in consequence of their faith, provoke the Jews to jealousy, and so occasion their seeking to be restored to the favour of God. The parallelism consists in this-that each party

occasions the coming of the blessings of Christ's salvation to the other. The difference is, that the Jews occasion the salvation of the Gentiles by their unbelief, which drives, as it were, the gospel from themselves to the heathen; whereas the Gentiles occasion the salvation

of the Jews by their belief, which provokes them to jealousy and leads them to seek after the evident privileges of the gospel.

so, uniting themselves with you in the catholic church of the Saviour, they will acknowledge, with one glad voice, that through your mercy they have obtained

mercy.

upon

And then will be manifested more clearly than ever the surpassing goodness of our gracious God. Then, when all shall meet together in the one common salvation, will it be seen that, throughout the whole course of time, the dealings of God with our sinful race have always contemplated its final recovery and happiness. He concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy all. He knew that men would never understand the exceeding sinfulness of their sin, unless they were made to feel its evil power. He knew that they would never accept or value the delivering gospel, till first they had groaned under the terrible bondage, from which he sought to set them free. And therefore, in his wisdom and in his love, he delayed, from age to age, the advent of the Saviour, permitting, by that delay, the germ of sin to be developed, and to become manifest in the whole race, and so giving all men over, for a time, to the dark misery of their own unbelief, in order that he might have mercy upon them all by the communication of that gracious message of redemp

r Compare with this passage v. 20, 21 of this epistle, where a similar sentiment is expressed.

Some of the ancient writers of the church, speaking illustratively on the subject of the late appearance of Christ on the earth, have compared sin to a fever, to which the physician does not administer his antidotes till it has reached a

certain height. In like manner, they tell us that, as the tree is permitted to attain its full growth, and to spread forth all its branches and leaves before it is felled, so was it also with the sin of the world. When it had reached the height of its evil, the Redeemer appeared and struck the mortal blow.

tion, which they, and they only, will embrace, who feel their sins to be a sore burden, too heavy for themselves to bear.

330 the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his dispensations, and how past finding out are his ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor ? 35 Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid to him? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things! To him be glory for ever. Amen.

The apostle has now fully declared his mind to the Roman Christians on the grand scheme of Christ's salvation, as it stands related, in its comprehensiveness, to all the members of the great human family. But he cannot conclude without expressing, in a most animated exclamation, his heartfelt sense of the magnitude of that Divine love and wisdom, which originated and will finally complete the amazing plan for the recovery of our race to happiness and peace.s

S

'The subject of the second half its happiness and peace, forces of the chapter was God's love, first from the apostle an animated exalluring Israel, which, as it would clamation. With that terminates not hear, was suffered to fall; then the historical corollary of the docturning Israel's fall into the riches trinal part of the epistle; and a of the Gentiles, and so introducing worthy conclusion it is. It is clear, the heathen into God's kingdom, from the connexion, that these using that as a further means for words are merely the expression of enticing the Jews, and incorporating adoring wonder at the magnitude that nation likewise into the great of the divine compassion; and, acspiritual community of the church. cordingly, they cannot be applied, This magnitude of the divine wis- as is done by Augustine and others, dom and love, which, in such various to put to silence the man who ways, seek admisssion into the denies the unconditional withholdproud heart of man, with the viewing of the grace of God.'-Thol. of bringing it to the knowledge of

And certainly nothing could be conceived more calculated to awaken in the mind the feelings of astonishment and admiration, than the prophetic announcement of the gospel's universal triumph in the apostle's revelation of the future. Even now, after all the conquests which Christianity has already achieved, it requires a strong effort of faith to enable us to realize the spiritual subjection of the whole world to Christ:t but, when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, the unlikeliness of such a glorious termination of its history was extreme. The great majority of the Jews had rejected the gospel. The masses of the Gentile population had been as yet but slightly affected by it. It was no wonder, then, that, when the apostle was enabled, with heaven-enlightened eye, to penetrate beyond the thick darkness which hung over the infant church, and behold it in the full-grown majesty of its completed manhood, he should burst forth into a triumphal song of admiring praise.

It is, of course, impossible to make a calculation, which shall even approach to perfect accuracy, of the comparative numbers of mankind with respect to their various religious professions. For, in the first place, there are many countries (China, for example,) of which the actual population cannot be calculated with any exactness. And, secondly, in some countries the population is very rapidly increasing. And, thirdly, there is often such an intermixture of persons of different religions, that it is impossible to ascertain accurately their comparative numbers.

But it is computed, by those

who have made careful inquiries, that of about 980 millions, which is supposed to be the total population of the globe, about 600 millions are pagans. Of the remaining 380 millions, about four millions is supposed to be the number of the unconverted Jews, and 96 millions that of the Mahometans. Accordingly, the professed Christians are supposed to amount to 280 millions. Of these, the members of the church of Rome are computed at 160 millions, of the various Protestant churches at 68 millions, and of the members of the Greek and other churches, which were never subject to that of Rome, at 52 millions.

O the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and the knowledge of God."

God's love, and God's wisdom and knowledge, appeared to the apostle to be pre-eminently manifested in the commencement, progress, and final victory of the church of Christ. There was a depth in them which he felt himself utterly unable to fathom. He regarded with adoring amazement the profundity of that Divine affection for the fallen race of man, which, in mere compassion for rebellious sinners, could originate, and, in spite of scorn and thanklessness, could perseveringly carry on, from generation to generation, the wonderful scheme of human redemption: nor did he marvel less at the wondrous operation of the Divine wisdom and knowledge, which could first overrule

" Our English translators, considering copias and yvwoews as dependent upon Bálog λoúrov, have rendered the passage as follows: 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' But, in such a version, the very attribute of God is wanting, which, from the context, we must expect to be mentioned before all others--the attribute of compassionate love. I much prefer, therefore, to make πλоúrov co-ordinate with oopias and yvwoɛws, and to understand λoúrov to mean the riches of divine love.

In Eph. iii. 8, and in Phil. iv. 19, the apostle evidently uses the word Tλouros to signify the riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus. And, as Olshausen well observes, there is involved in the very idea of love an intimation of its overflowing, rich character, which establishes a natural connexion between love and spiritual riches.

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▾ If the apostle intended, in this place, to make any accurate distinction of meaning between wisdom (oopías) and knowledge (yvwoɛwc), we may understand the former to refer to that practical wisdom, by which God, in the most marvellous manner, first brings good out of evil, by making Jewish unbelief subservient to the promotion of Gentile happiness, and then makes use of the mercy bestowed on the Gentiles to accomplish the salvation of the Jews; and the latter to signify the boundlessness of the Divine theoretical knowledge of the nature of all things, according to which the blessed final consequences of the apparent confusion of good and evil were clearly and accurately foreseen.

See 1 Cor. xii. 8, where a marked distinction must have existed between the two words in the apostle's mind.