St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Gore Charles
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Название: St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans

Автор: Gore Charles

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066396183

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СКАЧАТЬ Israel as well as, indirectly, the world at large[1]. It is thus an authoritative rebuke to Jewish self-complacency. It is as if an English preacher were to rebuke similar self-complacency in Englishmen by a collection of passages from standard English authorities, in which our nation was judged, in common with others, in a manner most humiliating to its pride. It is this, though, inasmuch as the psalmists and prophets were and are believed to have spoken under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, it is also something more.

      3. Here we find briefly stated St. Paul's apparently wholly original view of 'the law,' as given simply to enlighten the conscience by keeping men informed as to their duty, without supplying them with any moral assistance in performing it. Thus the ultimate aim of the law was to make man know his own sinfulness; to convince him that his attempted independence was a failure, and that he could not save himself; and so to prepare him to cry out for the gift of grace, and to welcome it when it was given. 'The law was given,' as St. Augustine is fond of saying, 'that grace might be sought, and grace was given that the law might be kept.' This antithesis is thoroughly after St. Paul's mind.

      This first division of our epistle gives us as a whole a great deal to think about. There are, we may say, two spiritual evils conspicuous to-day. People with consciences in any degree awakened are apt to be nervous, anxious, despondent, complaining, sullen. The second division of our epistle supplies the antidote to this error by consolidating the awakened conscience in divine peace. But there is another, and perhaps more conspicuous, spiritual evil of our day which this first division is calculated to meet—the habit of excusing oneself—the absence of the sense of sin.

      Hold thou the good: define it well:

       For fear divine philosophy

       Should push beyond her mark, and be

       Procuress to the lords of hell.

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