ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE ROMANS. BY THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. & LL.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 4 AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. VOL. I. LONINKLIJKE DIBLIONTIMEX GRAVENHAGE GLASGOW: WILLIAM COLLINS, 155, INGRAM STREET. OLIVER & BOYD, W. WHYTE & CO., & W. OLIPHANT & SON, EDINBURGH; HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO., & SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., LONDON. ADVERTISEMENT. A SERIES of pulpit discourses on the obvious subject-matter of Scripture, is of a different character, from those critical and expository works, the object of which is to fix and ascertain the meaning-even of the more obscure and controverted, as well as of the clearest passages. The following is a record of the Sabbath preparations of many years back— now given without change or improvement to the world; and the appearance of which in their present state is very much owing to the frequently expressed desire of my old hearers, to have the Lectures which I delivered on the Epistle to the Romans, set before them in a more permanent form. It may account for the long delay of their publication, that I had hoped to bestow upon them, the usual elaboration which such compositions undergo, in their passage from the pulpit to the press. But the growing multiplicity of my engagements obliges me to relinquish this hope; and despairing, as I now do, of being able to condense or remodel these writings, either at present or afterwards, when they will fall to be absorbed in the general series of my works now in the course of publication, I commit them to the world as they are, with their numerous literary imperfections -satisfied if, through the divine blessing, they shall be found to strengthen the faith or minister to the comfort and instruction of Christian readers. LECTURES ON THE ROMANS. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. It is possible to conceive the face of our world overspread with a thick and midnight darkness, and without so much as a particle of light to alleviate it, from any one quarter of the firmament around us. In this case, it were of no avail to the people who live in it, that all of them were in possession of sound and perfect eyes. The organ of sight may be entire, and yet nothing be seen from the total absence of external light among the objects on every side of us. Or in other words, to bring about the perception of that which is without, it is not enough that we have the power of vision among men; but, in addition to this, there must be a visibility in the trees, and the houses, and the mountains, and the living creatures, which are now in the ordinary discernment of men. But, on the other hand, we may reverse the supposition. We may conceive an entire luminousness to be extended over the face of naturewhile the faculty of sight was wanting among all B |