Romans 10

10. With the heart man believeth.** Not with the brain but with the heart—with that kind of faith in which love is a larger element than intellect, and trust is more than assent. This is the faith that completes the whole work of regeneration. It carries penitence deeper down among the springs of feeling. It heightens the blush of shame at living a selfish and worldly life, because it is so alien to the disinterested and devout temper of the Master. It makes the new life a reality, because it founds it in the deepest motives. It changes the whole inner man. It works by love. It enters the invisible, and dwells in the secret tabernacle of a most holy joy. F. D. H.—It is the heart which fixes itself entirely on the love that shines forth in the work of redemption; cleaves without distraction to the sacrifice of the adorable victim; lets the natural impression of that unparalleled love penetrate freely, and develop itself gradually, in its interior. Quickly then are the veils torn away, and the shadows dissipated for ever! How little difficulty does he that loves find in comprehending love! How natural to him does it appear that God, infinite in all things, should be infinite also in his compassion! How inconceivable to him, on the other hand, that human hearts should not be capable of feeling the beauty of a work, without which God could not manifest himself entire! How astonished is he at the blindness of those who read and reread the Scriptures without comprehending the central truth; who pass and repass before a love all divine without recognizing or even perceiving a work all divine! A. V.—Whatever else it has or lacks, the soul, to be saved, must obey an honest purpose. Pretense and falsehood must be stripped off it. It must believe with the affections, heartily. With the heart man believeth unto salvation, before confession is made with the mouth. Get the conviction, which is the fountain, and it will furrow out a channel, and fill it with a stream. Get the new life, the love of God, and it will shape a body as the juices in the germ shape the tree. F. D. H.

With the mouth confession is made. The terms of Christian communion are the terms of salvation, and no church has a right to require more for its communion than Christ does for entrance into heaven. C. H.—The things necessary to be believed are reduced in Christ’s Church to the smallest possible number and the simplest possible terms. It can not be God’s intention, after planting his kingdom on earth by the costly sacrifices of redemption, to keep men out of it by intellectual difficulties. He asks you to believe in him, a living, divine Saviour, and in the personal and historical facts of his mediation, with a very few of the more comprehensive truths closely related to his person, his ministry, and its consequences. Whatever is beyond these is doctrine not essential to membership, or to beginning, but may be learned in the discipline, and by doing the will, afterward. Religion belongs in the heartbeat of a man’s affections and the breath of his daily desire. But when the heart has taken it in it will not lock it there and make it a prisoner. It must go abroad again, for the blessing of man and the praise of God. It will put its owner into the Church, not to show himself, but that he may the better become one with his brethren, and with their common head. F. D. H.

12. For the same Lord who is over all mankind, the Lord Messiah, is rich, full of benefits, and ready to communicate them to all, whether Jews or Gentiles, who, believing on him, call upon him, give him divine homage, acknowledge his Lordship by praying to him.** And this is confirmed by another Messianic prophesy (Joel 2 : 32). J. B.—There is a beautiful conception of the character of God involved in the use of the word “rich” in this connection. For he is said to be rich, not in respect of what he has, but of what he bestows. Used of men, the word indicates one to whom much has accrued; but it is used here of God to designate one from whom infinite wealth of blessing accrues to the sons of men. It is for us he is rich; his wealth is ours; we have a marvelous and inexhaustible treasury in him. He is rich unto all that call upon him. They call, and he answers by communications of his wealth. Let us entertain no contracted view of the fullness of blessing that dwelleth in our reconciled God! Let us neither exclude ourselves nor others. G. B.

14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 and how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet

16 of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they 17 have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and 19 their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I 20 will anger you. But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me 21 not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All 1 day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture 3 saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my 4 life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thou- 5 sand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present 6 time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no 7 more grace: otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that 8 which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (ac- cording as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should 9 not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them: 10 let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. 11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through 12 their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gen- tiles; how much more their fulness?

CHRISTIAN people are Christ’s instruments for effecting the realization of the purposes of his death. Not without them shall the preaching be fully known. Not without the people willing in the day of his power, and clothed in priestly beauty, shall the Priest King set his feet upon his enemies. Neither the divine decree, nor the expansive power of the truth, nor the crowned expectancy of the waiting Lord, nor the mighty working of the Comforter, are the complete means for the accomplishment of the divine promise, that all nations shall be blessed in him. He has willed that we should make known the unsearchable riches of Christ. God reveals his truth, that men who believe it may impart it. God gives the word, that, caught up by those who receive it into an honest and good heart, it may be poured forth in mighty chorus from the lips of the “great company of them that publish it.” Christian men! learn your high vocation and your solemn responsibilities. For what did you receive the word of God? For the same reason for which you have received everything else which you possess—that you might share it with your brethren. How did you receive it? A gift, unmerited, that you might feel bound to spread the free divine gift by cheerful human work of distribution. From whom did you receive it? From Christ, who in the very act of giving binds you to live for him and not for yourselves, and to mold your lives after the pattern of his. A. M.

14,15. Seriously reflect how bound up with the very vitals of the true faith is the notion of its diffusion—how therefore they have totally misread Christianity, have misapprehended its rudimentary principles, have probably never received it at all except in speculation, who can acquiesce in an easy, self-indulgent life, without effort in any single shape for its propagation. Let them remember that the one great business of the era is the dissemination of God’s truth—that, in one form or other, whether by alms and prayers only or by personal exertions, this business must be carried on by all professing the name of Christ—and that all other works in which man is engaged are only valuable as subordinate agencies, helping more or less remotely toward the end, carrying on that system of things which will result in the establishment of God’s kingdom. E. M. G.

What we need for the renovation of the human family is the spread of that life-giving doctrine which we find in the Scriptures, and which challenges the abject and the wretched, universally and unex-ceptively, as the heirs of immortality, and as individually embraced in the intention of the gospel.

It follows from this doctrine that men, even the vilest, are no more to be contemned, for the Almighty does not contemn them; they are no longer to be forgotten, or despotically abused, or selfishly despaired of, for the Son of God has redeemed them. On the contrary, they must now singly, and at whatever cost, be sought out, instructed, cared for, and succored. I. T.

Man is lost, and the Son of God is seeking him; man is lost, and the Son of God is come to save him; man is lost, and the Church is commissioned to go forth in the might of faith and prayer to his salvation. To save the lost! We talk of it, as children talk of the affairs of empires; we see through a glass darkly; our conceptions are low and limited. To save the lost! Tell us, ye damned spirits, what it means. Tell us, Son of God, what it means; what stirred thy soul in godlike compassion to seek the lost? Tell us, ye ransomed and ye faithful spirits who never sinned—tell us, eternity—what is this mighty work of gospel missions? Tell us, O Father, tell thy churches; tell thy ministers; until every slumberer awake, every energy be aroused, and the way of life be pointed out to a perishing race! Kirk.

19. The passage referred to (Deut. 32 : 21) stands in a wonderful chapter, containing an epitome of the anticipated history of the Israelites, from the times of Moses down to “the latter days”—predicting that God would, for the punishment of their sins, withdraw from them the special favors he had bestowed and confer them upon those who had been destitute of them—“the foolish,” the idolatrous—thus making those the objects of their jealousy and envy who had previously been contemned and hated. This threatening was fulfilled when the great body of the Jews, having rejected the promised Messiah, were disowned by God, and when he “visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.” Such was the state of things when the apostle wrote. J. B.

1. Paul, though the apostle of the Gentiles, never cast off his care for his brethren, and always expressed himself on that subject with the warmest affection; and he alone, of all the writers in the New Testament, hath spoken clearly of the restoration of the Jews: he earnestly wishes for that happy day, and saw it afar off, and was glad. G. T.

2-12. This illustrious race, to which pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, the ordinance of the law, divine service, and the promises; this race, from which Christ is descended, is not destined to be for ever among the nations a deplorable monument of the divine anger. After having seen its diminution, the world will see its fullness. If their diminishing, says the apostle, is our riches, what will their fullness be? When the fullness of Israel shall have returned to the fold, will not Israel again be a prophetic people? Will not the accomplishment of this promise be to itself as a testimony of the divine faithfulness, an admonitor to all nations, and a powerful call upon all to faith and obedience; and will not this people, as marvelous in its restoration as in its fall, be again, and more than ever, a powerful leaven to leaven the mass of humanity? In every case, its fullness will be our joy and consolation. A. V.—The fullness of the Jews is the fullness of blessing which shall belong to them when they return to God and embrace his Messiah. The conversion of the Jews will, directly or indirectly, do more for the advantage of the Gentiles than their unbelief has done. J. B.

It was to the Jew the Redeemer came as the Saviour; it was to him those words of life and love had been originally spoken; it was in his villages and cities he had wrought such unparalleled exhibitions of superangelic power in healing thousands of his diseased and dying; it was for him, at first, that incarnate Son had been revealed in his all-perfect life; in his hands were those Holy Scriptures; they described the suffering and the all-glorious Messiah; and it was his rejection of this Christ that culminated in the cry, “Crucify him.” From that hour he reaped as he had sown; murder, assassination, intestine war, open revolt, marched through the land, and flooded his cities with blood. Peace, quiet, he knew no more. He ripened in every attribute of evil, until the legions of Rome trod him down beneath their iron heel; the temple lay in ruins, and the remnant of the people, escaped from the edge of the sword, were sent forth as the monuments of divine wrath to fulfill his prophetic words in their dispersion over the earth. To-day men point to the Jew as prophecy fulfilled; to-day this fated and trodden people exist—exist, after eighteen centuries of plague and war, and racks and fire, and disabilities—exist still, distinct from all nations. They have drunk the cup even to its dregs, but there is to dawn—is dawning—a brighter day, the day of the fuller gathering in of the Gentiles, when this long-cursed people shall come forth, no more to shout, “Crucify him,” but with a penitent heart and streaming eyes, to cry, “My Lord and my God.” The past is seen is known; the Messiah they have longed and hoped for is he, the crucified one; and when this fact dawns upon them, then to him shall the gathering of the people be. Hasten, O Lord, that hour of gladness; that hour when Jew and Gentile, no longer Jew and Gentile, shall with one voice crown Jesus as their king. S. W. F.