prosperous journey^ ly the will of God, to come unto you. Not merely the fact that he prayed, but the subject of his prayers, evinced his inte- rest in the Roman Christians. If by any means now at length expresses the strength of the apostle's desire to see them, and implies that it had been, as he afterwards assures them was the case, long cherished. 1 may have a prosperous journey ; this is all expressed by one word in the Greek, which means / may he prospered, see 1 Cor. 16 : 2. 3 John v. 2. The idea therefore is, " that God would order things favourably to his visiting them." By the will of God, not merely by the divine favour, but under the divine guidance.
(11) For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, &c. The desire of the apostle to visit Rome arose from no idle curiosity, nor from a mere desire of intercourse with his fellow Christians, but from a wish to be useful. Spiritual gifts are gifts of which the Holy Spirit is the author, and include not only those miraculous endowments, of which such frequent mention is made in the epistle to the Corinthians and elsewhere, but also the ordinary gifts of teaching, exhortation, and pro- phecying, enumerated in 1 Cor. 12, Gifts of the former class were communicated by laying on of the hands of the apostles, Acts 8 : 17. 19 : 6, and therefore abounded in churches founded by the apostles, 1 Cor, 1 : 7. Gal. 3:5. In this case the expression includes any and every benefit, of a religious kind, which the apostle might be the means of bestowing, comp. vs. 12, 13.
(12) That is, that I may he comforted together with you, &c. This verse is connected with the last clause of the preceding ; it does not imply that the apostle was to receive from them the same gifts that he wished to impart to them, but that he expected to be benefited by their improvement. It is designed, therefore, with singular modesty, to in- sinuate that he did not imagine himself above being improved by the Roman Christians, or that the benefit would be all on one side. He hoped to derive good from those to whom he imparted good. The word rendered to comfort, means to invite, to exhort, to instruct, to console, &c. Which of these senses is to be preferred here it is not easy to decide. Most probably the apostle intended to use the word in a wide sense, as expressing the idea that he might be excited, encouraged, and comforted by his intercourse with his Christian brethren.
(13) Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I pur- posed to come unto you, &c. In ch. 15 : 22, 23, he mentions the same fact, and says this purpose had been long entertained ; its execution was prevented by providential circumstances, or direct intimations of the divine will. In 1 Thess. 2 : 18, he tells the Thessalonians that Satan had hindered his coming to them. In Acts 16 : 6, 7, it is said that he " was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia." And in Rom. 15: 21, 22, he says his pressing calls to preach the gospel where it had not before been heard, had much hindered his going to Rome. His object in desiring to visit them was that he might have some