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THE
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
MAF 3 1 1S2S
THE GREAT T OF THE BIBLE
^
EDITED BY THE REV.
JAMES 4iASTINGS, D.D.
EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE'
"THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND
"THE ENCYCLOPiGDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS "
ROMANS (Compjetion)
NEW YORK
CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS
EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK
1911
CONTENTS
TOPICS.
PAQH
Another Good Reckoning ...,,. 1
An Expectant Creation
25
The Saving Grace op Hope .
49
How to Pray as we Ought
69
Love's Prosperity
87
The Inclusive Gii?T
105
No Case ....
121
An Inseparable Love .
137
Anathema prom Christ .
167
The Heart and the Mouth
187
The Body for God
, 201
In Fashion or in Favour
. 225
Business .
247
Outward, Inward, CnRisiWAiiD
, 273
For the Battle .
. 299
The Polemics of Christianity.
. 323
Debt
. 341
Love and the Law
. 361
Ready for the Dawning
. 381
Eternally the Lord's .
397
Our Accountability
. 415
A Definition of the Kingdom
433
The Privilege op the Strong
,
. 453
vii
Vlll
CONTENTS
TEXTS.
EOMANS.
VIII. VIII. VIII. VIII. VIII. VIII. VIII. VIII. IX. X.
XII.
XII.
XII.
XII.
XII.
XII. XIII. XIII. XIII. XIV. XIV. XIV.
XV.
18 .
19 . 24,25 26 . 28 . 32 . 33,34 38,39 3 .
10 .
1 .
2 .
11 (AV)
11 .
12 . 21 . 8
10 . 12 . 7-9 12 . 17 .
rASB
3
27 61 71 89 107 123 139 169 189 203 227 249 275 301 325 343 363 383 399 417 435 455
Another Good Reckoning.
ROMANS — 1
Literature.
Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, iii. 374.
Cox (S.), The Rouse and its Builders, 110.
Ferguson (F.), Sermons, 37.
French. (E, A.), God's Message through Modern Doubt, 28.
Gregg (J.), The Life of Faith, 218.
Hatch (E.), Memorials, 123.
Hickey (F. P.), ShoH Sermons, 2nd Ser., 130.
Maurice (F. D.), Sermons preached in Country Churches, 342.
Perinchief (0.), in American Pulpit of the Day, 3rd Ser., 294.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vi. 161.
Purchase (E. J.), The Pathway of the Tempted, 93.
Scott (M.), Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, 160.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iii. No. 407.
Vaughan (J. S.), Earth to Heaven, 115.
Wace (H.), in Sermons for the People, v. 130.
Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 316 (Ground) ; Ivi. 369 (Campbell) ; Ixxiv. 346 (Marshall).
Church Pulpit Year Book, iii. (1906), 155.
Churchman's Pulpit : Fourth Sunday after Trinity, x. 190 (French), 192 (Cutting).
Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xiii. 155 (Proctor).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st Ser., vi. 48 (Maurice).
Another Good Reckoning.
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com- pared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward. — Rom. viii. i8.
1. The Bible never speaks despondingly about the future. If it has a becoming sense of the magnitude of the task of life, that is only the reverence of a great artist, nerving himself to accomplish some far-reaching design. The struggle and the stress are prophecies that the final consummation will be something greater than heart has conceived. Apostles and prophets alike, quick- ened by the spirit of inspiration, look across the ages to the last result, and never hesitate to declare that that result will amply compensate for all the toil and suffering. " I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward."
2. " I reckon," says the Apostle, as if he had deliberately weighed the one against the other, and had come to this con- clusion, " I reckon that the sufferings of this present conflict are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in and upon us." In the groans of Nature, the groans of Humanity, the groans of the Spirit of God within us, he detects tones which prove them to be groans of travail, of the birth- pangs which precede and foretell the advent of a new, purer, happier life ; and he declares that, when this wondrous birth of time arrives, all groaning and pain shall be forgotten in the joy of the new better man, the new better humanity, that has come into the world. And, finally, rising into a dithyrambic fervour, he sings of the Divine fatherly Love which is ever at work for our redemption, as a Love from which nothing can separate us — neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, neither famine nor nakedness, peril nor sword, in the present age, nor angels, nor
4 ANOTHER GOOD RECKONING
principalities, nor powers, nor any other and new creation into which we may pass in the ages to come.
^ The Apostle does not say, " I know," for this might imply that he had fully experienced or realized both the sufferings and the glory. At the time of which he speaks he had not done this. He had not drained to the bottom the cup of earthly sorrow, and he had but tasted the cup of heavenly joy. But neither does he say, " I think or conjecture that the suffering is not worthy to be weighed with the glory " ; for this would imply less than he had realized. Although he knew not the whole, he knew a great deal of the suffering, and not a little of the glory too. If " I know " would have been too strong, " I think " would have been too weak. " I reckon " is the language of faith, which is partly knowledge and partly anticipation; which accepts its present experience: which neither stands still upon the earth, content with the bare facts of life or husk of things, nor stares vaguely into heaven in mere passive expectation ; but it is a pilgrimage between earth and heaven. Faith is the journey of the soul between the realized and the unrealized. It is ever leaving the actual behind and reaching forth to the ideal — never satisfied until it finds in the ideal the Eternal Eeal.^