Read some vivid picture of Roman life, and think of this. See it as it is shown by Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial; or as modern hands, Becker's or Farrar's, have restored it from their materials. What a deadly air for the regenerate soul--deadly not only in its vice, but in its magnificence, and in its thought! But nothing is deadly to the Lord Jesus Christ. The soul's regeneration means not only new ideas and likings, but an eternal Presence, the indwelling of the Life itself. That Life could live at Rome; and therefore "_God's beloved ones in Rome_" could live there also, while it was His will they should be there. The argument comes _a fortiori_ to ourselves.
=(His) called holy ones;= they were "_called_," in the sense we have seen, and now, by that effectual Voice, drawing them into Christ, they were constituted "_holy ones_," "_saints_." What does that word mean? Whatever its etymology may be,[5] its usage gives us the thought of dedication to God, connexion with Him, separation to His service, His will. _The saints_ are those who belong to Him, His personal property, for His ends. Thus it is used habitually in the Scriptures for _all Christians, supposed to be true to their name_. Not an inner circle, but all, bear the title. It is not only a glorified aristocracy, but the believing commonalty; not the stars of the eternal sky but the flowers sown by the Lord in the common field; even in such a tract of that field as "Cæsar's household" was (Phil. iv. 22).
Habitually therefore the Apostle gives the term "_saints_" to whole communities; as if baptism always gave, or sealed, saintship. In a sense it did, and does. But then, this was, and is, on the assumption of the concurrence of possession with title. The title left the individual still bound to "examine himself, whether _he was_ in the faith" (2 Cor. xiii. 5).
These happy residents at Rome are now greeted and blessed in their Father's and Saviour's Name; =Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.= "_Grace_"; what is it? Two ideas lie there together; favour and gratuity. The grace of God is His favouring will and work for us, and in us; gratuitous, utterly and to the end unearned. Put otherwise, (and with the remembrance that His great gifts are but modes of Himself, are in fact Himself in will and action,) grace is God for us, grace is God in us, sovereign, willing, kind. "_Peace_"; what is it? The holy repose within, and so around, which comes of the man's acceptance with God and abode in God; an "all is well" in the heart, and in the believer's contact with circumstances, as he rests in his Father and his Redeemer. "Peace, perfect peace"; under the sense of demerit, and amidst the crush of duties, and on the crossing currents of human joy and sorrow, and in the mystery of death; because of the God of Peace, who has made peace for us through the Cross of His Son, and is peace in us, "by the Spirit which He hath given us."
[4] Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis ut eo tempore (cir. A.D. 70) profecti Judæa rerum potirentur.--Suetonius, _Vesp._, c. 4. Tacitus (_Hist._, v. 13) says the same, and that the hope was based on the _antiqui sacerdotum libri_.
[5] The _linguistic root_ seems to point directly not to separation (as often said) but to worship, reverence.