the Jew? Much every waya." Proceeding afterwards to shew that the law could not justify any man, and fearing that he might on that account be thought an enemy to the law, he removes all ground for that suspicion ; " Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the lawb." Comparing afterwards his connexion with the law to the state of a woman that has lost her husband, who is therefore at liberty to be married to another ; and observing, that sin took occasion from the law itself to bring forth fruit unto death ; he guards them against imagining that he meant thereby to cast any reflection upon the law, as though it was itself sinful ; " What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid0." Having yet further, in the prosecution of his argument, asserted, that the incapacity of the law to save men was the reason of God's sending his own Son to save them, he (after some enlargement on this subject) appeals to God in the most solemn manner, that, instead of speaking these things from any ill will to his Jewish brethren, he " could wish himself even accursed from Christ for them," if by that means they might be saved d. Thus also, in the passage before us, having shewn that the Gentiles were admitted into the Church and made partakers of salvation, while the Jews were cast out, he assures them that nothing could be more adverse to his wishes than this awful dispensation ; " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
The same caution would we also use in ministering to you the Gospel of Christ. We are of necessity obliged to declare to you many unwelcome truths : but God knoweth, that our only motive in declaring them is, to benefit and save your souls ; and that, while that is the object of our public ministrations, it is also the frequent subject of our secret prayers.
Let us, in elucidating our text, consider,
a Rom. ii. 28, 29. with iii. 1,2. b Rom. iii. 28. with 31.
c Rom. vii. 1 — 0. with 7. u Rom. viii. 3. with ix, I — 5.