The transitions are as easy and natural as the contrasts are sharp. The nervous but steady movement of chs. ii., iii., iv.,
suddenly subsides with the opening of ch. v., and one can pause and bare his forehead to the sweet air ere he begins upon the new ascent from ver. 12. The first words of the eighth chapter succeed the seventh like a quiet melody given out by flute or horn after the tumultuous harmonies of the ochestra; and one is conscious of no shock in the descent from the high themes of sovereignty and grace to their applications in common life and duty.
The epistle must be grasped entire. No portion of the New Testament lends itself to more dangerous distortions of truth through fragmentary use. No one of Paul’s epistles is so dependent for its just effect upon the perception of the relation of its parts to the whole. Its logic and its feeling are inseparable. It answers the highest test of eloquence in stimulating emotion with profound thought, and in fusing thought in feeling.
But to acquire such a grasp is no easy task, especially for the English reader. It requires far more than close grammatical analysis, and adjustment of the special theological problems raised by the epistle. The letter must be studied in the light of the whole body of the Pauline writings, and with the largest possible acquaintance with the logical and rhetorical habits of the apostle. The fulness and impetuosity of his thought sometimes render him careless of its arrangement. Sugges- tions, striking into the main line of reasoning, are pursued with an eagerness and to a length which may easily divert the reader from the principal track. Possible qualifications of a truth are temporarily neglected in the concentration of thought upon a single aspect. It is not always easy to discover where the mat- ter of a parenthesis gives place to the resumption of the main thought ; sometimes indeed the parenthesis is carried on as if it were the main thought. The first member of a proposition often acquires a headway which makes him forget to offset it with its complementary member. Tis antitheses are not always evenly balanced, and one member may be literal and the other metaphorical. Certain expressions depend for their force upon word-plays which cannot be translated, and prepositions are accumulated with reference to shades of meaning which tax the utmost resources of the translator and commentator.