The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 419

1 liw, ~-<' shall lir<' also." 3. We d.etiend upon tlie Lo,-d's continual intercession. In bis intt'l\.'ession i~ ,,ur hope and assurance of nnswered prayor. 4. We depend upon fhf L<'r-;t~ ('()flfi11ttro !l'.'ff{; to V&. The Lord's day; the ,vord of tho Lord; the Lord's lh'll~; t h<' L.mi's Suppt>r ;-how much our spiritnal life is dependent upon these preoious ble.ssings pr,w:ided for us by our Lord and Master I "Whether we live therefore, or iie, we are the Lord's." 5. This dependence upon <Jhrist b,-ings with it corresponding obligatwm;. "Ye &re not your own, for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify 8'.~ in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. vi. 20), II. THE CHRISTIAN's INDEPENDENCE. The independence of the Christian is the rorre!atire of his dependence. He is dependent upon Christ, and therefore he is: 1, I11depen<km ef ~ circumst.moes. "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." And again, "We are troubled on every side, yet not d.is- tres.<.ed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." Eren death can bring no alarm to those who can say, "We are the Lord's;" for Christ is the Conqueror of death. 2. Independent ef human cn:ti,ci.sm.. "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which e.ateth not judge him that eateth: for God bath received him" (ver. 3); "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he ste.ndeth or fe.lleth" (ver. 4); "Let every man be folly persuaded in his own mind" (ver, 5). Here the apostle asserts the great principle of liberty of conscience, and inculcates the great duty of charity and toleration. Alas! how often the principle and the duty have been fonrotten in the Christian Church! Christian men have excommunicated one another a.no treated one another as enemies because they differed on some minor detail of doctrine, of government, or of worship. Even the Protestant Churches, and Protestant Christians, one of whose distinctive principles is liberty of conscience, have sometimes failed to extend to others that toleration which they claim for themselves. "God a.lone is Lord of the conscience," says the Westminster Confession of Faith, "and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men."-C. H. L Ver. 7.-The i:nfluence of OIJf' lives wpcm others. "None of us liveth to himself." The apostle, as we have seen, was here enforcing certain Christian duties, and he strengthened his exhortation by reminding his readers that they were not their own, but Christ's. But the words a.re capable of a wider application. L THE Ih"'FLUENCE WHICH Oh"'E llAl'I MAY EXERCISE FOR GOOD. Many who would like to do good a.re sometimes disposed to say, "What Ulle can I be in the world? What influence can my life have upon others? What good can I do to others? I am too young. I am too humble. I have no intellectual gifts. I have no opportunities such as some people have of exercising influence upon others." This is to underestimate the influence of the individual life. Whether wo a.re conscious of it or not, the life of each of us, whether we are rich or poor, learned or unlearned, young or old, is exercising some influence upon others. It is not necessary that we should know another in order to exercise an influence upon him. Thousands of men are influenced by persons whom they never saw. The Reformation began at Cambridge University very early in the si.x.teenth century by Bilney, a solitary student, reading a Greek Testament with Latin translation and notes, which Erasmus had published. Bilney had never seen Erasmus, but the quiet work of Erasmus was the means of bringing Bilney to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. Bilney, again, influenced Latimer, who was one of the fathers of the English Reformation, and who suffered martyrdom for the truth. Thus the Reformation in England may be largely traced to the quiet work of Erasmus as he sat at his desk., and used his vast learning and intellect to make the Word of God more familiar to the people of his time. A young American student, more than seventy years ago, happenea to read a. printed sermon which had fallen into hie bands. 'l'be sermon was entitled " The Star in the East," by Dr. Claudius Buchanan, and described the progrel!I! of the gospel in India., and the evidence t~ere afforded of its Divine pow:er, That sermon. by a. man whom he had never s~n, fell mto the young student's soul h~e a spark into tinder, and in six l!lonths _Adonuam Judson resolv_ed to become a m1s- sion.e.ry to the heathen. That little pnn~ ser~on, prea.cb~d ~n England, perhaps, with no a.ppa.rent fruit, became, through Gods blessrng, the begrnnmg of the great work of American foreign missions. You may not be an Eraspiue or a Claucliue J3ucbanaQ, on. xiv. 1-28.J THE EPISTLE OJ," PAUL TO THE ROMANS. U7