had received it from him, that it might be preserved uncorrupt till the glorious appearance of Christ at the great day. After which, he inserts, by way of postscript, an exhortation to the rich not to be puffed up with their wealth, but to employ it in acts of charity and beneficence, that they might secure to themselves eternal life; and closes all with renewing his earnest request to Timothy to keep that gospel he had entrusted with him, and carefully to avoid those empty speculations and vain sophistries by which some had been ensnared. [verse 13, to the end of the epistle.]

The scriptures do not inform us at what time, or by whoin, the gospel was first preached in Rome, But, from the following circumstances, it is probable that the church there was one of the first planted Gentile churches, and that it soon became very numerous.

When Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans, A. D. 57, their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world, [Rom. i. 8.] and many of them possessed spiritual gifts, [Rom. xii. 6.] and their obedience was known to all men. [Rom. xvi. 19.] Further, the fame of the church at Rome had reached the apostle long before he wrote this letter. For he told them he had a desire for many years to come to them. [Rom. xv. 23.] The gospel, therefore, was introduced into Rome very early, perhaps by some of the disciples who were scattered abroad after Stephen's death, in the end of the reign of Tiberius. Or the founding of the Roman church may have happened even before that period; for among the persons who heard Peter preach on the day of Pentecost, and who were converted by him, strangers of Rome are mentioned. [Acts ii. 10, 41.] These Roman Jews, on their returu home, no doubt, preached Christ to their countrymen in the city, and probably converted some of them; so that the church of Rome, like most of the Gentile churches, began in the Jews. But it was soon enlarged by converts from among the religious proselytes; and, in process of time, was increased by the flowing in of the idolatrous Gentiles, who gave themselves to Christ in such numbers, that, at the time Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans, their conversion was much spoken of.

These facts merit attention; because the opposers of our religion represent the first Christians as below the notice of the heathen magistrates, on account of the paucity of their numbers, and the obscurity with which they practised their religious rites. But if the faith of the Roman brethren was spoken of throughout the whole empire at the time this letter was written, the disciples of Christ in Rome must have been numerous, and must have professed their religion openly; for the turning of a few obscure individuals in the city from the worship of idols, and their worshipping the true God clandestinely, could not be the subject of discourse in the provinces. Farther: that there were many Christians in Rome when Paul wrote this epistle may be inferred from the tumults occasioned by the contests which the Jews had with them about the law, and which gave rise to Claudius' decree, banishing the whole of them from Rome. [Acts xviii. 2.] The salutations, likewise, in the end of this epistle, show how numerous the brethren in Rome were at that time, some of whom were of long standing in the faith, as Andronicus and Junias, who were converted before Paul himself; others of them were teachers, as Urbanus; others were deacons and deaconesses, as Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis, all of whom were active in spreading the gospel; others were persons of station, such as the members of the family of Narcissus, if, as is commonly supposed, he was the emperor's favourite of that name. But although this should not be admitted, the saints in Cæsar's household, whose salutation, some years after this, the apostle sent to the Philippians, may have been persons of. considerable note.

The gospel being offered to the world as a revelation from God, the Jews justly

expected that it would agree in all things with the former revelations of which they were the keepers. And therefore, when they perceived that many of the doctrines taught by the apostles were contrary to the received tenets which the scribes pretended to derive from the writings of Moses and the prophets, the bulk of the nation rejected the gospel, and argued against it with the greatest vehemence of passion, in the persuasion that it was an impious heresy, inconsistent with the antient revelations, and destructive of piety.

To remove this specious cavil, the apostles, besides preaching the doctrines of the gospel as matters revealed to themselves, were at pains to shew that these doctrines were contained in the writings of Moses and the prophets; and that none of the tenets contrary to the gospel, which the Jewish doctors pretended to deduce from their own sacred writings, had any foundation there. Of these tenets, the most pernicio us was their misinterpretation of the promise to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. For the Jews, considering the moral precepts of the law of Moses as a perfect rule of duty, and its sacrifices and purifications as real atonements for sin, and believing that no man could be saved out of their church, affirmed that the blessing of the nations in Abraham's seed consisted in the conversion of the nations to Judaism by the Jews. Hence the Jewish believers, strongly impressed with these notions, taught the Gentiles, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. [Acts xv. 1.] But this doctrine, though obstinately maintained, was a gross error. The law of Moses was no rule of justification. It was a political institution, established for governing the Jews, as the subjects of God's temporal kingdom, in Canaan. And therefore the apostles, elders, and brethren, assembled in the council of Jerusalem, justly decreed that the yoke of the law was not to be imposed on the Gentiles as necessary to their salvation.

A decision so deliberately and solemnly pronounced by such an assembly, ought, among the disciples of Christ, to have silenced all disputations on the subject. Nevertheless, the converted Jews, having been accustomed to glory in their relation to God as his people, and in the privileges which they had so long enjoyed, were extremely offended when, according to the new doctrine, they found the Gentiles, under the gospel, raised to an equality with them in all religious privileges. Wherefore, disregarding the decrees which were ordained of the apostles and elders, they exhorted the Gentiles every where to become Jews if they wished to be saved. And this exhortation made the stronger impression on the Gentiles, that the Jewish worship by sacrifices, purifications, and holidays, was, in many respects, similar to their former worship. Besides, as the Jews were the only people who, before the introduction of the gospel, enjoyed the knowledge of the true God, and a revelation of his will; and as the Christian preachers themselves appealed to that revelation in proof of their doctrine, the Gentiles naturally paid a great regard to the opinion of the Jews in matters of religion, and especially to their interpretations of their antient oracles. Hence some of the Gentile converts, especially in the churches of Galatia and Phrygia, who, before their conversion, were extremely ignorant in religious matters, hearkening to the judaizing teachers, received circumcision; and thereby bound themselves to obey the law of Moses, in the persuasion that it was the only way to secure the honour of the Deity. According to this view of the matter, the controversy which, in the first turbed the Christian church, was not, as Locke supposes, whether the Gentiles in their uncircumcised state should be admitted into the church, and enjoy equal privileges with the Jews; and whether it was lawful for the Jews to hold religious communion with them while they remained uncircumcised; hut plainly whether there was any church but the Jewish in which men could be saved. For when the judaizers taught

age,

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the Gentile brethren, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved, they certainly meant that salvation could be obtained no where but in the Jewish church.

In this controversy, the unbelieving Jews, and all the judaizing Christians, ranged themselves on the one side, strongly and with united voices affirming that Judaism was the only religion in which men could be saved; that there was no gospel church different from the Jewish, nor any revealed law of God but the law of Moses; and that the gospel was nothing but an explication of that law, of the same kind with the explications given of it by the prophets. On the other side, in this great controversy stood the apostles and elders, and all the well-informed brethren, who, knowing that the Jewish church was at an end, and that the law of Moses was abrogated, strenuously maintained that a new church of God was erected, in which all mankind might obtain salvation by faith without circumcision; and that the gospel was the only law. of this new church. They therefore maintained the freedom of the Gentiles from the law of Moses in all its parts, and boldly asserted that the gospel alone was sufficient for the salvation of the Gentiles; consequently that they were under no obligation to have recourse to the Levitical sacrifices and purifications for procuring the pardon of their sins.

The controversy concerning the obligation of the law of Moses, viewed in this light, was a matter of no small importance, since in its determination depended whether the law of Moses or the gospel of Christ should be the religion of the world. No wonder, therefore, that Paul introduced this controversy in so many of his epistles, and that he wrote three of them in particular for the express purpose of confuting an error so plausible and so pernicious, viz. his epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. These learned epistles, in process of time, produced the desired effect. By the strength of the arguments set forth in them, and by representing the same things every where in his preaching and conversation, the apostle enlightened many of the Jewish converts; and these well-instructed Jewish brethren, in their several churches, effectually opposed the errors of the judaizers, by all which Judaism has at length been banished from the Christian church, in which, for a while, it had taken root, through the misguided zeal of the Jewish converts; and the gospel now remains the only revealed religion, authorized by God, and obligatory on man.

This controversy concerning the law of Moses was agitated very early at Rome, where the Jews, being rich and factious, disputed the matter with greater violence than in other churches. And the unbelieving part taking a share in the controversy, they occasioned such tumults, that the emperor Claudius, in the eleventh year of his reign, banished the contending parties from the city. So the Roman historian, Suetonius, informs us, who, confounding the Christians with the Jews, calls the whole by the general name of Jews; and affirms, that they were excited to these tumults by Christ, because he had heard, as Dr. Macknight supposes, that Christ was the subject of their quarrels.

Among the banished from Rome was Aquila, a Jew, born in Pontus, and his wife Priscilla, both of them Christians. These came to Corinth about the time Paul first visited that city; and being of the same occupation with him, they received him into their house, employed him in their business, and gave him wages for his work, with which he maintained himself all the time he preached the gospel to the Corinthians. During his abode with them, Aquila and Priscilla, no doubt, gave the apostle a full account of the state of the church at Rome before its dispersion; and, among other. things, told him, that the unbelieving Romans, following the Greeks, affirmed the light of natural reason to have been from the beginning a sufficient guide to mankind:

in matters of religion that, being great admirers of the Greeks, they considered their philosophy as the perfection of human reason, and extolled it as preferable to the gospel, which they scrupled not to pronounce mere foolishness-that, on the other hand, the unbelieving Jews, no less prejudiced in favour of the law of Moses, affirmed that it was the only religion in which men could be saved, and condemned the gospel as a detestable heresy, because it did not adopt the sacrifices, purifications, and other rites enjoined by Moses. They farther told the apostle, that many, even of the converted Jews, extolled the institutions of Moses as more effectual for the salvation of sinners than the gospel; and, in that persuasion, pressed the Gentiles to join the law with the gospel, that by its sacrifices and purifications the gospel might be rendered a complete form of religion:-that the Gentile converts, who knew their freedom from the law of Moses, despised their judaizing brethren as superstitious bigots; while the others regarded them as profane, for neglecting institutions which they esteemed sacred that those who possessed spiritual gifts had occasioned great disturbance in the church, each extolling his own gifts, and striving to exercise them in the public assemblies, without giving place to others lastly, that some, both of the Jewish and Gentile believers, reckoning it disgraceful to obey constitutions made by idolaters, had, in several instances, contemned the wholesome laws of the state, and were in danger of being punished as evil-doers, to the great scandal of the Christian name.

As the apostle had not been in Rome when he wrote this epistle, some persons well acquainted with the affairs of the church there must have made him acquainted with all the particulars above-mentioned: for his letter to the Romans was evidently framed with a view to these things. If so, who more likely to give the information than Aquila and Priscilla, with whom the apostle lodged so long? And though the Roman brethren were then dispersed, consequently the apostle had no opportunity of writing to them as a church; yet the disorders which prevailed among them having made a deep impression on his spirit, we may suppose he resolved to embrace the first opportunity to remedy them. Accordingly, during his second visit to the Corinthians, having heard that the church was re-established at Rome, Paul wrote to the Romans this excellent and learned letter which bears their name; wherein, at great length, he discoursed of the justification of sinners; answered the objections made to the gospeldoctrine of justification; proved, from Moses and the prophets, the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of the Jews, and their future restoration; and gave the Roman brethren many precepts and exhortations suited to their character and circumstances. From the pains which the apostle took in this letter to prove that no Gentile can be justified by the law of nature, nor Jew by the law of Moses; and from his explaining in it all the divine dispensations respecting religion, as well as from what he says chap. i. 7, 13, 14, 15, it is reasonable to think it was designed for the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles at Rome, as well as for the brethren, who therefore would shew the copies which they took of it to their unbelieving acquaintance. And inasmuch as the apostle professed to derive his views of the matters contained in this letter from the former revelations and from inspiration, it certainly merited the attention of every unbeliever to whom it was shewn, whether he were a Jewish scribe, or a heathen philosopher, or a Roman magistrate, or one of the people; some of whom, no doubt, read it. though, by reading it, they may not have been persuaded to embrace the gospel immediately, the candid and intelligent, by seriously weighing the things written in it, must have received such instruction in the principles and duties of natural religion, as could hardly fail to lead them to see the absurdity of the commonly received idolatry which was one good step towards their conversion. To conclude: as in this learned letter the principal objections by which Jews and deists have all along impugned the

And

gospel are introduced and answered, it is a writing which the adversaries of revelation, who pretend to oppose it on rational principles, ought to peruse with attention and candour.

The commentators observe, that although the apostle, in the inscription of this letter, hath asserted the apostolical authority, to make the Romans sensible that the things written in it were dictated to him by the Spirit; yet, as he was personally unknown to the greatest part of them, he does not teach, exhort, and rebuke them, with that authority which he uses in his letters to the churches of his own planting, but he writes to them in a mild and condescending manner, in order to gain their affection.

To return to the narrative of the apostle's life, we find that, after residing three months at Achaia, he set sail for Asia by the way of Macedonia. His companions in this journey were Sopater of Berea; Aristarchus and Secundus, two Thessalonian brethren; Gaius of Derbe; Timothy; and from Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. Part of this company went before to Troas, and waited there till the arrival of Paul. Some days after, Paul and his company set sail from Philippi, on the conclusion of the days of unleavened bread; and, crossing part of the Ægean sea, came to them at Troas in five days, where they continued seven days conversing with the Christians there. And on the first day of the week, when the disciples, as it was usual with them on that day, met together to break bread, that is, to celebrate the eucharist in remembrance of the death of our blessed Redeemer, Paul, being now to take his leave of them, and about to depart on the morrow, preached to them with great fervency; and was so carried out in his work, that he continued his discourse until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room in which they were assembled; for they carefully avoided whatever might incur censure, or even suspicion. But this occasioned them to keep the windows open, to prevent the immoderate heat of the room and a certain young man, whose name was Eutychus, who was there, sitting in an open window, fell into a profound sleep; and, as Paul continued his discourse a long time, he was so overpowered with sleep, that he fell down from the third story to the ground, and was taken up dead. This threw the whole assembly into disorder; and Paul, breaking off his discourse, went down and fell upon him; and, taking him in his arms, said, Do not make any disturbance, for I assure you that his life is in him, and God will quickly restore him to perfect health. And, having thus composed and quieted their minds, Paul returned to his work; and, going up again into the chamber where the assembly met, and having broken bread, and eaten with the rest of the disciples, in commemoration of the death of Christ, when this solemnity was over, he conversed with them a considerable time longer, even till break of day, and so went out from that house, and departed from Troas to meet the ship which was to take him aboard at Assos. And, before the assembly broke up, they brought the youth into the room alive and well, and were not a little comforted at so happy an event; and the rather as they might apprehend that some reproaches would have been occasioned by his death, if he had not been so recovered; because it happened in a Christian assembly which had been protracted so long beyond the usual bounds of time on this extraordinary occasion. But they that were to go with Paul went before into the ship, and sailed round the neighbouring promontory to Assos, where they were to take up Paul; for so he had appointed, choosing himself to go afoot from Troas thither, that he might thus enjoy a little more of the company of his Christian brethren, of whom he was then to take a long leave. And as soon as he joined them at Assos, according to big own appointment, they took him up into the ship, and came to the celebrated port of Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos. And, sailing from thence, they came the next day over against Chios, the island so famous for producing some of the finest Grecian