hold, therefore, with regard to the lots of men in this world,
exactly the opposite of what Plato suggested under the impulse of the
doctrine of transmigration, 'It is the man's own choice, God is
blameless.'

{95}

DIVISION V. CHAPTERS XII-XV. 13.

_Practical Exhortation._

We must almost all of us, in climbing some high hill, have experienced
the necessity for two distinct efforts, the second more or less
unanticipated. We started to climb to the apparent summit, only to
find, when we got there, that it was no real summit at all, but a
prominent spur, and that a second climb was required of us before we
were really at the top. An intellectual experience not unlike this is
the lot of the student of the Epistle to the Romans. The apparent
climax of the epistle is the end of chapter viii, and the student at
starting expects his brain to be chiefly taxed in following the closely
knit argument which is to lead him thither. But he reaches it only to
find another like effort of mind required of him in grasping the
meaning of the section (chapters ix-xi) in which St. Paul is occupied
in justifying God's dealings with the chosen people. But now,
intellectually speaking, his work is almost over. {96} As the climber,
seated on the summit of the hill when at last it is gained, lets his
eye range over a rich and wide prospect, and takes in its vastness and
variety, or traces below him the delightful descent: so it is with the
reader of this epistle who has entered sincerely into the spirit of St.
Paul. His intellectual scruples as to the divine dealings have been
just laid to rest; before that his mind had been convinced, and his
heart and will attracted and won, by the unfolding of the divine
righteousness, that is to say of the free grace and love of God. And
now, proportionate to the greatness of the effort by which this
satisfaction of intellect and heart and will has been won, is the joy
of expansion which remains--the joy of the surrendered mind in
appreciating all that is practically possible for it in the light of
the love of God. 'I will run the way of thy commandments, because thou
dost enlarge my heart,' that is, expand it with a sense of liberty and
joy[1]. 'All things are ours,' if but once in completeness of
self-surrendering faith 'we are Christ's' as assuredly 'Christ is
God's[2].' 'I can do all things in Christ that strengtheneth me[3].'

[1] Ps. cxix. 32. See Driver's _Parallel Psalte