THE gospel should be preached to every creature - . it
being a universal message from heaven to earth, co-extensive with the species;
and not only to be carried forth over all, but to be pressed on the specific
acceptance of each. A commission thus universal should have had at our hands a
universal fulfilment; but we have only to open our eyes, and see how palpably
short it has come of this - both internally or within the limits of
Christendom, and externally or abroad and over the face of the world. And yet
we affect to wonder, as if it were something mysterious and inscrutable, at the
partiality of the Divine government, in having limited the blessing of the
Christian religion to so small a portion of the human family. Before carrying
the reproach so far upward, we had better first take account of our own
immediate share in it; and deal with the proximate cause of this phenomenon,
ere we take cognizance of any of its remote and anterior causes. We complain of
a limited Christianity, but there was no limit in the terms of that commission
which was put into our hands at the outset of this dispensation - and that in
the form of a precept, Go and promulgate this gospel every where; accompanied
with a promise, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. It is
not time to charge the Almighty, or to arraign the methods of His
administration - till we have enquired in how far this precept has been carried
into operation; and then what the instances are in which, when the precept was
fully acted up to, this promise has ever been withheld. Mans prone and
precipitate inclination is to reckon with his God, and to leave unsettled all
the while that reckoning which we ought first to hold with ourselves, - a
transgression this both of piety and of sound philosophy - it being the dictate
of each, instead of speculating on His part in the matter which is secret and
belongs unto Him, fully to examine how we stand acquitted of our own part which
is revealed and belongs to us and to our children.
Ver. 14, 15. How
then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? as it is written, How
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad
tidings of good things ! These verses give the first answer, the answer
which is readiest and most within reach, to the question - How is it that the
whole earth is not Christianised? God could, by an exercise of power and
unlimited sovereignty, achieve this result at the instant bidding of His voice
- even as on the first day of creation, He said let there be light, and there
was light. But God hath, in the exercise of a wisdom, to us perhaps
inscrutable, yet in perfect analogy with the many thousand processes of nature
and providence, He hath chosen to ordain an instrumentality for the diffusion
of the Christian religion over the world. Now it so happens that men are
component, nay the chief parts of this instrumentality; and we should first
enquire how they have done their part - so as to ascertain whether it be not we
the men who are in fault, before daring to lay the fault upon God.
It
is a sound doctrinal theology which acknowledges, amid the countless diversity
of operations around us, that it is God who worketh all in all. But God worketh
by means; and when a certain prescribed human agency enters into that system of
means which He hath intituted, it is a sound practical theology to labour as
assiduously in the bidden way, as if man worked all. It is one of the highest
points of Christian wisdom, to combine the utmost dependence on God with the
utmost diligence in the prosecution of all those activities which He Himself
hath appointed....insornuch that though the Holy Spirit be the undoubted agent
of every conversion, Paul held it no infringement on orthodoxy, to say as much
as that, under our present economy, the conversion of the world, without the
instrumentality of men, is impossible.
How shall they believe,
unless they hear? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach
except they be sent? He himself was converted, by a direct communication
from heaven, apart from all converse with flesh and blood, receiving the gospel
not of man nor taught it by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ - yet
none more strenuous than he, in affirming the necessity of human co-operation,
in the great work of evangelising the world. Not but that he imagined, in every
instance as well as in his own, that faith is not of ourselves but is the gift
of God; and that even when conveyed by the preaching of one man into the mind
of another, it is but the pouring from one earthen vessel to another of a
treasure which had come down from heaven - so that whenever, in any age or
country of the world, that precious faith which is unto salvation is deposited
in any heart, it is established by a supernatural agency, and standeth there
not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. It is for Him however, and
not for us, to make choice of His own pathway for the conveyance of His own
blessings, and the propagation of His own spiritual influences into the souls
of men; and if He choose to make one man His vehicle for the transference of
light and grace into the heart of another, it is the part of him whom He has
thus selected as His instrument, to labour with all his might and assiduity in
the sacred duties of that vocation whereto he has been called. This preference
for the agency of men in the work of Christianisation is conspicuous in every
age of the church; and at no time more than in the first age, even though it
was the period of miracles and supernatural visitations. We have often looked
on the history of the conversion of Cornelius as a striking illustration of
this. God could have worked a saving faith in the heart of Cornelius, by an
immediate suggestion from His own Spirit, or through the mouth of an angel. And
He did send an angel to Cornelius, not however that he might preach the gospel
to him, but that he might bid him send for Peter, and receive that gospel at
the lips of a fellow-mortal. And God also sent to Peter a communication from
heaven to prepare him for the message - thus doubling as it were the amount of
miraculous agency, in order that the gospel might be heard by a yet unconverted
child of Adam, not through the medium of a supernatural and angelic, but
through the medium of a natural and a human utterance. Yet not so as that the
natural should supersede or displace the supernatural - for while Peter spake,
the Holy Ghost fell on all them who heard.
The function of Peter was
the same with that of a minister or missionary in the present day - it was to
tell Cornelius the words by which he and all his house should be saved. And the
function of the Holy Ghost for the purpose of giving demonstration and
efficiency to the word, is the same now as ever - He falls on us still even as
He did on them at the beginning. Let no man put asunder the things which God
hath joined; but let all in deed and in performance strive mightily for the
spread and prevalence of the gospel on the earth, and give no rest to God in
prayer, that by His grace He might work in them mightily. The application of
all this to the question of missions, whether home or foreign, is quite
obvious. Let these be multiplied to the uttermost, so as to fill up all the
vacancies which are within, or to spread abroad over all the mighty spaces
which are beyond the limits of Christendom. Yet all will be useless and effete,
if unblest or unaccompanied by the Spirit of God. Some there are, men of
devotion, like many perhaps of the Puritanic age, who have a contempt for
machinery, and who think to succeed by prayer alone for the extension of our
Redeemers kingdom. Others there are, men of bustle and enterprise, like
many perhaps of our present age, who live, if not in the contempt, at least in
the neglect of supplication; and think to succeed in the work of Christian
philanthropy, by the busy prosecution of those schemes and societies which have
recently sprung up in the religious world. Neither will do singly - neither the
human instrumentality alone without the agency from above; nor yet the
celestial agency, which refuses to come forth but through an earthly apparatus
which itself prescribes, and to the working of which it gives all its vitality
and all its vigour. Without the conjunction of these, both the men of
prayer and the men of performance will fall short of the: object which their
hearts are set upon. He who knows rightly to divide, or rather rightly to
compound the word of truth, knows how to conjoin these, and so gives himself
wholly, not to prayers alone or to the ministry of the word alone - but like
the apostles of old to prayer and the ministry of the word. The one sets up and
works a machinery upon earth. The other brings down from heaven that inner
element which actuates the movements,and imparts to them all their living
energy. It is to this prolific union of devout and desirous hearts with busy
hands, that the church of Christ - stands indebted for all its prosperity, in
those seasons of gracious revival, when the frequent and earnest preaching of
the word has been preceded or accompanied by a spirit of frequent and
importunate prayer. Thus alone can the word of God be caused mightily to grow
and to prevail - be it in a household, or a parish, or an empire, or through
the world at large.
How beautiful are the feet of them that
preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things.
Nothing can exceed the admirable tact and sagacity, wherewith Paul adapts his
argument to the tastes and partialities of those with whom he at the time is
holding converse. In an upright and honourable sense he was all things to all
men. To the Greeks he was a Greek - as in his address to the people of Athens,
when he quoted from their own poets, and reasoned with them from the mythology
of their nation. And to the Jews he was a Jew - as in the passage before us, in
which we can discern the same principle of accommodation - as indeed in all his
recorded addresses to the men of that nation, when he never fails to quote
abundantly their own prophets, and to reason with them out of their own
Scriptures. And the quotation before us seems eminently fitted to subserve,
what was evidently a great object with Paul, throughout the whole of this
epistle - that of reconciling his countrymen to the admission of the Gentiles
into a religious equality with themselves. It is taken from one of their own
most illustrious writers, to whom they could not turn back, without reading in
almost imniediate contiguity with the passage to which he refers them, of the
salvation of the Gentiles along with the comfort of their own people and the
redemption of Jerusalem. "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of
all tile nations (Gentiles); and all the ends of the earth shall see the
salvation of our God." But how could they behold that salvation - or, to
understand their seeing in the mental sense of the terni, how could they
believe in it, unless they were told of it, unless it was preached to them,
unless messengers were sent to them as well as to Gods peculiar and
favoured people? In other words, as the Gentiles were under the gospel economy
to be made partakcrs of the same faith, and so of the same high privileges with
themselves, and as they could not believe without hearing, nor hear without a
preacher - - it was necessary that the message of life should be propounded to
them also: And thus he vindicates his own peculiar apostleship, in that he was
commissioned as a chosen vessel to bear the, tidings of salvation before the
Gentiles as well as the children of Israel.
Ver. 16, 18 - 21.
But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath
believed our report?...But I say, Have they not heard! Yes verily, their sound
went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say,
Did not Israel know? First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them
that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Esaias is
very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made
manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day
long I have stretched forth my hands unto, a disobedient and gainsaying
people. We have already said that ere we charge God with partiality in
that the blessings of the Christian religion are so limited, we should first
acquit ourselves of the universal commission to go and make a tender of these
blessings to every creature under heaven; and so make trial of the promise
which accompanies this injunction -"Lo I am with you always, even unto the end
of the world." But ere we bring this experiment to any thing like a full and
finished completion, we are anticipated by a decisive fact, and from which we
know beforehand, that though the gospel were preached to all, and by competent
messengers too, sent forth by God Himself - yet that all would not receive it.
It had been so preached in many distinct neighbourhoods even by prophets and
inspired apostles - yet without effect upon many, who heard but did not
believe, it was prophesied by Esaias, that all should not obey the goepel, even
though brought to their doors, or though reported to them, and so placed within
the reach of their hearing it.
Lord, who hath believed our
report! Or who hath believed the hearing which they have heard of us? The
word translated report in this verse is the same with that translated hearing
in the next. There could be no mistake then as to their hearing. But I
say, Have they not heard! Yes, verily. He might have given historical
proof of this, by quoting his own experience and that of his colleagues in the
apostleship - who had so often in the past course of their ministry lifted
their testimony in the hearing both of countrymen and others who rejected it -
to whom they preached the gospel, which, though to some it was the savour of
life unto life, was to many the savour of death unto death. But in order to
trace the line of continuity in this whole passage, we must look to the verses
more in connection with each other.
Ver. 16 - 21. But
they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed
our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the
earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel
know! First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no
people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Esaias is very bold, and
saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them
that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched
forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. It is obvious
that one main design of this epistle is to establish the common ground, on
which Jews and Gentiles now stand under the Christian dispensation - in regard
first, to the like disease or condemnation that were upon them both; then to
the like remedy which they equally stand in need of; and, most offensive of
all, or what required the most strenuous effort on the part of the apostle in
reconciling to it the minds of his own countrymen, the same free appliance of
that remedy to all upon the face of the earth, - which involved the admission
of those, who were before aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, to the same
faith and the same high privileges with themselves. This aim, which from first
to last he never lets go or loses sight of, appears so early as in the first
chapter, where he speaks of the gospel (1, 16) as being the power of God unto
salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. After which, he enters more
distinctly and at greater length on the theme in the second chapter (ii, 17 -
29), where he argues for the common religious footing on which these two now
stand - evidently not without the apprehension, or rather the actual experience
of a strong repugnance on the part of the Jewish mind to the conclusion which
he was labouring to establish. He then - as if a truth revolting to the
prejudices of those whom be was addressing should be unfolded gradually - he
ventures, if I may say so, in the third chapter, on terms of greater
expressness and particularity - charging the Jews with the same sinfulness as
the Gentiles (iii, 9); and holding forth to both the same salvation, even that
righteousness by faith which is unto all and upon all who believe (iii,
22) for there is no difference - no difference he certainly
means between Jews and Gentiles, though he does not here make use of these
designations, as if he shrunk at first from naming the two, when for the first
time he places them on the same even platform of acceptance with God. Yet ere
the chapter closes, and as if waxing bolder in the progress of his argument, he
does make distinct utterance, though under an aspect of greater generality, of
the one Father in heaven being the God not of the Jews only but also of the
Gentiles - nay of His justifying the one whom he there calls the
uncircumcision, in the same way that He justifies the other whom he
distinguishes as the circumcision, which titles he keeps by throughout the
whole of his remaining argument in the chapter which follows. He had
experienced the sensitiveness of the Jewish prejudices, when the name of the
Gentiles was introduced in connection with any such preferment as brought them
up to a level with the men of their own nation - more especially on the
occasion of that public address he made in person to a great multitude at
Jerusalem, who heard him patiently till this word escaped from him; "and they
gave him audience unto this word" - after which there were no bounds to
their indignation.
We can fancy as if it were due to that admirable
delicacy which is so palpably one of our apostles great characteristics -
that if, when holding converse with Jews, he has occasion to mention the
Gentiles as of equal rank and consideration with themselves, he does it so
frequently under the cover of a quotation from their own Scriptures. It is
obvious from the whole substance and texture of his argument in this epistle to
the Romans, that he feels himself dealing throughout with Jewish
understandings, and with men of Jewish education. He never loses sight of the
Old Testament; but seems at all times glad of an opportunity, whenever he can
fortify his reasoning by passages and illustrations taken out of these
Scriptures. There is great richness of such allusion in the fourth chapter; nor
is it wholly absent from the fifth and seventh; and makes a full reappearance
in the ninth, onward to those verses wherewith we are now occupied. In an
earlier part of the epistle which we have quoted, where the apostle speaks of
the righteousness, by faith being unto all, he adds - "for there is no
difference." And again in the part to which we have now come (x, 12) - in
conjunction with those terms of glorious universality, "all" and "whosoever,"
he adds the very same words "for there is no difference" only telling us
furthermore between whom -"no difference between the Jew and the Greek." He had
before affirmed of Jews and Gentiles, that they laboured under the same
disease, and that the same remedy was provided for them in heaven; and he is
now employed in demonstrating, that, in order to the remedy having effect, the
bearers of it on earth must carry it equally home to both - or that both must
be alike preached unto, and plied with the same calls and overtures, by the
messengers of a common salvation. And so he evidently feels himself again to be
in contact with certain points of repulsion in the Jewish mind; and, for the
purpose, of gaining access thereunto, recurs to his usual cxpedients - speaking
to their own familiar recognitions, and reasoning with them out of their own
Scriptures. He begins this work of quotation at the 5th verse, and continues it
downward - till he had established the necessity of sending men over the world,
to bring men to the faith of the gospel - Whence it follows, as the Gentiles by
the new ceonomy were to have a part in the same salvation through the medium of
the same faith with the Jews, that, in order to their believing alike, they
must be preached unto alike, for how can they believe without hearing, or hear
without a preacher! - which preacher or preachers must be sent to them; and
this he confirms in the 15th verse by a passage taken from one of the most
celebrated of their prophets.
But here he interposes in verse 16th, a
needful and qualifying remark which might have been suggested indeed by another
passage from the same prophet very near to the former one, and to which at all
events the apostle expressly appeals. It follows not, that though preaching
should be the ordinary or even the indispensable prerequisite to faith, it
follows not that faith should always be the result of preaching. A given cause
might be indispensable to a certain effect, and yet not always produce that
effect. Though the hearing of the gospel were necessary to the believing of it,
it follows not that all who hear should necessarily believe; and accordingly
the apostle tells us, They have not all obeyed the gospel - by
which he undoubtedly means, that, of the all who have heard it so many have not
obeyed it. And he fortifies this assertion by the quotation from Isaiah,
Who hath believed our report? The question implies that few had
believed; but it also implies, that though belief does not alway follow in the
train of a previously heard report, yet that when it does take place, it is
always or generally in the order of this succession - Or, in other words -
Though hearing is not always followed up by a subsequent faith as its effect -
yet that seldom or never does faith arise in the mind, but from an anterior
hearing as its cause.
And this explains the dependence of the 17th
verse on the last clause of the 16th - a dependence more obvious to the reader
of the original than it is in the translation; for the word report
in the one, and the word 'hearing in the other, are both rendered from
the same term in the Greek. It helps also to impress the connection more
strongly - that whereas in our English bibles the belief in the one verse and
faith in the other, though they signify the same thing yet sound so
differently, in the original the same radical is employed in both ; and these
two verses would therefore have been translated more synonymously at least, if
in the 16th it had been translated, Who hath believed in the hearing that we
have sounded in his ears, (which though a complaint and implying therefore that
few had believed, implies also that belief, if not the actual, was at least the
proper consequent of hearing), which would have brought out the inference in
the 17th more palpably, Therefore belief cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God.
The question, What plants have arisen from the seed which
has been cast into the ground ? - clearly implies, that, while all seeds do not
germinate into plants, yet a plant never arises but from a seed, and that the
one is the proper and causal antecedent of the other. The question then is
naturally started at this place, Whether the hearing indispensable to faith,
has been carried abroad? - and a reply is given in the affirmative, couched in
language all the more congenial to the Jewish ear, that it was taken from
Scripture, and which conveys thus much at least, that the gospel ought to go
forth as freely and universally throughout the world, as the light of the sun
is spread abroad over the surface of it. And, in point of fact it had, even
when the apostle was writing, been proclaimed far and wide beyond the limits of
Judaism; and now there was no let or hindrance, in the nature and design of the
economy itself, to restrain the diffusion of it through every place and
territory where men were to be found., And accordingly it had sounded forth to
the outskirts of the Roman empire, which was then spoken. of in terms that
properly signified the whole of the habitable earth - insomuch that Paul says
of the word of the gospel, "which is come unto you as it is in all the world,"
and "which was preached to every creature which is under heaven." 1 So that, to
the question, Have men heard the gospel? - there could be no difficulty in
giving the prompt and decisive reply, Yes verily.
Ver.
19. After having replied in the preceding verse generally and for all
mankind, the question is reiterated with a special reference to the children of
Israel. Did not they in particular know ? - had they also the advantage of
being made to hear and be acquainted with the subject-matter of preaching? This
Paul might have replied to in a clear and decided affirmative - grounding it on
the events of his own age. They had a preference over the Gentiles in every
respect. They saw Christ in the flesh - they witnessed His miracles - they
heard His discourses - even after His ascension, and a cornmission was left
with the apostles to go and preach the gospel unto all nations, still the
priority was given to them. For though the apostles went forth with the message
of salvation over all the earth it was after beginning at Jerusalem; and in
every place or nation they came to, it was ther practice to seek after the Jews
and preach to them first - till wearied out by the obstinate rejection of their
doctrine, they made this protest against it - Since you hold yourselves
unworthy of eternal life, we turn to the Gentiles. Paul could have thus
answered in his own person; but, as his general manner was, he goes back upon
earlier times - for even then it may be said that the gospel was preached to
those of that remoter period as well as unto us of the present day; and from
the mouths of two of their own most honoured writers, he gives the same answer,
and pronounces upon them the same condemnation. First Moses, who, on a former
occasion, had said of them, " What nation is so great, that hath statutes -and
judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?" - this
same Moses, who thus affirmed the knowledge of the people of Israel to be above
that of all the other people upon earth, says afterwards, and in the words here
quoted, that, as they had abused these privileges, God would transfer them to
others who had not been so distinguished, and so provoke them to jealousy by a
people who hitherto had been no pecuhiar people to Him; and anger them by a
foolish nation, a nation destitute of the knowledge which had been so
plentifully communicated to themselves. And in verses 20th and 21st, Isaiah
expresses himself in still bolder and clearer terms. But the boldness which he
ascribes to Isaiah, the apostle very distinctly intimates, that he felt himself
treading on delicate ground - engaged as he was in telling the Jews of their
national misconduct, and of the forfeiture which they had thereby incurred of
the national honours, which at one time singled them out and signalised them
above all the rest of the human family. "I was found of them that sought me
not, I was made manifest to them that asked not after me." All day long had God
stretched forth his hands unto Israel - addressing them, and bringing Himself
near unto them, and giving the knowledge of His will and of His ways.They have
not all obeyed the gospel, even though pressed upon their acceptance - for
these Israelites, in particular, to whom the closest approaches had been made,
and the fullest revelation had been given, turned out after all a disobedient
and gainsaying people.
This somewhat unmanageable passage may be thus
paraphrased. There is no difference between Jew and Greek, for the same
Lord and Maker of all, is rich to all who call on Him. For whosoever shall call
on His name shall be saved. But how can they call on Him till they believe in
Him, and how can they believe unless they hear of Him, and how can they hear
but by a preacher?' And in order to this, preachers must be sent, even as those
were of whom Isaiah speaks, when hailing them as the messengers of good, he
exclaims, " How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace,
and bring glad tidings of good things!" Yet it follows not that all who are
thus preached unto shall believe. In point of fact, all did not put faith in
the good tidings; and accordingly the same Isaiah complains of the smallness of
their number - saying, Who hath believed our testimony? Yet though belief does
not always come after, a testimony, a testimony always, or at least ordinarily
comes before the belief - for faith cometh by hearing, though not by all or any
sort of hearing, but the hearing only of the word of God. Has not this word
then been proclaimed to all? Yes truly - the barrier between Jew and Gentile is
now moved away; and the Sun of righteousness should be made as free and patent
to all as is the sun of nature. But did Israel share in this light? Yes, and
that in a more signal and preeminent way; But, unworthy as they proved
themselves of the privilege, even their own legislator threatened the removal
of their candlestick to the other and darker places of the earth; and the
highest of their prophets told them in still more decisive terms, that those
high preferments of which they boasted, should be taken away from them, and
given to others - and that because of their continued resistance to a
beseeching God, who had so long, but I vain, pressed on their acceptance the
overtures o His great salvation. There are various and important topics for
reflection presented throughout the passage which forms the ground-work of this
Lecture. But we forbear the further consideration of them at present and all
the more readily, that the opportunity for a future treatment of them will not
be wanting in what remains of the epistle. For the views which have been
already given by us of the 17th verse we refer to a Sermon published many years
ago.
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