Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans Volume 2; With Extracts from the Exegetical Works of the Fathers and Reformers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 Excerpt: ...by man, and what by God, in the work of conversion, and we again find nothing more than an application of that Old Testa N ment history to the New Testament datio justilue, not however ha 7 xar sxXoyjjv too'&tf/f, ttsvjj, statement of the design which lies in'that prediction of God. Mete/v applied to purposes, means, like the Hebrew my, to have permanence. (Palairet brings examples from profane authors.) The eternal purpose of God seems then to be unchangeable to man when God in time, and ere anything has occurred to make him alter it, makes it known to man. TlMieig, as at c. viii. 28, means the purpose of God, and, indeed, the word refers positively to the advantages imparted to Jacob; Esau's exclusion, however, from a variety of tokens of grace, and especially from the Theocracy, is not represented as a positive transaction. That such is the case appears from the circumstance, that wherever a wg&faaic, in regard to man, is ascribed to God, it universally denotes a purpose of salvation on the part of God, Rom. viii. 28. Eph. iii. 11. 2 Tim. i. 9. Just as, in point of fact, the exclusion of men from the outward as well as from the inward kingdom of God, is no act of God's, but merely a prseterition. This wgofomg is further defined by the addition xar' IxXoyv. Now that may be very variously taken up. First, there are some, as Origen, Grotius, Venema, Wolf, and Koppe, who understand it objectively, as designation of the object, what the weoSieu; respects; and, in truth, not unfrequently in Greek, Tiara is to be rendered, in respect to. Grotius: Voluntas libera Dei in iis quse pertinent ad prselationem. Then again there are others who take this addition subjectively, as descriptive of the nature of the wgofoait; "and this meaning of substantives, w...