Who knowing the judgment of God, &c.— It seems here to be strongly implied, that to look with complacency on the vices of others is one of the last degrees of degeneracy. A man may be hurried by his passions to do the thing he hates; but he who has pleasure in those that do evil, loves wickedness for wickedness' sake. And hereby he encourages them in sin, and heaps the guilt of others upon his own. See the followingInferences, Locke, Mill, Erasmus, Doddridge, and Hallet's Introduction to J. Pearce on the Hebrews, p. 22.
Inferences.—From the foregoing verses we have a long catalogue of the blackest sins which human nature, in its highest depravation, is capable of committing; and that so perfect, that there seems to be no sin imaginable but what may be reduced to and comprised under some of the sins here specified. In short, we have an abridgement of the lives and practices of the whole heathen world; that is, of all the baseness to which both the corruption of nature, and the instigation of the devil, could for so many ages bring the sons of men.
And yet, full and comprehensive as this catalogue of sin seems to be, it is but of sin under a limitation: an universality of sin under a certain kind; that is, of all sins of direct and personal commission. And is not this, it may well be asked, a sufficient comprehension of all? Is not a man's person the compass of his actions? Or can he operate farther than he exists?—Yes, the Apostle tells us, in some sense he may; as he may not only commit such and such sins himself, but also take pleasure in others who commit them. This is indeed the farthest that human depravity can reach; the highest point of maliciousness to which the debauched powers of man's mind can ascend. For surely that sin, which exceeds the horrible list before us, must needs be such a one, that it must nonplus the devil himself to proceed farther. It is the very extremity, the concluding period of sin, the last finishing stroke of the devil's image drawn upon the human soul.
The sense of St. Paul's words, in Romans 1:32 naturally resolves itself into this plain proposition: "That the guilt arising from man's delighting or taking pleasure in the sins of others, (or in other men for their sins, which is all one,) is greater than he can possibly contract by a commission of the same sins in his own person:" and this for the following reasons:
1. There is no natural motive to induce or tempt a man to this mode of sinning; and it is a most certain truth, that the less the temptation is, the greater the sin; for in every sin, by how much more free the will is in its choice, by so much is the act more sinful. If the object be extremely pleasing, and apt to gratify it, there, though the will has still the power of refusal, yet it is not without some difficulty where grace does not fully reign; on which account it is that men are so strongly inclined to and so hardly diverted from the practice of vice; namely, because the sensual appetite arising from it is still importuning and drawing them to it.
"But whence (it may be asked) springs this pleasure? Is it not from the gratification of some desire founded in nature?" It is indeed very often an irregular gratification; yet still the foundation of it is, and must be, something natural. So that the whole amounts to this; that the naturalness of a desire, is the cause that the gratification of it is pleasure, and pleasure importunes the will, and so renders a refusal or forbearance difficult, except to the genuine believer. Thus drunkenness is an irregular satisfaction to the appetite of thirst; uncleaness an unlawful gratification of another appetite, and covetousness a boundless pursuit of the principle of self-security. So that all these are founded in some natural desire, and therefore pleasurable, and on that account capable of soliciting and enticing the will. In a word, there is hardly any one vice or sin, of direct and personal commission, but what is an abuse of one of those two grand natural principles;—either that which inclines a man to preserve himself, or that which inclines him to please himself.
But what natural principle, faculty, or desire, either of pleasure or preservation, can be gratified by another man's pursuit of vice? It is evident that all the pleasure which naturally can be received from a vicious action, can immediately affect none but him who perpetrates it, and no man can feel by another man's senses. So that the delight which a man takes from another's sin, can be only a fantastic, preternatural complacency, arising from that of which he has really no feeling: it is properly a love of vice as such; a delighting in iniquity for its own sake; and it is a direct imitation, or rather exemplification of the malice of that evil spirit, who delights in seeing those sins committed, of which the very condition of his nature renders him incapable.
If a man plays the thief, as Solomon remarks, and steals to satisfy his hunger; though it cannot excuse the fact, yet it sometimes extenuates the guilt: we consider the strong impulse of appetite, we consider the frailty of human nature; and we cannot but pity the person, while we abhor the crime: it being like the case of one ready to drink poison, rather than die with thirst.
But when a man shall, with a sober, sedate, diabolical rancour, enjoy himself in the sight of his neighbour's shame, and secretly hug himself upon the ruins of a brother's virtue, and the dishonours of his reason, can he plead the instigation of any appetite in nature, inclining him to this?—this is impossible, and beyond a pretence. To what cause then can we assign this monstrous disposition? All that can be said in this case is, that nature proceeds by quite another method,—having given men such and such appetites, and allotted to each their respective enjoyments,—the appetite and the pleasure still cohabiting in the same subject,—the devil, and long custom of sinning, have, in the present instance, superinduced upon the soul, new, unnatural, and absurd desires, which have no real object; which relish things not at all desirable; but, like the distemper of the soul, feed only on filth and corruption, and give a man both the devil's nature, and the devil's delight; who has no other joy or happiness, but to dishonour his Maker, and to destroy his fellow-creatures;—to corrupt them here, and to torment them hereafter. In fine, there is as much difference between the pleasure that a man takes in his own sins, and that which he takes in other men's, as there is between the wickedness of a man, and the wickedness of a devil.
2. A second reason why a conduct like this is attended with such an extraordinary guilt, arises from the unlimited nature of this mode of sinning; for hereby a man contracts a kind of universal guilt, and as it were sins over the sins of all other men. So that while the act is exclusively theirs, the guilt is equally his. Consider any man as to his personal powers, and opportunities of sinning,—at the greatest they must still be limited by the measure of his actings and the term of his duration. His active powers are but weak, and his continuance in the world but short: so that nature is not sufficient to keep pace with his corruptions by answering desire with proportionable practice.
To instance only in those two grand extravagancies of lust and drunkenness; let a man be never so general and licentious in his debaucheries, yet age will in time chill the heats of appetite, and the impure flame will either die of itself, or consume the body which harbours it. Let a man be never so insatiable in drinking, he cannot be such a swine as to be always pouring in; but he will, in the compass of years, drown his health and his strength in his own belly; and, after all his drunken trophies, at length drink down himself too; an event which certainly will and must put an end to the debauch.
But this collateral mode of sinning, which we have been attempting to delineate, is neither confined to place, nor weakened by age. The bed-ridden, the gouty, the lethargic, all may, on this account, equal the activity of the strongest, and the speed of the most impetuous sinner. Such a one may take his brother by the throat, and act the murderer, even while he can neither stir a hand, nor lift a foot; and may invade his neighbour's bed, even while weakness has tied him down to his own. He may sin over all the adulteries and debaucheries, all the frauds and oppressions of the whole neighbourhood, and break every command of God's law by proxy:—and (as a learned divine emphatically concludes) well were it for him, if he could be damned by proxy too.—A man, by delight and fancy, may grasp in the sins of all countries and ages, and, by an inward liking of them, communicate in their guilt; he may take a range all the world over, draw in all that wide circumference of vice, and centre it in his own polluted breast. So that hereby there is a kind of transmigration of sins, much like that which Pythagoras held of souls; such a one, as makes a man not only (according to the Apostle's phrase) a partaker of other men's sins, but also a deriver of the whole aggravated guilt of them to himself;—yet still so, as to leave the actual perpetrator as full of guilt as he was before!
Hence then we see the infinitely fruitful and productive power of this mode of sinning; how it can increase and multiply beyond all measures of actual commission; how vastly it swells the sinner's account in an instant! So that a man shall, out of all the various villainies acted round about him, extract one mighty guilt, and adopt it for himself, and thus become chargeable before God, the judge of hearts, and accountable for a world of sin, without a figure.
3. The third and last reason that we shall offer of the extraordinary guilt attending this peculiar vice, arises from the soul's preparation and passage to such a disposition, as it presupposes and includes in it the guilt of many preceding sins. A man must have passed through many periods of sin before he can arrive at it; for it is in a manner the very quintessence and sublimation of vice, by which, as in spirituous liquors, the malignity of many ingredients is contracted into a little compass, but with a greater advantage of strength by such a contraction. In a word, it is the wickedness of a whole life discharging all its defilements into one common quality, as into a great sink of turpitude; so that nothing can be so properly, or significantly called the very sinfulness of sin as this. No wonder, therefore, if, containing in its bowels the guilt of so many years, it stands here eternally stigmatized by the Apostle, as a temper of mind rendering men so detestably bad, that Satan himself, the great enemy of mankind, is neither able nor desires to make them worse. What can or need be said more to awaken the abhorrence of every serious reader against it!—It is indeed a condition not to be thought of by any person serious enough to weigh and consider consequences, without the utmost horror. Happy they who truly fear and love God; for such will not only be kept from it, but from those easily besetting sins which lead to this perfection of iniquity!
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The epistle opens,
1. With an account of the author. Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, once an envenomed persecutor, but now called to be an Apostle, and glorying in this honourable name; separated unto the Gospel of God; to that delightful and happy work of preaching the glad tidings of salvation through a dying Redeemer; signally distinguished by the Spirit's call, qualified by the working of his mighty power, and solemnly dedicated and devoted to this service.
2. The Apostle no sooner mentions the Gospel of God, than his heart fires at the views of its glory and excellence. The wondrous scheme had been the burden of the prophetic word from the beginning, where various hints of it had been given, and promises made of a more clear revelation of the divine mind and will which might be expected in the fulness of time. The grand subject of this Gospel is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the anointed Saviour, and our Lord; the object of our faith and worship, and the King to whom we owe all duty and allegiance; who, in his human nature, was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, as had been foretold (Psalms 132:11.), and as to his divine nature, he was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. As the eternal Son of God, he possessed the same divine nature and perfections with the Father, they being one in the Spirit of holiness, in the essence of the undivided Godhead; a demonstration of which appeared, when, by the exertion of his own power, through the operation of the holy Spirit, he raised his body from the grave; so that he is God and man in one Christ.
3. From this risen Saviour he professes to have received, together with his brethren, grace and apostleship, both the high honour of that office, and ability to discharge it to the glory of God; for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name; this being the great end of their ministry, to bring all men, both Jews and Gentiles, to the faith of the Gospel, and that holy obedience which flows from it, by which the name of Jesus should be to eternity exalted. Note; As obedience to God's law is the great fruit of faith, so is faith itself a most eminent part of obedience, when considered as an act of submission to the righteousness of God.
4. He with pleasure mentions the happy lot which they had among those who were become obedient to the faith; among whom are ye also the called of Christ Jesus; by his word and Spirit brought to the participation of all the privileges of the Gospel; beloved of God and called to be saints; separated from a world which lieth in wickedness. Note; Every truly regenerate soul is the happy object of the divine regard; and all such are obliged to answer in their spirit and conversation the honourable title they bear, as the saints of God.
5. To these the Apostle addresses his epistle. To all that be in Rome, professors of the faith, and in the judgment of charity partakers of the grace of God in truth, may grace, pardoning, comforting, quickening, sanctifying, be multiplied to you; and peace, the blessed effect thereof, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2nd, After the warmest wishes for all spiritual blessings upon them, and his benediction, that the grace and peace he prayed for, would be bestowed upon them,
1. He thanks God on their behalf, whom he calls my God, happy in an assured interest in his favour and love through Jesus Christ, by whom alone every mercy descended on him or them. And the matter of his thanksgiving was, their faith spoken of throughout the world; they had approved themselves eminently faithful, and were the glory and joy of the churches, who triumphed in their eminent attainments. Note; (1.) When faith can say, My God, then the heart will be filled with thanksgiving and praise. (2.) A Christian's heart glows with gratitude, when he beholds the power of divine grace shining in the conversation of his brethren. (3.) Though we may not affect a name in the world, yet it is highly desirable to be spoken of by good men, and that our faith and conduct should receive their approbation.
2. He appeals to God for his incessant prayers on their behalf. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of his Son; most willingly, affectionately, and faithfully preaching the glad tidings of salvation through the divine Redeemer; that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, begging that the best of blessings may descend upon you; and particularly making request (if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God) to come unto you, and enjoy the comfort of personal conversation with you. Note; (1.) Those whom we truly love, we should remember without ceasing at the throne of grace. (2.) God's service must engage our souls: nothing is acceptable to him but what is done heartily with an eye to his glory. (3.) In all our journeys the Lord should be regarded: though we devise our way, he must direct our steps.
3. The ends that he proposed to himself in this visit, were, [1.] Their benefit. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; confirmed, if it please God, by his labours and ministry in the faith; guarded against seducers, and their ministers furnished with greater gifts for the edifying of the church. [2.] Their mutual consolation: That is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both you and me; when, by communicating their mutual experience, they might discover the gracious workings of the same divine faith, and rejoice together in the glorious hope, set before them. Note; (1.) The highest advanced in faith and grace have need of farther establishment. (2.) Mutual communications of the dealings of God with our souls greatly tend both to our comfort and establishment in the faith.
4. He informs them that he had long meditated a visit to them, though hitherto he had been providentially hindered by the difficulties that he had to encounter, and the engagements which lay upon him; being earnestly desirous to have some fruit among them, even as among other Gentiles; that he might see his ministry attended with the same blessed effects, as in so many other places. And in these his labours he looked upon himself as a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; his call of God to the office of apostleship, and the qualifications that he was endued with, obliged him to be faithful to his trust: and as the deepest adepts in Grecian literature were, respecting the way of salvation, as far removed from the truth as the most unpolished barbarian, he endeavoured to suit his discourses to both, that the wise men of this world might become wise unto salvation through the Gospel word, and the weaker and more unlearned be fed with the sincere milk of heavenly truth. Note; (1.) All our abilities and gifts of nature, providence, or grace, are lent us of the Lord, and to be accounted for to him, as being his debtors for them. (2.) We must suit our discourses to our auditory; and though the matter be the same, the manner should be varied, to give every man his portion in due season.
5. He professes the alacrity and cheerfulness wherewith he looks rewards Rome, amid all the dangers that he might expect to encounter there, ready to preach the Gospel in the most public manner, and fearless of any consequences from the opposition of the many or the mighty. The ministers of grace should thus be bold as lions in the cause of truth, nor fear the faces of men.
3rdly, The apostle having experienced the power of the Gospel on his own soul, so far was he from being ashamed of the reproach of the cross, which to the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, that he gloried in the honour of being sent to publish to small and great the glad tidings of salvation through a crucified Jesus; and he gives his reasons for so doing.
1. Because the Gospel which he preached was the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; this being the great mean which God is pleased to make use of, and through the Spirit's working comes with demonstration to the sinner's heart; and it was sent to the Jews first, and then more generally to the Gentile world, that they might believe the divine report, and by faith embrace and lay hold of the hope of eternal life revealed in the Gospel; for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, being wholly of faith, exclusive of all works and duties of our own (see 2 Corinthians 3:18.), or from the doctrine of faith in the word, to the grace of faith in the heart; or rather from one degree of faith to another; as it is written, in the Old Testament, which exactly corresponds in doctrine with the New, the just or justified man, shall live by faith; hereby he is brought into, and continues in, a state of spiritual life; so that sin has no more dominion over him.
2. Because without this method of divine grace every human creature must lie down under eternal wrath and despair: for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; God's word denounces vengeance on every transgressor; his judgments past have often fearfully spoken his displeasure against sin; and the whole world are found guilty before him, since all have sinned in opposition to their better knowledge, whether Jews, who enjoyed the light of revelation; or Gentiles, whom God left without witness, giving them sufficient traditionary notices of his being, perfections, and attributes, which the visible objects around them served to explain, so as to leave them without excuse in their idolatry and disobedience. Note; (1.) Every sinner at God's bar will stand self-condemned; he will be made to own that he knew better, and did worse. (2.) Fearful is the wrath revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men: if it once seize on the sinner, it will burn, and never can be quenched. (3.) How highly should we value, and how eagerly embrace that glorious Gospel, which affords shelter from those terrible blasts of the divine vengeance!
4thly, The deplorable state of guilt in which the Gentile world lay is pathetically described, and the judgment of God against them therefore evidently appears to be the most righteous.
1. They had, though not the light of revelation, yet such notices of God's being and attributes, as left them inexcusable. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, or among them; for God hath shewed it unto them, by the traditionary notices delivered down from the beginning, and by the works of creation and providence, which confirm and evidence the truth of the being and glory of the eternal Jehovah; whose invisible things, his divine perfections, his eternal power and Godhead, his self-existence, incorporeal nature, infinite wisdom and goodness, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: the intellectual faculties contemplating the visible objects, and man himself (κτισις κοσμου,) the most remarkable creature upon earth, might from the creation of the world, through the secret influences of divine grace, receive sufficient confirmation of what God had shewed unto men concerning himself.
2. They notwithstanding fell into the grossest and most inexcusable idolatry. When they knew God, had some notions of his being and attributes, and might have obtained clearer discoveries had they attended to the means of instruction which he afforded them; they glorified him not as God, neither in their hearts, their worship, nor their conduct, not regarding and treating him suitably to his nature and perfections; neither were thankful, insensible to the blessings of his providence, and imputing to second causes all the mercies which they received from the first. Hence they became vain in their own imaginations, indulging their fancies, and, proudly reasoning about matters which were too high for them, the philosophers set up their various systems, and in their contests and disputations for their own opinions erred alike from the truth; and their foolish heart was darkened, their boasted wisdom became folly, the corruption of their nature blinded their understanding, and, in the midst of the highest pretensions to science, they sunk into the most fatal depths of ignorance and error; professing themselves to be wise, puffed up with the conceit of their vast attainments, they became fools, perfect idiots in the most obvious matters respecting the divine Being and worship; and, instead of a Spirit immortal, invisible, eternal, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; so shockingly debating his dignity; so horridly infatuated in their wild imaginations; changing the truth of God into a lie, ascribing to idols the honour due to Jehovah; making such false representations of him, as if he were corporeal; and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator, (παρα,) above, besides, or contrary to him. Though they acknowledged a supreme Numen, their worship was chiefly directed to their inferior deities; and all the services which they paid to their idols were the greatest dishonour to God, and reflected most highly upon his being and perfections, who is blessed for ever. Amen! He is infinitely and necessarily blessed and glorious in himself, the only author of blessedness to all his creatures, and the alone worthy object of their worship and adoration; to whom may it be for ever rendered and ascribed!
3. In just judgment upon them for such abominable idolatry, and direct opposition to the notices that he had given them concerning himself, he gave them up; abandoned them to their own heart's lusts; which, when his restraining grace was withdrawn, hurried them headlong into the foulest and most unnatural acts of uncleanness, the very mention of which should make us shudder with horror. To commit such uncleanness with greediness was at once the filling up of the measure of their iniquities, and the heavy and deserved punishment inflicted for their idolatry, the recompence of their error which was meet. And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, but quenched the gift that he had bestowed, and acted in opposition to the knowledge which he had vouchsafed to them, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, rejected them with abhorrence, and left them to the blindness, hardness, and malignity of their fallen hearts, to do those things which are not convenient, detestable to God, dishonourable to themselves, and the consequences of which must be eternally ruinous, being filled with all unrighteousness. And the dreadful catalogue of sins here given, was not merely applicable to the more ignorant and unrefined part of the Gentile world, but was notoriously true of their wisest philosophers and their most famed moralists; who knowing the judgment of God, and having sufficient light in their consciences to discover, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, as transgressors against the Majesty on high;—yet so enslaved were they by their vile affections, that they not only do the same themselves, but have pleasure in them that do them, encourage, countenance, and take delight in others who commit the same abominations. From all which it is most evident, that men of such a character as these can never, by any works of righteousness which they can pretend to, be justified before God; but must be saved by abounding grace, or perish. Note; (1.) Nothing is a sorer punishment than for the sinner to be given up to his own heart's lusts. (2.) When God withdraws his restraints, there are no abominations into which we shall not rush headlong, as the horse rusheth into the battle. (3.) When we see the dire iniquities here recorded, and behold them in the practice and temper of others, we should reflect for our own humiliation, that our hearts are by nature the same, alike corrupt. (4.) Sin against light and knowledge is most exceeding sinful; but the summit of iniquity is, to take a diabolical pleasure in the wickedness of others, and to love sin for its own sake.