advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of
circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted
with the oracles of God. For what if some were without faith? shall
their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God
forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar; as it is
written,

That thou mightest be justified in thy words,

And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgement. But if our
unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath? (I speak after the manner
of men.) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? But if
the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also
still judged as a sinner? and why not (as we be slanderously reported,
and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come?
whose condemnation is just.

What is of interest here is to notice that St. Paul reproduces the
argument of his Jewish opponent with great sympathetic force. It had
clearly been weighed in his own mind. It was urged, no doubt, against
his own teaching, that it gave an excuse for sinning by suggesting that
the greatness of the sin only glorified the super-abundant greatness of
the pardoning love. It is only too probable that some of his followers
were persuaded by some such argument or acted as {119} if they were.
Thus St. Paul states it with vigour, but thereby only makes all the
more apparent the meagreness of his reply. Not that the argument is
such as makes reply difficult. In a slightly different form St. Paul
deals with it elaborately in chapters ix-xi. But here he clearly
treats it as contemptible when its true character has once been
disclosed. And why? Because it is professedly an explanation of the
ways of God with man, which is at the same time an excuse for
immorality. It is an intellectual exercise at the expense of
conscience. And St. Paul shows, by the very contempt with which he
treats it, that a man who will play false with his conscience, and then
proceed to find intellectual justifications, is not to be met in the
intellectual region at all. He has been condemned already.

St. Paul then, we find, will not argue with one who reasons at the
expense of his conscience; and this is an important principle. When
the intellect is acting purely, it must be free, and must be dealt with
seriously on its own ground. But the conscience