nd by the love
of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God
for me; that I may be delivered from them that are disobedient in
Judaea, and _that_ my ministration which _I have_ for Jerusalem may be
acceptable to the saints; that I may come unto you in joy through the
will of God, and together with you find rest. Now the God of peace be
with you all. Amen.

1. St. Paul has a habit of representing those he writes to in the best
light[6]. But the words 'full of goodness,' 'filled with all
knowledge,' 'able to admonish,' are no idle compliments. It is not too
much to suggest that St. Paul, as he sees the high part which the
church of the capital must play in the world, perceives also, in what
he hears of the Roman Christians, evidences of the spirit which will
enable them to fulfil it. And history verifies the apostle's
anticipation. The letter of the Roman church to the Corinthians, which
passes under Clement's name, and was written some forty years after
{176} this letter of St. Paul's, is the very embodiment of the spirit
of goodness, knowledge, and power to admonish. The princely generosity
of the Roman church in all directions was proverbial in the second
century[7]. If it did not become as distinguished as Alexandria in
theological science, it did become a chief centre of theological
orthodoxy and government. And the repeated evidences we gain that
rigorists, from Hippolytus to Novatian, were so dissatisfied with the
policy of the Roman bishops as to separate themselves from their
communion, give us good reason to believe that the internal policy of
this church was, within just limits, liberal and tolerant.

2. St. Paul here describes his apostolic commission in priestly
language. 'The sacrificial terminology is far more marked in the
original than it can be in a translation[8].' The word for 'minister
of Christ Jesus' is a technical word for priest in the Greek Old
Testament[9]. The word translated 'ministering' means 'offering
sacrifice.' (That which St. Paul describes {177} himself as offering
in sacrifice is not the gospel, as our translation might imply: the
gospel assigns the sphere of the sacrifice[10], but the sacrifice he
has to offer is that of the Gentile world, in Christ, consecrated to be
a fit sacrifice by the Spirit.) The phrase also, 'in things pertaining
to God' (cf. Hebr. ii. 17), is appropriate to the priest as he stands
before God. 'But this is all symbo