tism by immersion and by affusion . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

G. A prayer of Jeremy Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

H. The origin of the maxim 'In necessariis unitas, &c.' . . . . 239

I. St. Augustine's teaching that 'The Church is the
body of Christ offered in the eucharist' . . . . . . . . 240

{1}

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

DIVISION IV. CHAPTERS IX-XI.

_The theodicy or justification of God for His dealings with the Jews._

St. Paul has concluded his great exposition of the meaning of 'the
gospel': that in it is the disclosure of a divine righteousness into
which all mankind--Jews and Gentiles on the same level of need and
sin--are to be freely admitted by simply believing in Jesus. The
believer in Jesus first welcomes the absolute and unmerited forgiveness
of his sins, which his redeemer has won for him, and thus acquitted
passes into the spiritual strength and joy and fellowship of the new
life, the life of the redeemed humanity, lived in Jesus Christ, the
second Adam or head of our race. The {2} contemplation of the present
moral freedom, and the glorious future prospect, of this catholic
body--the elect of God in Jesus Christ--has in the eighth chapter
filled the apostle's language with the glow of an enthusiasm almost
unparalleled in all the compass of his epistles. And he is intending
to pass on to interpret to the representatives of this church of Christ
at Rome some of the moral obligations which follow most clearly from
the consideration of what their faith really means. This ethical
division of the epistle begins with chapter xii. The interval (ix-xi)
is occupied with a discussion which is an episode, in the sense that
the epistle might be read without it and no feeling of a broken unity
would force itself upon us. None the less the discussion not only
confronts and silences an obvious objection to St. Paul's teaching, but
also brings out ideas about the meaning of the divine election, and the
responsibility involved in it, which are vital and necessary for the
true understanding of the 'free grace of God.' For these chapters
serve really to safeguard the all-important sense of our human
responsibility under the rich and unmerited conditions of divine
privilege in which we find ourselves.

{3}

St. Paul's argument so far has involved an obvious conclusion. God's
elect are no longer the Jews in particular. On the contrary, the Jews
in bulk have los