the Romans, above all his other writings; exerting himself in a most
because the children of Abraham, but the Gentiles by nature sinners and children of wrath, he tells them that even they were children of the devil.5
3. Though we should suppose the apostles not to have been thoroughly brought off from such notions, manners and language of the Jews, till after Christ's ascension; yet after the pouring out of the spirit on the day of Pentecost, or at least, after the calling of the Gentiles, begun in the conversion of Cornelius, they were fully indoctrinated in this matter, and effectually taught no longer to call the Gentiles unclean, as a note of distinction from the Jews (Acts 10:24), which was before any of the apostolic epistles were written.
4. Of all the apostles, none were more perfectly instructed in this matter, and none so abundant in instructing others in it, as Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles. He had abundance to do in this matter. None of the apostles had so much occasion to exert themselves against the forementioned notions and language of the Jews, in opposition of Jewish teachers, and Judaizing Christians, that strove to keep up the separation-wall between Jews and Gentiles, and to exalt the former, and set the latter at naught.
5. This Apostle does especially strive in this matter in this epistle to the Romans, above all his other writings; exerting himself in a most elaborate manner, and with his utmost skill and power to bring the Jewish Christians off from everything of this kind; endeavoring by all means, that there might no longer be in them any remains of these old notions they had been educated in, of such a great distinction between Jews and Gentiles, as were expressed in the names they used to distinguish them by, calling the Jews "holy," "children of Abraham," "friends," and "children of God," but the Gentiles "sinners," "unclean," "enemies," and the like. He makes it almost his
whole business, from the beginning of the epistle, to this passage in the 5th chapter which we are upon, to convince them that there was no ground for any such distinction, and to prove that in common, both Jews and Gentiles, all were desperately wicked, and none righteous, no, not one. He tells them (ch. 3:9), that the Jews were by no means better than the Gentiles; and (in what follows in that chapter) that there was no difference between Jews and Gentiles; and represents all as without strength, or any sufficiency of their own in the affair of justification and redemption; and in the continuation of the same discourse, in the 4th chapter, teaches that all that were justified by Christ, were in themselves ungodly; and that being the children of Abraham was not peculiar to the Jews. In this 5th chapter, still in continuation of the same discourse, on the same subject, and argument of justification through Christ, and by faith in him, he speaks of Christ's dying for the ungodly and sinners, and those that were without strength or sufficiency for their own salvation, as he had done all along before. But now, it seems, the Apostle by sinners and ungodly must not be understood according as he used these words before; but must be supposed to mean only the Gentiles, as distinguished from the Jews; adopting the language of those self-righteous, self-exalting, disdainful Judaizing teachers, whom he was with all his might opposing: countenancing the very same thing in them, which he had been from the beginning of the epistle discountenancing, and endeavoring to discourage, and utterly to abolish, with all his art and strength.
One reason, why the Jews looked on themselves better than the Gentiles, and called themselves holy and the Gentiles sinners, was that they had the law of Moses. They made their boast of the law. But the Apostle shews them, that this was so far from making them better, that it condemned them, and was an occasion of their being sinners in a higher degree, and more aggravated manner, and more