[[17]] These words (which in their full sense seem to go beyond what we have a right to say) occur in Browning's Ring and the Book. It is the Pope's final reflection, when he condemns Guido to death, that his execution may be the one chance for his spiritual recovery—
'In the main criminal I see no chance
Except in such a suddenness of fate.'
[[18]] Luke vi. 35, or 'despairing of no man,' marg. R.V.
[[19]] We hold, therefore, with regard to the lots of men in this world, exactly the opposite of what Plato suggested under the impulse of the doctrine of transmigration, 'It is the man's own choice, God is blameless.'
DIVISION V. CHAPTERS XII-XV. 13.
Practical Exhortation.
We must almost all of us, in climbing some high hill, have experienced the necessity for two distinct efforts, the second more or less unanticipated. We started to climb to the apparent summit, only to find, when we got there, that it was no real summit at all, but a prominent spur, and that a second climb was required of us before we were really at the top. An intellectual experience not unlike this is the lot of the student of the Epistle to the Romans. The apparent climax of the epistle is the end of chapter viii, and the student at starting expects his brain to be chiefly taxed in following the closely knit argument which is to lead him thither. But he reaches it only to find another like effort of mind required of him in grasping the meaning of the section (chapters ix-xi) in which St. Paul is occupied in justifying God's dealings with the chosen people. But now, intellectually speaking, his work is almost over. As the climber, seated on the summit of the hill when at last it is gained, lets his eye range over a rich and wide prospect, and takes in its vastness and variety, or traces below him the delightful descent: so it is with the reader of this epistle who has entered sincerely into the spirit of St. Paul. His intellectual scruples as to the divine dealings have been just laid to rest; before that his mind had been convinced, and his heart and will attracted and won, by the unfolding of the divine righteousness, that is to say of the free grace and love of God. And now, proportionate to the greatness of the effort by which this satisfaction of intellect and heart and will has been won, is the joy of expansion which remains—the joy of the surrendered mind in appreciating all that is practically possible for it in the light of the love of God. 'I will run the way of thy commandments, because thou dost enlarge my heart,' that is, expand it with a sense of liberty and joy[[1]]. 'All things are ours,' if but once in completeness of self-surrendering faith 'we are Christ's' as assuredly 'Christ is God's[[2]].' 'I can do all things in Christ that strengtheneth me[[3]].'
[[1]] Ps. cxix. 32. See Driver's Parallel Psalter, Oxford (1898).