[36] Depravatus: twisted, wrenched from the straight line.
[37] Δικαιούμενοι: the present participle indicates rather the permanent principle of justification than its actual procedure, which is, in each case, a divine sentence of acceptance, an act, an event, single and apart. See on ch. v. 1.
[38] Ὃν προέθετο ὁ Θεός: it is possible to render, "Whom God designed," in His eternal counsel of redemption. But the context just below emphasizes the thought of "declaration," manifestation, explanation of the hidden Treasure. This seems to decide for the other rendering.
[39] Ἱλαστήριον: elsewhere in Scripture Greek this word means the Mercy Seat, the golden lid of the Ark, above which the Shechinah shone and on which the blood of atonement was sprinkled. Here is indeed a manifest and noble type of Christ. But on the other hand the word ἱλαστήριον gets that meaning only indirectly. Its native meaning is rather "a price of expiation." And a somewhat sudden insertion here of the imagery of the Mercy Seat seems unlikely, in the absence of all other allusion to the High Priestly function of our Lord.
[40] We may punctuate, "through faith, in His blood"; as if to say "He is Propitiation in (in virtue of) His blood; we get the benefit through faith." But this rendering seems to us the less likely, as the less simple. The construction, "faith in" πίστις ἐν τινί, is fully verified by Mark i. 15; "believe in the Gospel."
[41] Ἀνοχή: we think that the word here is a pregnant expression for "the time when God forebore."
[42] Reading γὰρ not οὖν.
[43] Δικαιοῦσθαι: the present infinitive, as in ver. 25, puts before us the permanence of the principle on which is based the definite act.
[44] The Life of Father Paul the Venetian, translated out of Italian: London, 1676.
[45] Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, written by Himself.