be ascribed to the Providence of God, and not to the wickedness of man; through which it comes
not, that the majesty of God is not injured, nay, wholly overthrown^94
(As we are reproached,)etc. Since Paul speaks so reverently of the secret judgments of God,
it is a wonder that his enemies should have fallen into such wantonness as to calumniate him: but
there has never been so much reverence and seriousness displayed by God’s servants as to be
sufficient to check impure and virulent tongues. It is not then a new thing, that adversaries at this
day load with so many false accusations, and render odious our doctrine, which we ourselves know
to be the pure gospel of Christ, and all the angels, as well as the faithful, are our witnesses. Nothing
can be imagined more monstrous than what we read here was laid to the charge of Paul, to the end,
that his preaching might be rendered hateful to the inexperienced. Let us then bear this evil, when
the ungodly abuse the truth which we preach by their calumnies: nor let us cease, on this account,
constantly to defend the genuine confession of it, inasmuch as it has sufficient power to crush and
to dissipate their falsehoods. Let us, at the same time, according to the Apostle’s example, oppose,
as much as we can, all malicious subtilties, (technis — crafts, wiles,) that the base and the abandoned
may not, without some check, speak evil of our Creator.
Whose judgment is just. Some take this in an active sense, as signifying that Paul so far assents
to them, that what they objected was absurd, in order that the doctrine of the gospel might not be
thought to be connected with such paradoxes: but I approve more of the passive meaning; for it
would not have been suitable simply to express an approval of such a wickedness, which, on the
contrary, deserved to be severely condemned; and this is what Paul seems to me to have done. And
their perverseness was, on two accounts, to be condemned, — first, because this impiety had gained
the assent of their minds; and secondly, because, in traducing the gospel, they dared to draw from
it their calumny.
Romans 3:9
- Quid ergo? præcellimus?^95 Nequaquam:
ante enim constituimus tam Judæos quam
Græcos, omnes sub peccato esse. - What then? are we better than they? No,
in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews
and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.
9.What then? He returns from his digression to his subject. For lest the Jews should object that
they were deprived of their right, as he had mentioned those distinctions of honor, for which they
thought themselves superior to the Gentiles, he now at length replies to the question — in what
respect they excelled the Gentiles. And though his answer seems in appearance to militate against
(^94) Grotius thinks, that in the beginning of this verse there is a transposition, and that , after the parenthesis, ought to be
construed before μ which precedes it, and that is for cur, why, — as in Mark 9:11, and 28. The version would then be, “and
why not, (as we are reproached, and as some declare that we say,) Let us do evil that good may come?” This is the rendering of
Luther But Limborch and Stuart consider μ to be understood after μ ; and the latter takes μ not as a negative but an interrogative,
“and shall we say,” etc.? Amidst these varieties, the main drift of the passage remains the same. — Ed.
(^95) “Præcellimus?” μ ; “Have we the advantage?” Doddridge; “Do we excel?” Macknight; “Have we any preference?”
Stuart It is thus paraphrased by Theodoret μ — “What advantages then, have we?” “Præcellimus“ is the rendering
of Erasmus, Pareus, and BezaVenema says, that this verb, in the active voice only, has this meaning in Greek authors; but the
context can allow it no other sense here. Wetstein indeed gives it a passive meaning, “an antecellimur — are we surpassed?”
but it can hardly comport with the drift of the passage. — Ed.