because when they knew God, they did not with gratitude glorify him as God, but their reasoning became extravagance, and their minds, void of judgment, were involv'd in darkness.

and the men unnaturally leaving the sex, were inflamed with mutual passions, which they shamefully indulged, and received in their own persons, the retribution that was justly due to such enormities.

they were full of all injustice, fornication, mischief, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, contention, fraud, malignity;

if therefore an uncircumcised Gentile keep the moral precepts contained in the law, shall not he be reckon'd, as if he were circumcised?

much every way: chiefly, because they were intrusted with the oracles of God.

" I have made thee a father of many nations," then existing in the sight of God, whom he believed, who gives life to the dead, and calls forth things that are not, as if they were:

for at the appointed time Christ died for us, when we were in a helpless, sinful state.

but herein hath God displayed his love towards us, in that Christ died for us, even while we were yet sinners.

for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son: much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

don't you know that when we were all baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, we were plunged into a state figurative of his death.

considering this, that our vicious passions were crucified with him, that the body of sin being destroyed, we might not any longer be vassals to sin.

but God be thanked, that you, who were the vassals of sin, have sincerely obeyed in the manner the gospel prescribed.

for when ye were the vassals of sin, ye were not in the service of virtue.

for when we were in the carnal state of the law, the sinful passions of that state set our animal faculties to work in the service of death.

who were not, by their own choice, expos'd to this uncertain state, but by virtue of him, who subjected them thereto:

for before they were born, and had done neither good or evil, that the distinction which God had purposed to make might appear to be, not in consideration of their actions, but of his own free call,

as he saith himself in Osee, "I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her, beloved, which was not beloved.

You will say then, "were they suffer'd to stumble meerly for their ruin?" no: but that thro' their fall, salvation might be offer'd to the Gentiles, in order to provoke their emulation.

if then, some of the branches are broken off, and thou like a wild olive, were grafted in their place to partake of the root and sap of the olivestock;

you will say then, "the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in."

well, be it so, for their incredulity they were broken off, and you by faith stand firm: be not then elated, but let this be your fear,

for if you were taken from the wild olive, which was natural to you, to be grafted into a good olive-stock of a different nature, with how much greater reason shall these who are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive-tree?

for we neither live, nor die, as if we were our own masters.

and were christians before me. salute Amplias, whom