now I would not have you ignorant, my brethren, that I often purposed to come to you, tho' I have been hindered hitherto, that I might be useful among you as well as among other Gentiles.

you know the divine will, and what is contrary thereto, having been educated in the law:

because the effect of the law is punishment: for if there had been no law, there could have been no transgression.

neither yield your members as instruments to iniquity: but yield yourselves unto God, as being alive after having been dead; and your members as instruments of righteousness.

Do we then conclude, that the law is the cause of sin? by no means; but I should not have had such a notion of sin, had it not been for the law: for I should not have known concupiscence was a sin, unless the law had said, "thou shalt not covet."

if the divine Being has patiently bore with those objects of his displeasure, that had been working out their own destruction, why may he not reveal himself to make them feel his vindictive power,

and as Esaias said before, "except the God of heaven had left us a remnant, we had been as Sodoma, and brought to the state of Gomorrha."

Though they are violently prejudiced against the gospel upon your account: yet they are objects of favour upon the account of their having been chosen out of respect to your fore-fathers.

for who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?

do not for such a thing as meat, pull down what God has been raising. all things indeed are pure; but they become evil to him who by eating giveth offence.