Some years ago we remember reading this passage, this close of the eighth chapter, under moving circumstances. On a cloudless January night, late arrived in Rome, we stood in the Coliseum, a party of friends from England. Orion, the giant with the sword, glimmered like a spectre, the spectre of persecution, above the huge precinct; for the full moon, high in the heavens, overpowered the stars. By its light we read from a little Testament these words, written so long ago to be read in that same City; written by the man whose dust now sleeps at Tre Fontane, where the executioner dismissed him to be with Christ; written to men and women some of whom at least, in all human likelihood, suffered in that same Amphitheatre, raised only twenty-two years after Paul wrote to the Romans, and soon made the scene of countless martyrdoms. "Do you want a relic?" said a Pope to some eager visitor. "Gather dust from the Coliseum; it is all the martyrs." We recited the words of the Epistle, and gave thanks to Him who had there triumphed in His saints over life and death, over beasts, and men, and demons. Then we thought of the inmost factors in that great victory; Truth and Life. They "knew whom they had believed"--their Sacrifice, their Head, their King. He whom they had believed lived in them, and they in Him, by the Holy Ghost given to them. Then we thought of ourselves, in our circumstances so totally different on the surface, yet carrying the same needs in their depths. Are we too to overcome, in "the things present" of our modern world, and in face of "the things to come" yet upon the earth? Are we to be "more than conquerors," winning blessing out of all things, and really living "in our own generation" (Acts xiii. 36) as the bondmen of Christ and the sons of God? Then for us also the absolute necessities are--the same Truth, and the same Life. And they are ours, thanks be to the Name of our salvation. Time hath no more dominion over them, because death hath no more dominion over Him. For us too Jesus died. In us too, by the Holy Ghost, He lives. [139] Read ἀσθενείᾳ. [140] So we venture to render κατὰ Θεόν. [141] _Confessiones_, v. 8. [142] See a noble poem by James Montgomery, _The Lot of the Righteous_. [143] See _e.g._ xi. 2; Acts ii. 23; 1 Pet. i. 2, 20. [144] Συμμόρφους: μορφὴ is likeness not by accident but of essence. The Greek here is literally, "conformed ones _of_ the image, etc."; as if their similitude made them part of that which they resembled. [145] Let us banish from the idea of "_predestination_" all thought of a mechanical pagan _destiny_, and use it of the sure purpose of the living and loving God. [146] Δέ: the "_but_" of logic. He is _proving_ the security of the prospect of _glory_. [147] Ὅς γε: the particle deeply _underlines_ the pronoun. [148] Ὁ δικαιῶν: we adopt the interrogative rendering of all the clauses here. It is equally good as grammar, and far more congenial to the glowing context.