It was, I believe, a precept of John Wesley's to his evangelists, in unfolding their message, to speak first in general of the love of God to man; then, with all possible energy, and so as to search conscience to its depths, to preach the law of holiness; and then, and not till then, to uplift the glories of the Gospel of pardon, and of life. Intentionally or not, his directions follow the lines of the Epistle to the Romans. But the Apostle has by no means done with the Jew, and his hopes of heaven by pedigree and by creed. He recurs to the impartiality of "_that day_," the coming final crisis of human history, ever present to his soul. He dwells now almost wholly on the impartiality of _its severity_, still bearing on the Pharisee's dream that somehow the Law will be his friend, for Abraham's and Moses' sake. [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =For all who sinned= (or, in English idiom, =all who have sinned, all who shall have sinned=) =not law-wise, even so, not law-wise, shall perish,= shall lose the soul; =and all who in= (or let us paraphrase, =under=) =law have sinned, by law shall be judged,= that is to say, practically, =condemned,= found guilty. [Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =For not law's hearers= are =just in God's court;= nay, =law's doers shall be justified;= for "law" is never for a moment satisfied with applause, with approbation; it demands always and inexorably obedience. [Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =For whenever (the) Nations,= Nations =not having law, by nature=--as distinct from express precept--=do the things of the Law,= when they act on the principles of it, observing in any measure the eternal difference of right and wrong, =these men,= though =not having law, are to themselves law;= [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =shewing as they do (οἵτινες)=--to one another, in moral intercourse--=the work of the Law,= that which is, as a fact, its _result_ where it is heard, a sense of the dread claims of right, =written in their hearts,= present to the intuitions of their nature; =while their conscience,= their sense of violated right, =bears concurrent witness,= each conscience "concurring" with all; =and while, between each other,= in the interchanges of thought and discourse, =their reasonings accuse, or it may be defend,= their actions; now in conversation, now in treatise or philosophic dialogue. And all this makes one vast phenomenon, pregnant with lessons of accountability, and ominous of a judgment coming; [Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =in the day when God shall judge the secret things of men,= even the secrets hid beneath the solemn robe of the formalist, =according to my Gospel,[18] by means of Jesus Christ,= to whom the Father "hath committed all judgment, as He is the Son of Man" (John v. 27). So he closes another solemn cadence with the blessed Name. It has its special weight and fitness here; it was the name trampled by the Pharisee, yet the name of Him who was to judge him in the great day.