Rome (Rom. 1:7) from one manuscript, whether from oversight or for the purpose of generalizing the reference of its contents.  Nor can any valid objection be drawn from the general character of the epistle.  That depended much on the occasion which called it forth, which we have seen to have been general, and the frame of mind in which the apostle wrote.  As to the omission of salutations, we shall find upon examination that the measure of Paul’s personal acquaintance with the churches was not that of his personal greetings.  These abound most of all in the epistle to the Romans whom he had never visited.  Rom. 16.  They are found also in the epistle to the Colossians to whom Paul was personally a stranger.  Col. 4:10-14.  On the contrary they are wanting, except in a general form, in the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians (in 2 Thessalonians wholly wanting as in this epistle), Titus, and the first to Timothy.  The other objections are founded on misinterpretation, as when it is inferred from chap, 1:15 that the author had never seen those to whom he wrote; and from chap, 3:2 that they had no personal acquaintance with him.  But in the former passage the apostle speaks simply of the good report which had come to him from the Ephesian church since he left it; and, in the latter, the words:  “if ye have heard” imply no doubt (compare 1 Peter 2:3), and cannot be fairly adduced to prove that the writer was personally unknown to his readers.

25.  This epistle, like that to the Colossians, naturally falls into two divisions of about equal size; the first argumentative, the second practical.

The argumentative part occupies the first two chapters.  Full of the great theme with which the epistle to the Colossians is occupied—­the personal dignity and glory of Christ, the greatness of his salvation, and especially the union through him of all holy beings in heaven and earth in one family of God—­the apostle begins, immediately after the apostolic greeting, by pouring out his heart in thanksgiving to God for his rich mercy, which has made him and his beloved Ephesians partakers of Christ’s redemption, the greatness and glory of which he describes in glowing terms, bringing in, as he proceeds, the thought with which his mind is filled, that it is God’s purpose to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.”  Chap. 1:10.  He then adds a fervent prayer for the growth of the Ephesians in the knowledge of Christ, whom God has raised above all principality and power and made head over all things to his body the church.  Returning in the second chapter to the theme with which he began, he contrasts with the former wretched condition of the Ephesians, when they had no hope and were without God in the world, their present blessed state, as fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of faith; God having through Christ broken down the