What St. Paul speaks to us here is no single or partial lesson dropped by the way. Standing where it does in his writings, it carries an exceptional weight of authority and breadth of meaning. It forms a kind of midpoint in the greatest and most comprehensive of his early epistles. If we are desiring to know what he meant by Christian doctrine, at least in its simpler elements, we turn to the Epistle to the Romans. The same epistle is hardly less rich in instruction respecting his view of Christian morality and practice, especially in the wider relations of society at large. The two divisions of the epistle are joined together by our text, itself St. Paul's own text and foundation for the moral teaching which follows it, as it is at the same time the immediate conclusion from the doctrinal teaching which has gone before. As we read it, we seem uplifted for the moment with him to that height of true vision in which he beheld all truth and all life as one.