It is the aim of the present book to fix attention, not so much on the incidental puzzles of the Epistle, as on its main intention. What are the principles of Christianity as Paul here presents them? How does he apply them to the needs of his time? How can we give effect to them in our world today, which is so different from that of Paul and yet, in many respects, so like it? The Epistle to the Romans, for all its wrappings of ancient thought and language, is essentially a modern book, and only when we so read it can we apprehend its true message. - Preface.