Romans 7
DODDRomans 7:1-6
The apostle enters upon his design of taking off the believing Jews from their fond attachment to the Mosaic law, now they were, in a spiritual sense, married to Christ by the gospel. Rom. VII. 1—6.
ROMANS VII. 1. KNOW we not, brethren, (for I HAVE been endeavouring to direct your regards to the gospel, and to Christ as there exhibited, in order to your justification and salvation. Now you may perhaps be ready to
The law hath dominion, as long as it liveth
object, that you, who are Jews, will certainly be out of the way of obtaining those privileges, if you should neglect the Mosaic law, the Divine authority of which none can reasonably question. *But know ye not, brethren, (for I am now speaking to those that are supposed to be familiarly acquainted with the contents of that law for which they were so zealous;) that on the principles which the law itself lays down, it ruleth over a man only so long as it liveth:*ᵃ its dominion over particular persons can, at the utmost, last no longer than till it is itself abrogated; for that is as it were its death, since the Divine authority going along with it was the very life and soul of the law. Suppose that to cease, and the letter of the precept is but a dead corpse, and with respect to its obligation as if it had never been. Just as it is, according to the law itself, with respect to the power of an husband over his wife, which death entirely dissolves: for the married woman is indeed bound and confined by the law to [her] husband while he is alive; but if [her] husband be dead, she is set at liberty from any farther subjection to the law of [her] husband, that is, from that law which had given him a peculiar property in her, and authority over her. Therefore if she become the property of another man,ᵇ whilst her husband liveth, she carries the infamous name of an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is set at liberty from the obligation of the law that bound
But we are set at liberty from the aw.
her to him, so as to be no more subject to the shame and punishment of an adulteress; though she become the property of another man: for death having interposed between them, hath dissolved the former relation; he is dead to her, and she to him. Thus ye also, my dear brethren, are in effect dead to the Mosaic law by the body of Christ; his death and sufferings having now accomplished its design, and abrogated its authority: and this, with a gracious intent, that ye might be, as it were, married to another, [that is,] to him who was in so glorious and triumphant a manner, raised from the dead, no more to die; that in consequence of this new marriage, we might bring forth fruit unto God in all the ways of holy obedience.
And ye should do it with the greatest zeal; for when we were in the flesh, that is, under the comparatively carnal dispensation of Moses, a variety of sinful passions, accidentally occasioned and irritated by the law, were active in our members, so as to produce visible sinful actions, and in them to bring forth a very different fruit from that which I have just been mentioning; even as I observed before, (chap. vi. 21, 23,) such fruit as would expose you to eternal death, if God were to be strict to mark your offences, and if his mercy did not interpose to break the fatal connection: a circumstance which it is of the utmost importance seriously to reflect upon. But now we are set at liberty from our obligation to the law, that obligation in which we were held, being in effect dead, or abrogated as I told you above, (ver. 1-4,) so as that now you are, in a more liberal manner, and from nobler principles, to serve God as your Master and Father in Christ, in the newness of the Spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter: that is, you are to live as those that are renewed by the Holy Spirit of God, in a rich abundance poured out upon you under this new and better
By the body of Christ] He is to be considered here as testifying by the authority of a Christian apostle, that this was the design of Christ’s death; so that all he does in his argument here, is to shew, that allowing it to have been thus, (as Jewish believers all did,) their freedom
from the Mosaic law followed on the very principles of that law itself.
d Newness of the Spirit, not [in] the oldness of the letter.] This is the literal version; but new spirit, and old letter, are tantamount expressions, and are more agreeable to the turn of our language.
VOL. 4.
Reflections on freedom from the law, and union with Christ.
dispensation, whereby you are brought to observe the spiritual xiv. meaning and design of the law ; being no longer bound by these Rom. literal and ceremonial precepts which were indeed obligatory vii. 6 long since, but now begin to be antiquated, and out of date. (Heb. viii. 13.)
IMPROVEMENT.
God hath conferred upon all Christians this singular honour, that the whole body of them should be represented as exposed verse to Christ. Let us always remember, how we are engaged, by that 4 sacred relation, to bring forth fruit unto God. And may the remembrance of the resurrection of Christ put continual vigour into our obedience, while we regard him as the ever living Lord, to whom our obligations are indissoluble and everlasting.
Too much have sinful passions reigned in our flesh, during our unconverted state. In too many instances have they wrought effectually to bring forth fruit unto death. And we owe it to the wonderful mercy and forbearance of God, that death, eternal death, hath not long since been the consequence.
6 Being freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law, being freed also from the condemning sentence of that moral law, under the obligations of which by the constitution of our intelligent and rational nature we are all born ; let us thankfully acknowledge the favour, and charge it upon our grateful hearts, that we serve God in newness of spirit and of life. To engage us to this, may we experience more abundantly the renewings of the Holy Ghost ; and the actions of our lives will be easily and delightfully reduced to the obedience of these precepts which his omnipotent and gracious hand hath inscribed on our hearts !
Romans 7:7
To wean the believing Jews from their undue attachment to the law of Moses, the apostle represents at large, how comparatively ineffectual its motives were, to produce that holiness, which, by a lively faith in the gospel, we may so happily obtain. Rom. VII. 7, to the end ; VIII. 1—4.
ROMANS VII. 7.
I HAVE been observing above, to those of xv. my Christian brethren who were educated Rom. in the Jewish religion, that irregular passions, vii. 7 while we were under the law of Moses, and were acquainted with no superior dispensation, did in some instances, by means of the law, operate so as to bring forth fruit unto death. And it is necessary, that I should not only
ROMANS VII. 7. WHAT shall we say, then ?
the law of Moses is the knowledge of sin.
ather illustrate that important remark, but expressly caution against any mistake with relation to it. What shall we say then, or what do we intend by that assertion? [that] the law itself [is] sin, that there is any moral evil in it, or that it is intended by God, or adapted in its own nature, to lead men into sin? God forbid! We revere the high authority by which it was given, too humbly, to insinuate any thing of that kind. And indeed there are many particulars in which *I should not have known sin, but by the law.*ᵃ I should not, in a mere state of nature, have apprehended the evil of them; which I now learn from finding them so expressly prohibited. I had not for instance known the sinfulness of lust, or irregular desires, unless the law had said, “Thou shalt not covet;”ᵇ from whence it was easy to infer, that this law takes cognizance of the heart as well as of external actions. But as soon as I had understanding enough to perceive that the law forbade the indulgence of irregular desires, I found that I had in fact broken it; and thereby incurred the penalty, without any hope of help and deliverance from the law. And this, while I looked no farther, naturally tended to throw my mind into a state of dejection and despair. So that I may say, that sin taking occasion from the awful sanction of the commandment,ᶜ the
ᵃ I should not have known sin, &c.] The apostle here, by a very dexterous turn, changes the person, and speaks as of himself. This he elsewhere does, (Rom. iii. 6; 1 Cor. x. 30, chap. iv. 6,) when he is only personating another character. And the character assumed here is that of a man, first ignorant of the law, then under it, and sincerely desiring to please God, but finding to his sorrow, the weakness of the motives it suggested, and the sad discouragement under which it left him; and last of all, with transport discovering the gospel, and gaining pardon and strength, peace and joy by it. But to suppose he speaks all these things of himself, as the confirmed Christian, that he really was, when he wrote this epistle, is not only foreign, but contrary to the whole scope of his discourse, as well as to what is expressly asserted, chap. viii. 2.
ᵇ Thou shalt not covet.] This, by the way, proves, that Paul thought the covet-
covetousness forbidden in the tenth commandment related to the heart, and not merely, as some have represented it, to any overt act, to an attempt to take away what belongs to another. And this might be a hint to all thinking men, that the secret powers of their souls were under a Divine inspection, and that much guilt might be contracted which did not appear to any human eye.
ᶜ Sin taking occasion from the commandment.] Most commentators have explained this, as signifying, that sin was quickened by the prohibition; the inclination of human nature in general being like that of a froward child, who will do a thing because it is forbidden, and perhaps is, as it were, reminded of an evil, on hearing it mentioned in a prohibition. But, not to examine how far this is a universal case, it must surely be acknowledged, that all lust does not arise from hence, much being previous to any possible knowledge of
The commandment found to be unto death :
wrath and ruin which it denounced, brought me into so sad a situation of mind, and left me so little strength and spirit to resist future temptation, when I seemed already undone ; that it might in a manner be said to have wrought powerfully in me all manner of concupiscence :ᵈ such advantage did sin gain against me. And I mention this, as the effect of my becoming acquainted with the law, because while I was ignorant of the sentence, and considered myself as without the law of God, sin [was] dead ; I was no more aware of any danger from it, or any power it had to hurt me, than if it had been a dead enemy. *For I once was, as it were, alive without the law,*ᵉ considering myself as a man unacquainted with it, I may say I was comparatively cheerful and happy ; but when the commandment came, and I became acquainted with it, in its wide extent, unspotted purity and awful sanctions, then sin immediately came to life again ; it sprung up against me as a living enemy, armed with instruments of destruction ; and I, as incapable of resisting it, fell down, and died ; finding myself unable to resist my miserable doom. *And thus the commandment which [was] in its original constitution [intended] for life,*ᶠ and calculated so to regulate men’s temper and conduct, and if perfectly obeyed, to give them a legal claim to life and happiness, was quite changed in this respect. For I having thus broken it, and by such breach brought its condemning sentence
God’s law, whether revealed or natural. I therefore incline to the interpretation which Mr. Dunlope has given, in his excellent Sermon on this passage, the tenor of whose thoughts I have followed in the whole of my paraphrase upon it, begging leave to refer my reader to his discourse, for the reasons that have determined me to it. Compare Jer. ii. 25. See Dunl. Serm. Vol II. p 46, 47.
ᵈ Wrought in me.] The word καλημετρημα in many places signifies to operate in a powerful and efficacious manner, (compare 2 Cor. iv. 17 ; chap. v. 5 ; chap. vii. 11 ; chap. xii. 12,) and may well here signify a strong irritation of what might, without it, have been in some degree natural.
ᵉ I was once alive without the law.] The apostle cannot, as Mr. Locke supposes here, speak in the person of the whole Jewish people, and in this clause, refer to the time between Abraham and Moses ; for, not to examine how far this description would suit them then, we must of that principle of interpretation suppose, they are all represented in the close of the chapter, as believing in Christ ; which alas ! we know to have been very far from being their case.
ᶠ Intended for life.] The law may be said to have been intended for life, though by sin made the occasion of death ; as medicines, which not being rightly applied, prove fatal, may nevertheless be said to have been intended or cure.
or though the law is holy and spiritu ,
upon me, really found it [to be] unto death. I found it attended with deadly consequences, both as it consigned me over to destruction for past sin, and occasionally, though not intentionally, proved productive of new guilt and misery. For sin, as I before said, taking occasion by the terror and curse of the violated commandment, and representing the great Lawgiver as now become my irreconcileable enemy, deceived me into a persuasion that I could be no worse than I was, and thereby it slew me; it multiplied my mortal wounds, and rendered my case still more desperate.
So that you see, upon the whole, the law in the general [is] acknowledged to be holy, and the particular commandment in question is acknowledged to be agreeable to the holy nature of God, just in reference to the reason of things, and on the whole, in its consequences good, and subservient to men’s happiness, if they continue in a state of rectitude. Was then that which was good in itself made death to me? Shall I charge my ruin on this holy and good law of God? By no means. God forbid I should ever utter any thing like that. But I must rather charge it upon sin, which by means of so holy an instrument undid me. I say it again, Sin was made death to me, so that it appeared to be sin indeed, (that odious dreadful thing, of which nothing can be said worse than that it is itself,) as working death in me, by the occasion of that which is so eminently good: that so sin might by the commandment thus perverted, appear exceeding sinful, and stand forth in all its native and detestable colours; capable of turning the law itself into a means of producing the guilt it so solemnly forbade, and the ruin it was intended to prevent.
It is on this therefore that I lay all the blame; for we well know that the law is spiritual, and as it extends to the Spirit, was intended to purify and exalt it, and to assert its superiority over the meaner part of our nature. But, alas,
So that it appeared: [in φαγη.] Els- fairly and naturally be expounded in ner contends that φαγη is an expletive any significant sense; as it is plain thi here; but I choose not to allow any word may here be. See Elsner, Observ. Vol. II. in scripture to be an expletive, that may p. 37.
Yet by means of the law sin worketh death
may the man I have been describing and representing above, be ready to say, I am in a great measure carnal, and in so many instances subdued by the remaining infirmities of my nature, that I am ready passionately to cry out, I am even sold under sin,ʰ which often rises with an almost irresistible strength, to assume a tyrannical dominion over me, as if I were its slave and property. For that which I actually do, I allow, or approve notⁱ in many instances; for too often, through the strength of passion and surprise of temptation, I practise not that which in the general tenor of my mind I habitually will; but the things which I even hate, which I think of with the greatest abhorrence, those things in many respects I am so unhappy to do; which indeed makes me a burden to myself. Now if I do that which I would not, in willing not to do it, I do so far, though to my own condemnation, consent to the law, and bear my testimony to it, that [it is] good, and do indeed desire to fulfil it; though when a pressing hour of temptation comes, contrary to my resolution, I fail in observing it. But now, in these circumstances, it is no more I myself that can properly be said to do it; but rather sin, which dwelleth in me, and which makes, as it were, another person, having desires and motions and interests entirely contrary to these of the renewed part within; which I would call my better self. For I well know, that in me, that is, in my flesh, the corrupt and degenerate self, nothing that is good dwelleth. I find my animal powers sadly debased and enslaved: for to will is indeed present with me, I form many good purposes and
ʰ Sold under sin.] This is often urged as an argument, that the apostle here speaks in the person of a wicked man, and is represented as a phrase parallel to 1 Kings xxi. 20; 2 Kings xvii. 17; where some of the worst of men are described as having sold themselves to do evil. But the diversity of the expression is very obvious; and yet had this person been represented as lamenting that he had sold himself to sin, it might have been understood as the language of penitent remorse for past guilt, and so very consistent with a good man’s character. And the many
instances in which very excellent persons, in the distress of their hearts for the remainder of imperfection in their character, adopt this very phrase, plainly shew with what propriety Paul might put it into the mouth of one whom he did not consider as an abandoned sinner, and destitute of every principle of real piety.
ⁱ I approve not.] Gataker (de Styl. Nov. Testam. cap. 4; Advers. Miscell. lib. i. cap. 6, and Raphelius in loc.) bring apposite instances of such a use of the word γιασκα.
e cause of which is indwelling sin.
resolutions; but when the time comes in which I should bring them into effect, I find not in my heart a sufficient [ability] strenuously to perform that which I know is good, and which I acknowledge to be most amiable and desirable. It is indeed so grievous a reflection to me, that I cannot forbear repeating it again and again; or it is really so, that I do not the good that I often will, and resolve to do; but the evil which I will not to do, which I form the strongest purposes against, that I doᵏ in repeated instances. If therefore, as I said before, I do that which I would not, and am, as it were, overpowered in some cases and circumstances, contrary to the settled and prevailing bent and inclination of my soul; it is no more I that do it, but sin, which, as another person, dwelleth in me,ˡ and like an evil demon, when it has taken possession of a man, uses my faculties and powers, over which it usurps an abhorred dominion, to carry on its own contrary and destructive interests. I find them, upon the whole, a sort of constraining law, which so influences me, that when I would do good, evil is in fact present with me. For with regard to the inner man, that is, my mind, the better and nobler powers of my intellectual nature, I delight in the law of God,ᵐ I most heartily approve it, and look upon its whole system with complacency, as what I could rejoice to be conformed to in the completest manner, and highest degree. But alas, I see another and
ᵏ The evil which I will not, that I do.] If the meaning of such expressions as these were, that upon the whole, the person using them went on in a prevailing course of habitual wickedness, against the convictions and dictates of his own conscience, one would imagine Paul would have rebuked such a one with great severity, and answered these vain and hypocritical pleas; whereas he represents this person afterwards, as with joy embracing the gospel, and so obtaining superior strength upon the full manifestation of pardoning grace there.
ˡ Sin that dwelleth, &c.] This seems indeed no more than a repetition of verse 17; but it is a graceful and expressive repetition, and shews how near the affair lay to the heart of the person thus com-
complaining, and in what sad and frequent successions the complaint was renewed. The beautiful passage in the 6th book of Xenophon’s Cyropædia, (p. 328, edit. Hutchinson, 1738, 8vo.) where Araspus complains of two souls contending within him, (a passage which it is very possible St. Paul might have read,) contains an agreeable illustration of this paragraph.
ᵐ I delight in the law of God after the inner man.] This is so sure a trace of real piety, and is represented in scripture as, in this view, so decisive; that if it be supposed a true representation of the character, we must surely allow it to have been that of a truly good man; whatever lamented imperfections might attend it. Plato uses the phrase ο σῖος ἀγώνας for the rational part of our nature.
The happiness of being freed from t is
quite opposite law, of vicious and irregular inclinations, seated in my members, which, taking its rise from a lower and meaner principle, is continually making war against the better law of my mind, and too frequently captivating me to the law of sin, which is, as I said, seated in my coporeal members. Wretched man that I am! Do I often cry out in such a circumstance, with no better supports and incitements than the law can give; who shall rescue me, miserable captive as I am, from the body of this death? From this continual burden which I carry about with me, and which is cumbersome and odious, as a dead carcass, tied to a living body, to be dragged along with it wherever it goes.ⁿ
Thus I bemoan myself, when I think only of the Mosaic law, the discoveries it makes, the motives it suggests, and the circumstances in which it leaves the offender: but in the midst of this gloomy prospect, a sight of the gospel revives my heart; and I cry out, as in a kind of rapture, as soon as I turn mine eyes to it, I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord,ᵒ in whom he now reveals himself to me, and by whom he delivereth me from this bondage and misery. So then, whereas I myself,ᵖ with the nobler powers of my spirit serve the law of God, though in too many instances I am so oppressed with the infirmity of my flesh, that I am subdued by the law of sin: [There is] now, under the gospel dispensation, no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit;ᵠ that is, to those,
ᵃ Dead carcass, &c.] It is well known, that some ancient writers mention this as a cruelty practised by some tyrants on miserable captives who fell into their hands; and a more forcible and expressive image of the sad case represented, cannot surely enter into the mind of man.
ᵒ I thank God through Jesus Christ.] For ψυχαριστω τω Θω, some copies read η χαρτι τω Θω, the grace of God, which to be sure makes a noble sense; but that of the received, and much more authentic copies comes very near it, and in the main coincides with it.
ᵖ Whereas I serve, &c. — there is now no condemnation, &c. I think, there is not in
the whole New Testament a more unhappy division between two chapters than what has been made here, not only in the midst of an argument, but even of a sentence. Αγα εν, and αγα νυν, answer so evidently to each other, that I think it plain, the former should be rendered, whereas, and then the sense appears plain and strong. I must confess this to be an uncommon use of αγα; but if it be, as it often is, an expletive, it will come to much the same.
ᵠ To those in Christ Jesus who walk, &c.] It is certain, that to be in Christ, though it sometimes imports a true and sanctifying faith, (2 Cor. v. 17, at other times ex
as we are by the law of the Spirit of life;
who making a profession of the Christian faith, do in the main course of their lives verify that profession; governing themselves by spiritual views, and maxims, and not by carnal appetites and interests. I say it again, I thank God for this dispensation with all the powers of my soul; for though, when considering myself as only under the law, I made such melancholy complaints, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that glorious gospel which is attended with an abundant effusion of the vivifying and animating Spirit, has now recovered me, mortally wounded as I seemed to have been, and set me at liberty from that lamented captivity to the law of sin and death. For God hath now, by a gracious and most wonderful appearance [done] what it was impossible for the law to do, in that it was comparatively weak through the great infirmity of the flesh, against which in so corrupt a state it could not, merely by its own principles, sufficiently provide: [he,] I say, the great Father of mercies, by sending his own well beloved Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh,
presses only an external profession, (John v. 2,) and as the article true is not repeated, I think it is plain the latter clause limits the former, which justifies our renaming. Compare Psal. lxxiii. 1.
Hath set me at liberty, &c.] It is to be observed, that the same person who spoke before, is here represented as continuing the discourse, and speaks of himself as delivered from the bondage so bitterly complained of.
What it was impossible for the law to do, &c.] It is indeed true in the general, as the pious professor Zimmerman justly observes (in his excellent Comment. de Emin. Cognit. Christi, p. 6, 7, and 34,) “that the strength of the law is not adequate to that of corrupt nature; and it is by evangelical considerations, that we are most effectually animated to subdue sin.” But this is to be considered as a consequence of what the apostle here asserts concerning the law of Moses, rather than the assertion itself. And indeed whoever considers the awful nature and sanctions of that law, must acknowledge, that it was calculated to be a much more efficacious restraint from sin than the unassisted light of nature, or than any other dispensation revealing God’s law, prior to
the gospel. So that the abovementioned consequence is very strong.
Merely by its own principles, sufficiently provide.] By this clause I endeavour to lay in an effectual answer to that objection which might lie against the apostle’s argument, and our explication of it, from the eminent heights of goodness, attained by some holy men under the law. It was not by the law, though under it, that they obtained them; but by those evangelical promises which mingled with the law though they did not make a part of it, but sprang from the Abrahamic covenant, which, as the apostle elsewhere urges, was unrepealed by the law; and this, which the Jews were so ready to forget, (Rom. x. 3,) is the point that he so particularly labours, both in this epistle, and that to the Galatians, to inculcate.
The likeness of sinful flesh.] Those writers who imagine that our first parents were, in their original state, clothed with a visible lustre, which was lost by their transgression, in reference to which it is said, that they knew they were naked, naturally explain this clause by that hypothesis.
VOL. 4.
God having sent his Son, to condemn sin in the flesh
with all those innocent infirmities which the first apostasy of our nature brought upon human flesh, and by appointing him to be a sacrifice to make expiation for sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh. Instead of being victorious, it is now brought under a sentence of death and destruction, which we, animated by these glorious motives of the gospel, are enabled to put into execution: That the righteousness of the law, in all its fundamental branches, may with greater ardour of holy zeal be fulfilled in us, who answer the engagements of our Christian profession, and, in the tenour of our lives, walk not after the flesh to indulge its desires and demands, but after the Spirit; that is, who under the influences of the Spirit of God abound in the sentiments and duties of a truly spiritual life. You see therefore, my dear brethren, by the whole series of this discourse, not only how safely you may cease the observation of the Mosaic law, but how absolutely necessary it is, that you should look beyond that, and consequently beyond any other law, natural or revealed; as ever you expect justification before God, and desire to be animated to serve him in an acceptable manner.
IMPROVEMENT.
verse 3 ADMIRABLE and adorable indeed were the condescensions of the blessed God, in sending his own Son in the likeness of our sinful flesh, stript of its original glories, that he might become an expiatory Sacrifice for sin. Let us remember the grand purpose for which he did it; that he might condemn sin in our flesh, that he might enable us to do execution on sin as a condemned malefactor. In his name therefore let us pursue the victory, and rejecting every overture of accommodation, with determined zeal do justice upon it. And may what we have been reading, establish our resolution of walking, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, since we are now delivered from the curse of a broken law, and blessed with a dispensation so properly called the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus: a dispensation, by attending to the peculiarities of which, we may be enabled to
v For sin.] That ἀμερὶμ signifies a sacrifice for sin, is very apparent, from Heb. x. 6; 2 Cor. v. ult. and a vast many other passages. The reader will observe, thought so obscure. how very easy this little transposition, on account of what is so plainly a parenthesis, makes this passage, which is generally
Reflections on God’s sending his own Son to free us from sin.
extend our conquests over sin in the most effectual manner, and sect. to attain heights of virtue and piety to which no legal considerations and motives alone could raise us.
But O, what reason of humiliation is there, that we improve it no better, and that these melancholy strains should so well become us! That instead of pressing forward daily to fresh victories, and making new improvements in the Divine life, we should so often complain, and have so much cause to complain, of a law in our members, not only warring against the law of our verse minds, but even, in many instances, bringing us into captivity to the law of sin and death; so that we Christians should cry out, like those under the Mosaic economy, O wretched men, that we are, who shall deliver us! Let renewed views of Christ Jesus animate us to renewed vigour in this warfare; lest when we are delivered from those servile terrors which the legal dispensation under a consciousness of guilt might have awakened, sin, no longer able to take this occasion from the law, should appear yet more exceeding sinful, by taking occasion, in another view, even from the gospel itself; which in many instances it seems to do.
Let us remember, that the law of God is holy, just, and good; delighting in it more and more after our inner man, and taking heed, that we do not deceive ourselves by such a passage as this, into a secret, but vain and fatal hope, that because we are convinced of our duty, and feel in our conscience a sense of the evil of sin, we might be said to serve the law of God, while by abandoning ourselves to known acts of wilful transgression, we are in our flesh serving the law of sin. Habitually to allow ourselves in neglecting the good we approve, and committing the evils we condemn, is the readiest way that hell itself can point out for the ruin of immortal souls; in such a case, all that we know, and all that we feel, concerning the obligations of duty, and the excellence of holiness, aggravate, rather than extenuate, our failures; and though the sublime views which eminently good men under the gospel have of religion, may sometimes incline them to adopt such complaints as these, in reference to the unallowed and lamented deficiencies and infirmities of a truly upright and pious life; it remains an eternal truth, which instead of being abrogated under the New Testament, is most expressly confirmed, that he who doth righteousness is righteous, and not he that merely wishes to do it: and he who committeth sin, is of the devil, even though he should speak against it like an apostle, or an angel.
It is indeed impossible, exactly to lay the line that separates the boundaries of the kingdom of Christ and of Satan; nor is it by any means a desirable thing, that we should know the lowest state of weakness and degeneracy into which a Christian may fall, while he continues in the main a Christian. We have great reason to doubt whether we be really Christians ourselves, if for
This blessing belongs to the spiritual y m
our own sakes we wish to know it. Our calling aspire after the most eminent attainments in rel us never to rest till we find ourselves dead ind alive to God through Jesus Christ; so as to vital fruits of righteousness unto his praise and