Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

14. For fin fhall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

but of righteous and holy Difpo- A. D. 57;
fitions, as become those who are
rifen as it were from the Dead,
on Purpose to live to the Service
and Honour of God.

14. This ought by all Means to be your chief Care, and if it be not your own Fault, you may and ought now to do it, for you are delivered from the Curfe of the Law due to your former Vices, and are taken into the Grace and Mercy of the Gospel-Covenant.

What then? 15. fhall we fin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

15. And I have fufficiently fhown you already, That the Mercies of God in thus pardoning the greatest Sinners, are so far from being an Encouragement to future Practices of Sin, under Pretence of exalting the divine Mercy, that they are the strongest Engagement against them, according to the whole Tenour of the Chriftian Religion.

16. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves fervants to obey, his fervants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of fin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness ?

16. Remember alfo, There is no dividing and halving your Services between God and Satan ; whoever you let yourselves to, his Slaves you muft entirely be, like Men fold to Bondage, or taken in War. If Sin be your Master, your Pay is nothing but Death and Mifery; if Chrift, your Reward is then no lefs than Pardon and eternal Salvation.

17. But God be thanked, that ye were the fervants of fin: but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, which was delivered

you.

18. Being

17 & 18. And bleffed be God! That whereas you were all, both Jews and Gentiles once under the Slavery of Sin, and liable to the fatal Confequences of it; by now embracing the Chriftian Doctrine, you are freed from it, and are R

both

A. D. 57.

18. Being then made free from fin, ye became the fervants of righteoufnefs.

19. I speak after the manner of men, becaufe of the infirmity of your flesh for as ye have yielded your members fervants to uncleannefs, and to

:

iniquity unto iniqui-
ty, even fo now yield
your members fer-
vants to righteouf
nefs unto holiness.

both obliged and enabled to live fo righteously and virtuously as will qualify you for eternal Life and Happiness.

19. I have thus represented the Cafe to you by a Comparison of Slaves and Mafters, Things very well known by you Romans, and I made Choice of this Metaphor, the more eafily to make you fenfible of it, who are yet but

little skill'd in the Notions of And the Sum of Christianity. what I intend by it is this, Thatas in your unregenerate State, both Jew and Gentile were the Slaves of Sin and Death; fo now under the Gospel-Religion you are bound to a new Mafter, obliged to fuch a Course of Piety and Virtue, as cannot fail to justify and fave

you.

20. For when ye were the fervants of fin, ye were free from righteousness.

20. For as when you were the Vaffals of Sin, you paid no tobedience to the Laws of Virtue and true Religion (nor indeed could it be expected † you could serve two such contrary Principles at the fame Time) fo by Parity of Reafon, now Righteousness is your Mafter, you ought to pay no Service at all to Sin and Vice.

21. What fruit had

ye then in those things
whereof ye are now
afhamed? for the end

of

is

21. And which of the two it

moft your Intereft as well as Duty to ferve, you may foon judge by the Effects and Fruits of

both.

Ver. 19. Kal' ewwov aśyw — I speak after the Manner of Men- See Chap. iii. 5. the NOTE there.

+ Ver. 20. Free from Righteousness, not fo as to remain under no Obligations to it, but fo eftranged from it by contrary Habits, that it was not likely they should perform it. Whereas being free from Sin in the 18tb Verfe, fignifies such a Manumiffion from it as implies an Obligation never to ferve

it more.

of thofe things is both. What were the Effects of A. D. 57.

death.

Shame and Death; them?

21. But now being made free from fin, and become fervants to God, ye have your fruit unto holinefs, and the end everlafl, ing life.

23. For the wages. of fin is death but the gift of God is er ternal life, through Jefus Christ our Lord,

your former vicious Courses but had you not repented and forfaken

22. Whereas by being now fincere Chriftians, and the true Servants of God, you attain to fuch a Life of Obedience and Virtue, as will and muft end in the Enjoyment of everlasting Happiness and Salvation.

[ocr errors]

23. Only there is this Difference between the Confequence of one and the other, That Death and Mifery is the natural, proper, and deferved Recompence for a Life of Sin; but eternal Life, and the Happiness of Heaven, is a free and unmerited Gift of God, beftowed on all faithful Chriftians for the Sake of Jefus Christ our Lord.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

CHA P. VII.

The CONTENTS.

The Jewish Chriftians alfo proved to be under no Obligation to the Ceremonial Law, by an Inftance taken from the Law of Marriage. Then to convince them both of the abfolute Neceffity, and the great Happiness of relying wholly upon the Gofpel-Religion, for the Pardon of Sin and eternal. Salvation, and the better to ingratiate his Argument to them; he fuppofes himself a Jew, under the fame Condition of habitual Sin and Guilt, he had Shown them all to be in, Chapters ii and iii. And by thus perfonating the habitual Tranfgreffor of the moral Laws of God, fhews the Mofaical Law utterly unable, either to cure the Habits, or atone for the Guilt of his Sin. That Revealed Law is indeed a good Rule of

R 2

Life,

A. D. 57.

Life, the very habitual Sinners acknowledge it as fuch, while they tranfgrefs it, not without Struggles and Reluctances of Confcience. But in fuch a State of habitual Sin, the Moral Law ferves only as an Occafion to fhew them their deeper Guilt, and to aggravate their Condemnation, while the Ceremonial Law has no Virtue in its Performances to free them from it. The Merits of CHRIST therefore and his Religion, is the Thing that must pardon and save them.

[blocks in formation]

3. So then, if while her husband liveth,

fhe be married to ano

ther man, the fhall be

I called an adulterefs:
but if her husband be
dead, fhe is free from

[blocks in formation]

3. For tho' to leave her Hufband, and marry any other Man while he is alive, would be a plain Act of Adultery, yet, as foon as he is dead, he is free to marry whom the pleases.

that law; so that she is no adulterefs, though fhe be married to another man.

4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye alfo are become dead to the

law

4. Now this is exactly your Cafe in your Chriftian State; the Ceremonial Law, to which God

at

Ver. 1 & 2. See the fame Argument of the Apoftle handled from another Similitude to the fame Purpose, in Galat. iv. 1, &c.

law by the body of at firft joined you, is now dead to A. D. 57; Chrift, that ye fhould you, and you to it; and therebe married to another, fore for you to be now perfectly even to him who is joined to Chrift and his Religion; raised from the dead, and to obferve only those moral that we should bring and fpiritual Duties, whereby you forth fruit unto God. imitate that pure and heavenly Life of his, can be no more thought an Apoftafy from God, than it would be Adultery in a Woman to marry after her Husband's Death.

5. For when we were in the flesh, the + motions of fins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

5. You are now, I fay, to live a fpiritual Life, which you could never attain to under the habitual Tranfgreffions of a Law †, that has laid you under an inevitable Curfe for thofe Breaches. Thofe Habits of Sin ftill prevailed over you, and the Certainty of the Death due to them, increased along with them.

6. But now we are

delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were

held; that we should

ferve in newness of fpirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

ftance does the mere

7. What fhall we fay then? Is the law fia? God forbid. Nay;

6. But now your Chriftian Religion has freed you both from the Duties and the Curfe annexed to are bound only to fuch fpiritual Breach of them; and you

your

and moral Duties as do exceed
thofe external and ceremonial Per-
formances as much as the Sub-
Shadow.

7. I faid indeed (ver. 5.) That
the revealed Law of Mofes has
only ferved to make you more
R 3
guilty,

Ver. 4. 'EdavalIn]s πd võμw—Ye are dead to the Law, -Interpreters need not difpute, whether the Meaning fhould be here, The Law is dead to you, the 7th Verse plainly fhowing the Apoftle ufes the Senfes of it promifcuoufly.

+ Ver. 5. Ta dia T vous. The Motions or (habitual) Paffions of Sin that remained on us under the Law, or during the State of the Law, as Mr. Locke well renders it. See Chap.. iv. 11. where i ångoßvsías is taken in the fame Se nfe.

« AnteriorContinuar »