ed in him. But then the same word must not, to serve ends, be brought to signify a perfect work, and yet not to signify so much as a perfect desire.

20. II. The sin which St. Paul, under another person, complains of, is such a sin as did first deceive him, and then slew him';" but concupiscence does not kill till it proceeds further, as St. James expressly affirms, "that concupiscence, when it hath conceived, brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death" which is the just parallel to what St. Paul says in this very chapter: "The passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death: 'peccatum perpetratum,' when the desires are acted, then sin is deadly; the a0uara röv auaprav, the passions or first motions of sin' which come upon us, 'nobis non volentibus nec scientibus,' 'whether we will or no,'-these are not imputed to us unto death, but are the matter of virtue when they are resisted and contradicted; but when they are consented to and delighted in, then it is auapria ovλλaßovoa, sin in conception' with death, and will proceed to action, unless it be hindered from without; and therefore it is then the same sin by interpretation: 'adulterium cordia;' so our blessed Saviour called it in that instance, the adultery of the heart; but till it be an actual sin some way or other, it does not bring forth death.

21. III. It is an improper and ungrammatical manner of speaking, to say, 'Nolo concupiscere,' or 'Volo non concupiscere,' 'I will lust, or I will not lust,' i. e. I will, or I will not, desire or will. For, this lust or first motions of desire are before an act of will; the first act of which is, when these Talnμara, these motions and 'passions' are consented to or rejected. These motions are natural and involuntary, and are no way in our power, but when they are occasioned by an act of the will collaterally and indirectly, or by applying the proper incentives to the faculty. Vellem non cupiscere; every good man must say, 'I would fain be free from concupiscence;' but because he cannot, it is not subject to his will, and he cannot say, Volo,' I will be free:' and therefore St. Paul's 'Volo' and 'Nolo' are not intended' of concupiscence' or desires.

con

22. IV. The good which St. Austin says the Apostle fain

Rom. vii. 11.

a James, i. 15.

b Rom. vii. 5.

C Παθήματα.

would, but could not perfect, or do it perfectly, is, 'non concupiscere,'' not to have concupiscence.'- Volo, non perficio;' but 'concupiscere' is but 'velle:' it is not so much, and therefore cannot be more. So that when he says, 'To will is present with me,' he must mean, 'To desire well is present with me, but to do this I find not;' that is, if St. Austin's interpretation be true, "Though I do desire well, yet I do lust, and do not desire well, for still concupisco;' 'I lust,' and I lust not,-I have concupiscence, and I have it not:"-which is a contradiction,

23. Many more things might be observed from the words of the Apostle to overthrow this exposition; but the truth when it is proved, will sufficiently reprove what is not true: and therefore I shall apply myself to consider the proper intention and design of the Apostle in those so-much-mistaken periods,

SECTION IV.

24, CONCERNING which, these things are to be cleared, upon which the whole issue will depend. 1. That St. Paul speaks not in his own person, as an apostle, or a Christian, a man who is regenerate; but in the person of a Jew, one under the law, one that is not regenerate. 2. That this state which he describes, is the state of a carnal man, under the corruption of his nature, upon whom the law had done some change, but had not cured him, 3. That from this state of evil we are redeemed by the Spirit of Christ, by the grace of the Gospel; and now, a child of God cannot complain this complaint.

25. I. That he puts on the person of another, by a μɛтaxnμarioμòs, or 'translation' (as was usual with St. Paul in d very many places of his Epistles), is evident by his affirming that of the man whom he here describes, which of himself were not true. "I was alive without the law once.". Of St, Paul's own person this was not true; for he was bred and born under the law, "circumcised the eighth day, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee:" he never was alive without the law. But the Israelites were, a 1 Cof. x. 29, 30. iv. 6. vi. 12. xiii. 2. Gal. ii. 18. Rom. vii. 9.

.Rom. vii. 18.

whom he therefore represents indefinitely under a single person; the whole nation, before and under the law: "I was alive once without the law; but when the commandment came," that is, when the law was given, "sin revived, and I died;" that is, by occasion of the law, sin grew stronger and prevailed. 2. But concerning the Christian and his present condition, he expressly makes it separate from that of being under the law, and consequently under sin. "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter."-We are delivered: it is plain that some sort of men are freed from that sad condition of things of which he there complains; and if any be, it must be the regenerate. And so it is. For the scope of the Apostle in this chapter is to represent and prove, that salvation is not to be had by the law, but by Jesus Christ; and that by that discipline men cannot be contained in their duty, and therefore that it was necessary to forsake the law, and to come to Christ. To this purpose he brings in a person complaining, that under the discipline of the law, he was still under the power of sin. Now if this had been also true of a regenerate person, of a Christian renewed by the Spirit of grace, then it had been no advantage to have gone from the law to Christ, as to this argument; for still the Christian would be under the same slavery, which to be the condition of one under the law, St. Paul was to urge as an argument to call them from Moses to Christ.

26. II. That this state which he now describes, is the state of a carnal man, under the corruption of his nature, appears, by his saying that sin had wrought in him all manner of concupiscence; that 'sin revived, and he died;' that the motions of sin which were by the law, did work in the members to bring forth fruit unto death";' and that this was 'when we were in the flesh;' that he is 'carnal, sold under sin; that he is 'carried into captivity to the law of sin;' that'sin dwells in him ;' and is like another person, doing or constraining him to do things against his mind; that it is a state, and a government, a law, and a tyranny; for that which I do, I allow not':' plainly saying, that this

doing what we would not, that is, doing against our conscience upon the strength of passion, and in obedience to the law of sin, was the state of them who indeed were under the law, but the effect of carnality, and the viciousness of their natural and ungracious condition. Here then is the description of a natural and carnal man: "He sins frequently, -he sins against his conscience, he is carnal and sold under sin, sin dwells in him,-and gives him laws, he is a slave to sin, and led into captivity.-Now if this could be the complaint of a regenerate man, from what did Christ come to redeem us? How did he 'take away our sins?', Did The only take off the punishment, and still leave us to wallow in the impurities, and baser pleasures, perpetually to rail upon our sins, and yet perpetually to do them? How did he come to "bless us in turning every one of us from our iniquity?" How and in what sense could it be true, which the Apostle affirms; "He did bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead unto sin, should live unto righteousness"? But this proposition I suppose myself to have sufficiently proved in the reproof of the first exposition of these words in question: only I shall in present add the concurrent testimony of some doctors of the primitive church.

Tertullian hath these words: "Nam etsi habitare bonum in carne suâ negavit, sed secundum legem literæ in quâ fuit, secundum autem legem Spiritus cui nos annectit, liberat ab infirmitate carnis. Lex enim (inquit) Spiritus vitæ manumisit te à lege delinquentiæ et mortis, Licet enim ex parte, ex Judaismo disputare videatur, sed in nos dirigit integritatem et plenitudinem disciplinarum, propter quos laborantes in lege per carnem miserit Deus filium suum in similitudinem carnis delinquentis, et propter delinquentiam damnaverit delinquentiam in carne :" "Plainly he expounds this chapter to be meant of a man under the law,-according to the law of the letter, under which himself had been, he denied any good to dwell in his flesh; but according to the law of the Spirit under which we are placed, he frees us from the infirmity of the flesh for he saith, The law of the Spirit of life hath freed us from the law of sin and death.

Origen affirms, "that when St. Paul says, I am carnal, sold under sin, tanquam doctor ecclesiæ personam in se

m Acts, iii. 26.

6

metipsum suscipit infirmorum;' he takes upon him the person of the infirm,' that is, of the carnal, and says those words, which themselves, by way of excuse or apology, use to speak. But yet (says he) this person which St. Paul puts on, although Christ does not dwell in him, neither is his body the temple of the Holy Ghost, yet he is not wholly a stranger from good, but by his will, and by his purpose, he begins to look after good things. But he cannot yet obtain to do them. For there is such an infirmity in those who begin to be converted (that is, whose mind is convinced, but their affections are not mastered), that when they would presently do all good, yet an effect did not follow their desires P."

St. Chrysostom hath a large commentary upon this chapter, and his sense is perfectly the same: " Propterea et subnexuit dicens, Ego verò carnalis sum,' hominem describens sub lege, et ante legem degentem:" "St. Paul describes not himself, but a man living under and before the law, and of such a one he says, ' But I am carnal." Who please to see more authorities to the same purpose, may find them in St. Basil, Theodoret, St. Cyril, Macarius', St. Ambrose ", St. Jerome, and Theophylact; the words of the Apostle, the very purpose and design, the whole economy and analogy, of the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters, do so plainly manifest it, that the heaping up more testimonies cannot be useful in so clear a case. The results are these:

I. The state of men, under the law, was but a state of carnality and of nature better instructed, and soundly threatened, and set forward in some instances by the spirit of fear only, but not cured, but in many men made much worse accidentally.

II. That to be pleased in the inner man, that is, in the conscience to be convinced, and to consent to the excellency of virtue, and yet by the flesh, that is, by the passions of the lower man, or the members of the body to serve sin, is the state of unregeneration.

P In cap. 7. ad Rom.

4 Lib. 1. de Baptism, et in moral, sum. 23. c. 2. et quæst. 16. quæst. expl. com'pend.

r In hunc locum, et in cap. 8. ad Rom.

Contra Julian, lib. 3. et de rectâ fide ad Regin. lib. 1. et in epist. prior. ad Sac

cessum.

t Homil. 1.

* In cap. 9. Dan.

"In hunc locum.

y In hunc locum.