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 he 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. " 1 Pet. ii. 24. Lib. de Pudicit. c. 17. 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 "." 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. ¶ Lib. i. de Baptism. et in`moral, sum. 23. o. 2. et quæst. 16. quæst. expl. compend. In hunc locum, et in cap. 8. ad Rom. * Contra Julian. lib. 3. et de reotâ fide ad Regin. lib. 1. et in epist. prior. ad Sug cessum. Homil. 1. * In cap. 9. Dan. " In hunc locum. In hunc locum. III. To do the evil that I would not, and to omit the good that I fain would do, when it is in my hand to do, what is in my heart to think, is the property of a carnal, unregenerate man. And this is the state of men in nature, and was the state of men under the law. For to be under the law, and not to be led by the Spirit, are all one in St. Paul's account; "For if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law," saith he and therefore to be under the law, being a state of not being under the Spirit, must be under the government of the flesh; that is, they were not then sanctified by the Spirit of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, they were not yet redeemed from their vain conversation.' Not that this was the state of all the sons of Israel, of them that lived before the law, or after; but that the law could do no more for them, or upon them; God's Spirit did in many of them work his own works, but this was by the grace of Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world:' this was not by the works of the ław, but by the same instruments and grace, by which Abraham, and all they who are his children by promise, were justified. But this is the consequent of the third proposition which I was to consider. 27. III. From this state of evil we are redeemed by Christ, and by the Spirit of his grace. Wretched man that I am, 'quis liberabit?'' who shall deliver' me from the body of this death?" He answers, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ;" so St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, St. Jerome, the Greek Scholiast, and the ordinary Greek copies, do commonly read the words; in which words there is an λic, and they are thus to be supplied, I thank God, through Jesus Christ we are delivered,' or there is a remedy found out for us.'-But Irenæus, Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and St. Jerome himself, at another time, and the Vulgar Latin Bibles, instead of εὐχαριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ, read χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ, gratia Domini Jesu Christi,' the grace of God through Jesus Christ.' That is our remedy, he is our deliverer, from him comes our redemption. For he not only gave us a better law, but also the Spirit of grace, he hath pardoned all our old sins, and by his Spirit enables us for the future, that we may obey him in all sincerity, in heartiness of endeavour, and real events. z Gal. v. 18. From hence I draw this argument:-That state from which we are redeemed by Jesus Christ, and freed by the Spirit of his grace, is a state of carnality, of unregeneration, that is, of sin and death: but by Jesus Christ we are redeemed from that state in which we were in subjection to sin, commanded by the law of sin, and obeyed it against our reason, and against our conscience; therefore this state, which is indeed the state St. Paul here describes, is the state of carnality and unregeneration, and therefore not competent to the servants of Christ, to the elect people of God, to them who are redeemed and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. The parts of this argument are the words of St. Paul, and proved in the foregoing periods. From hence I shall descend to something that is more immediately practical, and clothed with circumstances. SECTION V. How far an unregenerate Man may go in the Ways of Piety and Religion. 28. To this inquiry it is necessary that this be premised:That between the regenerate and a wicked person, there is a middle state: so that it is not presently true, that if the man be not wicked, he is presently regenerate. Between the two states of so vast a distance, it is impossible but there should be many intermedial degrees; between the carnal and spiritual man there is a moral man; not that this man shall have a different event of things if he does abide there, but that he must pass from extreme to extreme by this middle state of participation. The first is a slave of sin; the second is a servant of righteousness; the third is such a one as liveth according to natural reason, so much of it as is left him, and is not abused; that is, lives a probable life, but is not renewed by the Spirit of grace: one that does something, but not all; not enough for the obtaining salvation. For a man may have gone many steps from his former baseness and degenerous practices, and yet not arrive at godliness, or the state of pardon; like the children of Israel, who were not presently in Canaan, as soon as they were out of Egypt, but abode long in the wilderness: ἄρχονται παιδεύεσθαι, • they begin to be instructed,' that is their state. “Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven," said our blessed Saviour to a welldisposed person; but he was not arrived thither: he was not a subject of the kingdom. These are such whom our blessed Lord calls,' the weary and the heavy laden,' that is, such, who groan under the heavy pressure of their sins, whom therefore he invites to come to him to be eased. Such are those whom St. Paul here describes to be under the law;' convinced of sin, pressed, vexed, troubled with it, complaining of it, desirous to be eased. These the Holy Scripture calls τεταγμένους εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, ordained, disposed to life eternal,' but these were not yet the 'fideles' or ' believers,' but, from that fair disposition, became believers upon the preaching of the apostles. 29. In this third state of men, I account those that sin and repent, and yet repent and sin again; for ever troubled when they have sinned, and yet for ever or most frequently sinning, when the temptation does return: άuaprávovoi kai tavτwv ¿ykaλovo, "They sin, and accuse, and hate themselves for sinning." Now because these men mean well, and fain would be quit of their sin at their own rate, and are not scandalous and impious, they flatter themselves, and think all is well with them, that they are regenerate, and in the state of the divine favour,-and if they die so, their accounts are balanced, and they doubt not but they shall reign as kings for ever. To reprove this state of folly and danger, we are to observe, that there are a great many steps of this progression, which are to be passed through, and the end is not yet; the man is not yet arrived at the state of regeneration. 30. I. An unregenerate man may be convinced and clearly instructed in his duty, and approve the law, and confess the obligation, and consent that it ought to be done: which St. Paul calls a consenting to the law that it is good,' and a being delighted in it according to the inward man ;' even the Gentiles which have not the law, yet" shew the work of the law written in their hearts: their thoughts in the meantime accusing or excusing one another." The Jews did more;" they did rest in the law, and glory in God, knowing his will, and approving the things that are more excellent, • Aots, xiii. 48. Rom. ii. 14. • Ver. 17. |