solum cogitavimus." Now this interpretation hath in it no impiety as the other hath; for these doctors allow nothing to be unavoidable, or a sin of infirmity, and consistent with the state of grace and regeneration, but the mere ineffective, unprocured, desirings or lustings after evil things, to which no consent is given, and in which no delight is taken; "Extraneæ cogitationes quas cogitavimus aliquando, et non volentes et non scientes ex quâ causâ," as Epiphanius expresses this article. But St. Austin may be thought to have had some design in choosing this sense, as supposing it would serve for an argument against the Pelagians, and their sense of free-will. For by representing the inevitability of sin, he destroyed their doctrine of the sufficiency of our natural powers in order to heaven; and therefore, by granting that St. Paul complains thus of his own infirmity, he believed himself to have concluded firmly for the absolute necessity of God's grace to help us. But by limiting this inevitability of sinning to the matter of desires or concupiscence, he gave no allowance or pretence to any man to speak any evil words, or to delight or consent to any evil thoughts, or to commit any sinful actions, upon the pretence of their being sins of an unavoidable infirmity. So that though he was desirous to serve the ends of his present question, yet he was careful that he did not disserve the interests of religion and a holy life. But besides that the Holy Scriptures abound in nothing more than in affirming our needs, and the excellency of the divine grace, and St. Austin needed not to have been put to his shifts in this question, it is considerable that his first exposition had done his business better. For if these words of St. Paul be, as indeed they are, to be expounded of an unregenerate man, one under the law, but not under grace; nothing could more have magnified God's grace, than that an unregenerate person could not, by all the force of nature, nor the aids of the law, nor the spirit of fear, nor temporal hopes, be redeemed from the slavery and tyranny of sin; and that from this state there is no redemption but by the Spirit of God, and the grace of the Lord Jesus; which is expressly affirmed and proved by St. Paul, if you admit this sense of the words. And therefore Irenæus, who did so, cites these words to the same Hæres. 64. contra Origen. u Lib. 3. c. 22. effect, viz. for the magnifying the grace of God. "Ipse Dominus erat qui salvabat eos, quia per semetipsos non habebant salvari. Et propter hoc Paulus infirmitatem hominis annuncians, ait, 'Scio enim quoniam non habitat in carne meâ bonum:' significans quoniam non à nobis sed à Deo est bonum salutis."-Et iterum: "Miser ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?' Deinde infert liberatorem: ' gratia Jesu Christi Domini nostri :'" "St. Paul's complaint shews our own infirmity, and that of ourselves we cannot be saved; but that our salvation is of God, and the grace of our Redeemer Jesus Christ."-But whatever St. Austin's design might be in making the worse choice, it matters not much only to the interpretation itself I have these considerations to oppose. 19. I. Because the phrase is insolent, and the exposition violent to render párov by 'concupiscere ;' to do is more than to desire: factum, dictum, concupitum,' are the several kinds and degrees of sinning assigned by St. Austin himself, and therefore they cannot be confounded, and one made to expound the other. Пou is also used here by the Apostle, which in Scripture signifies sometimes to sin habitually, never less than actually; and the other word is KαTEрyásolα, which signifies 'perficere, patrare,' 'to finish the act at least, or to do a sin thoroughly,' and can in no sense be reasonably expounded by natural, ineffective, and unavoidable desires. And it is observable that when St. Austin, in prosecution of this device, is to expound those words, To will is present with me, τὸ δὲ κατεργάζεσθαι τὸ Kaλoy, but to perform what is good, I find not,' he makes the word to signify, to do it perfectly; which is as much beyond, as the other sense of the same word is short, 'What I do,'o karepуáloμai, I approve not :'-therefore the man does not do his sin perfectly; he does the thing imperfectly, for he does it against his conscience, and with an imperfect choice; but he does the thing however. So KarερуalεσDαι Kaλov, must signify to do the good imperfectly,' the action itself only; for such was this man's impotency, that he could not obtain power to do even imperfectly the good he desired. The evil he did, though against his mind; but the good he could not, because it was against the law of sin which reign * Rom. vii. 15. Πράσσειν, ποιεῖν, κατεργάζεσθαι. y Rom. vii. 18. 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 Taluara tŵv auaorov, 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 auapría ovdλaßovoa, 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 Taluara, 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 concupiscere;' 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. 22. IV. The good which St. Austin says the Apostle fain 2 Rom. vii. 11. a ■ James, i. 15. Rom. vii. 5. • 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 μeraoxnμarioμòs, 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, d 1 Cor. x. 29, 30. iv. 6. vi. 12. xiii. 2. Gal. ii. 18. Rom. vii. 9. e 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 1 Rom. vii. 8. 1 Ver. 14. * Ver. 9. k Ver. 20. h Ver. 5. |
