do not therefore make void the Law through faith, but we establish the Law,' which, by terrifying men, leads them to faith. Therefore, because the law worketh wrath,' that grace may bestow, on the man who is thus terrified and [converso] turned to fulfil the righteousness of the law, the mercy of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the Wisdom of God, and concerning whom it is written, He beareth in his tongue Law and Mercy:*Law, by which He may terrify:-MERCY, by which He may afford relief:-LAW, by a servant :-MERCY, by Himself," &c. &c.-Lib. 4, cap. 5.

Let St. Augustine also be consulted, in his Treatise On Correption and Grace, in the first chapter of which he speaks thus appropriately to the matter under discussion :-" The Lord himself has not only shewn us from what evil we may turn aside, and what good we may perform, which the letter of the law alone is able to shew; but He also assists us, that we may turn aside from evil and may do good, which no one can do without the Spirit of grace. If this grace be wanting, the law is present for this purpose, to bring us in guilty and to kill us: On which account the apostle says, The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. (2 Cor. iii, 6.) He therefore who lawfully uses the law, learns in it evil and good; and, not confiding in his own [virtute] strength, he flees to grace, [quâ præstante] by the aid of which he ceases from evil and does good. But what man thus flees to grace, except when his steps are directed by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way? (Psalm xxxvii, 23.) And by this also, the act of desiring the assistance of grace is the beginning of grace."

Consult also the Fifth chapter of the same Treatise, in which the following passage occurs:-"You are not willing to have your faults pointed out. You are unwilling that they should be smitten, and that you should feel useful grief, which may induce you to seek a physician. You are not desirous to have yourself shewn to yourself, that when you perceive your own [mental] deformity you may be very importunate for a reformation of yourself, and may supplicate God not to suffer you to remain in this foul and deformed condition."

And in the Sixth chapter, he says:-" Therefore, let the damnable origin be reprehended, that [voluntas] a WILLINGNESS for regeneration may arise out of the sorrow consequent on such

• This is one of the various and (in many instances) valuable readings with which we meet in the Works of the Ancient Fathers. In our translation the passage stands thus:-" In her tongue is the law of kindness." (Proverbs xxxi, 26.)

reprehension: Yet, if he who is thus chastised be a son of the promise, that, when the noise of the correction sounds outwardly and the strokes of the whip are heard, God may work inwardly in him also to WILL by his secret inspiration."

MUSCULUS says, in his Common Places, in the chapter On Laws, (fol. 124,) "The law causes me not only to understand, but likewise with anguish and remorse of conscience to feel and experience that sin is in me.—The proper effect of the law is, that it convicts us of being inexcusably guilty of sin, subjects us to the curse, and condemns us, (Gal. iii,) and, when we are deeply affected with [sensu] the smart of sin and condemnation, it renders us anxious and earnest in our desires for the grace of God. Hence arises that of the apostle, which is the subject of his investigation in Romans vii, and at the close of which he exclaims: O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? THE GRACE OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST."

"But is this, therefore, the work of the regenerating Spirit?" -With regard to the END, I confess that it is; but with regard to the EFFECT itself, I dare not make any assertion. For Mortification and Vivification, which, as integral parts, contain the whole of regeneration, are completed in us by our participation of the death and resurrection of Christ. (Rom. vi.) In Romans viii, 15, the apostle distinguishes between " the Spirit of bondage to fear," and "the Spirit of adoption." Many persons denominate the former of these, " a legal Spirit," and the latter “the Spirit of the Gospel of Christ." I therefore make the service of the Spirit of bondage to precede that of the Spirit of adoption, though both of them tend to one design: Whence it appears, that this my explanation of the Seventh chapter is not contrary to the true doctrine concerning the law and its use, and the necessity of the grace of Christ; but that the Doctors of the Church, who give a different interpretation of it, have not reflected on this matter when they entered on an explanation of the chapter. For since they teach, from the Scriptures, the very same thing as I suppose the apostle here to make the subject of his investigation, we do not differ from each other in our opinion of doctrines, but only in this single circumstance,—that they do not think this passage relates to that head of doctrine, which, I affirm, is professedly treated in it: Yet in this opinion I do not stand alone, but I have many others with me, as we shall afterwards perceive. 5. SOME one may here object," that by this my explanation a three-fold state of man is laid down, when the Scriptures acknowledge but a two-fold state; and that three kinds of men

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"are introduced, when no more than two are known to the Scrip"tures; that is, the state of regeneration and that which pre"cedes regeneration, believers and unbelievers, regenerate and 66 unregenerate men," &c.

To this I reply, (1.) that in my explanation three consistent states of men are not laid down, neither are there three distinct and perfectly opposite kinds of men; but that it teaches [quantum] how much the law has the power of effecting in a man, and how the same individual is compelled by the law to flee to the grace of Christ.

(2.) I say that the state of the man described in this chapter is not a consistent one, but is rather a grade or step from the one to the other,—from a state of impiety and infidelity to a state of regeneration and grace,-from the old stute in Adam to the new state in Christ: According to this grade or step, the man is denominated by some persons renascent, [or in the article of being born again]. And, truly, the distance of the one of these states from the other is far too great, for a man to be able to pass from one to the other without some intermediate steps.

(3.) I deny that there is any absurdity in laying down a threefold state of man, regard being had to the different times; that is, a state before or without the law, one under the law, and another under grace. For the Apostolical Scriptures make mention of such a three-fold state in the two chapters now under consideration, and in Rom. vi & vii, and Gal. iv & v.

In

ST. AUGUSTINE says, in his book, The Exposition of certain Propositions in the Epistle to the Romans: (Cap. 3:) “Therefore we distinguish the four [gradus] conditions of man, into that BEFORE the law, UNDER the law, under grace, and in peace. the state before the law, we follow the lusts of the flesh; under the law, we are drawn along with them; under grace, we neither follow those lusts, nor are drawn by them; in peace, there is no lusting of the flesh. Before the law, therefore, we do not fight: under the law, we fight," &c. &c.

Consult also BUCER, in his commentary on this passage. For he lays down a three-fold man, (1.) a profane man who does not yet believe in God, (2.) a holy man who loves God, but who is weak to prevail against sin, and (3.) lastly, a man furnished with a stronger portion of the Spirit of Christ, so that he is able, not only to repress and condemn the flesh, but likewise to live, in reality, the life of God, with pleasure, and with confirmed and perpetual [studio] diligence.-Let therefore the whole of his commentary on this passage be perused, and it will appear that,

with respect to the substance of the matter, the difference is very slight between his explanation of it, and that which I have now given: This I shall also clearly prove in the following chapter, by passages cited from the same commentary.

But let us see whether the Scriptures themselves, do not in many places propose three kinds of men, and give us a description of a three-fold state. In Rev. iii, 15, 16, some persons are described, as being neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. Christ says, that he came not to call to repentance" the righteous," that is, those who esteemed themselves as such, but "sinners," that is, those who owned themselves, or who, on his preaching, would own themselves to be of that description. (Matt. ix, 13.) Christ calls to himself those who are fatigued, weary, heavy-laden, and oppressed with the burden of their sins; (Matt. xi, 28;) but drives away from Him those who are proud and puffed up with arrogance on account of their own righteousness. (Luke xviii, 9.) "Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: But now ye say, We see; therefore, your sin remaineth." (John ix, 41.) In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, is intimated to us a three-fold description of men: One kind in the Pharisee: Two kinds in the Publican, one before his justification, the other after it. But who can enumerate all the similar instances? Indeed such enumeration is unnecessary. It is rather a matter of surprise, that as the books of our divines are filled with such distinctions, they did not occur to their minds when meditating on this passage, in which this matter [of the different conditions or states of man] is professedly treated.

IV. THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE SEVENTH AND THE

EIGHTH CHAPTERS.

1. THE Truth of the interpretation of the Seventh Chapter, as it has been so far deduced by the Author, is proved from some of the early Verses of the Eighth Chapter when compared with those which precede them.— 2. The First Verse.-3. The Second Verse, and an Explanation of the Phrases used in it.-4. The Third Verse. A Comparison of the Former Part of it with Rom. vii, 5 & 14; and of the Latter Part of it with the Sixth Verse of the same Chapter.-5. The Fourth Verse, and a Comparison of it with Rom. vii, 4. A Paraphrastical Recapitulation of those things which are taught in the First Four Verses of the Eighth Chapter, and their Connexion with the preceding Chapter.

1. But I may now be permitted to confirm this my interpretation from some of the early verses of the next chapter, provided they be diligently compared with those in the Seventh chapter.

2. FOR, in the First Verse, a Conclusion is inferred from the verses of the preceding chapter, which is agreeable and accommodated to the principal design proposed by the apostle through the whole of this Epistle. The words are these:-" There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

That this verse contains a Conclusion, is evident from the illative particle, "therefore," and indeed a Conclusion not deduced from the former part of the last verse in the Seventh chapter, but from the entire investigation, which consists of these two parts: "Men do not obtain righteousness, and power to conquer sin "and to live in a holy manner, by means either of the law of "nature or that of Moses: But, through the faith of the Gospel "of Jesus Christ, those very blessings are gratuitously bestowed 66 on them who work not, but believe on Christ." But these two things, JUSTIFICATION which consists of remission of sins, and THE SPIRIT [Sanctificationis] OF HOLINESS by which believers are enabled to overcome sin and to live in a holy manner, are parts of the gracious covenant into which God has entered with us in Christ: "I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts, &c. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. viii, 10, 12.) Therefore, when the apostle had proceeded so far with the proof of this thesis, (having in the first five chapters treated on righteousness and remission of sins, and in the Sixth and Seventh chapters on the power to conquer sin and to live in a holy manner,) he now infers this conclusion, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

The emphasis of the Conclusion lies in these words,

are in Christ Jesus, who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit;" to the exclusion of those who are under the law, and for whom is prepared certain condemnation, as being persons out of Christ, and subjected to the dominion of sin. As if the apostle had said:" From all these things, therefore, it is apparent that "condemnation impends over all those who are under the law, "because they neither perform the law, nor are able to perform it; but that freedom from condemnation is granted only to "those who are in Christ, and who walk according to the Spirit." But that the emphasis lies in these words, "Those who are in Christ Jesus," to the exclusion of the others, is apparent,

(1.) From the fact, that this very part is repeated, though in other words, which are these, "Who walk after the Spirit." VOL. II.

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