is eternal life, through Je- ρισμα του Θεου. ζωη αιώνιος

sus Christ our Lord.

εν

Χριςῳ Ιησου τῷ Κυρίῳ

ἡμων.

death by theirs but he calls it, xzgioμa, a free gift; or, as Estius thinks the word may be translated, a donative; because being freely bestowed,

CHAP. VII.

View and Illustration of the Doctrines in this Chapter.

THE apostle, in the preceding chapter, having confuted the slanderous report mentioned chap. iii. 8. that he and his brethren taught their disciples to sin, that grace might abound, judged it necessary in this chapter to repel the objection which the Jewish scribes and heathen philosophers urged against this doctrine of justification without works of law, chap. iii. 31. that it made law useless. This objection the apostle now examined the more carefully, not only because it gave him an opportunity of explaining to the Jews, the nature and obligation of the law of Moses, but because he foresaw that, in after times, the same objection would be urged by infidels against the doctrine of justification without works of law, to discredit the gospel. His discourse he begins with observing, that the law of Moses, as the law of God's visible kingdom and church among the Jews, had dominion over a man, that is, was obligatory, only while he lived, ver. 1.—This assertion he proved, by likening the law of Moses to the law of marriage, which binds the wife to the husband, only while the husband liveth. But if he die, she is loosed, and may marry another, ver. 2, 3.-Wherefore, as the death of either party dissolves their marriage, the Jews, who having been put to death by the curse of the law in the person of Christ, were now loosed from their marriage with God as their king, and from the law of Moses by which God's kingdom among them was governed, that they might be married to Christ by entering into the gospel church, and, in that new marriage, bring forth fruit unto God, ver. 4.-It is true this argument, at first sight, may perhaps appear inept. But if we consider it attentively, it will appear strong and in point, being founded on those passages of scripture, where God represents his connection with the Jews as their king, under the idea of a marriage solemnized at Sinai, when he gave them his law, Ezek. xvi. 8. 38. Jer. ii. 2. iii. 14. For by that similitude, God intimated to the Jews, that

the gracious gift of God, is everlasting life, through Christ Jesus our Lord.

gracious gift which God bestows on his servants, is everlasting life; a reward gratuitously bestowed through Jesus Christ our Lord.

it may be compared to the donatives which the Roman generals, of their own good-will, bestowed on their soldiers, as a mark of their favour.

as marriages are dissolved by the death of either of the parties, his connection with their nation as their king, was to end at the time when they, with the rest of mankind, should be put to death in the person of Christ. The apostle therefore argued justly, from the Jews being put to death in the person of Christ, that their marriage or connection with God as their king, was dissolved, and that they were loosed from the law of Moses, as the law of God's temporal kingdom. Besides, it was fit that that kingdom and its law, should end at the death of Christ. For the temporal kingdom having been erected among the Jews, for the sake of publishing, in the law of Moses, the curse of the law of works originally given to man in paradise, (see Gral. iii. 10. note 2. Rom. x. Illustr.) that they might be sensible of the grace of the gospel, it is evident that, when Christ removed the curse of the law of works, by suffering it for all mankind, and opened the gospel dispensation, the kingdom of God among the Jews, and the law of Moses, were no longer of use, but were set aside, that the Jews might be at liberty to enter into the gospel church, and there bring forth fruit to God.

Next, to shew them the true nature of the law of Moses, and to convince them that it was not intended as a rule of justification, the apostle told the Jews, that while, by their fleshly descent from Abraham, they were placed under the law of Moses as the law of God's temporal kingdom, their sinful passions wrought effectually in their members, to make them do such actions as, by the curse of that law, subjected them to death. For this, in effect, was to tell them, that the law of Moses was a mere law of works, which required perfect obedience under the penalty of death, and granted pardon to no sinner. See Chap. x. Illustr. ver. 4. Consequently, neither that law, nor any other law of works, could be a rule of justification to sinners, ver. 5.—And therefore at the fall, though Christ had not died, yet because he was to die, to buy off all mankind from the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13. God was pleased, in the prospect of his death, immediately to loose Adam and his posterity from the law of works

as a rule of justification, and to place them under a new law, in which not perfect obedience, but the obedience of faith, was required in order to life. And to shew this, he told them, that as soon as Christ died, the Jews were not only loosed from the law of Moses, which, by its curse annexed to every transgression, appears to have been the original law of works under which Adam fell, but as persons delivered from the law of works, by their dying with Christ in the nature in which they were tied to that law, they were admitted into the Christian church, that they might thenceforth serve God according to the new manner of the law under which mankind were placed at the fall, and not any longer according to the old manner of the law of works, ver. 6.

But lest, from the apostle's telling the Jews, ver. 5. that their sinful passions under the law had put them to death, and from his affirming, ver. 6. that they were loosed from the law on that account, they might suspect that he thought the law of Moses a bad institution, he assured them that he entertained no such opinion. That law, though it could not justify the Jews, was of excellent use as a rule of duty. By its prohibitions, it made them sensible of their sins; and by its curse, it shewed them what their sins deserved. As an instance, he mentioned their not being able to know that the strong desire of things forbidden is sin, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, ver. 7.—Wherefore, when he told them that their sinful passions under the law, had wrought in their members to put them to death, his meaning was, that their sinful passions, and not the law, had wrought in them strong desires of things forbidden, which, by the curse of the law, subjected them to death: for without law, sin is dead; it hath no power to kill the sinner, ver. 8.-Farther, to shew the excellent nature of law, as it makes men sensible both of their sins, and of the demerit of their sins, he observed, that while men are ignorant of law, they fancy themselves without sin, and entitled to life: but when, by the operation of law upon their conscience, they come to the true knowledge of their own character, they are sensible that sin lives in them, and that they are dead by the curse, ver. 9.—Thus it hath come to pass, that the law of works, which was originally intended to give life to mankind, hath occasioned their death, ver. 10. Because their sinful passions, which law cannot subdue, deceive them into the commission of evil actions, which, according to the tenor of the law of works, subjects them to death, ver. 11.-From all which it appears, that instead of being a sinful thing, the law of works, as published in the law of

Moses, is holy, even in its curse, and all its commandments are holy, and just, and good, ver. 12.

:

To this, however, a Jew is introduced replying; The good law, which you so highly praised, notwithstanding its goodness, hath been, by your own acknowledgment, the occasion of my death. This objection the apostle introduced, that he might have an opportunity of shewing more fully the excellent nature of law. For he affirmed a third time, that it is not the law but sin, which kills the sinner, through the curse of the law and that it was fit the sinner should be so punished, to shew all the subjects of God's government, the exceeding malignity of sin, in destroying the peace and order of the world, ver. 13.-Farther, to display the excellency of law still more clearly, the apostle observes, that, by the very frame of their own minds, sinners know the law to be spiritual or holy, and that, by comparing themselves with the holy law, the unregenerated become sensible that they are carnal, and sold under sin, ver. 14.-The spirituality or holiness of the law, every sinner must know by this, that when he does the things which the law forbids, he does not approve of them. On the other hand, the corruption of his own nature, and his inability to do good, he feels, first, by his habitually neglecting to practise what the law enjoins, notwith-standing he hath some feeble inclinations to comply with its good injunctions; and next, by his habitually doing what the law forbids, notwithstanding he hath some faint hatred of these evil actions, ver. 15.-Now these feeble volitions, and ineffectual aversions, demonstrate, that our reason and conscience assent to all the precepts of the law as good, ver. 16.—But reason and conscience being the higher part of our nature, and our real selves, the evil actions which we do in opposition to their dictates, are not so much our work, the work of our higher part, as the work of the sinful passions, which predominate in the animal, or lower part of our nature, ver. 17.—Thus by the law, men are made sensible that in their flesh, or animal part, no good thing dwells: and that being wholly governed by that part, though they have some inclination to what is good, they find it extremely difficult to practise it. This inability in the unregenerated, to do the good which they incline, the apostle insisted on, not to drive them to despair, but to make them put a just value on the gospel, which, as he afterwards observes, is alone able to deliver them from the slavery of sin, and to raise the higher part of their nature to its proper superiority, ver. 18.Next he tells us, that the extreme difficulty of the thing, is the

true reason that the unregenerated do not the good they incline, but the evil which they do not incline, ver. 19.-And from this infers, that sin is not the work of the higher part of their nature, which is their real selves, but the work of their carnal part. This he had said before, ver. 17.-but he repeats it here, not with any view to excuse the sinner, by laying the blame of his evil actions on the prevalence of his passions, but to shew that all the credit which sinful actions derive, whether from the general practice of the world, or from the station and abilities of the individuals who are guilty of them, is entirely destroyed by this consideration, that they are contrary to the reason and conscience of mankind.

To his account of the discovery which law makes, of the state wherein men are by nature, the apostle subjoins a description of the struggle between reason and passion, which arises in the mind of the sinner, when awakened by the operation of law on his conscience. Such a person finds, that when he is most strongly inclined by his better part, to do what is excellent, evil presents itself to him as a desirable object; and that so constantly, and with such alluring influence, that it may be termed a law, ver. 21.-So that, notwithstanding he is pleased with the law of God in his inward man, or spiritual part, ver. 22.—he feels an opposite law in his members, or carnal part, warring strongly against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members, ver. 23.—And as mere law supplies neither strength nor hope to the awakened sinner, but, after shewing him sin and death in all their frightful colours, leaves him under the power of sin, and under the condemnation of the curse, the apostle introduces him crying out, terrified lest being overcome in the conflict he be subjected to eternal death, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? ver. 24.-Then to shew from whence his deliverance cometh, he makes the awakened sinner thank God, who graciously delivers him from the slavery of sin, and from the curse of the law, through Jesus Christ, whose gospel offers the assistance of God's Spirit, and promises eternal life to the peni

OLD TRANSLATION. CHAP. VII. 1 Know ye

not, brethren, (for I speak

to them that know the

law) how that the law hath dominion over a man, as long as he liveth?

GREEK TEXT.

σκουσι γαρ νομον λαλω ὅτι ὁ 1 Η αγνοειτε αδελφοι (γινωνομος κυριεύει του ανθρωπου εφ' όσον χρονον ζη;