Reflections on the wages of sin, and the fruits of righteousness. 71 verse be at the same time the servants of God and the servants of sin; SECT. and certainly our understandings must be darkened to infatua. xiii. tion if we can long doubt whose service we should prefer. The work of righteousness is peace, the effect of it quietness and assur- 17 ance for ever; (Isa. xxxii. 17;) but death is the wages of sin, and it 23 shall be repayed to all that go on in it. And O what, and how terrible a death! to be cast into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. How merciful are all the repeated admonitions which warn us to flee from it! Let us all judge, that it is already too long that we have yielded our- 18, 19 selves the servants of sin: too long that our members, made for the service of their Creator, devoted perhaps with great solemnity to our Redeemer, have been abused and prostituted as the instruments of unrighteousness. Surely it is too much time that 22 we have already spent, too much vigour that we have already exerted, in so base a servitude. For the future let us act as those who who are made free from sin. And to animate us to it, let us often reflect how unfruitful the 21 works of darkness have been found; in what shame they have already ended; in what shame and everlasting contempt they must end, if they be finally pursued. And let us daily direct our eye to that everlasting life, that crowns the happy prospect of those who have their fruit unto holiness. Blessed effect of 22 serving God now, to serve and enjoy him for ever! to enjoy, through eternal ages, the pleasures of a nature thoroughly sanctified, and the sight and favour of that God, who is the original source and pattern of sanctification! It is the glorious mark at which we are aiming. Let us pursue it steadily and resolutely; 23 yet always remembering that it is the gift of God, and never presuming to think of so glorious a remuneration as the wages of any duty we can perform. Alas! the imperfections of our best services daily forfeit the blessings of time: how impossible then is it, that the sincerity of them, amidst so many frailties and defects, should purchase the glories of eternity! SECT. XIV. The apostle enters upon his design of taking off the believing Jews from their fond attachment to the Mosaic law, now they were, in a spiritual sense, married to Christ by the gospel. Rom. VII. 1-6. ROMANS VII. 1. NOW we not, ROMANS VII. 1. I ree xiv. HAVE been endeavouring to direct your re brethren, (for Í gards to the gospel, and to Christ as there exhibited, in order to your justification and sal- Rom. vation. Now you may perhaps be ready to vii. 1 χίν. The law hath dominion, as long as it liveth. that the law hath do SECT. object, that you, who are Jews, will certainly be speak to them that out of the way of obtaining those privileges, if know the law,) how Rom you should neglect the Mosaic law, the Divine minion over a man as vii. 1 authority of which none can reasonably ques- long as he liveth? tion. But know ye not, brethren, (for I am now speaking to those that are supposed to be familiarly acquainted with the contents of that law for which they were so zealous ;) that on the principles which the law itself lays down, it ruleth over a man only so long as it liveth: its dominion over particular persons can, at the utmost, last no longer than till it is itself abrogated; for that is as it were its death, since the Divine authority going along with it was the very life and soul of the law. Suppose that to cease, and the letter of the precept is but a dead corpse, and with respect to its obligation as if it 2 had never been. Just as it is, according to the law itself, with respect to the power of an hus- which hath an husband over his wife, which death entirely dis- the law to her hus band, is bound by solves for the married woman is indeed bound band so long as he and confined by the law to [her] husband while he liveth; but if the is alive; but if [her] husband be dead, she is set she is loosed from husband be dead, at liberty from any farther subjection to the law the law of her husof [her] husband, that is, from that law which band. had given him a peculiar property in her, and 3 authority over her. 3 So then,if while Therefore if she become she be married to her husband liveth, the property of another man, whilst her husband another man, she liveth, she carries the infamous name of an adul. shall be called an teress; but if her husband be dead, she is set at her husband be dead liberty from the obligation of the law that bound she is free from that So long as it liveth: 1 ooov Xpovov ] It would be contrary to the apostle's design, to suppose the sense of this to be, as our translation renders it, as long as he, that is, the man in question liveth; for he professedly endeavours to prove, that they had outlived their obligations to the law. Elsner would connect ανθρωπο with voos, and render it, the law and authority of the husband continues in force, as long as he, that is, the husband liveth, and produces authorities to prove that augu is often applied to the obliging force of a law, or that matrimonial customs are sometimes called laws. (Observ. Vol. II. p. 31.) But this, if it avoid as he pleads, one tautology, certainly occasions another, for the 24 verse plainly expresses this sense; and it would require a 2 For the woman adulteress ; but if transposition not to be allowed without (exy yvas avsps slege,) while her husband was t she be married to another man. become dead to the But we are set at liberty from the law. 73 vii. 3 4 aw; so that she is her to him, so as to be no more subject to the SECT. adulteress,though shame and punishment of an adulteress; though xiv. she become the property of another man for death having interposed between them, hath dis- Rom. solved the former relation; he is dead to her, 4 Wherefore, my and she to him. Thus ye also, my dear brethren, brethren, ye also are are in effect dead to the Mosaic law by the body law by the body of of Christ, his death and sufferings having now Christ; that ye accomplished its design, and abrogated its aushould be married to thority: and this, with a gracious intent, that who is raised from ye might be, as it were, married to another, [that the dead, that we is,] to him who was in so glorious and triumshould bring forth phant a manner, raised from the dead, no more fruit unto God. to die; that in consequence of this new marriage, we might bring forth fruit unto God in all the ways of holy obedience. another, even to him 5 For when we the motions of sins forth fruit death: unto And ye should do it with the greatest zeal; 5 were in the flesh, for when we were in the flesh, that is, under the which were by the comparatively carnal dispensation of Moses, a law, did work in our variety of sinful passions, accidentally occasionembers to bring ed and irritated by the law, were active in our members, so as to produce visible sinful actions, and in them to bring forth a very different fruit from that which I have just been mentioning; even as I observed before, (chap. vi. 21, 23,) such fruit as would expose you to eternal death, if God were to be strict to mark your offences, and if his mercy did not interpose to break the fatal connection: a circumstance which it is of the utmost importance seriously to reflect upon. 6 But now we are But now we are set at liberty from our obliga- 6 delivered from the tion to the law, that obligation in which we law, that being dead were held, being in effect dead, or abrogated as held; that we should I told you above, (ver. 1-4,) so as that now serve in newness of you are, in a more liberal manner, and from spirit, and not in the nobler principles, to serve God as your Master and Father in Christ, in the newness of the Spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter that is, you are to live as those that are renewed by the Holy Spirit of God, in a rich abundance poured out upon you under this new and better wherein we were oldness of the letter. By the body of Christ.] He is to be considered here as thority of a Christian apostle, that this was from the Mosaic law followed on the very principles of that law itself. the design of Christ's death; so that all ness of the letter.] This is the literal vera Newness of the Spirit, not [in] the old the does in that allowing it to have been thus, (as tamount expressions, and are more agreeJewish believers all did,) their freedom able to the turn of our language. VOL. 4. 11 74 Reflections on freedom from the law, and union with Christ. SECT. dispensation, whereby you are brought to observe the spiritual xiv. meaning and design of the law; being no longer bound by these literal and ceremonial precepts which were indeed obligatory vii. 6 long since, but now begin to be antiquated, and out of date. (Heb. viii. 13.) Rom. IMPROVEMENT. God hath conferred upon all Christians this singular honour, that the whole body of them should be represented as espoused verse to Christ. Let us always remember, how we are engaged, by that 4 sacred relation, to bring forth fruit unto God. And may the remembrance of the resurrection of Christ put continual vigour into our obedience, while we regard him as the ever living Lord, to whom our obligations are indissoluble and everlasting. 5 6 SECT. XV. Rom. Too much have sinful passions reigned in our flesh, during our unconverted state. In too many instances have they wrought effectually to bring forth fruit unto death. And we owe it to the wonderful mercy and forbearance of God, that death, eternal death, hath not long since been the consequence. Being freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law, being freed also from the condemning sentence of that moral law, under the obligations of which by the constitution of our intelligent and rational nature we are all born; let us thankfully acknowledge the favour, and charge it upon our grateful hearts, that we serve God in newness of spirit and of life. To engage us to this, may we experience more abundantly the renewings of the Holy Ghost; and the actions of our lives will be easily and delightfully reduced to the obedience of these precepts which his omnipotent and gracious hand hath inscribed on our hearts! SECT. XV. To wean the believing Jews from their undue attachment to the laro of Moses, the apostle represents at large, how comparatively ineffectual its motives were, to produce that holiness, which, by a lively faith in the gospel, we may so happily obtain. Rom. VII. 7, to the end; VIII. 1—4. I ROMANS VII. 7. ROMANS VII. 7. WH we say, then? HAVE been observing above, to those of WHAT shall my Christian brethren who were educated in the Jewish religion, that irregular passions, vii. 7 while we were under the law of Moses, and were acquainted with no superior dispensation, did in some instances, by means of the law, operate so as to bring forth fruit unto death. And it is necessary, that I should not only By the law of Moses is the knowledge of sin. not known sin, but 75 Rom. Is the law sin? God father illustrate that important remark, but ex- secr. forbid. Nay, I had pressly caution against any mistake with rela- xv. by the law: for I tion to it. What shall we say then, or what do had not known lust, we intend by that assertion? [that] the law vii. except the law had itself [is] sin, that there is any moral evil in it, said, Thou shalt not or that it is intended by God, or adapted in its coret. own nature, to lead men into sin? God forbid ! We revere the high authority by which it was given, too humbly, to insinuate any thing of that kind. And indeed there are many particulars in which I should not have known sin, but by the law. I should not, in a mere state of nature, have apprehended the evil of them; which I now learn from finding them so expressly prohibited. I had not for instance known the sinfulness of lust, or irregular desires, unless the law had said, "Thou shalt not covet;" "b from whence it was easy to infer, that this law takes cognizance of the heart as well 8 But sin taking as of external actions. But as soon as I had 8 casion by the com- understanding enough to perceive that the law mandment, wrought forbade the indulgence of irregular desires, I found that I had in fact broken it; and thereby incurred the penalty, without any hope of help and deliverance from the law. And this, while I looked no farther, naturally tended to throw my mind into a state of dejection and despair. So that I may say, that sin taking occasion from the awful sanction of the commandment, the *I should not have known sin, &c.] The ousness forbidden in the tenth commandapostle here, by a very dexterous turn, ment related to the heart, and not merely, changes the person, and speaks as of him- as some have represented it, to any overt self. This he else where does, (Rom. iii. act, to an attempt to take away what be6; 1 Cor. x. 30, chap. iv. 6,) when he is longs to another. And this might be a only personating another character. And hint to all thinking men, that the secret the character assumed here is that of a powers of their souls were under a Divine man, first ignorant of the law, then under it, inspection, and that much guilt might be and sincerely desiring to please God, but contracted which did not appear to any finding to his sorrow, the weakness of the human eye. motives it suggested, and the sad discour Sin taking occasion from the commandagement under which it left him; and last ment.] Most commentators have explain. of all, with transport discovering the gospel, ed this, as signifying, that sin was quickand gaining pardon and strength, peace ened by the prohibition; the inclination and joy by it. But to suppose he speaks of human nature in general being like that all these things of himself, as the confirm of a froward child, who will do a thing ed Christian, that he really was, when he because it is forbidden, and perhaps is, as wrote this epistle, is not only foreign, but it were, reminded of an evil, on hearing contrary to the whole scope of his dis- it mentioned in a prohibition. But, not to course, as well as to what is expressly asserted, chap. viii. 2. Thou shalt not covet.] This, by the way, proves, that Paul thought the covet examine how far this is a universal case, it must surely be acknowledged, that all lust does not arise from hence, much being previous to any possible knowledge of |