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might pass from him, if it were possible, did he not manifest a resigned desire to escape pain and shame? If every such desire is indwelling sin, or the flesh sinfully lusting against the spirit, did he not go through the sinful conflict as well as those whom we call "perfect men in Christ? and, consequently, did he not fall at once from mediatorial, Adamic, and Christian perfection; indwelling sin being equally inconsistent with all these perfections? What true believer does not shudder at the bare supposition? And if our sinless Lord felt the weakness of the flesh harmlessly lusting against the willingness of the spirit, according to his own doctrine, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," is it not evident that the conflict we speak of;-if the spirit maintains its superior, victorious lusting against the flesh, and by that means steadily keeps the flesh in its proper place ;—is it not evident, I say, that this conflict is no more inconsistent with Christian perfection, than suffering, agonizing, fainting, crying, and dying, which were the lot of our sinless, perfect Saviour to the last?

If I am not greatly mistaken, the preceding remarks prove, 1. That when our opponents pretend to demonstrate the necessary indwelling of sin in all believers from Gal. v. 17, they wretchedly tear that text from the context, to make it speak a language which St. Paul abhors. 2. That this text, fairly taken together with the context, and the design of the whole epistle, is a proof that obedient, spiritual believers can do what the bewitched Galatians could not do, that is, they can "crucify the flesh with all its affections and lusts," and walk as perfect Christians, who utterly destroy the whole body of sin, and "fulfil the law of Christ." And, 3. That to produce Gal. v. against the doctrine of Christian perfection, is full as absurd as to quote the sermon upon the mount in defence of antinomian delusions. I have dwelt so long upon this head, because I have before me An Essay on Galatians v. 17,* lately published by an ingenious divine, who takes it for granted

*The arguments by which the doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin in all believers till death is supported in that essay will be considered in section xiv.

that the apostle contends, in this verse, for the necessary indwelling of sin.

Mr. Hill will probably say, that he does not rest the doctrine of Christian imperfection so much upon the experience of the fallen Galatians, as upon that of St. Paul himself, who, in Rom. vii., frankly acknowledges, that he was still a "wretched, carnal man, sold under sin, and serving with the flesh the law of sin." Whence it follows, that it is high presumption in modern believers to aspire at more perfection, and greater freedom from sin upon earth, than had been attained by St. Paul, who "was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, but laboured more abundantly than they all." To this common objection I answer:

1. The perfection we preach is nothing but perfect repentance, perfect faith, and perfect love, productive of the gracious tempers which St. Paul himself describes, 1 Cor. xiii. We see those blessed tempers shining through his epistles, discourses, and conduct; and I have proved in the preceding section, that he himself professed Christian perfection. This objection, therefore, appears to us an ungenerous attempt to make St. Paul grossly contradict himself. For, what can be more ungenerous than to take advantage of a figurative mode of expression to blast a good man's character, and to traduce him as a slave of his fleshly lusts, a drudge to carnality, a wretch sold under sin? What would Mr. Hill think of me, if, under the plausible pretence of magnifying God's grace to the chief of sinners, and of proving that there is no deliverance from sin in this life, I made the following speech ?—

"The more we grow in grace, the more clearly we see our sins, and the more willingly we acknowledge them to God and men. This is abundantly verified by the confessions that the most holy men have made of their wickedness. Paul himself, holy Paul, is not ashamed to humble himself for the sins which he committed, even after his conversion. 'I robbed other churches,' says he, taking wages of them to do you service.' 2 Cor. xi. 8. Hence it appears, that the apostle had agreed to serve some churches for a proper salary; but, being 'carnal, and sold

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under sin,' he broke his word; he fleeced, but refused to feed, the flocks; and, robbing the churches, he went to the Corinthians, perhaps to see what he could get of them also in the end; for the heart is desperately wicked, and deceitful above all things.' Jer. xvii. 9. Nay, partial as he was to those Corinthians for whom he turned churchrobber, he showed that his love to them was not sinless and free from rage: for, once he threatened to come to them with a rod;' and he gave one of them to 'Satan for the destruction of the flesh.' With great propriety, therefore, did holy Paul say to the last, I am the chief of sinners.' And now, when the chief of the apostles abases himself thus before God, and publicly testifies, both by his words and works, that there is no deliverance from sin, no perfection in this life, who can help being frightened at the pharisaic pride of the men who dare inculcate the doctrine of sinless perfection?"

I question if Mr. Hill himself, upon reading this ungenerous and absurd, though in one sense, scriptural plea for St. Paul's imperfection, would not be as much out of conceit with my fictitious explanation of 2 Cor. xi., as I am with his Calvinistic exposition of Rom. vii. Nor do I think it more criminal to represent the apostle as a churchrobber, than to traduce him as a "wretched, carnal man, sold under sin ;" another Ahab, that is, a man who “did evil in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him."

2. St. Paul no more professes himself actually a carnal man in Rom. vii., than he professes himself actually a liar in Rom. iii. 7, where he says, "But if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, why am I judged as a sinner?" He no more professes himself a man actually sold under sin, than St. James and his fellow-believers profess themselves a generation of vipers, and actual cursers of men, when the one wrote, and the others read, "The tongue can no man tame; it is full of deadly poison; therewith curse we men." When St. Paul reproves the partiality of some of the Corinthians to this or that preacher, he introduces Apollos and himself; though it seems that his reproof was chiefly intended for

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other preachers who fomented a party-spirit in the corrupted church of Corinth. And then he says, "These things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos, for your sakes, that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written." 1 Cor. iv. 6. By the same figure he says of himself what he might have said of any other man, or of all mankind: Though I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass." Thrice in three verses he speaks of his not having charity. And suppose he had done it three hundred times, this would no more have proved, that he was really uncharitable, than his saying, Rom. vii., "I am sold under sin," proves that he “served the law of sin with his body," as a slave is forced to serve the master who bought him.

3. It frequently happens also, that, by a figure of rhetoric which is called "hypotyposis." writers relate things past, or things to come, in the present tense, tnat their narration may be more lively, and may make a stronger impression. Thus, Gen. vi. 17, we read, "Behold, I, even I, do bring," that is, I will bring one hundred and twenty years hence, "a flood upon the earth, to destroy all flesh." Thus also, 2 Sam. xxii. 1, 35, 48, "When the Lord had delivered David out of the hand of all his enemies, and given him peace in all his borders, he spake the words of this song. He teacheth," that is, he taught, "my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is," that is, was, "broken by mine arms. It is God that avengeth," that is, that hath avenged, "me, and that bringeth," that is, has brought, แ me forth from mine enemies." A thousand such expressions, or this figure continued through a thousand verses, would never prove, before unprejudiced persons, that king Saul was alive, and that David was not yet delivered for good out of his bloody hands. Now, if St. Paul, by a similar figure, which he carries through part of a chapter, relates his past experience in the present tense; if the Christian apostle, to humble himself, and to make his description more lively, and the opposition between the bondage of sin and Christian liberty more

striking; if the apostle, I say, with such a design as this, appears upon the stage of instruction in his old Jewish dress, -a dress this, in which he could serve God day and night, and yet, like another Ahab, breathe threatenings and slaughter against God's children, and if in this dress he says, "I am carnal, sold under sin," &c., is it not ridiculous to measure his growth, as an apostle of Christ, by the standard of his stature when he was a Jewish bigot, a fiery zealot, full of good meanings and bad performances?

4. To take a scripture out of the context is often like taking the stone that binds an arch out of its place. You know not what to make of it. Nay, you may put it to a use quite contrary to that for which it was intended. This our opponents do, when they so take Rom. vii. out of its connexion with Rom. vi. and Rom. viii., as to make it mean the very reverse of what the apostle designed. · St. Paul, in Rom. v. and vi., and in the beginning of vii., describes the glorious liberty of the children of God under the Christian dispensation. And, as a skilful painter puts shades in his pictures to heighten the effect of the lights; so the judicious apostle introduces in the latter part of Rom. vii. a lively description of the domineering power of sin, and of the intolerable burden of guilt ;—a burden this which he had so severely felt, when the convincing Spirit charged sin home upon his conscience, after he had broken his good resolutions; but especially during the three days of his blindness and fasting at Damascus. Then he groaned, "O wretched man that I am,” &c., hanging night and day between despair and hope, between unbelief and faith, between bondage and freedom, till God brought him into Christian liberty, by the ministry of Ananias. Of this liberty the apostle gives us a farther and fuller account in Rom. viii. Therefore, the description of the man who groans under the galling yoke of sin is brought in merely by contrast, to set off the amazing difference there is between the bondage of sin, and the liberty of gospel holiness; just as the generals, who entered Rome in triumph, used to make a show of the prince whom they had conquered. On such