of the whole epistle, which is to extol the privileges of those who are Christ's above the privileges of those who are Noah's or Moses's; or, if you please, to extol the privileges of spiritual Christians who serve God "in newness of the Spirit," above the privileges of carnal heathens and Jews, who serve him only "in the oldness of the letter."

SECTION VIII.

IF the sense which our opponents give to Rom. vii. 14 is true, the doctrine of Christian perfection is a dream, and our utmost attainment on earth is St. Paul's apostolic carnality, and involuntary "servitude to the law of sin," with an hopeful prospect of deliverance in a death-purgatory. It is therefore of the utmost importance to establish our exposition of that verse, by answering the arguments which are supposed to favour the antinomian meaning rashly fixed upon that portion of scripture.

FIRST ARGUMENT.—“ If St. Paul was not carnal and sold under sin' when he wrote to the Romans, why does he say, 'I am carnal?' Could he not have said, 'I was carnal once, but now the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death?' Can you give a good reason why, in Rom. vii. 14, the phrase, I am carnal,' must mean, I was carnal?' Is it right thus to substitute the past tense for the present?”

ANSWER. We have already shown that this figurative way of speaking is not uncommon in the scriptures. We grant, however, that we ought not to depart from the literal sense of any phrase without good reasons. Several such, I trust, have already been produced to show the necessity of taking St. Paul's words, "I am carnal," in the sense stated in the preceding section. I shall offer one more remark upon this head, which, if I mistake not, might alone convince the unprejudiced.

The states of all souls may, in general, be reduced to three: 1. That of unawakened sinners, who quietly sleep

in the chains of their sins, and dream of self-righteousness and heaven. 2. That of awakened, uneasy, reluctant sinners, who try in vain to break the galling chains of their sins. And, 3. That of delivered sinners, or victorious believers, who enjoy the liberty of God's children: this last state is described in Rom. vii. 4, 6. The rest of that chapter is judiciously brought in, to show how the unawakened sinner is roused out of his carnal state, and how the awakened sinner is driven to Christ for liberty by the lashing and binding commandment. The apostle shows this by observing, Rom. vii. 7, &c., how the law makes a sinner-or, if you please, made him-pass from the unawakened to the awakened state: "I had not known sin," says he, "but by the law," &c. When he had described his unawakened state without the law, and began to describe his awakened state under the law, nothing was more natural than to change the tense: but, having already used the past tense in the description of the first, or the unawakened, state; and having said, "Without the law sin was dead: I was alive without the law once: sin revived, and I died," &c. ; he could no more use that tense when he began to describe the second, or the awakened, state;-I mean the state in which he found himself when the commandment had roused his sleepy conscience, and slain his pharisaic hopes. He was therefore obliged to use another tense; and none, in that case, was fitter than the present just as if he had said, "When the commandment slew the conceited pharisee in me; when I died to my self-righteous hopes; I did not die without a groan, nor did I pass into the life of God without severe pangs: no; I struggled with earnestness, I complained with bitterness, and the language of my oppressed heart was, "I am carnal, sold under sin," &c., to the end of the chapter.* It is therefore with the utmost rhetorical propriety that the apostle says, "I am," and not, "I was, carnal," &c.

*Some time after I had written this, looking into Dr. Doddridge's Lectures on Divinity, page 451, I was agreeably surprised to find that what that judicious and moderate Calvinist presents as the most plausible sense of Rom. vii. 14, is exactly the sense which I defend in these pages. Take his own words: "St. Paul first represents a man as ignorant of the law, and then insensible of sin; but afterwards becoming

But rhetorical propriety is not theological exactness. David may say, as a poet, "God was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it." But it would be ridiculous to take these expressions in a literal sense. Nor is it much less absurd to assert that St. Paul's words, "I am carnal, sold under sin," are to be understood of Christian and apostolic liberty.

SECOND ARGUMENT.-"St. Paul says to the Corinthians, 'I write not to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, even to babes in Christ.' Now, if the Corinthians could be at once holy, and yet carnal, why could not St. Paul be at the same time an eminent apostolic saint, and a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin ?'"

ANSWER.-1. The Corinthians were by no means established believers in general; for the apostle concludes his last epistle to them, by bidding them examine whether they were in the faith. 2. If St. Paul proved carnal still, and was to continue so till death, with all the body of Christian believers, why did he upbraid the Corinthians with their unavoidable carnality? Why did he wonder at it, and say, "Ye are yet carnal; for, whereas there is among you envying and strife," &c., "are ye not carnal?" Might not these carnal Corinthians have justly replied, "Carnal physician, heal thyself?" 3. In the language of the apostle, "to be carnal," "to be carnally minded," "to walk after the flesh," "not to walk after the Spirit," and "to be in the flesh," are phrases of the same import. This is evident from Rom. vii. 14; viii. 1-9. And he says,

directly or indirectly, that to those who are in that state, "there is condemnation :" that they "cannot please God," and that they are in a state of death; because "to be" carnal, or “carnally minded, is death." Rom. viii. 1, 6, 8. Now, if he was carnal himself, does it not follow that he

acquainted with it, and then thrown into a kind of despair by the sentence of death which it denounces, on account of sins he is now conscious of having committed: he then farther shows that even where there is so good a disposition as even to delight in the law, yet the motives are too weak to maintain that uniform tenor of obedience which a good man greatly desires, and which the gospel, by its superior motives and grace, does in fact produce."

could not please God, and that he was in a state of condemnation and death? But how does this agree with the profession which he immediately makes of being "led by the Spirit," of "walking in the Spirit," and of "being made free from the law of sin and death," by "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?" 4. We do not deny that the remains of the carnal mind still cleave to imperfect Christians; and that when the expression "carnal" is softened and qualified, it may, in a low sense, be applied to such professors as those Corinthians were to whom St. Paul said, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual." But could not the apostle be yet "spoken to as a spiritual man?" And does he not allow, that, even in the corrupted churches of Corinth and Galatia, there were some truly spiritual men -some adult, perfect Christians? See 1 Cor. xiv. 37, and Gal. vi. 1. 5. When the apostle calls the divided Corinthians "carnal," he immediately softens the expression, by adding, "babes in Christ." If, therefore, the word " carnal" is applied to St. Paul in this sense, it must follow that the apostle was but a babe in Christ; and if he was but a babe, is it not as absurd to judge of the growth of adult Christians by his growth, as to measure the stature of a man by that of an infant? 6. And lastly: the man described in Rom. vii. 14, is not only called "carnal," without any softening, qualifying phrase; but the word "carnal" is immediately heightened by an uncommon expression,"sold under sin ;" which is descriptive of the strongest "bondage of corruption." Thus reason, scripture, and criticism agree to set this argument aside.

THIRD ARGUMENT.-" The carnal man, whose cause we plead, says, Rom. vii. 20, 'If I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me,' that is, in my unrenewed part; and therefore he might be an eminent apostolic saint, in his renewed part, and a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin, in his unrenewed part."

ANSWER.-1. The apostle, speaking there as a carnal, and yet awakened, man, who has light enough to see his sinful habits, but not faith and resolution enough to overcome them, his meaning is evidently this: If I, as a

carnal man, do what I, as an awakened man, would not, it is no more I that do it; that is, I do not do it according to my awakened conscience, for my conscience rises against my conduct; but it is sin that dwelleth in me; it is the tyrant sin that has full possession of me, and minds the dictates of my conscience no more, than an inexorable taskmaster minds the cries of an oppressed slave.

2. If the pure love of God was shed abroad in St. Paul's heart, and constrained him, he dwelt in love, and, of consequence, in God: for St. John says, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world." Now, if God dwelt in Paul by his loving Spirit, it becomes our objectors to show, that an indwelling God and indwelling sin are one and the same thing; or that the apostle had strangely altered his doctrine, when he asked with indignation, "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" For, if indwelling sin, the Belial within, was necessarily to nestle with Christ in St. Paul's heart, and in the hearts of all believers, should not the apostle have rather cried out with admiration, "See how great is the concord between Christ and Belial! they are inseparable; they always live in the same heart together; and nothing ever parted them, but what parts man and wife, that is, death?"

3. If a reluctance to serve the law of sin is a proof that we are holy, as Paul was holy, is there not joy in heaven over the apostolic holiness of most robbers and murderers in the kingdom? Can they not sooner or later say ?—“With my mind,' or conscience, 'I serve the law or God; but with my flesh, the law of sin: how to perform what is good I find not.' I would be honest and loving, if I could be so without denying myself; but I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.'" Nor can any thing be stronger upon this head than the words of the inhuman princess, who, being at the point of committing murder, cried out, "My mind," that is, my reason or conscience, “leads me to one thing, but my new, impetuous passion carries me to another against my