Mr Tholuck, after denying all along that the Apostle, in the conclusion of this chapter, describes his own experience, and affirming that he is speaking in the name of a legalist, arrives at the 25th verse, in the first clause of which, though not in the last, he judges that the Apostle must be speaking in his own person. "After the struggle of the legalist," he says, "with the 'wretchedness arising from his sense of inward schism, 'has, in this description, been wrought up to the highest pitch, Paul comes forward, of a sudden in his 6 own person, and breaks forth in thankfulness to God 'for having delivered him by the redemption from that 'miserable condition." A more unfounded interpretation cannot be imagined.

Mr Tholuck considers the position in which, according to his view, Paul has thus placed himself to be so awkward, that he does not allow it to pass unnoticed. "As this sally of gratitude, however, interrupts," he adds, "the course of the argument, and is quite involuntary, inasmuch as Paul meant still to draw his 'inference from all that he had previously said, he 'finds himself compelled, in a way not the most appro'priate, after the expression of his gratitude, still to 'append the conclusion, which is intended briefly and

distinctly to show the state of the legalist." Can any Christian be satisfied with this manner of treating the Scriptures? Can any sober-minded man acquiesce in such an interpretation? This is a "sally of gratitude," and worse, it is involuntary! Did Paul utter things incoherently? He finds himself compelled, in a way NOT THE MOST APPROPRIATE, to append the conclusion. Is this a reverent manner of speaking of the dictate of the Holy Ghost? In the proper and obvious sense of

the expression as employed by the Apostle, it is most appropriate, yet Mr Tholuck affixes to it a ludicrous import !*

The warfare between the flesh and the spirit, described in this chapter, has greatly exercised the ingenuity of men not practically acquainted with its truth. Few are willing to believe that all mankind are naturally so bad as they are here represented, and it is fondly imagined that the best of men are much better than this description would prove them to be. Every effort of ingenuity has accordingly been resorted to, to divert the Apostle's statements from the obvious conclusion to which they lead, and so to modify his doctrine, as to make it worthy of acceptance by human wisdom. But they have laboured in vain. Their theories not only contradict the Apostle's doctrine, but are generally selfcontradictory. Every Christian has in his own breast a commentary on the Apostle's language. If there be any thing of which he is fully assured, it is that Paul has in this passage described his experience; and the more the believer advances in knowledge and holiness, the more does he loathe himself as by nature a child of that corruption which still so closely cleaves to him. So far is the feeling of the power of indwelling sin from being inconsistent with regeneration, that it must be experienced in proportion to the progress of sanctifica

*The above explanation of the passage is not only false and irreverent, but absurd. It is worthy, however, of Mr Tholuck's Neological views of the inspiration of the Scriptures, of which I have given so full a specimen in a Pamphlet entitled, "Further considerations for the Ministers of the Church of Scotland, occasioned by Dr Tholuck's perversions of the word of God, and his attack on some of the most important Scriptural doctrines."

tion. The more sensitive we are, the more do we feel pain; and the more our hearts are purified, the more painful to us will sin be. Men perceive themselves to be sinners in proportion as they have previously discovered the holiness of God and of his law.

The conflict here described by Paul, his deep conviction of sin consisting with delight in the law of God, and this agreement of heart with its holy precepts, are peculiar to those only who are regenerated by the Spirit of God. They who know the excellence of that law, and earnestly desire to obey it, will feel the force of the Apostle's language. It results from the degree of sanctification to which he had attained, from his hatred of sin, and profound humility. This conflict was the most painful of his trials, compelling him in bitterness to exclaim, "O wretched man that I am!"'—an exclamation never wrung from him by all his multiplied persecutions and outward sufferings. The proof that from the 14th verse to the end of the chapter, he relates his own experience at the time when he wrote this Epistle, is full and complete.

Throughout the whole of this passage, instead o. employing the past time, as he does from the 7th to the 14th verse, Paul uniformly adopts the present, while he speaks in the first person about forty times, without the smallest intimation that he is referring to any one else, or to himself at any former period. His professed object all along is to show that the law can effect nothing for the salvation of a sinner, which he had proved to be the character of all men ; and, by speaking in his own name, he shows that of this every one who is a partaker of his grace is in his best state convinced. In the end he triumphantly affirms

that Christ will deliver him, while in the meantime he experiences this painful and unremitting warfare, and closes the whole by saying, "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." Can it be supposed that in saying, "I myself," the Apostle meant another man, or that in using the present time he refers to a former period? Of what value is language, if it can be so tortured as to admit of an interpretation at direct variance with its obvious meaning? To suppose that another, and not the Apostle himself, is here designed, is contrary to every principle of sound interpretation.

Paul, in this chapter, contrasts his former with his present state. Formerly, when ignorant of the true import of the law, he entertained a high opinion of himself. "I was alive without the law once." Accordingly he speaks, in other parts of his writings, of his sincerity, his religious zeal, and his irreproachable moral conduct before his conversion. Afterwards when the veil of self-delusion was removed, he discovered that he had been a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious, and in unbelief; so that, when he was an Apostle, he calls himself the chief of sinners. If he was convinced that he had been a sinner, condemned by the law, it was when the Lord Jesus was revealed to him ; for till then he was righteous in his own esteem. Before that time he was dead in trespasses and sins, having nothing but his original corrupted nature, which he calls sin. He had no conviction that he was radically and practically a sinner, of which the passage before us proves he was now fully conscious. From this period the flesh or sin, which he elsewhere calls "the old man," remained in him. Though it harassed him much, he did not walk

VOL. II.

I

according to it; but being now in the spirit, the new nature which he had received predominated. He there→ fore clearly establishes in this chapter the opposition between the old man and the working of the new nature. This is according to the uniform language of his Epistles, as well as of the whole of Scripture, both in its doctrinal and historical parts. In consistency with this, he exhorts the "saints" at Ephesus to "put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ;" and calls on the “faithful brethren" at Colosse to mortify their members which are upon the earth. All his instructions to "them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" proceed on the same principle. And why were they cautioned by him even against the grossest sins, but because there was still in them a principle disposed to every sin.

There are three circumstances in this passage which are of themselves decisive of the fact, that Paul here recounts his own present experience. The first is that the Apostle hates sin. He hates it because it is rebellion against God and the violation of his law. This no unconverted man does or can do. He may dislike the evil effects of sin, and consequently wish that he had not committed it; but he does not, as the Apostle here declares of himself, hate sin. Hating sin is the counterpart of loving the law of God.

The second circumstance in proof that the Apostle is here referring to the present time, is that he delights in the law of God after the inward man. Now it is only when sin is dethroned and grace reigns in the heart, that this can be a truth. "I delight," says the Psalmist, "to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is in my heart." "I will delight myself in thy command