599 actually fulfilled. Several forms of speech, similar to this, are used in this manner in the Scriptures. For instance:-" All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the "He came and dwelt in Lord by the prophet.” (Matt. i, 22.) a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a NAZARENE." (ii, 23.) "He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, &c., light is sprung up to them who sat in the region and shadow of death.” (iv, 13—16.) "He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities," &c. (viii, 16, 17.) See also Matthew xii, 17; xiii, 35; and xxvi, 56. In all these examples, the phrase, "that it might be fulfilled," evidently means that the prediction was actually fulfilled by those acts which are mentioned in the several passages. This is also signified by a phrase different from the preceding, in Matthew xxvii, 9, "THEN WAS FULFILLED that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet." It is lawful also to change the mode of speech in this verse, (Rom. viii, 4,) into another [consimile] exactly of the same import, "Then was fulfilled the right or authority of the law in In addition to these, consult Matthew xxvii, 35; Luke xxi, 22; John xiii, 18; xvii, 12; xviii, 9; and innumerable other passages. us. From this explication it is apparent, that this portion of Holy Writ, (Rom. viii, 1—4,) is plain and perspicuous, though, without this interpretation, it is encompassed with much obscurity, as almost all interpreters have confessed, while they have laboured hard to explain it. We will now, by permission, compress all these remarks into a small compass, and briefly recapitulate them; what I have advanced will then become far more evident. Let us do this in the following manner:— "Since, therefore, we have already seen, that men under the "law are held captive under the dominion and tyranny of sin, "we may easily conclude from this, that those only who are in "Christ Jesus, and who walk after the Spirit and not after the "flesh, are free from all condemnation: Because the law, the right, the power, the force or virtue of the vivifying Spirit, "which is and can be obtained in Jesus Christ alone, has liberated [tales] persons of this description from the law, the power and 66 66 "the force of sin and death, from the empire and dominion of ❝sin, and of its condemnation. Christ Jesus could lawfully do "this by his Spirit, as being the person in whose flesh sin was ❝condemned, that it has no longer any right, neither can have 66 any, over those who are Christ's: In which flesh, indeed, He "was sent by his Father, because this very thing was impossible "to the law, weakened as it was through the flesh. And thus "it has come to pass, that the right of the law, which it had over "us when we were still under the law, is completed or fulfilled in "persons of this description, who have become Christ's people "through faith; that they might hereafter live, be influenced, "and governed by his grace and according to the guidance of "the Holy Spirit. From these things we may certainly conclude, "that sin cannot have dominion over them, and therefore, that they are able to yield their members instruments of righteous66 ness to God, as those who have been translated from the death "of sin to the life of the Spirit." But these topics the apostle pursues as far as the 16th verse of this Eighth chapter, in a manner accommodated to the same scope or design as we have hitherto pointed out; and he seems always mindful of the exhortation which he had given in Romans vi, 12, 13;* from the conjoint reason in which he descends into the succeeding long investigation. These observations, however, may suffice, lest we be too operose in demonstrating a matter that is so plain and perspicuous. SECOND PART. I. THE OPINION WHICH IS TO BE CORROBORATED BY TESTI MONIES. THIS Opinion which explains Romans 7, as relating not to a Man under Grace, but to one who is placed under the Law, and to one who is not yet regenerated by the Spirit of Christ, was never yet condemned in the Church of Christ, as heretical, but has always had some defenders among the Doctors of the Church. "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness into sin: But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." WE WILL now approach to the Second Part of our Proposition, which we have judged it right to treat for the purpose of making it evident to all men, that the opinion which I defend is not of recent growth, neither has it been fabricated by my brain, nor borrowed from some heretic; but that it is very ancient, and approved by a great part of the Doctors of the Primitive Church; and that, besides, it has never been so far rejected, by those who have given a different interpretation to the passage, as to induce them to judge it worthy of being branded with the black mark of heresy. II. THE MOST ANCIENT AND MOST CHRISTIAN FATHERS APPROVE OF RESPECTABLE OF THE THE INTERPRETATION 1. Irenæus.-2. Tertullian.-3. Origen.-4. Cyprian.-5. Chrysostom. -6. Basil the Great.-7. Theodoret.-8. Cyril.-9. Macarius the Egyptian.-10. Damascenus.-11. Theophylact.-12. Ambrose.13. Jerome. 1.-IRENÆUS. IRENEUS thus cites part of this chapter in lib. 3, cap. 20:"On this account, therefore, He, who through the virgin is EMMANUEL, God with us, the Lord himself, is the sign of our salvation; because He was the Lord who saved them, as through themselves [non habebant salvari] they possessed not the means of being saved. On account of this also, when St. Paul is shewing the weakness of man, he says, I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; thus intimating that the blessing of salvation is not from us, but from God. And again, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He then infers a Deliverer, The Grace of Jesus Christ our Lord." In this quotation, [when referring to St. Paul's declaration,] he does not say, "a regenerate man," "a believer," or "a Christian," but simply "a man;" under which appellation, neither the Scriptures nor the Fathers are accustomed to speak of one who is a Christian, a believer, and a regenerate man. 2. TERTULLIAN. For though he denied that in his flesh dwelt any good thing, [sed] yet it was according to the law of the letter in which he was: But according to the law of the Spirit, with which he connects us, he delivers us from the weakness of the flesh. He says, "For the law of the Spirit of life hath manumitted thee from the law of sin and death." For though he seems to dispute on the part of Judaism, yet he directs to us the integrity and plenitude [disciplinarum] of instructions, on account of whom, as labouring "in the law through the flesh, God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."On Chastity, cap. 17. In this sentence, Tertullian openly affirms, that the passage must be explained concerning "a man who is under the law of the letter." Nor is it a very great objection if any one assert, that this book was written by him while he was in heresy; For on this point he was not heretical, and the opinion, it is apparent, had then obtained, that this chapter was to be understood in this manner. 3.-ORIGEN. BUT with respect to what he says, "But I am carnal, sold under sin ;" on this occasion, as a teacher of the Church, he takes upon himself the personation of the weak; on which account he has also said in another passage, "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak." Therefore, in this passage St. Paul is made “a carnal man and sold under sin," to those who are the weak, (that is, to the carnal,) and who are sold under sin, and he speaks those things which it is their practice to utter under the pretext either of excuse or of accusation. Speaking, therefore, as in their person, he says, "But I am carnal, sold under sin," that is, living according to the flesh, and reduced, [as a servant,] by purchase, to the power of sin, lust, and concupiscence: "For that which I do, I allow not," &c. And he (that is, Paul the carnal man) here says, "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." But in other passages Paul the spiritual man says, "I laboured more abundantly than they all: Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Therefore, as he thus ascribes his labours, not to himself, but to the grace of God which worked in him; so does that carnal man attribute the evil works, not to himself, but to sin that dwelleth and worketh in him. On this account he says, "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." For Christ does not yet dwell in him, neither is his body yet the temple of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, this man whose character is personated is not in every respect averse from good things, but in purpose and in will he begins to seek after good things: But he cannot yet obtain such things [in rebus] in reality and in works. For there is a certain infirmity of this kind in those who receive the beginnings of conversion, that when they truly will instantly to do every thing that is good, the effect does not immediately follow the will.-On Romans 7. 4.-CYPRIAN. WHEN treating upon the contest between the flesh and the Spirit, in his Sixth Discourse On the Lord's Prayer, as well as in his pamphlet On the Celibacy of the Clergy, Cyprian does not cite Romans vii, but he quotes Galatians v, 17, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh," &c. But that he understood Romans vii, to relate not only to the indwelling of sin, but also to its dominion, is evident from his Prologue concerning the Cardinal Works of Christ, in which, among other remarks, the following occurs :-" If I do not know who it is "that inscribed this law in my members that it may, with such "violent domination, oppress the Spirit, and that the better and "more worthy nature may succumb to the worse, I must patiently "endure it if I do not understand the Almighty Operator of the "universe." He adds, in a subsequent passage of the same Prologue :"It is difficult to understand wherefore this law of sin, in this ❝ and in similar individuals, oppresses the law of righteousness, "and wherefore weak and enervated reason so miserably falls, "when it is able to stand; especially when this defect depends on the sentence of damnation, and the ancient transgression has "obtained this inevitable punishment." 66 5. CHRYSOSTOM. WHEN treating professedly on this portion of Holy Writ and explaining it, in his Comment on Romans 7, Chrysostom, after confirming what he had advanced in the preceding verses, expresses himself in the following manner : Therefore, Paul subjoined this assertion,-" But I am carnal, sold under sin :" Thus describing a man who lives under the law and before it.-Therefore, sin itself is adverse to the law of nature: For this is what he says, "Warring against the law of my mind." It also imposes on the law of nature an universal contest and warfare, when it afterwards draws up in battle-array the forces of sin: For the Mosaic law was lastly added [ex abun |