into a form different from that which we have hitherto employed; and we therefore give them in a separate article, which follows.

H. B.

2d.

ART. XXXII.

The Seventh Chapter of Romans; with Notes.

PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS. Our chief aim, now, is confined to what the apostle here says of the flesh, &c., as the seat of sin. Other topics which occur, we shall pass over more slightly.

The character of this chapter is in the highest degree rhetorical, as distinguished from scientific preciseness. The language throughout is figurative, without any aim even at consistency, so far as respects the form of expression. We shall find the figures frequently broken, and shifted from subject to subject; the same word or phrase is sometimes used in opposite senses; every thing is personified, such as the law, sin, righteousness, &c.; and the personification assumes different shapes in different parts of the discourse. We must, therefore, be careful to draw out the main thread from its rhetorical entanglements, and to follow it through, without being turned aside by mere tropes and metonymies.

The idea, with which the chapter opens, is, that believers are delivered from subjection to law, that is, from servitude and thraldom under it, as merely a catalogue of commands. Their moral life is not developed by slavish, mechanical observance of the letter, so much to be done, because so much is exacted, but by a freer method, and by a higher principle, namely, by the spirit itself of righteousness, or as the apostle elsewhere calls it, by faith, which leads them spontaneously in the way of obedience. He begins by pleading that his brethren in Christ were dead to law, that is, when it is taken in the formal sense just mentioned.

1. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he

Ver. 1-4. As a woman is released from the law of her marriage, when her husband is dead, so we, who

liveth? 2. For the woman which hath a husband, is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law, by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5. For when we were in

the flesh, the motions [literally, passions, or emotions,] of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death; 6. but now we are delivered from the law, that being dead [Griesbach, being dead to that] wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

believe, are become dead to mere law (in the sense mentioned above,) by the corporeal death of Christ, which we professed to take upon ourselves when we were buried in baptism as is explained in ch. vi. 3-6. [Mark the striking want of precision in the form of the simile, here, and in its application: At first, it is said that the law hath dominion (literally, lords it) over a person only so long as that person lives; then, that when the person dies, not he, but another, namely, his wife, is loosed from the law; and lastly, this is made to illustrate the point that, as believers have taken Christ's death upon themselves in a symbolical way, they themselves (not others,) are dead to the law, or loosed from its despotism. We must be careful not to be misled by such shiftings of the figure.]

5, 6. were in the flesh,] not literally, for in that sense they were still in the flesh; but when we lived under the domination of our senses. the passions, or emotions of sins, which were by the law.] Sin is personified. Its emotions are said to be occasioned by the law, because the strife it raises within us is caused by our consciousness of its being unlawful, prohibited, as the apostle explains in the 7th verse. did work in our members,] or in our sensitive nature; for the members of our body are not themselves directly affected by the prohibitions of moral law. to bring forth fruit unto death,] or unto guilt, selfcondemnation. But now, being dead to the law, (as before

7. What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. 9. For I was alive without the law, once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; 10. and the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death; 11. for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12. Wherefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13. Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin [was made death unto me,] working death in me by that which is good; that sin, by the command

explained,) we serve God in a new way, by the spirit of righteousness, and not in the old way, by a mechanical observance of the mere letter of the commands.

7. Because the law exasperates our sinful inclinations, by its prohibition, does it follow that it is itself sinful? No, indeed; for we should not have known sin, as such, but for the prohibition, which thwarts it, and makes it to be transgression. lust] here means wrong desire in general. We should not have known it, as wrong, but for our consciousness that it is unlawful.

8-11. When we were unconscious of any law against such desires, they were not accompanied with guilt, or moral death; and we were then alive, in this sense, that is, we had no self-condemnation. (He evidently uses the term death, here, for guilt.) But when the command, or prohibition, was brought home to our minds, it made these desires become sin,-gave sin its life, that is, its guilt. And so, the command, which enjoined hearty obedience, or moral life, produced guilt or moral death in us, by our breaking it.

12. That the law is holy and good, is seen from the very fact that it forbids sin and requires holiness of us.

13. He recurs to what he had said in verses 8-11. Was it, however, the law itself, strictly speaking, that produced death, or guilt, in us? No; the guilt was caused by those desires which transgressed the law; and the command, which forbade them, only brought out into light their real character as sin. If there had been no law, those

ment, might become exceeding sinful. 14. For, we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin; 15. for that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16. If, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin, that dwelleth in me. 18. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. 19. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20. Now if I do that [which] I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. desires would have existed still, but without rebuke; the law showed their malignity.

14. the law is spiritual] in its requisitions, that is, demands spiritual obedience; but our minds, enslaved by the senses, run counter to it; and this causes the guilt. [In other places, the apostle argues that the law, as mere command, cannot give us the spirit necessary to obey it.]

15. That there is such a slavery of the mind appears from the fact, that we do what we cannot but condemn, and neglect what we cannot but approve as right. [Of course, the apostle does not here mean what he literally says. He trusts to the self-evident character of the case to guard against such a misapprehension, and freely indulges. in rhetorical language which cannot be interpreted in any way, on the supposition that it is logical. Every body knows that, in moral acts, we always do just what we on the whole will to do; and that when we do what we condemn, it is not because we hate it, but because we on the whole love it. No act can be a moral act any further than it agrees with the will of the agent.]

16. Now, if we in our conscience condemn the wrong which the law forbids, we ourselves bear testimony, even when we disobey the law, that it is good; according to verse 12.

17. This verse is merely a rhetorical expression, intended only for effect, namely, to set out, in the very strongest light, the domineering force of sinful habits of mind. To use a common figure, which is almost as strong, — They lead us captive.

18-20. in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.] How does this agree with what he elsewhere

21. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; 23. but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. 24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25. I thank God, [this deliverance is] through Jesus Christ our Lord. So, then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

teaches, that our "body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us?" or, that we should “ present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God?" &c. There may be a contradiction in the words, but none in the meaning. Manifestly, by the flesh, he here means, as in other places, the condition of the mind when subject to the senses; or, as he sometimes calls it, carnal mind. -to will is present with me; but to perform that which is good, I find not,] when in this condition. He feels bound in conscience to do good; but his inclinations and will are opposed to it. Here and in what follows, the language is of the same unguarded rhetorical character as in verses 15, 17. [It is important to mark the bold license of expression in this passage and in the verses referred to. There is, indeed, no danger of mistaking it, here; but it may put us on our guard against pressing the apostle's language too closely in other places where he treats of this subject.]

21. -I find, then, a law,] or rule. Our experience shows it to be a rule that, while we are conscious of our obligation to do good, evil tendencies within us interfere.

22. He proceeds in this and the following verse, to exemplify the foregoing. I delight in the law of God after the inward man;] that is, I approve it in my conscience, and feel the obligation to obey it. [He does not mean, of course, that his mind, on the whole, accords with the law of God, save when he actually obeys; for such accordance of his mind would be the very obedience that the law requires.]

23. another law in my members;] another tendency within me, namely, that of the sensual affections. —warring against the law of my mind ;] against the law recognized by my conscience.

- deliver me from the body of this death,] an Hebra