02.A07. The Faith Of The Convert As Eclipsed

CHAPTER VII. THE FAITH OF THE CONVERT AS ECLIPSED, AND RENDERED WEAK AND INOPERATIVE, BY THE EXAMPLE AND TESTIMONY OF OLD DISCIPLES, AND BY FALSE TEACHING AND FALSE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE Influence of False Teaching and Example

Every one who will carefully reflect upon the spirit of self-abandonment, of humiliation, meekness, and "hungering and thirsting after righteousness," which the Spirit of God always induces in the mind of every genuine convert, will perceive that such "a babe in Christ" will readily receive, and embrace by faith, "the first principles of the oracles of God," "the sincere milk of the Word," when the same is properly ministered, and that nothing can tend so effectively to weaken and render inoperative his faith as to imbue him with the assurance that the freedom from sin and the righteousness which he so supremely aspires after, he is never to attain in this life.

Set before him the dogma, and that as a revealed truth of God, that, at the best estate to which he will ever attain by faith in Christ, he will find himself "carnal, sold under sin," and find it the fixed law of his moral activity that, when he shall "will to do good, evil will be present with him," and that "the good which he shall will to do, he will not do," and "the evil which he shall will not to do, he will do;" and where is the rational hope that he will ever become "rooted and grounded in love," "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might," and "grow up in Him" -- unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," -- or even fail to lose the ardour and freshness of his first love?

Suppose that the old veterans at Waterloo, instead of teaching the young volunteers lessons of absolute obedience, and inspiring them with the assurance of victory under their great commander, had assured these new recruits, and that as from the Duke himself that no soldier, since the first organisation of the English army, hath been able fully to obey the orders he receives, "but daily doth break them in thought, word, and deed," and that, in special crises, their fidelity always fails; that the obedience which each soldier purposes to render, he does not render, and the disobedience which he purposes to avoid, he perpetrates -- what kind of a battle would that under consideration have been? What would armies become, were they organised, disciplined, and made to act under the omnipresent influence of such a sentiment? Can the influence of the omnipresence of the same identical sentiment be less disastrous in "the army of the living God,"under "the great Captain of our salvation?"

What if children in all families and schools were required to commit to memory such a catechism as this: No child, since the Fall, bath been able perfectly to obey the commands of its parents or teachers, but "daily doth break them in thought, word, and deed?" What if these children were rendered everywhere familiar with the idea that their parents, and all the men and women whom such children hold in the deepest veneration, were in the daily habit, when they were children, of perpetrating such disobedience? What would our children and scholars become under such teachings? What but lawless and shameless violators of their sacred obligations? Can the influence of the same sentiment be less disastrous in the family and school of God? Are all the laws and principles of mind reversed when we attempt to act religiously? Must there not be something fatally wrong in the teachings which our converts and members of churches very commonly receive in regard to the expected omnipresence of sin in the hearts and lives of believers?

Must there not be some fundamental misapprehension in regard to the meaning of those texts of scripture which are supposed to teach the universal and continued sinfulness of believers in this life? Did any preacher ever witness a revival of religion, or an advance in holiness in the Church, through the preaching of the dogma that all believers, at their best estate, "find a law that, when they would do good, evil is present with them," and find themselves "carnal, sold under sin?" Can any one designate any good which has ever resulted from the use which has been made of the texts under consideration? Has our Saviour undertaken to educate the divine family, and discipline "the army of the living God," upon principles which would, with infallible certainty, induce lawlessness and disorder in every other department of human activity? At one time, when I was a child, for example, my parents sent me several times to a neighbor to bring home some sugar which he owed them. The box in which the sugar was placed was, in my regard, a sacred thing. I did not even look into it. The last time I went on such errand, however, the children of that neighbor gathered round me, as I was about to leave, and addressed me in these identical words -- I remember them well:-"Asa, you will eat some of that sugar before you get home." I denied the imputation. Yet I did that very thing, and the putting the thought into my mind was the only cause of my so doing. Suppose, now, that my parents, before sending me on such an errand, had given me a solemn command not to touch the sugar, and made me promise not to do it, and had then informed me that no child "since the Fall" had been able to carry such a box without appropriating a portion of its contents; that they, and Washington, and Paul, and the mother of Jesus, had always committed such acts under similar circumstances, and that I must "grow in grace" by taking less and less on each successive errand. We know well that such instruction would render all children graceless thieves. Can similar sentiments relatively to sin have an influence less disastrous upon the obedience of the children of God? When will "masters in Israel" and members of our churches consider that the immutable laws of mind render it impossible for us, when we hold it as a revealed truth of God that we shall sin "in thought, word, and deed," and shall not fully obey the divine will, even to intend not to sin at all, or to render perfect obedience? How often do we hear it said that the individual who aims at the moon will shoot higher than he who gives his weapon a lower level. But does any man, can any man, point his weapon at the moon seriously intending to hit that object? So, no man can sincerely intend to accomplish any result while he seriously believes that his best endeavours will never enable him to reach that result. If God requires us to hold it as a revealed truth that we shall at no time fully meet His will, He requires us to hold a truth, the belief of which renders it impossible for us even to intend the obedience which He requires. The sentiment under consideration, also, and the construction given to those passages which are supposed to teach that sentiment, gives, in the judgment of those who hold it, a kind of divine sanction to the sins consciously committed. That Christ is distinctly revealed in the Scriptures as able to save us in this life, from all sin and render our obedience "perfect and entire, wanting nothing," and to induce in us all the faith requisite to our sanctification in this divine form, all admit. If He requires us to believe that He will not thus sanctify us, or induce in us the faith requisite to this end, it must be because he prefers that we should be partially under sin, rather than wholly saved from it. There is no escaping this conclusion. Why should we desire, or seek, or strive to be more perfect in our obedience than Christ really chooses that we should be?

Such is the practical sentiment which really lies in the heart of the mass of professing Christians who are consciously "carnal, sold under sin." They never, with "godly sorrow" repent of those sins, or confess them as if they were consciously criminal on their account. One of the facts which horrified me when a young convert, fearing sin more than I did perdition, was the shocking indifference with which old professors spoke of and confessed their sins. When I would expostulate with them upon the subject, they would reply, not by confessing their infinite criminality, but by reminding me that even Paul had a "thorn in the flesh," was not perfect, but "carnal, sold under sin;" and that God would soon "teach me the plague of my own heart," by letting me slide back from my "first love" into the state in which they then were. This is the exact influence and necessary result of this hateful sentiment in the churches. Regarding their carnalities, worldly mindedness, heart-backslidings, and shortcomings as the inevitable conditions of their religious life and experience, they come to be possessed of a gloomy content with their state, being quite satisfied if they are still conscious of "an aching void" left by "the joys they knew when first they saw the Lord." When the young convert, in the simplicity of his new faith, in the ardour of his first love, and with his insatiable "hungerings and thirstings after righteousness," enters upon "the highway of holiness," what does he find? Do old professors rise up around him to tell him of the glorious victories which he is called to win "by the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony," of his "completeness in Christ," of the all-sufficiency of His grace, of His power to "save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him," and in every condition of existence, and against all assaults from "the world, the flesh, and the devil," to render them "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved them?" Do those who have accepted from Christ the sacred command and commission, "Feed my lambs," tell him of the "enduements of power," the divine enlightenments, the transforming and open visions of the divine glory, of the divine fellowships, the indwellings, onenesses "in Christ and the Father," and of the "all sufficiencies for all things," and of "the exceeding great and precious promises" in reserve for him? On the other hand, he does find the mass of believers all around him, believers old and young, a sickly and "feeble folk," all crying to Him -- "Look how we grovel here below, Fond of these trifling toys; Our souls can neither fly nor go To reach eternal joys." The worst of all is, that even his appointed teachers impress him with the conviction that this is as high a spiritual state as he can really expect in the fold of Christ; that none are saved from sinning here; that all, on the other hand, are, at their best estate, "carnal, sold under sin," and will continue to repeat the despairing cry, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" until the bonds of the flesh shall be broken by death. What can be expected of our "new-born babe" under such nourishing as this? What, but that his new-born joys shall die out within him, and he be left a stranger to all the fulnesses of joy, triumphs of faith, and divine fellowships, represented in the Scriptures as the common privilege of all believers in Jesus. This I can say as the result of all my observations, of more than fifty years’ continuance, that there is no relation of cause and effect more fixed than that between the sentiment under consideration, and the absence of that form of experience represented by the following promise of our Saviour: "He that believeth in me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." He that enters the service of Christ fully expecting to "sin daily in thought, word, and deed," will, as surely as lead thrown upon the surface of water will sink to the bottom, become a backslider. No convert, I am quite sure, can hardly strive more earnestly than I did to retain his first footing; yet the evil came, and it seemed to me a necessity of my faith. To me it now appears a near approach to treason for an individual to enter the divine service with any expectation or calculation other than implicit and absolute obedience to "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," to every indication of the will of "the great Captain of our salvation."

Texts of Scripture supposed to Teach the Omnipresence of Sin in the Hearts and Lives of Believers

Let us now, for a few moments, turn our thoughts to those passages of Scripture which are supposed to teach the omnipresence of sin, and disloyalty to our God and King, in the hearts and lives of all believers in Jesus. Of the Old Testament, I call to mind but two or three passages which are cited to prove this doctrine. In his prayer at the dedication of the temple, Solomon (1 Kings 8:46) makes this statement, "If they sin against Thee (for there is no man that sinneth not)." The utmost that can be made of this passage is, a confession of what all admit to be true, to wit, the universal sinfulness of the race. The words employed limit the meaning of the speaker to this one idea. To suppose that he was thinking at all of what the saints of God and believers in Jesus had attained to in ages past, and would attain to in ages to come, is one of the most preposterous constructions of the words employed of which we can form a conception. The real meaning of the passage, however, as fully shown by Dr Clarke, may be thus expressed: "If they sin against thee (for there is no man who may not sin);" that is, if they shall do what all men living are liable to do. This is the exact meaning of the original Hebrew, and renders the passage a very impressive one. In Job 9:20, we find the following confession: "if I justify myself, mine own mouth will condemn me: if I say I am perfect, it also shall prove me perverse." Suppose that all this was true of Job at the time he made this confession. He speaks here of himself alone, and of no other human being. The fact that he was then morally imperfect no more proves that no believer will, to the end of time, be "redeemed from all iniquity," and rendered wholly pure, than the confession of David to the sins of adultery and murder proves that all Christians are guilty of these identical sins. Job, however, is speaking not at all of his moral state at that moment, but of his whole past life. "He could not enter into judgment with God," he tells us, "because he had sinned." To attempt self-justification would insure his condemnation, by adding to his criminality and perverseness. For an individual to confess, in view of his whole past life, that he is a sinner and not perfect, and to confess that he is now in sin, are two confessions totally distinct from one another. It is to imperfection, and that exclusively and specifically, in the former, and not in the latter sense, that Job confesses in this passage; and in this sense, all believers will have occasion, to eternity, to affirm themselves sinners and imperfect. In Psalms 119:16, the sacred writer thus speaks: "I have seen the end of all perfection; but Thy commandment is exceeding broad." The term "but" is put, in the translation, in italics, to indicate that it is not in the original. Here it is said that the Psalmist affirms that he has seen that all believers will, from the beginning to the end of time, be, and continue to be, morally imperfect. A wilder, and more unauthorised exposition, I venture to affirm, can hardly be given of any passage. The term "end" here undeniably means, not the limit or termination, but the consummation. The sacred writer is contemplating the exceeding broadness, or unlimited application, of God’s commandments, and affirms that he here perceives the consummation of all perfection. The absolute perfection of the divine law, and nothing else, is affirmed in this passage. No reference whatever is had to the relations of any being to that law. In turning to the New Testament, we first notice the inference deduced from 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Growth in grace implies, it is said, an advance from one degree of sinfulness to another less sinful. The command "Grow in grace," therefore, implies the present sinfulness of all believers. According to this construction, we have undeniably an absolute command from God, not to break off all sin at once, but to do this gradually. We should, therefore, sin against. God, by disobedience to a command requiring us to "grow in grace," or give up sin gradually, if we should now wholly cease sinning. This construction also convicts our Saviour Himself of positive sinfulness. In Luke 2:52, it is positively affirmed that Christ did "increase" or grow in grace, -- the original word, there rendered "favour," being the same as that rendered "grace" in the passage under consideration. The command "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," will be binding, and equally so as now, upon believers to eternity. As their capacities shall increase and expand, they will eternally advance in holiness and knowledge. We are required to grow "in wisdom and in favour (grace) with God and man," just as, and in no other sense than, the youthful Jesus did thus grow. In Php 3:12, Paul, it is said, affirms his own moral imperfection: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect." Why do not individuals, before they put such a construction upon these words, consider carefully what the apostle says in Php 3:15-17? Let us read these verses. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample." It is undeniable that the apostle uses the term "perfect" in two senses in this chapter -- senses in one of which he affirms himself not to be, and in the other to be perfect, and, in the latter sense, unqualifiedly requires us to copy his example.

Now Greeks, to whom the apostle was writing, were in no danger of misunderstanding him in the two distinct and separate senses in which he employs the term in this passage. With them, those who were victors on the racecourse, and were crowned as such, were called perfect, the perfected ones, or those who had attained to perfection in glory. Those who were running for the prize, and put forth their utmost energies to gain it, were perfect, not in glory, but as far as present duty was concerned. Paul represented himself as running a race, "not as uncertainly," but with "assurance of hope," -- a race, not for a "corruptible," but for an "incorruptible crown." Until he had "finished his course," he could not have, or had not "attained," the crown, and was not perfect -- that is, perfected in glory. This he was "following after." As a runner for the crown, however, he was doing all he possibly could, and was in this sense perfect, that is, in the matter of present duty. "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Here we have a specific description of a perfect runner, and as such, that is, as far as present duty is concerned, Paul does claim perfection, and requires us, and that unqualifiedly, to copy his example. Paul then does here present himself, not as perfected in glory, but as an example of a morally perfect man. It is very remarkable that the dogma of the continued sinfulness of all believers in this life is, by learned theologians, based upon arguments the validity of which, in the same form in which they are put, implies equally the sinfulness of our Saviour, "who knew no sin." If the command," Grow in grace," implies present sinfulness, actual growth in grace, which is, as we have seen, absolutely affirmed of Christ, implies His prior sinfulness. If the mere declaration of Paul, "Not as though I were already perfect," implies his then sinfulness, what must we think of the testimony of our Saviour in regard to Himself; to wit, "I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected?" -- the identical word and form of the word in the original which Paul applies to himself when he says, "Not as though I were already perfect." Both Christ and Paul looked forward to a perfected state to which neither had then attained, and this fact no more implies present sinfulness in one case than in the other. But what must we think of 1 John 1:8, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us?" What must we think of the Biblical knowledge of those who assume, without careful inquiry, that we are here taught that, if we say that we are not, at this moment, sinning against God, we are self-deceived, and are not Christians? If we put this construction upon the passage -- and we must, in order to deduce from it the doctrine of the omnipresent sinfulness of all believers in this life -- we must affirm that such men as Wesley, Finney, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and all the leading fathers and members of the primitive Church, were never born of God. The apostle, in this connection, is speaking of two classes of persons, -- one "who confessed their sins," and the other who denied that they had sins to confess -- that is, affirmed that they "had not sinned," the true and proper meaning of the words, "we have no sin." When the Saviour said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," who does not perceive at once that the meaning is, let him do this who is not conscious of ever having sinned? This epistle, as we are informed, 1 John 2:26, was expressly written to guard believers against certain seductive errors then being propagated in the Church. "These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you." Of these seducers there were then two prominent classes -- Judaising teachers, who denied their need of salvation by faith, on the assumption that they were not sinners at all, or had never sinned, and false apostles, who "turned the grace of God into lasciviousness," affirming that, as "salvation is by faith, and not by works," believers can live as they list. This first error the apostle meets by affirming that "if we say that we have no sin" to be forgiven and cleansed from -- that is, affirm that "we have not sinned," the form in which the idea represented by the words "if we say we have no sin" is expressed in the last verse of this chapter -- "we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," on the one hand, and "make God a liar, and His word is not in us," on the other. Nothing can be more evident than is the fact that by the words, "if we say we have no sin," and "if we say we have not sinned," the apostle means the same thing, and in neither form of representing the same idea has he any reference whatever to the dogma of the omnipresence of sin in "believers in Jesus." What a mass of palpable contradictions this dogma imputes to the apostle in this epistle! Look at one or two examples. "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not." Whosoever saith that he abides in Him, and "has no sin" -- that is, that he does not sin"deceiveth himself; and the truth is not in him." "Herein is our love made perfect." If we say that our love is made perfect, thus fulfilling the law, we are self-deceived, and not Christians at all. A construction which thus "turns the Word of God into foolishness," is evidently "a plant which out heavenly Father has not planted." The second form of error above referred to, the apostle meets by such utterances as the following: -- "He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

One additional passage demands our special attention -- I refer, of course, to Romans 7:5-25. Permit me to state right here two well-known facts bearing very fundamentally upon the exposition we should give to this passage: that up to the time of Augustine in the fifth century, the entire primitive Church, who received the Epistle to the Romans directly from the apostle, understood him to refer in that passage to a legal, in contrast with a Christian experience; and that from that time to the present this passage has been so understood and expounded by the most influential commentators on the Bible throughout Christendom. The bearing of the passage in favour of the doctrine under consideration, if it can be made to favour that doctrine at all, is of the most doubtful character possible, and can never be properly used by the advocates of this doctrine as one of their valid proof-texts.

Such a doctrine ought to be based upon none but passages whose meaning is most plain and decisive. If we will turn to Romans 9:30-32 of this epistle, and carefully read these verses, we shall find the key that will clearly open the real meaning of the passage under consideration, together with the entire reasoning of the apostle in the chapter which follows. Let us read the verses to which I have referred: -- "What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness; hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone."

Turning to Romans 7:5-25, we find there the record of an attempt to "attain to the law of righteousness," and a total failure to attain the end sought, an endeavour "by the works of the law," and that without Christ and without faith in Him. A more clear and specific exposition of the method in accordance with which the Jew sought righteousness cannot be given, nor a clearer statement of his failure to attain the end he sought. The individual whose struggles are described in this passage, instead of attaining to righteousness in any form, fails in every endeavour, does not the good he purposes to do, and does the evil which he resolves not to do; "finds a law that, when he would do good, evil is present with him," while "the law in his members wars against the law of his mind (his conscience), and brings him into captivity unto the law of sin which is in his members;" renders him "carnal, sold under sin," and compels him to bear about "a body of death," from which he vainly endeavours to free himself. The only reference to Christ that there is in this passage is the thankful one, that through Him there is deliverance from the bondage previously described. If to endeavour to attain unto righteousness, and utterly fail in every purpose and endeavour, and thus to endeavour without Christ and without faith in Him, is Christian experience, then the passage under consideration describes such experience. If, on the other hand, we do, through faith in Christ, "attain to righteousness," are "made free from the law of sin and death," become "more than conqueror through Him that hath loved us," and "rejoice in hope of the glory of God," then the passage under consideration, what it specifically does do, describes the experience of the Jew, a legal in opposition to a Christian experience. When we turn to Romans 8:1-39, we here find Christ, and faith in Him, and consequently find freedom from all condemnation -- freedom from the law of sin and death, "the righteousness of the law fulfilled," "the spirit of adoption" abiding in the heart, hopes full of immortality, and "the world, the flesh, and the devil" overcome "by the blood of the Lamb and the word of His testimony." He reads the Epistle to the Romans to his own terrible loss who stumbles upon Romans 7:5-25, the single phrase, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" excepted, as descriptive of "the life by the faith of the Son of God." The language employed by the apostle in this passage renders it demonstrably evident, also, that he is here speaking of himself not as a believer walking by faith, but of his former experience as a Jew "seeking righteousness by deeds of law." "When we were in the flesh," in our carnal, unrenewed state, he says, "the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." He then goes on to show that while the law is blameless, "holy, just, and good," all his endeavours to "attain to righteousness" through it were perfectly abortive. Up to Romans 7:14, he uses the past tense in speaking of his own experience, and refers specifically to his fleshly and legal experience. From Romans 7:14, he continues his former representation of his unregenerate and legal experience, but changes the tense in which he speaks of himself. "We know," he says, "that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin." Having used the present tense in speaking of the law, he was required, by a law of the Greek language which scholars well understand, to use the same tense also in describing his own experience, though his past and legal one. Lest he should be misunderstood, however, he defines and specifies, in Romans 7:18, the state to which he does refer. "I know," he says, "that in me, that is, in my flesh" (in my unrenewed state), "there dwelleth no good thing." If any shall imagine that the apostle is here speaking of his life of faith, and revealing its abortiveness, Paul surely is not responsible for the error, he having taken such special pains to guard against it.

Some individuals do not know how to reconcile certain expressions of Paul in this passage with the idea that he is here speaking of himself as an impenitent sinner, and not as a Christian. He speaks of himself, for example, as "delighting in the law of God after the inward man," as doing, when he sins, "what he hates, and not what he would," and that it is not "he that does it, but sin that dwelleth in him." And he concludes the chapter by saying, that "with the mind he served the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." This, it is thought by some, can be true only of Christians.

Turning now to Ezekiel 33:31-32, we have a revelation of the Jewish mind in exact accordance with the above representations of the apostle: -"And they come unto Thee as the people cometh, and they sit before Thee as my people, and they hear Thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear Thy words, but they do them not." To the same effect are the words of God through the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 58:1-2) -- "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice, they take delight in approaching to God."

What makes sin so "exceeding sinful" is the fact that, when men do the evil, they, from the necessary laws of their "inner man," their moral nature, disapprove, reprobate, and even hate what they do. Whatever men may do, their consciences are on the side of God and duty, and often impel them to purpose to do the good and avoid the evil. Hence the old maxim that "the path to hell is paved with good resolutions." If men would obey their consciences, and yield to the impulsions of their moral nature, they would obey the law of God; yet, through enslavement to their carnal nature, they do "obey the law of sin." This is just what the apostle means when he says, "With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin."

It is also a remarkable fact that much of what the apostle says in this passage is an almost verbatim copy of the utterances of heathen authors upon the same subject. "He that sins," says one of them, "does not what he would; but what he would not, that he does." Another affirmed of himself that he knew the wrong, and yet did it, and approved of the right, and yet did the wrong. Xenophon tells of one individual who, when reproved by Cyrus for a gross wrong, replied thus (we give an exact copy of the sentiment expressed, but not of the words employed) -- "Surely," said the accused, "I must have two natures. For it cannot be the same nature which approves and delights in what is right and just, and yet does the wrong. When the good nature prevails, we do the right; and when the bad, we do the wrong."

If Romans 7:5-25 is a representation of Christian experience as realised in the case of Paul, that is, of such experience in its highest forms, then is the gospel as utterly powerless in the matter of sanctification as is the law, and Christian experience at its best estate is void of Christ and of faith in Him; is utterly powerless against the carnal propensities, and is no better than that of the Jew on the one hand, and of the heathen and all evil-doers on the other; while all the statements in the eighth chapter are false and absurd. What must we think, for example, of the affirmation that one who is presented as "carnal, sold under sin," and as, in every conflict with evil principles, suffering an inglorious defeat; is in "tribulation," "distress," "persecution," "famine," "nakedness," "peril," and "sword;" that such an one is even in all these things more than a conqueror, through Him that hath loved us?" So in all representations.

If; on the other hand, we understand, with the entire primitive Church and the ablest commentators in the world, that Paul, in this portion of Romans vii. describes, and intends to describe, a legal, in contrast with Christian experience, and in the eighth chapter to set in contrast before us "the glorious liberty of the sons of God," through "the blood of the Lamb and the word of His testimony," -- then Paul is throughout self-consistent and divinely instructive in his teachings.

There is one passage (Galatians 5:17), which has been thoroughly misunderstood and misapplied in respect to the subject under consideration. The passage reads thus: -- "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." This passage has been understood to teach, that the flesh, our sinful lusts, on the one hand, and the Spirit of God on the other, are in constant conflict with each other in the heart and mind of every believer. Under such circumstances, "he cannot do what he would;" that is, fully obey, or "walk in the Spirit," but must alternate in his activity between the two. In other words, the Spirit of God, in conflict with the flesh, has not power to hold our propensities in subjection, and set us free to do the will of God. In other words still, while the Spirit, as we are taught elsewhere, is "stronger than he that is in the world," Satan, He has not full power against the flesh. Is this what the apostle meant to teach here? "God forbid." The direct opposite is the undeniable meaning of the inspired writer. In the verse preceding he says, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." The reason why this must be the case is given in Galatians 5:17, that under consideration; and the reason specifically assigned is this: the flesh and Spirit are opposites, "two masters," each the absolute antagonist to the other, and when you are under the control of one, that of the other is excluded. Hence, if you "walk in the Spirit," "ye cannot do the things that ye would," if under the control of the flesh. When will believers cease misreading their Bibles, and so misreading them as to insure their continuance under the dominion of the flesh?

It has been supposed by some, that in the petition, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," our Saviour intended to teach the universal and continued sinfulness of believers in this life. From the fact that our Saviour has taught all believers to put up the petition, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," why do not these same individuals infer that the time will come when the divine will will be thus done on earth? The words employed authorise the latter inference quite as absolutely as they do the former. Besides, we have in the Bible inspired prayers for the forgiveness of sins committed many years prior to the putting up of the petitions referred to. The Psalmist, for example, when advanced in years, prayed that God would not "remember the sins of his youth, nor his transgressions." Advancing as we are "to the judgment-seat of Christ," and subject to perpetual wrong from others, we shall, whether now under sin or not, ever have occasion to pray that we may be forgiven at that day, as we do "forgive men their trespasses." The whole design of our Saviour in teaching us to hold in perpetual remembrance the sins of our past lives, and to pray that, as we forgive, we may be forgiven, is made void by the inference under consideration. The fact, on the other hand, that He has specifically revealed Himself as having made full provision for our entire sanctification, and is able to "save us unto the uttermost;" that, on condition that we "inquire of Him to do this for us," God has absolutely and specifically promised thus to sanctify us; that "this is the will of God, even our sanctification;" that, as "the Mediator of the new covenant," Christ is revealed as ready to do this for us; that He has commanded us to "be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect," and has, finally, required all believers, in all their prayers, to pray that God’s "will may be done in earth as it is in heaven;" all these great and all-impressive revelations of God do impart to us the assurance that this, the united and inspired prayer of all the saints, will be consummated in the experience of the Church in this world. The Influence of the Construction which has been put upon the Passages above considered. For centuries, the mass of believers have fully tested the influence upon their faith and inner life, and upon their views of the most important revelations of scripture, of the construction which has been put upon the few passages above considered. In experience, this construction has, undeniably, rendered backsliding, "the leaving of the first love," the almost immutable law of the inner and outer life of believers -- a law which has, in fact, rendered their path, not "as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day," but as the evening twilight, which deepens on into greater and greater darkness, "until an almost fixed state is reached -- a state in which "neither sun nor stars appear" -- a state in which there is more of care than of peace -- more of doubt than of assurance of hope -- more of an "aching void within" than singing for joy of heart -- more of groaning than of inward shouting -- more of weakness than of strength -- and more of defeats than of victories "through the blood of the Lamb and the word of His testimony." Such facts, everywhere visible, and all occurring under specific teachings in respect to the religious life, ought surely to induce "the masters in Israel" to inquire seriously whether there have not been serious misapprehensions in regard to the real teachings of the Word of God in respect to "the high way of holiness." The construction under consideration has also been "a veil upon the hearts" of believers and their teachers whenever they have read the provisions and promises of grace, as revealed in the Scriptures, for "the glorious liberty of the sons of God" in this life. If, for example, we accept of Romans 7:5-25 as a revealed presentation of the religious life at its best estate, as we must do if we accept it as teaching the characteristics of that life, we must limit, by what is revealed in this passage, all that is said in the eighth chapter and elsewhere about the provisions and promises of grace for our present sanctification and joy in God. When Paul, for example, tells us that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," and "in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us," we must not understand him to designate any freedom or form of victory incompatible with what is implied in the words "I am carnal, sold under sin," and "I find a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me." When Paul says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," we must not understand him to mean that he finds any strengthening grace in Christ through which he will not be compelled to say, "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." When we read, for example, that "Christ is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him," and that God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think," we must not expect that anything will be done for us to relieve us from "captivity unto the law of sin which is in our members." When we read, "He that believeth in me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," we must understand that nothing is promised here to relieve us from the cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" When we pray, "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," we must bear in mind that nothing more is to be expected from the prayer of all the saints than this, that in our most perfect obedience we shall be constrained to say, "That which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I."

Permit me here to request of the reader a careful reading of the following words of our Saviour, and then an equally careful comparison of the same with the passage from Romans vii. now under consideration. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And the glory which Thou hast given me I have given them, that they also may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me."

All this undeniably relates to believers in this life. Is nothing here prayed for? and are we here authorised to expect nothing more nor better than is disclosed in this portion of Romans 7:1-25? I rejoice to know that the hearts of believers are being "turned unto the Lord," that "they may know the things which are freely given us of God," and that, as a consequence, the veil which the construction has put upon the passages above considered is being "taken from their hearts."