to impart a corresponding tinge of moral deterioration, to the living principles by which he is actuated. This proves of what importance it is, for upholding the tone of character in society-that we should all be predisposed to turn to our fellows with kindness and confidence and respect; and there is no saying how much the opposite habits of suspicion, and detraction, and fiendish delight in the contemplation of human ignominy, may contribute to lower the real worth and dignity of our species. But our present aim is to show, that, by the very establishment of a law, we become exposed to the sense of its violations; and this degrading sense works a regardlessness of character, and lays us open to other and larger violations: And thus the law may become not only declaratory of sin, but creative of sin; and that both by constituting certain actions to be sinful and multiplying these actions-And in all these ways may we understand the phrase of our apostle, even the motions of sins which are by the law.

The remaining clause of this verse, brings into view the distinction that there is, between feeling the motions or tendencies of sin, and the actual following of these tendencies. We have before abundantly insisted on the presence of sinful inclinations, even in the regenerated Christian; but that he differs from him who is still in the flesh, in that while the one obeys the inclinations, the other utterly refuses to indulge or to gratify them. Paul himself was not exempted from the motions of sins; and this is what he feelingly laments in the subsequent verses of this chapter. But then he did not

suffer these motions so to work in him, as to bring forth fruit unto death. It is of importance for the believer to understand, that, so long as he abides in his present framework, he occupies an infected tenement-he bears about with him a vile body charged with a moral virus from the presence of which death alone can deliver him; and against the power of which, it is his appointed warfare so to struggle, as that it shall not have the practical ascendancy over him. This is the inward constitution even of a saint upon earth-a constant urgency to evil. But what distinguishes him from the wilful sinner is, that he so resists this urgency that it does not prevail. There is no conflict with the one; for he walks altogether in the counsel of his own heart, and altogether in the sight of his own eyes. With the other there is the conflict of two opposite principles of the Spirit lusting against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit; but so as that the Spirit has the habitual predominance, and by the Spirit he is practically led. They who are in the flesh have no such principle of counteraction within them to their evil tendencies-so that the motions of sins which are in them work in their members, so as to bring forth fruit unto death.

Paul now under the power of the gospel, and in the full career of his sanctification, speaks of his being in the flesh as a thing of remembrance. He could now look back upon that state, with the full advantage of a tender and enlightened conscience, that recognised as sinful what he before had never charged himself with, as incurring the guilt of any violation that should infer death. He was even

then free from the grosser profligacies of human wickedness; and lived in the deceitful security of one, who thought that all his duties were adequate to all his obligations. But he now could discern, that, unblemished as he was in respect of all outward enormities, he was then wholly given over to the idolatry of his own will; and that when tried by a law which questioned him of his godlinessof his preference for the Creator above the creature -of his obedience to the commandment, that he should covet and desire no earthly good, so much as the favour of that Being at whose bidding he ought to have subordinated all the affections of his heart-When thus tried, he could now plainly perceive, that, at that time, he was altogether carnal; and not the less so that at that time too, he with self was altogether satisfied. But the difficulty is to make that which was a thing of remembrance to Paul after he was converted, to make it a thing of present consciousness to those who are not yet converted. It is true, it was on the eve of his becom-. ing a Christian that the conviction of sin first seized him—nay, this very conviction might have been the instrument of turning him to the gospel. And therefore it is the more desirable, to reach the same conviction to the hearts of those who are still in the flesh and now hearing me-to make them understand, how wholly it is that they are in the flesh-how unreservedly they give themselves up to the impulse of all those constitutional tendencies, which result from the existing mechanism of their soul and body and spirit, without any control upon it from the accession of a principle of godliness

how much they live and talk and feel, just as they would have done though the idea of a God were never present to them-So, in fact, as to be as far as possible from the habit of glorifying the Lord with their soul and body and spirit, which are the Lord's.

For the purpose of awakening this conviction, the thing wanted is both a more tender and a more lofty conception of the divine law. Where there is glaring deceit, or fell malignity, or abandoned licentiousness in the action-there may be less of difficulty in tracing it to the operation of such propensities, as in truth work those palpable deeds of disobedience, which obviously and undeniably have their fruit unto death. But when the actions are those of industry for example in a lawful calling, or of light-heartedness in a gay and harmless amusement, or of courteousness in a circle of decent and estimable companionship-Surely they are such actions as a Christian may perform; and in what circumstances, it may be asked, do they indicate the performer of them to be still in the flesh, and under the dominion of such appetites as bring forth fruit unto death? Whatever difficulty we may feel in answering this question, it can be replied to, and on a clear and intelligent principle too, by that law which is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You are still in the flesh, if what you habitually do is not done unto God. However more amiable and more refined your species of worldliness may be than that of another, yet still, if you are not walking with God, you are walking after the flesh, and you move in a pictured

Such may be

world of atheism. your dark and obtuse apprehensions of the spiritual morality of the law-that the general drift of your affections being away from God and set upon earthly things, may not appear to the eye of your contemplation as being very deeply tinged with the hue and character of criminality. But by the law itself this is declared to be a state and habit of the soul, that is exceeding sinful; and all that is devised and all that is done under that dominant and unquelled spirit of secularity, which is the universal spirit of unrenewed and unregenerated nature, is done by those who are still in the flesh, and all the desires of whose heart bring forth fruit unto death.

To quicken you from this state-to transfrom secularity into sacredness-to make those who are dead in trespasses and sins alive unto God-to usher you into other feelings and other principles, than those which unchristianised humanity ever can exemplify-This in fact is the great and ultimate design of the gospel, which, after translating you into another condition, also transforms you into another character.

Ver. 6. That being dead wherein we were held' might be rendered 'having died in Him in whom we were held.' The law has wreaked the whole force of its vindication on the head of our great sacrifice; and this is tantamount to our having borne the penalty ourselves; and so, by our death in Christ, being delivered from an infliction that has now gone by. The law has no further reckoning with us, on the old principle of do this and live. We are not now under what the apostle in another place