SECTION VIII. An answer to the arguments by which St. Paul's supposed carnality is generally defended. Ir the sense which our opponents give to Rom. vii, 14, be true, the doctrine of Christian perfection is a dream, and our utmost attainment on earth is St. Paul's apostolic carnality, and involuntary servitude to the law of sin; with a hopeful prospect of deliverance in a death purgatory. It is therefore of the utmost importance to establish our exposition of that verse, by answering the arguments which are supposed to favour the Antinomian meaning rashly fixed upon that portion of Scripture. ARG. I. If St. Paul was not carnal and sold under sin when he wrote to the Romans, why does he say, 'I am carnal?' Could he not have said, I was carnal once, but now the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death? Can you give a good reason why, in Rom. vii, 14, the phrase, I am carnal, must mean, I was carnal? Is it right thus to substitute the past time for the present ?" ANSWER. We have already shown that this figurative way of speak. ing is not uncommon in the Scriptures. We grant, however, that we ought not to depart from the literal sense of any phrase, without good reasons. Several such, I trust, have already been produced, to show the necessity of taking St. Paul's words, "I am carnal," in the sense stated in the preceding section. I shall offer one more remark upon this head, which, if I mistake not, might alone convince the unpreju. diced. The states of all souls may in general be reduced to three: (1.) That of unawakened sinners, who quietly sleep in the chains of their sins, and dream of self righteousness and heaven. (2.) That of awakened, uneasy, reluctant sinners, who try in vain to break the galling chains of their sins. And, (3.) That of delivered sinners, or victorious believers, who enjoy the liberty of God's children. This last state is described in Rom. vii, 4, 6. The rest of that chapter is judiciously brought in, to show how the unawakened sinner is roused out of his carnal state, and how the awakened sinner is driven to Christ for liberty by the lashing and binding commandment. The apostle shows this by observing, ver. 7, &c, how the law makes a sinner (or if you please made him) pass from the unawakened to the awakened state: "I had not known sin," says he, "but by the law," &c. When he had described his unawakened state without the law, and began to describe his awakened state under the law, nothing was more natural than to change the time or tense. But having already used the past tense in the description of the first or the unawakened state; and having said, "Without the law sin was dead: I was alive without the law once: sin revived and I died," &c, he could no more use that tense, when he began to describe the second, or the awakened state; I mean the state in which he found himself when the commandment had roused his sleepy conscience, and slain his Pharisaic hopes. He was therefore obliged to use another tense; and none, in that case, was fitter than the present; just as if he had said, "When the commandment slew the conceited Pharisee in me; when I died to my self-righteous hopes; I did not die without a groan. Nor did I pass into the life of God without severe pangs: no; I struggled with earnestness, I complained with bitterness, and the language of my oppressed heart was, I am carnal, sold under sin," &c, to the end of the chapter.* It is, therefore, with the utmost rhetorical propriety that the apostle says, I am, and not, I was carnal, &c. But rhetorical propriety is not theological exactness. David may say as a poet, "God was wroth: there went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it." But it would be ridiculous to take these expressions in a literal sense. Nor is it much less absurd to assert that St. Paul's words, "I am carnal, sold under sin," are to be understood of Christian and apostolic liberty. ARG. II. "St. Paul says to the Corinthians, I write not to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, even to babes in Christ.' Now if the Corinthians could be at once holy and yet carnal; why could not St. Paul be at the same time an eminent, apostolic saint, and a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin ?” ANSWER. (1.) The Corinthians were by no means established believers in general, for the apostle concludes his last epistle to them by bidding them "examine themselves whether they were in the faith." (2.) If St. Paul proved carnal still, and was to continue so till death, with all the body of Christian believers, why did he upbraid the Corinthians with their unavoidable carnality? Why did he wonder at it, and say, "Ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envyings and strife, &c, are ye not carnal?" Might not these carnal Corinthians have justly replied, Carnal physician, heal thyself? (3.) In the language of the apostle, to be carnal, to be carnally minded, to walk after the flesh, not to walk after the Spirit, and to be in the flesh, are phrases of the same import. This is evident from Rom. vii, 14; viii, 1–9; and he says, directly or indirectly, that to those who are in that state, "there is condemnation; that they cannot please God; and that they are in a state of death; because, to be carnal, or carnally minded, is death," Rom. viii, 1, 6, 8. Now if he was carnal himself, does it not follow that he could not please God," and that he was in a state of "condemnation and death?" But how does this agree with the profession which he immediately makes of being "led by the Spirit, of walking in the Spirit, and of being made free from the law of sin and death, by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?" (4.) We do not deny that the remains of the carnal mind still cleave to imperfect Christians; and that, when the expression carnal is softened and qualified, it may, in a low sense, be applied to such professors as those Corinthians were, to * Some time after I had written this, looking into "Dr. Doddridge's Lectures on Divinity," p. 451, I was agreeably surprised to find that what that judicious and moderate Calvinist presents as the most plausible sense of Rom. vii, 14, is exactly the sense which I defend in these pages. Take his own words:" St. Paul at first represents a man as ignorant of the law, and then insensible of sin; but afterward being acquainted with it, and then thrown into a kind of despair, by the sentence of death which it denounces, on account of sins he is now conscious of having committed; he then farther shows that even where there is so good a disposition as to 'delight in the law,' yet the motives are too weak to maintain that uniform tenor of obedience, which a good man greatly desires, and which the Gospel by its superior motives and grace does in fact produce." whom St. Paul said, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual." But could not the apostle be yet spoken to as a spiritual man? And does he not allow that, even in the corrupted Churches of Corinth and Galatia, there were some truly spiritual men-some adult, perfect Christians? See 1 Cor. xiv, 37, and Gal. vi, 1. (5.) When the apostle calls the divided Corinthians carnal, he immediately softens the expression by adding, "babes in Christ." If therefore the word carnal is applied to St. Paul in this sense, it must follow that the apostle was but "a babe in Christ;" and if he was but a babe, is it not as absurd to judge of the growth of adult Christians by his growth, as to measure the stature of a man by that of an infant? (6.) And, lastly: the man described in Rom. vii, 14, is not only called carnal without any softening, qualifying phrase; but the word carnal is immediately heightened by an uncommon expression, "sold under sin;" which is descriptive of the strongest "bondage of corruption." Thus reason, Scripture, and criticism agree to set this argument aside. ARG. III. The carnal man, whose cause we plead, says, Rom. vii, 20, If I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me,' that is, in my unrenewed part: and therefore he might be an eminent, apostolic saint in his renewed part; and a carnal, wretched man, sold under sin, in his unrenewed part." ANSWER. 1. The apostle, speaking there as a carnal, and yet awakened man, who has light enough to see his sinful habits, but not faith and resolution enough to overcome them; his meaning is evidently this-If I, as a carnal man, do what I, as an awakened man, would not; it is no more I that do it, that is, I do not do it according to my awakened conscience, for my conscience rises against my conduct: but it is sin that dwelleth in me; it is the tyrant sin, that has full possession of me, and minds the dictates of my conscience no more than an inex. orable task master minds the cries of an oppressed slave. 2. If the pure love of God was shed abroad in St. Paul's heart and constrained him, he dwelt in love, and of consequence in God. For St. John says, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. He that is in you, is greater than he that is in the world." Now if God dwelt in Paul by his loving Spirit, it becomes our objectors to show that an indwelling God and indwelling sin are one and the same thing; or that the apostle had strangely altered his doctrine when he asked, with indignation, "What concord has Christ with Belial?" For if indwelling sin, the Belial within, was necessary to nestle with Christ in St. Paul's heart, and in the hearts of all believers, should not the apostle have rather cried out with admiration, "See how great is the concord between Christ and Belial! They are inseparable! They always live in the same heart together: and nothing ever parted them, but what parts man and wife, that is, death." 3. If a reluctance to serve the law of sin be a proof that we are holy as Paul was holy, is there not joy in heaven over the apostolic holiness of most robbers and murderers in the kingdom? Can they not sooner or later say, "With my mind, or conscience, I serve the law of God; but with my flesh the law of sin. How to perform what is good, I find not. I would be honest and loving, if I could be so without denying myself; but I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me ?” For can any thing be stronger upon this head than the words of the inhuman princess, who, being at the point of committing murder, cried out, "My mind, [that is, my reason or conscience,] leads me to one thing, but my new, impetuous passion carries me to another, against my will. I see, I approve what is right, but I do what is criminal."* ARG. IV. "The man whose experience is described in Rom. vii, is said 'to delight in the law of God after the inward man, and to serve the law of God with the mind;' therefore he was partaker of apostolic holiness." ANSWER. Does he not also say, "With the flesh I serve the law of sin ?” And did not Medea say as much in her way before she imbrued her hands in innocent blood? What else could she mean when she cried out, "I see and approve with my mind what is right, though I do what is criminal?" Did not the Pharisees for a time "rejoice in the burning and shining light" of John the Baptist? And does not an evangelist inform us that Herod himself heard that man of God (ndsws) “with delight," and "did many things" too? Mark vi, 20. But is this a proof that either Medea, the Pharisees, or Herod had attained apostolic holiness? ARG. V. "The person who describes his unavailing struggles under the power of sin, cries out at last, Who shall deliver me, &c, and imme. diately expresses a hope of future deliverance, thanking God for it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. vii, 24, 25. Does not this show that the carnal man sold under sin was a Christian believer, and, of consequence, Paul himself?" ANSWER. This shows only that the man sold under sin, and groaning for evangelical liberty, is supported under his unhappy circumstances by a hope of deliverance; and that when the law, like a severe school master, has almost brought him to Jesus Christ; when he is come to the borders of Canaan, and " is not far from the kingdom of God and the city of refuge," he begins to look and long earnestly for Christ; and has at times comfortable hopes of deliverance through him. He has a faith that desires liberty, but not a faith that obtains it. He has a degree of the "faith to be healed," which is mentioned Acts xix, 9; but he has * Sed trahit invitam nova vis, aliudque cupido, Many have the one who never attain the other." Many come up to experience of a carnal penitent, who never attain the experience of obedient believer. "Many have good desires to subdue sin, and yet, r ing in those good desires, sin has always had the dominion over ther with the flesh they have always served the law of sin. "A person of a fever may desire to be in health, but that desire is not health itse (Whitefield's Works, vol. iv, page 7.) If the Calvinists would do ju tieto this important distinction, they would soon drop the argument wach I answer, and the yoke of carnality which they try to fix upon St Paul's neck. ARG. VI. "You plead hard for the apostle's spirituality; but his plain confession shows that he was really carnal, and sold under Does he not say to the Corinthians, that there was given him a ta in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should b exalted above measure, by the abundance of the revelations which been vouchsafed him?' 2 Cor. xii, 7. Now what could this thor the flesh' be, but a sinful lust? And what this messenger of Satan, tr pride or immoderate anger? Thrice he besought the Lord that these plagues might depart from him; but God would not hear him. Indiei. ing sin was to keep him humble; and if St. Paul stood in need of *** remedy, how much more we?" ANSWER. 1. Indwelling anger keeps us angry and not meek: ind ing pride keeps us proud, and not humble. The streams answer to fountain. It is absurd to suppose that a salt spring will send t fresh water. 1 2. You entirely mistake the apostle's meaning. While you tr make him a modest imperfectionist, you inadvertently represent hi an impudent Antinomian; for, speaking of his "thorn in the flesh," and of the "buffeting of Satan's messenger," he calls them his infirmities, and says, "Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities." Now, if his infirmities were pride, a wrathful disposition, and a filthy lust dvi he not act the part of a filthy Antinomian, when he said that "he q ried in them?" Would not even Paul's carual man have blushed to s thus! Far from glorying in his pride, wrath, or indwelling lust, did he not groan, "O wretched man that I am?" 3. The apostle, still speaking of his thorn in the files), and of Satan buffeting him by proxy, and still calling these trials his infomat plains himself farther in these words:-"Therefore I take pleasure infirmities, in reproaches, in persecutions, &c, for Christ's sake: Er when I am weak, then am I strong. Christ's strength is inade perfect in my weakness." Those infirmities, that thorn in the flesh, that buffeting of Satan, cannot, then, be indwelling sin, or any outbreaking of it; for the devil himself could do no more than to take pleasure in his wickedness and in Rom. vii, the carnal penitent himself delights "in the law of God after the inward man," instead of taking pleasure in his indwelling sin. 4. The infirmities in which St. Paul glories and takes pleasure were such as had been given him to keep him humble after his revelations. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh," &c, 2 Cor. xii, 7. Those infirmities and that thorn were not then indwelling sin, for indwelling sin was not given him after his visions, seeing it stuck fast in |