selves, for its servitude is base and burdensome, painful and shameful: the devil is a sure, but a sad paymaster; he plagues them most who have done him most service. 2. Because of the unsuitableness of sin to our renewed state, we are not our own, but Christ's; his by purchase, his by conquest, his by covenant. Now if after such engagements we suffer sin to reign and have dominion over us, we rescind our baptismal vow ratified by our personal consent. 3. The reason of the foregoing privilege, why sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under the law, but under grace. Question, 1. But are not believers now under the law, though they live under the gospel? Answer, Yes: they are under the rule and direction of the law, but not under the curse and malediction of the law; they are not under the law as a covenant of life, but they are under it as an eternal rule of living. The law of God now binds the believer to the observation of it, as strictly as it did Adam in paradise; but upon the unwilling violation of it he doth not incur the curse, Christ having redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us. Question, 2. But were not those that lived under the law of old, in a sort, under grace as well as we? Answer, Yes: they were, but not in the same degree; good men then had help and assistance in the course of holiness and obedience, when they lived under the law; but they had it not by the law, but by the gospel, which was preached to them as well as unto us, Heb. iv. 2. This administers strength to subdue sin, and

the power to overcome it. Learn hence, that the gospel is a manifestation of the Spirit, and furnishes believers with sufficient helps against the power of sin, and with well grounded hopes of obtaining victory over it. The grace of the gospel gives hopes of victory over sin several ways: 1. Because it was the end of Christ's death to slay sin. 2. Because of the new nature put into us, which is to help us against sin. 3. By assuring us of the Spirit's help, which is to assist us in the mortifying and subduing of sin; it is through the Spirit's operation that we begin, carry on, and accomplish the work of mortification. 4. Because the gospel furnishes us with promises, and thereby gives us assurance of success. So then, if from all these encouragements we bid a confident defiance unto, and make a cour

ageous resistance against sin, it shall

never have a final and full dominion over

us, because we are not under the law, but under grace.

15 What then? shall we sin, be

cause we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Here the apostle starts an objection which some licentious persons might be ready to make: "If we are not under the law which condemns sin, but under the covenant of grace, which allows the pardon and promises the forgiveness of sin, why may we not then go on in sin, and continue in sin forbidden by the law, seeing we are not under the law?" The apostle rejects such a suggestion with his usual note of detestation, God forbid. From hence we may learn, That it is an high abuse of the covenant of grace, to suppose or imagine that it countenances any licentiousness, or allows any liberty to sin. The design of the new covenant is to recover from sin, not to encourage any to continue in sin. Learn, 2. That such doctrine and inferences are to be abhorred, which from the grace of God, in mitigating the law, would infer an utter abrogation of the law, denying that it hath a directive regulating power over a believer. True, we are delivered from the curse and condemnatory sentence of the law, from the severity and rigorous exactions of the law; but to refuse obedience to the law, under pretence of christian liberty; to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace; is a turning the grace of God into wantonness, and to use our christian liberty as an occasion to the

flesh.

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.

Two things are here intimated by the apostle: 1. That all men really are and ought to be reputed servants to that master whose works they do and whose commands they obey: Whom ye obey, his servants ye are. Learn thence, That we may and what master we serve, Christ or Satan, infallibly know whose servants we are, by examining and enquiring whose commands they are which we execute and obey. 2. The apostle intimates, that every suitable to the master he serves, and properson or servant shall receive a reward be our master, sin is our work, and death portionable to the work he does. If Satan obedience is our work, and eternal life our wages; if we be the servants of God, righteous, and wages for the workers of will be our reward; there is a reward for the iniquity. The devil's drudges shall have full pay, but no content; the wages of sin

even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

is death there's pay, such as it is, woe-ness and to iniquity unto iniquity; ful pay, a black penny! God's servants, though they do not work for wages, yet they shall not work for nothing: Verily there is a reward for the righteous: A reward of mercy, not of merit; a reward of grace, not of debt; and accordingly the apostle says here, His servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. But why doth he not say, of obedience unto life, as well as of sin unto death? then the antithesis had been more plain and full. Answer, Because though sin be the cause of death, yet obedience is not the cause of life, but only the way to it. Via ad regnum, non causa regnandi.

17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin: but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Is

Our apostle goes on to put the Romans in mind of their past state by nature, and of their present state by grace; they were once the servants of sin, but now free from sin, and made by Christ servants of righteousness. All believers are made free by Christ for service, not one free from serving; to be free to serve, is infinitely better than to be free from service; such as are by Christ freed from sinful servitude, are best fitted for and most obliged to spiritual service. Learn hence, That such as are recovered from sin to God, should show the reality of their change, by being as zealous in the ways of holiness, as before they were earnest in the ways of sin. Shall we not do as much for God, as for sin and Satan? We must not understand these words, not he a better master, his work better as if the apostle had blessed God because service, and his wages a better reward? they were once slaves to sin and Satan; Lord, shall we not with as much zeal and but thanks God that the time of that bond- vigour serve thee, as ever we served our age was past and over. As if he had said, lusts, those imperious exactors of our time "God be thanked, that though formerly ye || and strength? O, had we the faculties and were the servants of sin, yet since your powers of angels, yet would our service conversion you are become obedient to the for thee fall infinitely short of our obligaprecepts of christianity, having obeyed tions to thee. Observe next, how the from the heart that form of doctrine, or, apostle doth not barely urge the necessity (according to the original,) being cast into of serving Christ in our regenerate state, the mould of that doctrine, which was but does enforce the proportion which our delivered to you." Learn hence, That to service now ought to bear to the disservice be turned from the service of sin to the formerly done in our carnal state: As ye sincere obedience of the gospel, is a mercy have yielded your members servants to iniquity; that we can never be sufficiently sensible even so now yield your members servants to of, and bless God for. God be thanked, righteousness. Observe lastly, The great that although ye were the servants of sin, dignotion and gracious condescension of ye are no longer so. Learn, 2. That the Christ, that he should accept those memdoctrine of the gospel has a divine efficacy bers of ours as instruments of his service, attending and accompanying it on the which have been employed in the devil's hearts of believers; it has a transforming service. "O blessed Jesus! wilt thou power to change and fashion men's minds come into that vile heart of mine, which into the likeness of it, as the mould doth was once the seat of Satan, where he has the metal that is cast into it. The doctrine ruled, and every unclean lust been harof the gospel is the mould, and the heart is boured? O holy Spirit! shall that body the metal, which, when melted and cast be thy temple to dwell in now, which has into the mould, receives its form and been so often defiled with lust and vomit figure. O happy they: who having all heretofore? Shall that tongue ever praise their days sat under the dispensation of him in heaven, which has blasphemed him the gospel, are able at last to say, We are by oaths and horrid imprecations here on transformed and changed into the same earth? One would have expected that image from glory to glory by the spirit of Christ should rather have said, "Vile the Lord. wretch! Satan has had the use and service of thy body, and all its members, from 18 Being then made free from sin, thy childhood and youth unto this day; thy ye became the servants of righteous- will has been his throne, thy memory his ness. 19 I speak after the manner storehouse, and all thy members his tools of men, because of the infirmity of didst indeed dedicate all these to my ser and instruments to sin against me; thou your flesh; for as ye have yielded vice and glory in thy baptism, but thou your members servants to unclean-hast employed all these in Satan's service

66

for many years past. However, if now || honour to our natures, a reproach to our thou art willing to yield those very members unto righteousness and to holiness, which formerly were servants unto uncleanness, I will both accept them, and reward thee for them."

20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. That is, you were free de facto, not de jure; when you were sin's servants, you were void of righteousness, that had no part of your service then; therefore sin should not have one jot of your service now. As righteousness had no part of your service in your carnal state, so there is no reason why sin should have any service from you in your gracious state. Learn, that such sinners as are now become servants to God, ought to be as free from sin as before they were free from righteousness: it will evidently appear so. if we consider the great and good Master which we serve, the nature of our present work, and certainty and transcendency of our future reward, the obligations we lie under as creatures, as new creatures, by the law of creation, by the favour of redemption, by the promises and hopes of glorification; all this should engage us to the love and practice of universal holiness.

21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

reason and understanding; it doth therefore debase and degrade us, because it pollutes and defiles us, and is a reproach which we voluntarily bring upon ourselves. Observe, 3. The perniciousness end of those things is death; natural, spiritof sin, or the fatal consequence of it. The ual, and eternal. The latter is principally meant, which consists in lively apprehensions of the happiness invaluable which they have lost, and in a quick sense of the pains intolerable which they lie under, and this accompanied with despair of all future relief. Now when misery and despair meet together, they make a man completely miserable. Good God! make sinners, all sinners, thoroughly sensible of the manifest inconveniences of a wicked life; that it brings no present profit or advantage to them, that it will not bear reflection, but causeth shame, and that it is fatal in its event and issue! O then, let no profit tempt us, no pleasure entice us, no power embolden us, no privacy encourage us, to enter into any sinful way, or adventure upon any wicked work; for what fruit can we expect to have of those things whereof we are now ashamed, the end of which things is death?

22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

Here the apostle puts them in mind of As the former verse represented to us the several mischiefs and inconveniences the manifold inconveniences of a wicked which did attend their former vicious life, so this verse acquaints us with the course of life; namely, unprofitableness; manifest advantages of a holy and reliWhat fruit had you? Dishonourableness: gious course of life; and this first, as to whereof ye are now ashamed. Pernicious- the present benefit and advantage of it, ness: the end of those things is death. Be- Ye have your fruit unto holiness. 2ndly, In hold the complexion of sin's face in this respect of the future reward of it, And the glass; it being for the time past unprofit-end everlasting life. Here observe, 1. The able, for the time present shameful, for the time to come deadly; most men consult their profit, their honour, their pleasure, their safety, but sin disappoints us in them all. Observe, 1. The unprofitableness of sin for time past: What fruit had ye then? Are ye any thing the better for it? Verily, not at all; there is no solid benefit, no real profit to be got by sin; those sins which we think to be advantageous to us, when all accounts are cast up, will be found to be quite otherwise; all the gain of sin will turn to loss at last. Observe, 2. The dishonourableness and disparagement which sin brings along with it at present: Whereof ye are now ashamed. Learn thence, That sin is really matter of shame and blushing, rendering us odious to God, infamous to others, loathsome to ourselves; it is a disVOL. II-7

description which the apostle makes of the change from a state of sin to a state of holiness: Ye are made free from sin, and become the servants of God: intimating, that a state of sin is a state of servitude and slavery; and indeed it is the vilest and hardest slavery in the world, it being the slavery of the soul, which is the best and noblest part of ourselves; 'tis the subjection of our reason to our sensual appetites and brutish passions; which is as uncomely a sight as to see beggars ride on horseback, and princes walk on foot. Farther, 'tis a voluntary slavery; the sinner chooseth his servitude, and willingly puts his neck under this yoke. Again, the sinner makes himself a slave to his own servants, to those who were born to be subject to him, I mean his own appetites and E

passions, choosing rather a life of sense, hence, That death is the punishment of and to gratify his lusts, than to obey his sin, is finis operis, though not operantis; the reason. Observe, 2. The present benefit end of the work, though not the end of of an holy and religious life: Ye have your the worker. Question, What death is that fruit unto holiness. What fruit? Ans. In- which is the punishment of sin? Ans. ward peace and contentment of mind at Both temporal and eternal: the former present, length of days, health and pros- consists in the separation of the soul from perity in this world, solid joy and comfort the body, the latter in an everlasting sepaat the hour of death, a good name and ration of soul and body from the presence reputation among men after death; and it of God, and in an imprisonment with derives a blessing upon our posterity which devils and damned spirits to all eternity. we leave behind us. Observe, 3. The fu- Quest. What sin is that which is punished 'ture reward and recompence of an holy with death? Ans. Consider sin in its delife in the world to come: The end everlast- || merit and desert, and so death is the puning life. By which the apostle expresses ishment of every sin; consider it in its both the happiness of our future state, and issue and event, and so it is the punishthe ways and means by which we are pre- ment only of that sin which is aggravated pared and made meet to be partakers of it. with impenitency: all sins are venial with 1. The happiness of our future state is respect to the mercy of God, and the reexpressed by the name of everlasting life, pentance of a sinner; but the wages of which imports both the excellency of this every sin that reigns in us, and is not forstate, it is a state of life; and the eternity, saken by us, is eternal death. Observe, 2. or endless duration of it, it is a state of The reward promised to holiness, and everlasting life. 2. The way and means ensured to holy persons: The gift of God by which we are prepared and made meet is eternal life. Here note, The happiness to be partakers of this happiness; and of holy persons: 1. In the Lord or Master that is, by the constant and sincere endea- whom they serve, God or Christ Jesus. 2. vours of a holy and good life; holiness in Happy in the reward of their services, eterthis life is the certain way, yea, the only nal life. 3. Happy in the manner of their way, to happiness in the life to come. reward, it is a free gift, not wages; a metaThis appears from the will of God, who phor taken from kings, who bestow upon has connected the end and the means such soldiers as have signalized themtogether; from the justice of God, who selves, over and above their stipend, corowill reward every man according to his nets and laurels, as badges of their favour; work; and from the indecency and unsuit- unto which our apostle alludes, calling ableness of the contrary. Without meet- eternal life a donative, a freely dispensed ness and fitness for heaven, there could be favour: which may be considered in our no happiness in heaven; heaven would eternal destination thereunto before all not be a paradise, but a purgatory; not a time; in our conversion and sanctificaplace of happiness, but of the greatest tion in time, which we may call the emuneasiness, to a wicked man; therefore bryo of eternal life; and in our coronation let us have our present fruit unto holiness, that and glorification, when at the end of time our end may be everlasting life. full possession of eternal life shall be given to us. In all which instances heaven appears to be a free gift, not procured by any merit of ours, but by the mediation of Christ our Lord: The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

-23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The apostle having all along throughout this chapter exhorted us to die daily unto sin, and to live unto God, concludes with a motive drawn from the different rewards and punishments in another world: eternal death will be the punishment of sin and sinners, and eternal life the reward of holiness and holy persons. Observe, 1. The punishment of sin and sinners: The wages of sin is death. Where note, The offence committed, sin; the punishment inflicted, death; the justice and proportion between the sin and the punishment, it is a stipend or wages, a metaphor taken from

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CHAP. VII.

The apostle having, in the foregoing chapter, declared how believers are freed from the power and dominion of sin, he proceeds in this chapter to declare, that they also are freed from the yoke of the Mosaic law, that being dead to them, and they to it; and the apostle's argument runs thus: Dead men are not held under the law, but they are freed and delivered from it. But as many as truly believe in Christ are dead to the law, and are therefore freed and delivered from it; that is, from the rigorous exactions of the law, and from the curse and malediction of the law: not from the guidance and direction of it, as a rule of life.

soldiers, who at the end of their service KNOW ye not, brethren, (for I

receive their pay and stipend. Learn

speak to them that know the

law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

As if the apostle had said, “You Jews, who study the law, and are well acquainted with it, cannot but know that the law of God hath power over a man, to require of him exact, perfect, and perpetual obedience, and to accuse, condemn, and bind him over to the curse, for the least breach and violation of it; and all this as long as he liveth under the law, and is not freed from the malediction of it by faith in Christ." Learn hence, 1. That the law of God, in the force and strength of it, and as considered in itself, is a very hard lord and master, exacting perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience to its commands, and binding sinners over to the curse for the least transgression and violation of it. Learn, 2. That Jesus Christ has freed all believers from the rigour of the law, from the curse of the law, from the irritation of the law; that is, from the power which is in the law, to stir them up to sin through the corruption of their own hearts and natures. Blessed be God! we are by Christ freed from and dead to the law, as a covenant of life; but we are under it, and may we all our days sit under the shadow of it with great delight, as an eternal rule of holy living.

2 For the woman which hath an 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 the 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 that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye are also 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.

Here the apostle doth exemplify and illustrate the foregoing assertion, namely, that believers are freed from the law, by a similitude taken from the law of marriage. As death freeth husband and wife from the law which bound them to each other, and empowereth the survivor to marry to another person; in like manner the death of Christ was the death of the law, as a covenant of works, holding us under the bond

of the curse of it; and so his dying gave us a manumission freedom from that bond, and a capacity of espousal unto Christ; that so living in conjugal affection and obedience to him, we may be made fruitful by his Spirit, doing such things as are agreeable to the will of God, and tending to the glory of God. Ye are dead to the law by the body of Christ; that is, through the offering up of Christ's body upon the cross. Learn hence, 1. That he that is under the law, is as strictly bound to the rigour and curse of the law, as a married woman is bound to her husband during his life. Learn, 2. That one great end of Christ's death was to purchase our freedom from the law, that we might be capable of being espoused to himself. For whilst we were under the curse of the law, we were not in a capacity of being married unto Christ. He or she that is a slave to another, is not capable to be disposed of in marriage until made free. In like manner we were in bondage to the law, as well as in slavery unto sin and Satan; but Christ has bought out our liberty, and thereby put us into a capacity of being espoused unto himself. Behold what manner of love the Redeemer has showed unto us, that we should be called his spouse, and he our husband! He loved us, but not for any advantage he sin and shame to present him with. Nay, could have by us; for we had nothing but he must purchase us, and that with his own blood, before he could be united to us. O incomparable love! O fervent desires! Learn, 3. That though believers are free from the rigour and curse of the not an undoubted liberty, but are still law by the death of Christ, yet have they under government, under an head and guide. As a wife is under the government of her husband, so are believers under the guidance and government of guideth them by his word and Spirit; and Jesus Christ, who in a special manner their being said to be dead to the law, signifies no more than the law's not having dominion over them, in regard of the curse and condemnation of it.

5 For when we were in the flesh, the law, did work in our members, to the motions of sins, which were by bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

As if the apostle had said, "When we