the law as a covenant and as a rule, it gave such relief to his mind, that he considered himself as at the gate of heaven.

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That we should bring forth fruit unto God. One of the great ends of marriage was to people the world, and the end of the marriage of believers to Christ is that they may bring forth fruit to God. From this it is evident that no work is recognised as fruit unto God before union with Christ. All works that appear to be good previous to this union are "dead works," proceeding from self-love, pride, self-righteousness, or other such motives. They that are in the flesh cannot please God." "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." We can never look upon the law with a friendly eye till we see the sting of death taken out of it; and never can bear fruit unto God, nor delight in the law as a rule, till we are freed from it as a covenant, and are thus dead unto sin. How important, then, is the injunction-" Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Ch. vi. 11.

V. 5.-For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

When we were in the flesh, that is, in our na

tural state. The flesh here means the corrupt state of nature, not "the subjects of God's temporal kingdom," as paraphrased by Dr Macknight, to which many of those whom the Apostle was addressing never belonged. Flesh is often opposed to spirit, indicating that new and holy nature communicated by the Spirit of God in the new birth. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." John iii. 6. In these words our Lord points out the necessity of regeneration, in order to becoming a subject of his spiritual kingdom. The nature of man since the fall, when left to itself, possesses no renovating principle of holiness, but is essentially corrupt and entirely depraved. On this account, the word flesh signifies man in his ruined condition, or that state of total corruption in which all the children of Adam are born. On the other hand, the word spirit has acquired the meaning of a holy and divine principle, or a new nature, because it comes not from man but from God, who communicates it by the living and permanent influence of his Holy Spirit. Hence the Apostle Peter, in addressing believers, speaks of them as "partakers of the divine nature."

The motions of sins, or affections or feelings of sins. When the Apostle and the believers

at Rome were in the flesh, the desires or affections forbidden by the law forcibly operated in all the faculties of their depraved nature, subjecting them to death by its sentence. Dr Macknight and Mr Stuart translate this our "sinful passions." But this has the appearance of asserting that the evil passions of our nature have their origin in the law. The Apostle does not mean what, in English, is understood by the passions, but the working of the passions. Which were by the law. Dr Macknight translates the original thus, "which we had under the law." But the meaning is not which we had under the law, but that are through the law. They are called into action through the law. Did work in our members.—The sinful principle of the mind employs the various members of the body in a manner adapted to different occasions and constitutions. Members appear to be used here rather than body, to denote that sin, according to the various desires of the evil principle, employs all the different members of the body. To bring forth fruit unto death. This personifies death, and makes it the father of those actions which also issue in death. The result of the various sinful actions committed through the different members of the body is death, as they are the offspring of death.

7. 6-But now we are delivered from the law, that being deud wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

This

But now we are delivered from the law. does not import merely that the Jews were, according to Dr Macknight, delivered from the law of Moses, but that believers were delivered from the moral law, in that sense in which they were bound by it when in unbelief. Christ hath fulfilled the law, and suffered its penalty for them, and they in consequence are free from it as a law of life by their own personal obedience. Mr Stuart paraphrases thus, No longer pla'eing our reliance on it as a means of subduing

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and sanctifying our sinful natures.' But to cease to rely on the law for such a purpose was not, in any sense, to be delivered from the law. The law never proposed such a thing, and therefore to cease to look for such an effect is not a deliverance from the law.

That being dead wherein we were held.-By death, whether it be considered of the law to believers, or of believers to the law, the connexion in which they stood to it, and in which they were held under its curse in bondage, is dissolved. All men, Jews and Gentiles, are by nature held down in bondage to the moral law, under its condemning power and curse, from which nothing can to eternity deli

ver them but Christ. Dr Macknight translates the passage," having died in that by which we were tied," and paraphrases thus, ' But now 6 we Jews are loosed from the law of Moses,

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having died with Christ by its curse, in that fleshly nature by which, as descendants of Abraham, we were tied to the law.'

But this most erroneously confines the declaration of the Apostle to the Jews and the legal dispensation.

That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.—This is the effect of being delivered from the law. The Apostle here refers to the difference in their practice between those who were married to Christ, and those who were still under the law. A believer serves God from such principles, dispositions, and views, as the Spirit of God implants in hearts renewed by him. Serving in the spirit is a service of filial obedience to him who gave himself for us, as constrained by his love, and in the enjoyment of all the privileges of the grace of the new covenant. Believers have thus become capable of serving God according to the spiritual meaning of the law, as his children, with cordial affection and gratitude, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, with that new and divine nature of which they partake. is serving not with the view of being saved by

It