The new and living way; an orderly arrangement and exposition to the doctrines of Christian experience according to the Scriptures

Front matter

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THE NEW AND LIVING WAY

CoNTENTS

SO NSEE NES:

CHARTER

PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS TOUCHING SIN AND DEATH.

Chapter II. 17 17 18 20 21 22

CONVICTION OF SIN, REPENTANCE, AND CONVERSION.

. The Universal Consciousness of Sin. . Conviction of Sin. (1) Expressed in Penitenttal Palins ; (2) Described in Rom. vii. .

Repentance.

Conversion,

24. 25 25 27 29 30

10 CONTENTS.

Chapter III. The Doctrine Of Faith

PAGE

1. Doctrine of Paul. . : f A . é : set 33 (1) Meaning of Eph. ii, 8. . : ; : : 33 (2) Concept of Faith in the Epistle to Romans. 34 2. Doctrine of Faith in the Epistle of James. . : Aa eS) 3. Concept of Faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews. . Say 4. Doctrine of Faith in the Gospels, . ; Ae me Sh 5. Confession. . : : A 5 g 3 : . 40 CHAPTER IV.

FORGIVENESS OF SINS, JUSTIFICATION, AND RECONCILIA- TION. 1. Greek Words for Remission. ; ; ; 5 5 tf 2. Peculiarity of Paul’s Doctrine of Justification. ; ne ile! 3. The Idea of Reconciliation. . : : : : <e45

CHARTERS.

NEW BIRTH AND NEW LIFE.

1. Idea of New Birth in the Old Testament . 4 = ahs

2. Doctrine of John iii, 3-8. * : c : : - 49 (1) Born from Above. , : > HIG; (2) Teaching of Titus iii, 5, and Eph. v, 26. 5 SE 3. The Mystery of Spiritual Life. : c 3 : > Be 4. Passing out of Death into Life. . : : 5 a Rg)

CHAPTER VI.

SONSHIP, ADOPTION, ASSURANCE, AND SPIRITUAL FREE- DOM.

1. A New Relationship. . ; 5 ea OO 2.« Heirs, Sons, Children, and Baad Children of God. . 62

CONTENTS. II

- PAGE 3. The Witness of the Spirit. . - 5 . c (OF 4. Boldness and Confidence. . 5 : : : 05 5. Full Assurance. . : : : 5 c ; om 00 6. Christian Freedom. : : 3 . Rens ee 7,

CHAPTER VII.

PROGRESS IN SPIRITUAL LIFE.

1. New Life Involves Growth. : 5 5 4 5. WAL 2. Elements of Spiritual Growth. . 4 ns 5 een 7.2 3. Argument of Rom. vi. ; 5 5 5 ee Tord 4. Doctrine of 1 John iii, 9, 10. 3 2 : : a AS 5. Sanctification and Holiness. A ‘ : 5 7.7, 6. Righteousness. . - : : : 5 tte)

(1) In the Teaching of ae - A . 5 SO (2) The Doctrine of James. : ; c Saree OT

(3) The Doctrine of Peter. ; ; : = KS?

7. Christian Perfection. . . 7 MoS

8. The Christian Virtues, especially Perfect Love. . 5 ey

g. Continual Cultivation and Growth. . : : A Say

10. The Discipline of Trial. ; : ; : i on CY

CHAPTER VIII.

MEANS AND METHODS OF PROMOTING SPIRITUAL LIFE.

1. The Fellowship of the Church... ; : : A tei) 2. Aim of all Churchly Ministries. . : : : - 98 3. The Christian Sacraments. . ; a 2 5 go uifere) (1) Christian Baptism. < ; : 5 ; LOZ (2) The Lord’s Supper. . c B : LOS 4. The Ministry of the Word. . : ; Sones) sa er eee

5. Exercise in Works of Practical Godliness. . .. ne UB

6. Prayer. 3 A - “ 5 : A 6 A SBS)

12 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

ETERNAL LIFE.

. Meaning of the Phrase “ Eternal Life.”

. Spiritual Light. :

. Paul’s View of Light and Tee

. A Present Possession.

. Endless Permanence in Life (in John’s Gospel). . Eternal Life in Synoptic Gospels.

. The Teaching of the Epistles.

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUDING WORDS.

. Blessedness of the Way.

. Well Called the New Way.

. Well Called the Living Way.

. Full of Comfort. . : :

. Call to Deeper Interest in the Heavenlies.

THE NEW AND LIVING WAY.

Chapter I. Preliminary Statements Touching Sin And Death

To a thinking being there can be nothing more real or more certain than his own existence. The immediate consciousness of his own personal experiences is a matter beyond which it is vain to carry any rational appeal. Man has also along with this assurance of his own personal being immediate cognizance of a world about him which is not himself, but of which he feels himself to be a part. He finds himself one of an innumerable company who exist amid conditions and experiences like his own. There comes with the growing knowledge of his own personality a perception of his dependence and his limitations. His various feelings, perceptions, and activities are to every man the most real things in the world. And there are also certain convictions, ideas, or truths, which command the assent of all thinking men. They find expression everywhere and always as the unanimous judgment of mankind. They command recognition in all our continued processes of thought, and whatsoever contradicts them can possess no authority over the human soul. 13

14 THE New AND Livine Way.

At the same time there are many profound questions of religion which force themselves upon our attention and yet may be seen to lie so far beyond the limits of our knowledge and of our faculties of knowledge that it is impossible for us to answer them. It is therefore important that we duly recognize both our capabilities and our limitations. There have been dogmaticians who seem never to have been disturbed with a suspicion of their own competency to unravel all mysteries and all knowledge. They never stoop to analyze closely the principles or the methods of their own logical procedure; indeed, those who dogmatize most authoritatively seem generally quite unconscious of the need of logical method. They are even puzzled and confused when one questions their right to certain assumptions, or declines to accept their unverified conclusions.

We shall seek in this little volume to direct the reader’s attention to well-attested facts of Christian experience. Abstaining from all appearance of metaphysical speculation, and making continual appeal to that which may be repeatedly veri-— fied in the life of men, we shall endeavor to outline

Necessary limitations.

Appeal to facts.

1In his epoch-making Kritik of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant points out the paralogisms of reason in all ‘‘transcendental dialectic,” and maintains the impossibility of rational psychology, as transeending the powers of human reason, and so admonishes us that ‘“‘nothing remains but to study the soul under the guidance of experience, and to keep ourselves within the limits of questions. which do not go beyond the line where the material can be supplied by possible internal experience” (Max Miiller’s translation, pp. 309, 310. London, 1896). We may take appeal to personal experience there seems no ground for doubt. The exception to some of Kant’s positions, but as to the necessity of the

HuMAN SINFULNESS. 15 the order and relations of the mighty working of the Holy Spirit whereby man enters into conscious favor and fellowship with God, becomes a coworker with him, and realizes his highest possibilities. Inasmuch as these doctrines of practical religious experience are of a nature to be verified by appeal to facts, we are not called upon in this presentation of them to entertain questions relating more specifically to the Godward side of the work of man’s salvation. That this great salvation is the gift of God through the mediation of Jesus Christ is assumed throughout this entire exposition. The supernatural working of the Holy Spirit as the ever-living and immediate agent of “God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” is both a fact and a doctrine of fundamental importance; but, like the doctrine of God, the Father Almighty, it lies outside the plan and scope of this volume, which deals exclusively with positive facts of human experience.

We have first of all to make some note of the facts of human sinfulness. Our limits and scope do not permit us to enter upon a detailed discussion of these various facts, but we must keep in mind that the personality of each human being consists of the self-conscious unity of intelligence, sensibility, and the power of volition. The possession of these godlike faculties exalts man above all other living creatures of the earth, and stamps him

Human sinfulness.

Teal ‘experiences of sane men are not illusions, but the material out of which’ our understanding must formulate and estimate all truths that may be known.

with “the image and likeness of God.” He is the creation and offspring of God. But along with this superior nature there exists in man the capacity for originating and perpetuating moral evil. Temptations of manifold character may assail the sensibility and the intellect, but these by themselves need not injure the moral nature; when promptly resisted they serve rather to strengthen the moral powers. But when by his own unnecessitated act of volition man knowingly transgresses the will of God there follows at once the consciousness of guilt. And so sin has entered into the world and is as widespread as the human race. It _ is an evil too terrible and too deeply seated in the human heart to be ignored. Man’s natural constitution was made for goodness, and for the exercise of all pure and noble qualities, but sin in its working has brought all manner of moral disorder into the life and activities of the human race. It is not a mere matter of physical disturbance, or of bodily weakness and pain. It cannot be satisfactorily explained as arising from the necessary limitations and consequent imperfection of man as a dependent being; for then must it be necessarily inseparable from all creature life. The notion that matter is essentially evil, and that man’s contact with material elements is the cause or the explanation of his sinfulness, is incompatible with the real nature of sin. For sinfulness, wickedness, transgression, and guilt are meaningless terms when applied to material elements; they are predicable only of the spiritual nature of man. Similarly unsatisfactory

HuMAN SINFULNESS. 17 and insufficient are all theories which seek to explain the facts of sin as necessary stages in the processes of human development. The only adequate explanation of sin, as we know it in personal experience, is that which traces it to free and responsible volition, and this explanation accords with the teaching of Scripture and the universal moral sense of mankind.

The fact of guilt and shame as a consequence of transgression has its explanation, accordingly, in man’s moral freedom. The power of the will to accept or reject an offered good, to keep or violate a given law, is a fundamental fact of our spiritual nature. It is implied in every commandment, warning, admonition, and exhortation to accept God’s mercy or to obey the word of truth. According to 1 John iti, 4, “sin is lawlessness”’ (dvouia), and a strict construction of this statement implies that sin is not only transgression of law, but also all contempt of law, and gy conceived as all disconformity to law. The law of !#Wlessness. God takes cognizance not of outward acts only, but also of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It searches the desires, the emotions, and all that enters into the moral life of man, and condemns every departure from its perfect standard of righteousness. And so “all unrighteousness (ddtxia) is sin” (1 John v, 17), and lawlessness and transgression must needs place the sinner in a condition of separation from God. Conceived in the highest sense, the law of God is but a revelation of the nature of the Holy One himself, and must needs be “holy, and righteous, and good”

(Rom. vii, 12); and therefore any personal disconformity thereto involves alienation from God.

Such alienation from God naturally begets an enmity toward God and a controlling selfishness. The persistent sinner puts himself in the place of his Creator, and produces rebellion and disorder in the moral Pasting edger world. According to the tegen of TL Paul, the entire human race is under the general condemnation of sin. A sort of taint or corruption of the moral nature originated with the trespass of the first man, and has been universally propagated in the world.’ A spiritual deadness, “death - through sin,” is an idea which readily connects with the apostle’s peculiar doctrine of “sin in the flesh.” “When we were in the flesh,” he says, “the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Rom. vii, 5). He speaks of the “likeness of the flesh of sin,” of “walking after the flesh,” and “minding the things of the flesh.” He declares that “the mind of the flesh is

1So Wesley in his sermon on the text cited above: ‘‘This law is an incorruptible picture of the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity. ... It is the face of God unveiled; God manifested to his creatures as they are able to bear it.... It is the heart of God disclosed to man. Yea, in some sense we may apply to this law what the apostle says of his Son, it is the streaming forth of his glory, the express image of his person.’’—Sermons, vol. i, p. 309. New York, 1854.

2It is worthy of note that the peculiar concept of sin as originating with one man and passing thence unto all men, ‘‘for that all sinned” (Rom. v, 12), is peculiar to Paul. No other biblical writer has set forth such a doctrine as that “through the one man’s disobedience the | many were made sinners” (verse 19). Compare, however, Fourth

Ezra iii, 7; Apocalypse of Baruch xvii, 3; xxiii, 4; Ecclesiasticus xxv, 24; and-see Meyer’s and Sanday’s Commentaries on Romans, in loco,

PAULINE VIEW oF SIN. 19 death,’ and “if ye live after the flesh, ye must die” (Rom. viii, 3-6, 13). In these and other parallel statements the word flesh evidently denotes the lower, sensuous nature of man, dominated by sin, and thus exercising control over the conscience and the spiritual life. The apostle does not think of sin as originating in the sensuous nature; much less does he hold the doctrine of an inherent and necessary sinfulness of the flesh, or conceive of matter as essentially sinful. His doctrine is profound and far-reaching. He makes use of those Greek words (auaprtia, tapdBaatc, tapdn Tapa) which designate sin as a culpable missing of the mark, a violation, transgression, and trespass of known law through the exercise of personal volition. Sin thus entered the world by the trespass of one man; it has abounded through many trespasses and “reigned in death,” and, accordingly, the sinfulness of man is represented as a state of death. Those who live in the lusts of the flesh are “dead through trespasses and sins 9 (Eph. it, 1,°5; comp. v, 14; Col. ii, 13); and “the mind of the flesh is death” (Rom, viii, 6). James also tells us that “sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death” (i, 15). When, therefore, Paul speaks of death as “the wages of sin” (Rom. vi, 23), and as having passed unto all men because of sin (v, 12), he contemplates, not the separation of man’s body and soul in physical death, but the alienation of the spiritual nature of man from God, which is the sure result of sin. “The sting of death is sin” (1 Cor. xv, 56), and sin, in order to manifest its destructive nature as sin, works so as to bring about spiritual death through a righteous law deeply written in the moral nature of man (Rom. vii, 13). This condition of spiritual death, as the penal consequence of sin, involves “wrath and indignation, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil” (Rom. ii, 8, 9), and the certain death announced as the penalty of man’s first disobedience (Gen. ii, 17) is to be understood as the moral and spiritual deadness which follows willful transgression and constitutes the fearful curse of sin.’

The universal sinfulness of man is a fact everywhere recognized in the Scriptures, and is often spoken of as the common depravity of the race. It is depicted by psalmists and prophets as congenital with every one that is born of woman. There are certain forms of evil which may be perpetuated by heredity, and God is said to “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation” (Tixod:) x5; Num. xiv, 18). But such visitation of evil upon successive generations is not to be construed as an imputation of personal guilt. It is impossible in the

Guilt not transmissible.

1The widespread notion that physical death is a penal consequence of Adam’s sin has been a natural inference, perhaps, from our familiar ity with the death penalty for capital crime, and with its solemn sanction in the Mosaic laws. But this is a mistaken inference. The law of decay and dissolution is a part of the order stamped on the nature of all living organisms, both animal and vegetable. Ages before man appeared on earth this law was working in all such organisms, and there is no sufficient reason to suppose that, if sin had never entered the world, man would have been any exception to this universal law. Physical death may at times take on aggravated forms by reason of sin in the sufferer, but in itself need not be considered an evil or a necessary result of sin.

DEGREES OF SIN AND GUILT. 21 nature of things that either guilt or righteousness should be transmitted from parent to child. Hence it is written, ‘““The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deut. xxiv, 16; 2 Kings xiv, 6; Jer. xxxi, 29, 30). “The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezek. Xvill, 20). Hence we should avoid the unscriptural ‘and misleading notion that depravity, as transmitted or inherited, carries with it elements of personal guilt. Only as. the free conscious soul personally appropriates the depravity, and makes it part and parcel of his own individual life, can any punishable guilt be justly imputed.’

Different degrees of sin and guilt are recognized in the Scriptures and in the moral sense of man. Sin becomes deepened and strengthened in

; i é 3 Degrees of guilt. the heart by continuous disobedience and resistance of the calls of God, and most culpable obduracy is the result. Degrees of guilt are estimated by the position, knowledge, abilities, and relative responsibility of individuals and of communities. Jesus spoke of those who should be “beaten with many

1 Compare Whedon on the Will, in his able chapter on “The Free Appropriation of Our Depraved Nature,” pp. 338-343. New York, 1892. Also Miley, Systematic Theology, on the “Doctrine of Native Demerit,”’ vol. i, pp. 510-533.

22 Tue New AND Livinc WaAy.

stripes and with few stripes” (Luke xii, 47), and he declared that it would be more tolerable in the judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the city that rejected his Gospel (Matt. x, 15). A persistent hard-_ ening of one’s heart may be carried to the extreme of quenching the Holy Spirit (1 Thess. v, 19), and involving oneself in the guilty bonds of “an eternal sin” (Mark iii, 29). For a fixed habit of willful rejection of God’s open truth results in an unchangeableness of character which daringly closes the only door of hope, keeps crucifying Christ afresh, and faces with stoical indifference “a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb. vi, 4-8; x, 26, 27).

Our survey of the “new and living way” which leads into “the secret place of the Most High” must first of all take cognizance of these facts of human sinfulness. Out of all this darkness, culpability, and wretch-

edness of sin and death there is “a

pure highway, and it is called the way of holiness” (Isa. xxxv, 8). It is “the way of: the. trée.ot life (Gen. >it, 24) 4) the way of the righteous” > (Psa. i, 6); and “the way of Jehovah” (Jer. v, 4); “the way of peace” (Isa. lix, 8; Luke i, 79), and “the way of the truth” (2 Pet. ii, 2); “the way of salvation” (Acts xvi, 17), “the narrow (or straitened)* way that leadeth unto life” (Matt.

1So the Septuagint, 6dd¢ Kadapa, which here seems to evince a better text than that of the Masorites.

2 The Greek word is Ted Arupevn, compressed, restricted. Clement of Alexandria, about the beginning of the third century, wrote: “The Gos:

The way of life.

THE Way oF LIFE. 23 vii, 14), “the way of the Lord,” and “the way of God” (Acts xviii, 25, 26), which, in the Acts of the Apostles, is repeatedly called “THE WAy”’ (ix, 2; xix, 9, 23; xxii, 4; XXiv, 14, 22), as if thereby to emphasize the Christian religion as the only true path of life. Jesus calls himself “the way, and the truth and the life” (John xiv, 6), because, as Paul puts it (Eph. ii, 18), “Through him we have our access in one Spirit unto the Father.”

pel supposes two ways, one narrow and confined, which is circumscribed according to commandments and prohibitions, and the opposite one, which leads to destruction, is broad and roomy.”—Stromata, book vy, chap. v. Compare the opening words of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles: ““Two ways there are, one of life and one of death.”

24 Tue New AND Livinc Way.

CHAPTER IT CONVICTION, REPENTANCE, AND CONVERSION.

AccorpiInG to the foregoing chapter our study of the way of salvation must needs take due notice of Universal eon. Man's universal consciousness of sin. sciousness of sin. We are by nature moral and religious beings, but have so fallen as to be conspicuously under the dominion of sin. From the condemning power of this dominion no individual of the race appears to be exempt. But it is often seen that during the period of childhood pious example and careful religious training turn the tender heart toward God. The habit and sentiments of prayer may be inculcated as soon as the child learns to speak and is able to distinguish between good and evil. Such early piety may blossom into beautiful young manhood and womanhood, attain in _ time an admirable maturity, and exhibit a human life remarkably separate from sin and sinners. But such examples are exceedingly rare. Jesus Christ is represented as holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin all his life, and is entitled to be called “the Righteous One.” We have no sufficient knowledge to affirm the actual existence of one such perfect being in the world to-day, or that there ever has been one such person aside from the man Christ Jesus. We find, on the contrary, that those whose lives have from childhood

CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. 25 shown remarkable freedom from all appearances of evil confess their consciousness of errors, blameworthy weaknesses, and culpable shortcomings. Some of the most eminent saints of history were sometime slaves of sin.

We shall, accordingly, begin our inquiry into the origin and development of spiritual life in the individual with a due recognition of his personal consciousness of sin. The sense of guilt, awakened in the soul by a revelation of God’s truth and of his “wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. i, 18), is properly among the very first experiences of the sinner who would have peace with God, and is appropriately called conviction of sin. It arises from a vivid perception of the nature of sin and of the holiness of God. A living, moving contact of the Spirit of God with the heart of his human offspring flashes strong light upon his understanding, and in that light he sees and feels his personal alienation from Him that is holy and just and good, and he becomes deeply troubled. Such contact of God’s Spirit and truth with our spiritual nature may be effected in many unseen ways; we cannot discern the process; but the result is always to compel the man to see himself a sinner before God. The power of this conviction will naturally vary according to the measure of guilt. Some of the clearest expressions of the sense of sinfulness and guilt oo penitential found in the Old Testament Scriptures P5#!™°- appear in the penitential psalms, Not infrequently

Conviction of sin.

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the anguish bewailed appears to be intensified by the belief that the bitter sufferings of mind and body are direct judgments of God, the rebukes of his hot displeasure and chastenings on account of sins and shortcomings. Thus in Psa. xxxviii, I-4, an agonizing penitent exclaims:

oe) Jehovah, rebuke me not in thy wrath:

Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure,

For thine arrows stick fast in me,

And thy hand presseth me sore.

There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation;

Neither is there any peace in my bones because of my sin.

For mine iniquities are gone over mine head:

As an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.”

In Psa. li, 1-3, we note the humble acknowledgment of transgressions, iniquity, and sin. These three terms may be here regarded as possessing distinctive significance. The first denotes actual trespasses, deliberate acts of sin, among which was some terrible “bloodguiltiness” mentioned in verse 14. The second suggests the inbred corruption of a depraved nature, which the supplicant conceives as cleaving to him from his birth (verse 5). The third is a more generic word (mun), and may here refer not only to the idea of failure, a missing of the mark, but also to the accumulated sinfulness of an impure heart and a long course of wicked conduct. How the awakened conscience abhors such a hideous load! It looks like a mass of broken bones (verse 8). But the most terrible fact in this poetic picture of a crushed and broken heart is the sinner’s knowledge

Psa. li.

SEVENTH OF RoMANS. 27 that he has done all this evil in the very eyes of God. “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (verse 4). The most profound conception and conviction of the exceeding sinfulness of sin is that which sees it as open opposition to the Holy One. So in his deep contrition David cried, “I have sinned against Jehovah” (2 Sam. xii, 13).

The most remarkable description of conviction of sin found in the New Testament is that which is given by Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans. Verses 7-13 inform us how the law of God operates as a holy revealer of sin, and verses 14-25 are a vivid word picture of the inner struggles of an awakened sinner. The real meaning and purpose of this remarkable passage have been greatly obscured by the bare question of its fitness or unfitness to represent the experiences of a regenerate man. It serves rather to show the power of the holy law of God to reveal the knowledge of sin to human consciousness. This is so obvious in verses 7-13 that no one calls it in question. The statement of verse 9 is suggestive: “I was alive apart from law once; but the commandment coming (like that which prohibits coveting, verse 7), sin sprung up into life, and I died.” That is to say: There was a former time (70Té), which seems now like a far-off blessed memory of childhood innocence, when I had no sense of sin and guilt; but the law said to me, “Thou shalt not covet ;’ whereupon sin found a base of operation (ddopyqv), a great opportunity, and “through the commandment wrought in me all manner

Rom. vii.

of coveting’’ (verse 8); and so, to the same extent that “sin sprung up into life,” my better nature died. “Did then the good become death to me?” he asks in verse 13. No, no, he answers, but by the operation of the good and holy law sin itself has been displayed as preeminently sinful. Its true nature, its deadly working, is thus brought to light, and the law of God in its inmost essence is recognized as spiritual, divine, possessing the power and character of the Holy Spirit for the work of conviction of sin (comp. John xvi, 8). In verse 14 we notice a change of tense from past to present. It serves the purpose of rhetorical emphasis, and aims to set as in a living picture before the reader’s eye the life and death struggle of an awakened sinner. The writer continues the use of the first person, for he undoubtedly is giving his own personal experience as memory and deep emotion combine to make it very present to his thought. The three words employed in verses 15, 18, and 21—“I understand not” (ob ytvoonw), “IT know” (oida), “I find” (etpickw) —are suggestive of various aspects of the struggle, and may perhaps be regarded in their connection as involving an enslavement of the understanding, the affections, and the will. For in verses 14-17 he represents his understanding as in some sort of bonds; in 18-20 he shows how the fleshly nature has dominion over him; and in 21-24 the law in his members which wars against the law of his mind keeps bringing him into such a bitter consciousness of captivity to the law of sin that he cries out in agony of spirit, “O wretched