Wesley Corpus

For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do:" (Verses 18, 19:) "I find a law," an inward constraining power, "that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in "or consent to "the law of God, after the inward man:" (Verses 21, 22:) In my "mind:" (So the Apostle explains himself in the words that immediately follow; and so, o esv anqrvpos, the inward man, is understood in all other Greek writers:) "But I see another law in my members," another constraining power, "warring against the law of my mind," or inward man, "and bringing me into captivity to the law" or power "of sin:" (Verse 23:) Dragging me, as it were, at my conqueror's chariot-wheels, into the very thing which my soul abhors. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death" (Verse 24.) Who shall deliver me from this helpless, dying life, from this bondage of sin and misery Till this is done, "I myself" (or rather, that I, autos egv, that man I am now personating) "with the mind," or inward man, "serve the law of God;" my mind, my conscience is on God's side; "but with my flesh," with my body, "the law of sin," (verse 25,) being hurried away by a force I cannot resist. 10. How lively a portraiture is this of one "under the law;" one who feels the burden he cannot shake off; who pants after liberty, power, and love, but is in fear and bondage still! until the time that God answers the wretched man, crying out, "Who shall deliver me" from this bondage of sin, from this body of death -- "The grace of God, through Jesus Christ thy Lord." III. 1. Them it is that this miserable bondage ends, and he is no more "under the law, but under grace." This state we are, Thirdly, to consider; the state of one who has found grace or favour in the sight of God, even the Father, and who has the grace or power of the Holy Ghost, reigning in his heart; who has received, in the language of the Apostle, the "Spirit of adoption, whereby" he now cries, "Abba, Father!"