182 EPHESIANS,

integrity since the fall, but in themselves are too weak to gain the victory over the animal or lower principles of our nature, designated as the flesh, or outward man. There is a perpetual struggle, even before regeneration, between the good and evil principles in man, between the reason, or πνεῦμα, and the flesh, or σάρξ. The former being the weaker needs to be strengthened by the divine Spirit. “ Zhe inner man,” says Meyer, “is the νοῦς, the rational moral Ego, the rational soul of man which harmonizes with the divine will, but needs to be strengthened by the Spirit of God (δυνάμει κρατιω- θῆναι διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος), in order not to be overcome by the sinful lusts of the σάρξ, whose animating or life principle is the ψυχή, the animal soul.” This is the theory of semi-Pelagianism, embodied and developed in the theology of the church of Rome. The opposite, or Augustinian theory, adopted by the Lutheran and Reformed churches, is that of total depravity, i. e. that the whole soul, the higher, as well as lower powers of our nature, are the seat and subject of original sin, and that the natural man is thereby disabled and made op- posite to all spiritual good. Consequently the conflict of which the Scriptures speak is not between the higher and lower powers of our nature,—but between nature and what is not nature, between the old and new man. The new principle is something supernatural communicated by the Spirit of God. The classical passages of Scripture relating to this subject, are Rom. 7, 14-25. 1 Cor. 2,14.15. Gal. 5, 17-26. In none of these passages does πνεῦμα designate the reason as