but he had within him a principle of evil as well as of good ; " the flesh lusting' against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that he could not do the things that he would '^." He was in the same predicament with the Apostle Paul ; who, though he delighted in the Law of God after the inward man, " found a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members." And under a painfvd sense of his in- firmities he cried, " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death," which I am constrained thus to drag along with me, as a putrid carcase, even to my dying hour'^? We understand, therefore, DaAid as saying precisely what St. Paul also says : "To will is present with me ; but how to perform that which is good, I find not : for the good that I would, I do not ; and the evil wliich I would not, that I do^."]
And who is there amongst us that has not reason to adopt this language in reference to his own soul? [If we look at the ivorkings of actual corruption, we shall all find occasion to confess, " Iniquities prevail against me." All, it is true, are not guilty of gross sin : but who is free from indwelling corruption? " Who can say, I have made my heart clean *^?" There is an abundance both of " spiritual and fleshly filthiness" in every child of man^: the most emi- nent saint on earth is renewed but in part^ : it is in heaven alone that absolute perfection exists. He can know but little of himself who does not see occasion to mourn over many evil thoughts, and many corrupt propensities. Not to mention those which pertain to man in common with the beast, let us take a view of the workings of our hearts in relation to pride, envy, malice, and revenge : let us call to mind the motions of anger, fretfulness, impatience, of which our consciences must convict us : let us trace the influence of uncharitableness to- wards those who stand in competition with us, or have made themselves in any way obnoxious to our displeasure. We may soon discover how far any of us are from being perfect, and what need we all have to cry, " Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord ; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified'."
But let us look at our short-comings and defects, and then we shall find no difficulty in adopting the complaint of David in our text. The true way to discover our real state before God,
c Gal. V. 17.
^ Rom. vii. 22—24. Alluding to a punishment which some tyrants have inflicted on tlie objects of their displeasm-e.
e Rom. vii. 18, 19. f Prov. xx. 9. e 2 Cor. vii. 1.
h 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10. » Ps. cxliii. 2.