2, On our impotency —
[The impotency of man to do what is good is certainly rather of a moral than a natural kind : his inability is not like that which incapacitates him to stop the sun in the firmament: it consists principally in a want of inclination : yet, together with that, there is a positive weakness ; there is even in a regenerate man " the flesh lusting against the Spirit, so that he cannot do the things that he would e." St. Paul himself complained, that " to will was present with him ; but how to perform that which was good, he found not:" that " the good which he would, he did not ; and that the evil which he would not, that he did : that when he would do good, evil was pre- sent with himf." And who amongst us has not found the same? Who has not felt wanderings of mind, yea, and lamentable obduracy of heart, in those seasons when he has earnestly desired to maintain communion with his Lord and Saviour? Who has not been made sensible that he is like a becalmed vessel; and that he spreads the sails in vain, until the wind arise to bear him onward in his voyage ?
We need not then to inquire after any other reasons for the doctrine in the text : our own experience, together with that of the saints in all ages, amounts to a demonstration of the
d Rom. viii. 7. 1 Cor. ii. 14. e Gal. v. 17.
f Rom. vii. 18, 19, 21.