Rom. vii. 7. What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid. Nay, I had not knozvn sin, but by the law : for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
THERE is not any thing, however good, which has not been abused to the vilest purposes. The blessings of providence are rendered subservient to intemperance. The Holy Scriptures also are often wrested to support error. But we must blame not the
things that are perverted, but the persons who pervert them. We must estimate things by their use, and not by their abuse. To this effect the Apostle speaks respecting the law of Goda; and, in his vindication of it, he opens to us,
I. Its nature —
The law here spoken of must be the moral law, be- cause it is that which forbids inordinate desire. Its spirituality may be seen by considering,
1. The commandments in general —
[Our Lord comprises them all in two, namely, love to God, and love to manb. Our love to God must be supreme, without intermission or reserve. The smallest defect in the degree or manner of our love is a violation of our duty towards him : our love to our neighbour must resemble our love to ourselves : it must be as extensive, as constant, as uniform, as influential. This is transgressed, not by overt acts only, but by secret thoughts. In this extent our Lord himself explains those very commandments, which we should be most ready to limit and restrict0: hence it appears, that we may be blameless respecting the outward breach of the law, and yet have trans- gressed every one of the commandments throughout our whole lives.]
2. The particular commandment before us — [This, in the very letter of it, extends to our inclinations
and desires : it prohibits all dissatisfaction with our own state or lot ; it prohibits all envy at the prosperity of others ; it prohibits all desire of any evil or forbidden object; it prohibits all inordinate love even of good and lawful objects ; it does not say, that we must not indulge a wrong desire, but that we must not have it. Well therefore does David say respecting the law, " Thy commandment is exceeding broad d."]
It may seem unjust in God to publish such a law, seeing that man in his present fallen state cannot keep it one single hour. But God could not, con- sistently with his own honour and our good, publish
a He had spoken of the law as the accidental occasion of sin and death, ver. 5. From hence he supposes that some would object against it as the cause of sin and death. But, shuddering at such a blas- phemous thought, he refutes the objection ; and shews that, instead of being a promoter of sin, it discovered and prohibited sin in its first and most secret workings.
b Matt. xxii. 37—40. = Matt. v. 21, 22, 27, 28.
d Ps. cxix. 96.