As for the opposition which the person here spoken of makes to his sinful propensities, it is nothing more (say they) than the ordinary conflict between reason and passion ; and it may therefore properly be interpreted as experienced by an ungodly man.
But to this we answer, that, though an ungodly man may feel some restraints from his conscience, and consequently some conflicts between reason and passion, he cannot say that he really " hates sin," or that " he delights in the law of God after the inward manf." The carnal and unrenewed mind neither is, nor can be, subject to the law of Godg; it is alto- gether enmity against Godh: and therefore the character here drawn cannot possibly be assigned to an ungodly man.]
2. Does St. Paul in this passage personate a godly man who is in a low state of grace, or does he speak altogether of himself ?
[That the Apostle does sometimes speak in the person of another, in order that he may inculcate truth in a more in- offensive manner, is certain1 : but we conceive it to be clear that he speaks here in his own person : for it is undeniable that he speaks in his own person in the preceding part of the chapter, where he tells us what he was in his unconverted state k: and now he tells us what he is, at the time of writing this epistle. In ver. 9. he says " I was alive without the law once;" and then afterwards, in ver. 14. he says, "The law is spiritual, but I am carnal :" and so he proceeds to the very end of the chapter declaring fully and particularly all the workings of his mind. This change of the tense shews clearly, that from stating his former experience he proceeds to state that which he felt at present. Moreover, in the con- cluding verse of the chapter, where he sums up, as it were, the substance of his confession in few words, he particularly declares, that he spake it of himself : " So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin1." And this is yet further evident from what he adds at the beginning of the next chapter, where he says, " The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death"1."
The only thing that can raise a doubt whether the Apostle speaks in his own person or not, is the strong language which
f ver. 15, 22. s 1 Cor. ii. 14. b Rom. viii. 7.
1 1 Cor. iv. 6. k ver. 7—11.
1 To interpret avrog lytb, " I the same man," i. e. not I myself, but I that other person, is such a perversion of language as cannot with any propriety be admitted. m Rom. viii. 2.