Romans 7:15

X. He says that it is in our power to do, or to avoid doing, evil; since otherwise we should not be punished for doing evil, nor be rewarded for doing well; but the presence or absence of evil thoughts does not depend upon ourselves. Wherefore even the sainted Paul says, “For what I would, that do I not, but what I would not, that I do;” that is to say, “My thoughts are not what I would, but what I would not.” Now he says that the habit of imagining evil is rooted out by the approach of physical death, since it was for this reason that death was appointed by God for the sinner, that evil might not remain for ever.

I. Read a compendious interpretation of some apostolic words from the same discourse. Let us see, then, what it is that we have endeavoured to say respecting the apostle. For this saying of his, “I was alive without the law once,” refers to the life which was lived in paradise before the law, not without a body, but with a body, by our first parents, as we have shown above; for we lived without concupiscence, being altogether ignorant of its assaults. For not to have a law according to which we ought to live, nor a power of establishing what manner of life we ought to adopt, so that we might justly be approved or blamed, is considered to exempt a person from accusation. Because one cannot lust after those things from which he is not restrained, and even if he lusted after them, he would not be blamed. …

II. But if any one should venture to oppose this statement, and reply, that the apostle teaches that we hate not only the evil which is in thought, but that we do that which we will not, and we hate it even in the very act of doing it, for he says, “The good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do;” if he who says so speaks the truth, let us ask him to explain what was the evil which the apostle hated and willed not to do, but did; and the good which he willed to do, but did not; and conversely, whether as often as he willed to do good, so often he did not do the good which he willed, but did the evil which he willed not? And how he can say, when exhorting us to shake off all manner of sin, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ?” Thus he meant the things already mentioned which he willed not to do, not to be done, but only to be thought of. …

Let me now request your attention to the testimony of the Apostle Paul on this subject. And quotations from him may of course be made more abundantly, because he wrote more epistles, and because it fell to him to recommend the grace of God with especial earnestness, in opposition to those who gloried in their works, and who, ignorant of God’s righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, submitted not to the righteousness of God. In his Epistle to the Romans he writes: “The righteousness of God is upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; since all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, a …

He sets forth that this absolute weakness, or rather condemnation, of carnal generation is from the transgression of original sin, when, treating of his own sins, he shows, as it were, their causes, and says that “man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of wrath.” Of what wrath, but of that in which all are, as the apostle says, “by nature,” that is, by origin, “children of wrath,” inasmuch as they are children of the concupiscence of the flesh and of the world? He further shows that to this same wrath also pertains the death of man. …

Now carefully consider this entire passage, and see whether it says anything about circumcision, or the Sabbath, or anything else pertaining to a foreshadowing sacrament. Does not its whole scope amount to this, that the letter which forbids sin fails to give man life, but rather “killeth,” by increasing concupiscence, and aggravating sinfulness by transgression, unless indeed grace liberates us by the law of faith, which is in Christ Jesus, when His love is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us?” The apostle having used these words: “That we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,” goes on to inquire, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay; I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. …

Observe also what remark he adds, by which he thinks that his position is confirmed: “No will,” says he, “can take away that which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature.” Whence then comes that utterance: “So then ye cannot do the things that ye would?” Whence also this: “For what good I would, that I do not; but what evil I hate, that do I?” Where is that capacity which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? See, it is human beings who do not what they will; and it is about not sinning, certainly, that he was treating, not about not flying, because it was men not birds, that formed his subject. …

Furthermore, concerning these words of Job, “My heart shall not reproach me in all my life,” we remark, that it is in this present life of ours, in which we live by faith, that our heart does not reproach us, if the same faith whereby we believe unto righteousness does not neglect to rebuke our sin. On this principle the apostle says: “The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Now it is a good thing to avoid concupiscence, and this good the just man would, who lives by faith; and still he does what he hates, because he has concupiscence, although “he goes not after his lusts;” if he has done this, he has himself at that time really done it, so as to yield to, and acquiesce in, and obey the desire of sin. His heart then reproaches him, because it reproaches himself, and not his sin which dwelleth in him. …

There can be no doubt that what Pelagius has acknowledged as his own is as yet very obscure. I suppose, however, that it will become apparent in the subsequent details of these proceedings. Now he says: “We have affirmed that a man is able to be without sin, and to keep the commandments of God if he wishes, inasmuch as God has given him this ability. But we have not said that any man can be found, who from infancy to old age has never committed sin; but that if any person were converted from his sins, he could by his own exertion and God’s grace be without sin; and yet not even thus would he be incapable of change afterwards.” Now it is quite uncertain what he means in these words by the grace of God; and the judges, catholic as they were, could not possibly understand by the phrase anything else than the grace which is so very strongly recommended to us in the apostle’s teaching. …

This grace is not dying nature, nor the slaying letter, but the vivifying spirit; for already did he possess nature with freedom of will, because he said: “To will is present with me.” Nature, however, in a healthy condition and without a flaw, he did not possess, for he said: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth nothing good.” Already had he the knowledge of God’s holy law, for he said: “I had not known sin but through the law;” yet for all that, he did not possess strength and power to practise and fulfil righteousness, for he complained: “What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” And again, “How to accomplish that which is good I find not.” Therefore it is not from the liberty of the human will, nor from the precepts of the law, that there comes deliverance from the body of this death; for both of these he had already, the one in his nature, the other in …

That this, indeed, is his meaning, other words also of his show us, not contained in this work, but in the third book of his Defence of Free Will , wherein he holds a discussion with an opponent, who had insisted on the apostle’s words when he says, “For what I would, that do I not;” and again, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.” To this he replied in these words: “Now that which you wish us to understand of the apostle himself, all Church writers assert that he spoke in the person of the sinner, and of one who was still under the law, such a man as was, by reason of a very long custom of vice, held bound, as it were, by a certain necessity of sinning, and who, although he desired good with his will, in practice indeed was hurried headlong into evil. …

For the concupiscence of the flesh is in some sort active, even when it does not exhibit either an assent of the heart, where its seat of empire is, or those members whereby, as its weapons, it fulfils what it is bent on. But what in this action does it effect, unless it be its evil and shameful desires? For if these were good and lawful, the apostle would not forbid obedience to them, saying, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof.” He does not say, that ye should have the lusts thereof, but “that ye should obey the lusts thereof;” in order that (as these desires are greater or less in different individuals, according as each shall have progressed in the renewal of the inner man) we may maintain the fight of holiness and chastity, for the purpose of withholding obedience to these lusts. …