Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (13) Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (14) For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (15) What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. (16) Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
If we read the Apostle's words in this passage, more in the way of promise than precept, we shall enter the better into the beauties of it. When Paul saith, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body; he cannot be supposed as implying any power, or ability, in ourselves, to check the risings of sin by our own exertions. This would be, to make the grace of God, dependent upon the will of man. The same Apostle elsewhere expressly saith, that it is through the Spirit believers mortify the deeds of the body and live, Romans 8:13. And, I hope the Reader is not now to. learn, that temptation to sin is not far away, if the Holy Ghost were for a moment to remit his support. But, the words of the Apostle seem to be in the way of exhortation, where the precept is blended with the promise. To this, the Church answers: hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: yea, my delight shall he in thy statutes, Psalms 119:117. And, what a blessed promise follows? Sin shall not have dominion over you. And, Reader! what a blessed state would that Church, that believer be in, who daily acted faith upon this promise? And are not all such promises to be lived upon by truly regenerated, justified believers? Was it not God's grace, which took away, in the first instance, the dominion of sin? And is it not now the same grace, which must prevent all the after risings of sin, in struggling for dominion? That which gave victory then, can only give victory now: And wherefore? But because ye are not under the law, but under grace?
I beg the Reader not to lose sight, (for the Apostle doth not), of the handle which the Pharisee, or the carnal, would make of this doctrine. But it is such characters, and such only, which raise this cavil. No child of God with grace in his heart, can act but from that grace, in all his deliberate purposes. The Lord hath put his fear in his heart, that he shall not depart from him, Jeremiah 32:40. And this child-like fear, becomes the most persuasive of all motives, to love and obedience. They knew nothing, either of the child-like fear, or child-like love, which dwell in the heart of the regenerate, that can suppose what becomes the strongest check to sin, should encourage to the commission of it.