The reasons of this difference may be understood very easily. We, in the common course of justice, should think it hard to punish a man for not doing what he cannot do. We think, therefore, that if we say that we cannot do well, we establish also our own claim to escape from punishment. But God declares that a state of sin is and must be a state of misery; and that if we cannot escape the sin, we cannot escape the misery. According to God's meaning, then, the words, "Ye cannot do the things which ye would," mean no other than this: "Ye cannot escape from hell; ye cannot be redeemed from the power of death and of Satan; the power is wanting in you, however much you may wish it: death has got you, and it will keep you for ever." So that, in this way, sickness or weakness of the soul is very like sickness or weakness of the body. We cannot help being ill or weak in many cases: is that any reason why, according to the laws of God's providence, we should not suffer the pain of illness? Or is it not, rather, clear that we suffer it just because we have not the power to get rid of it; if we had the power to be well, we should be well. A man's evils are not gone because he wishes them away; it is not he who would fain see his chains broken, that escapes from his bondage; but he who has the strength to rend them asunder. Thus, then, in St. Paul's language, "Ye cannot do the things that ye would," means exactly, "Ye are not redeemed, but in bondage; ye are not saved, but lost." But he goes on to the reason why we cannot do the things which we would, which is, "because the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to one another," and pull us, as it were, different ways. Just as we might say of a man in illness, that the reason why he is not well, as he wishes to be, is because his healthy nature and his disease are contrary to one another, and are striving within him for the mastery. His blood, according to its healthy nature, would flow calmly and steadily; his food, according to his healthy nature, would be received with appetite, and would give him nourishment and strength; but, behold, there is in him now another nature, contrary to his healthy nature: and this other nature makes his blood flow with feverish quickness, and makes food distasteful to him, and makes the food which he has eaten before to become, as it were, poison; it does not nourish him or strengthen, but is a burden, a weakness, and a pain. As long as these two natures thus struggle within him, the man is sick; as soon as the diseased nature prevails, the man sinks and dies. He does not wish to die,--not at all,--most earnestly, it may be, does he wish to live; but his diseased nature has overcome his healthy nature, and so he must die. If he would live, in any sense that deserves to be called life, the diseased nature must not overcome, must not struggle equally; it must be overcome, it must be kept down, it must be rendered powerless; and then,