9. The more he strives, wishes, labours to be free, the more does he feel his chains, the grievous chains of sin, wherewith Satan binds and _leads him captive at his will_: his servant he is, tho’ he repine ever so much; tho’ he rebel, he cannot prevail. He is still in bondage and fear, by reason of sin: generally, of some outward sin to which he is peculiarly disposed, either by nature, custom or outward circumstances; but always, of some inward sin, some evil temper or unholy affection. And the more he frets against it, the more it prevails; he may bite, but cannot break his chain. Thus he toils without end, repenting and sinning, and repenting and sinning again, till at length the poor sinful, helpless wretch is even at his wit’s end, and can barely groan, _O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death_? 10. * This whole struggle of one who is _under the law_, under the _spirit of fear and bondage_, is beautifully described by the apostle in the foregoing chapter, speaking in the person of an awaken’d man. _I_ (saith he) _was alive without the law once_, ver. 9. I had much life, wisdom, strength and virtue; so I thought: _but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died_. When the commandment, in its spiritual meaning, came to my heart, with the power of God, my inbred sin was stirred up, fretted, inflamed, and all my virtue died away. _And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me_, ver. 10, 11. It came upon me unawares, slew all my hopes, and plainly shewed, in the midst of life I was in death. _Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good_, ver. 12. I no longer lay the blame on this, but on the corruption of my own heart. I acknowledge that _the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin_, ver. 14. I now see both the spiritual nature of the law, and my own carnal, devilish heart; _sold under sin_, totally inslaved: (like slaves bought with money, who were absolutely at their master’s disposal.) _For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, I do not; but what I hate, that I do_, ver. 15. Such is the bondage under which I groan; such the tyranny of my hard master. _To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do_, ver. 18, 19. _I find a law_, an inward constraining power, _that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in_ (or consent to) _the law of God, after the inward man_: (ver. 21, 22.) In my mind: (so the apostle explains himself in the words that immediately follow: and so ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, _the inward man_, is understood in all other Greek writers.) _But I see another law in my members_, another constraining power, _warring against the law of my mind_, or inward man, _and bringing me into captivity to the law_,