The Bondage of the Will

Sect. CXXXIX. — BUT let us hear Paul, who is his own interpreter. In the third chapter, drawing up, as it were, a conclusion, he saith, “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise; for we have before proved both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.” (Rom. iii. 9).

Where is now “Free-will!” All, saith he, both Jews and Greeks are under sin! Are there any ‘tropes’or ‘difficulties’here? What would the ‘invented interpretations’ of the whole world do against this all-clear sentence? He who says “all,” excepts none. And he who describes them all as being “under sin,” that is, the servants of sin, leaves them no degree of good whatever. But where has he given this proof that “they are all, both Jews and Gentiles, under sin?” Nowhere, but where I have already shewn: viz., where he saith, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” This he proves to them afterwards from experience: shewing them, that being hated of God, they were given up to so many vices, in order that they might be convinced from the fruits of their ungodliness, that they willed and did nothing but evil. And then, he judges the Jews also separately; where he saith, that the Jew “in the letter,” is a transgressor of the law: which he proves, in like manner, from the fruits, and from experience: saying, “Thou who declarest that a man should not steal, stealest thyself: thou who abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege.” Thus excepting none whatever, but those who are Jews “in the spirit.”