But in point of fact, the
seventh of Romans does describe what, in many cases, is the experience
of the converted Christian.
For there are many who even after a clear conversion and a joyful
sense of God's favor, with the witness of the Spirit to their adoption,
yet do yield to temptation under the pressure of inbred sin, and so
pass weeks, or months or weary years in what is called an up-and-down
experience, not becoming confirmed backsliders, but sinning and
repenting, delighting in the law of God after the inward man, but often
yielding to the demands of the law of sin, which is in their members,
not losing their sonship, but losing their communion and their joy,
often like Peter weeping bitterly over their transgressions, but
finding that while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.
I said that such a process, unsatisfactory as it is, might go on for
years. It ends either in complete religious declension amounting,
sometimes, to apostacy on the one hand, or infinitely better, in the
entire sanctification of the heart and complete deliverance from inbred
sin.
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