Wislon:

Or despises thou the riches of his bountifulness, and patience, and long sufferance; not knowing that the bountifulness of God leads thee to repentance? But thou after thy hardness, and heart that cannot repent, heaps up and treasures unto thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and of the declarations of the just judgment of God.

Timotheus.

First speak something to the method and dospositions of the text, how does it agree with the former, and of what parts does it consist?

Sil[as]. The blessed Apostle does now bend himself against the vain excuses and pretexts by which those self-condemners do deceive themselves. The first hope of impunity, by the leniency of God, giving good things out of his bounty or kindness, bearing with the abuse of his benefits out of his patience, and forbearing a great while to punish, out of his long sufferance; therefore say sinners, he will never punish. Hereupon as want children or dissolute scholars, which espy the gentleness of their governors; as birds which mark the scarecrow, not to move or hurt, wax bold and fearless: so these sinners imagine of God, that he will ever spare, because he presently strikes not, they wantonly condemn him and his kindness. The parts of the text be two: the one concerns the general goodness of God toward evil men, set down in three words. The second is, a reprehension of the abuse of his goodness, which that it might pierce deeper and move more, is set down by an interrogation, and an apostrophe: Doest thou?

Tim. What is the drift of the text?

Sil. To check such as being evil, yet thought themselves righteous and in God’s favor, because they were not punished of God, but prospered: unto these men the Apostle says, that their prosperity and freedom from punishment was a token of God’s bounty, patience, and long sufferance, but not of their own virtue and goodness.

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Fuller:

1)

SECTION II.

ON NATURAL AND MORAL INABILITY.

On this subject I find it difficult to collect the real sentiments of P[hilanthropos]. Sometimes, he seems to admit of the distinction, and allows that I have written upon it with”perspicuity.” (p. 63.) At other times, he appears utterly to reject it, and to reason upon the supposition of there being no difference between the one and the other; and that to command a person to perform any thing with which it is not in the power of his heart to comply, for this, he must know, is the only idea we have of moral inability, is as unreasonable, unless grace is bestowed, as to “command a stone to walk, or a horse to sing.”(p. 44.) If this is indeed the case, the distinction ought to be given up. Be that, however, as it may, whether there be any real difference between natural and moral inability, in point of blame-worthiness, or not, P. knows that I suppose there is: by what rule of fair reasoning, therefore, he could take the contrary for granted, is difficult to determine.

But, passing this, from the whole of what P. has written on this subject, I observe there are three things, which, somehow or other, either severally or jointly, are supposed to constitute even a moral inability blameless. One is, men could not avoid it; they were depraved and ruined by Adam’s transgression; another is, its being so great in degree, as to be insuperable; and the last is, if grace is not given, sufficient to deliver us from it.”If,”says he,”men could never avoid it, and cannot deliver themselves from it, and the blessed God will not deliver them; surely they ought not to be punished for it, or for any of its necessary effects.”(p. 67.)

The first two of these suppositions, be it observed, are admitted by P. as facts. Men are, he acknowledges, born in sin, and”their inability to do things spiritually good is real and total.”(pp. 44. 57.) They cannot love God, nor keep his holy law. Now, these facts either do excuse mankind in their want of conformity to the law, or they do not. If they do not, why are they produced? If they do, there is no need for what respects the last supposition. There is no need, surely, for grace to deliver men from a state wherein they are already blameless. The justice of God, one should think, would see to that, and prevent the innocent from being condemned. But let us give each of these subjects a separate consideration.

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Wilson:

Tim. But when the Apostle says, “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners: has his death brought this life to pass, that we are now not sinners?

Sil.  After we believe that Christ died for us, and are regenerate by his Spirit, we have sin still, but we are not any longer to be called sinners; because that now our sins by forgiveness is blotted out, and that which remains still in our nature reigns not, and the denomination of a person or thing, is ever from that, which is more excellent and worthy. But here the Apostle means by sinners, such as be under the guilt and dominion of sin, as all are before faith.

Tim. What could God see in us then to move him to love us?

Sil. First, he saw in his own creation, which he loved with a general love, as he does all the works of his hands. Secondly, he say in us much misery through sin, and this made him love us with a pitiful love. Thirdly, he loved his elect being yet sinners, in that he purposed in himself to call and justify them in due time. And now lastly, having grafted his elect in his Son by faith, and justifies them, he loves them actually, having set his own image in them.

Tim. You hold that there are several degrees of God’s love, even towards his elect?

Sil. There be so, for he cannot love his elect with that degree and kind of love when they are sinners, as he does after they are now in his Son justified and sanctified: for now sin which bred hatred and enmity, is defaced and case out by remission; and holiness which God loves, imprinted in them, and brought in by renovation.

Thomas Wilson, A Commentary on the Most Divine Epistle of S^t. Paul To the Romans, 3^rd ed., (London: Printed by E. Cotes in Aldersgate-Steet, 1653), 144. [Some spelling modernized; italics original; square bracketed inserts original; and underlining mine.]

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Wilson:

Tim: Now tell us of the measure of Abraham’s faith, what it was?

Sil: It was not a little and weak faith, but a strong and great faith, such a faith as fully assured him. This word [full assurance] is fetched from ships, which against wind, and waves, are yet with full strong sail carry unto the haven: so Abraham by the strength of his faith, overcame all the waves of doubts beating against his mind.

Tim. What may be observed from hence?

Sil. That in every truth faith, there is an assurance and persuasion of that which it believes, but not a full assurance, for this is proper to a strong faith. Secondly, that weak Christians should not be discouraged, because they be not fully assured, so as they strive towards it: for the measure of true faith is differing, and God looks not to the quantity but to the truth of faith.

Thomas Wilson, A Commentary on the Most Divine Epistle of S^t. Paul To the Romans, 3^rd ed., (London: Printed by E. Cotes in Aldersgate-Steet, 1653), 124. [Some spelling modernized; italics original; square bracketed inserts original; and underlining mine.]

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