Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsRomans 7

Thou shalt not covet.

^◦ It is not the habitual concupiscence or infirmity of our nature or sensual desire or inclination to evil, coveting against the spirit, that it forbidden properly in this precept: but the consent of our reason and mind unto it, to obey and follow the lusts thereof, that is a sin and prohibited.

• ◦ Actual concupiscence forbidden, not habitual.

That which I work.

^◦ This being understood of S. Paul himself or any other just person, the sense is, that the flesh and inferior part stirreth up diverse disordered motions and passions or perturbations against the mind, and upon such a sudden sometimes invadeth the same, that before it attendeth, or reason can gather itself to deliberate, man is in a sort (though unwittingly) entangled. Which as soon as it is perceived, being of the just condemned, rejected, and resisted, never maketh him a sinner.

• ◦ Sudden involuntary motions are no sin.

Not that which I will

^[1] He meaneth not, that he can do no good that he willeth or desireth, or that he is ever forced to do that which his will agreeth not unto: but that by reason of the forcibleness of concupiscence, whereof he cannot rid himself during life, he cannot accomplish all the desires of his spirit and mind, according as he saith to the Galatians, ^[2] The flesh coveteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, that not whatsoever you will, you can do.

• 1 Concupiscence taketh not away free-will.
• 2 c. 5, 17.

Not the good which I will.

^[1] So may the just also be forced by the rage of concupiscence or sensual appetite, to do or suffer many things in his inferior part or external members, which his will consenteth not unto. And so long it is so far from sin, that (as ^[2] S. Augustine saith) he need never say to God, forgive us our sins, for the same. For, sin is voluntary, and so be not these passions.

• 1 Sin is voluntary, and otherwise it is no sin.
• 2 ep. ad Asellicum 200.

Which I will not.

It maketh not any things against free-will that the Apostle saith, that good men do or suffer sometimes in their bodies, that which the will agreeth not unto: but it proveth plainly free-will, because the proper act thereof, that is, to will or nill, to consent or dissent, is ever (as you may see here) free in itself: though there may be internal or external force to stay the members of a man, that they obey not in every act, that which the will commandeth or prescribeth. And therefore that is never imputed to man which he doth in his external or internal faculties, when will concurreth not. Yea afterward (v, 20) the Apostle saith, Non ego operor, man doeth not that which is not done by his will: which doth most evidently prove free-will. All which S. Augustine clearly teacheth to. 4. in exposition: quarundam propos. ad Rom. propos. 44. 45. and 46. and in many other places.

With the mind, with the flesh.

^◦ Nothing done by concupiscence (which the Apostle here calleth sin) whereunto the spirit, reason, or mind of man consenteth not, can make him guilty before God. Neither can the motions of the flesh in a just man ever any whit defile the operations of his spirit, as the Lutherans do hold: but make them often more meritorious, for the continual combat that he hath with them. For it is plain that the operations of the flesh and of the spirit do not concur together to make one act, as they imagine: the Apostle concluding clean contrary. That in mind he serveth the Law of God, in flesh the law of sin, that is to say, concupiscence.

• ◦ Concupiscence defileth not a just man's actions as the Lutherans say.