Chapter IV.
When God gave man the Law and added grace, two questions arise: How is the Law good if it brings about death? And how is it that death, which the Law brings about, does not affect us?
13. But what is it that the Lord has not bestowed upon you? He gave the law, he revealed sin, he added grace. For the law denounced sin, but it could not completely restrain it on a slippery slope. For I knew sin that I did not know. I knew that concupiscence is sin, and with this occasion of knowledge, the air of sin was accumulated; for the sin that seemed dead to me before because of my ignorance, revived in me: but I am dead with the wound of sin; for the knowledge of guilt which seemed advantageous to me, this harmed me, so that I would know that I could not avoid it. For sin betrayed, and through the good of its own denunciation, it embittered envy. Therefore, sin has become excessive for me; because it is compounded by the denunciation of the command. Indeed, guilt increases when it is exposed and not avoided. So how can a good command, which is death to me? Or how can it not be death to me, that by demonstrating the good of its own meaning, it has worked death in me? For it is certain that death has come to me, while I recognize the sin that I commit, as the Lord himself says: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin (John 15:22).
14. So why are you amazed, then, if the Law is death to certain people, since the coming of the Savior Lord is also death, through whom we have been redeemed? For the unbeliever seeks death from grace, but the grace of the commandment remains. Indeed, just as the knowledge of poisonous drinks is completed in the discipline of medicine, so the divine commandment leads to eternal life. However, just as for someone who misuses harmful potions, the knowledge of them turns into harm and danger, and the more he knows the poisons, the more he realizes he is in danger, so the form of the commandment is the author of death for those who interpret the Law wrongly and cannot avoid the sins that have been made known and prohibited. Just as a remedy, even if not good for an imprudent or intemperate person, is still good, so too a good command, even if not good for an intemperate person. Therefore, a good command can be deadly for someone. Therefore, let us respond to the first proposition: because there can be a good command that brings death to me; good by nature as a saving precept; death by intemperance of the flesh.
15. And because we have said that the commandment is good, which to me is death, let us now discuss how it is not death to me, which though it is good, has nevertheless caused death to me. For the Apostle said: Therefore what is good, to me is death. God forbid. But sin, in order that it may appear sin, has caused death to me through what is good (Rom. VII, 13). So let us consider each point. Surely the commandment is of the Law: But the Law is spiritual, the grace of which I see, the beauty I praise, the form I proclaim, the precept I admire: but because I am sold under sin, being carnal, I am drawn unwillingly to fault. For indeed, as if I were a slave, guilt dominates. Therefore, I hate the crime, and I commit it. The mind hates, the flesh desires; yet I, in both, who agree with the Law in my mind and do not want in the flesh, do this. Therefore, I consent to the good commandment; and the good mind, which chooses what is good, agrees. It is good for judgment, but weak for resistance; because it contradicts the appetite of the body, and drags it captive to the enticements of error.
16. In which danger there is one remedy, that which the Law was not able to free, may be freed by the grace of God. For it is thus written: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body of death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (ibid. 4 and 25). And so, it happens that although the sin which lay hidden, that is, my concupiscence which I did not think was a sin, has brought about death to me, while it is exposed and has become the sin itself beyond measure (for it was sin even though it was not known, but it was accumulated by knowledge, and took on the form of a commandment as an increase in error, and passed into the nature of an offense), nevertheless, it is not death to me, to whom it is ready to flee to Christ, through whom we are freed from every danger of death. Therefore, the second proposition is also absolute, because the command of the Lawgiver is not given to me, even though it brings about death. For what disturbs us is our own weakness, but what we escape is through Christ.