I. THE OPINION WHICH IS TO BE CORROBORATED BY TESTIMONIES

This opinion, which explains Romans 7, as relating not to a man under grace, but to one who is placed under the law, and to one who is not yet regenerated by the Spirit of Christ, was never yet condemned in the church of Christ, as heretical, but has always had some defenders among the doctors of the church. We will now approach to the second part of our proposition, which we have judged it right to treat for the purpose of making it evident to all men, that the opinion which I defend is not of recent growth, neither has it been fabricated by my brain, nor borrowed from some heretic, but that it is very ancient, and approved by a great part of the doctors of the primitive church, and that, besides, it has never been so far rejected, by those who have given a different interpretation to the passage, as to induce them to judge it worthy of being branded with the black mark of heresy.