VERSE 16. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

By the term "flesh" Paul does not understand manifest vices. Such sins he
usually calls by their proper names, as adultery, fornication, etc. By "flesh"
Paul understands what Jesus meant in the third chapter of John, "That which
is born of the flesh is flesh". (John 3:6.) "Flesh" here means the whole nature
of man, inclusive of reason and instincts. "This flesh," says Paul, "is not
justified by the works of the law."

The papists do not believe this. They say, "A person who performs this good
deed or that, deserves the forgiveness of his sins. A person who joins this or
that holy order, has the promise of everlasting life."

To me it is a miracle that the Church, so long surrounded by vicious sects,
has been able to survive at all. God must have been able to call a few who in
their failure to discover any good in themselves to cite against the wrath and
judgment of God, simply took to the suffering and death of Christ, and were
saved by this simple faith.

Nevertheless God has punished the contempt of the Gospel and of Christ on
the part of the papists, by turning them over to a reprobatestate of mind in
which they reject the Gospel, and receive with gusto the abominable rules,
ordinances, and traditions of men in preference to the Word of God, until they
went so far as to forbid marriage. God punished them justly, because they
blasphemed the only Son of God.

This is, then, our general conclusion: "By the works of the law shall no flesh
be justified."