He has well said, “swerved,” for it requires skill,1110 to shoot straight and not beside the 413 mark, to have1111 the direction of the Spirit. For there are many things to turn us aside from the right course, and we should look but to one object. Ver. 7. “Desiring to be teachers of the law.” Here we see another cause of evil, the love of power. Wherefore Christ said, “Be not ye called Rabbi” (Matt. xxiii. 8.); and the Apostle again, “For neither do they keep the law, but that they may glory in your flesh.” (Gal. vi. 13.) They desire preëminence, he means, and on that account disregard truth. “Understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” Here he censures them, because they know not the end and aim of the Law, nor the period for which it was to have authority. But if it was from ignorance, why is it called a sin? Because it was incurred not only from their desiring to be teachers of the law,1112 but from their not retaining love. Nay, and their very ignorance arose from these causes. For when the soul abandons itself to carnal things, the clearness of its vision is dimmed, and falling from love it drops into contentiousness, and the eye of the mind is blinded. For he that is possessed by any desire for these temporal things, intoxicated, as he is, with passion, cannot be an impartial judge of truth.1113 “Not knowing whereof they affirm.” For it is probable that they spoke of the law, and enlarged on its purifications and other bodily rites. The Apostle then forbearing to censure these, as either nothing, or at best a shadow and figure of spiritual things, proceeds in a more engaging way to praise the law, calling the Decalogue here the law, and by means of it discarding the rest. For if even these precepts punish transgressors, and become useless to us, much more the others. Ver. 8, 9. “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man.” The law, he seems to say, is good, and again, not good. What then? if one use it not lawfully, is it not good? Nay even so it is good. But what he means is this; if any one fulfills it in his actions; for that is to “use it lawfully” as here intended. But when they expound it in their words, and neglect it in their deeds, that is using it unlawfully. For such an one uses it, but not to his own profit. And another way may be named besides. What is it? that the law, if thou use it aright, sends thee to Christ. For since its aim is to justify man, and it fails to effect this, it remits us to Him who can do so. Another way again of using the law lawfully, 1110 τέχνης. 1111 Montf. would insert δεῖ, “so that we have need of the direction,” and so old Lat. 1112 i.e. as being attached to it. 1113 So Horace:— Male verum examinat omnis, Corruptus judex. Ill holds that judge the balances of truth, Who takes a bribe.—1 Ep. xvi. 52. 712 1 Timothy 1:5-7