The Perfect Standard of Right
By Adam Clarke
It is not likely that a dark, corrupt, human heart can discern the will of God. His law is His will. It recommends what is just, and right, and good, and forbids what is improper, unjust, and injurious. If God had not revealed Himself by this law, we should have done precisely what many nations of the earth have done, who have not had this revelation,—put darkness for light, and sin for acts of holiness. While the human heart is its own measure, it will rate its workings according to its own propensities; for itself is its highest rule. But when God gives a true insight of His own perfections, to be applied as a rule, both of passion and practise, then sin is discovered; and discovered, too, to be exceeding sinful. So, strong propensities, because they appear to be inherent in our nature, would have passed for natural and necessary operations; and their sinfulness would not have been discovered if the law had not said, "Thou shalt not covet," and thus determined that the propensity itself, as well as its outward operations, is sinful. The law is the straight edge which determines the quantum of obliquity in the crooked line to which it is applied.—Adam Clarke, on Rom. 7:7.