f Christ. It discovered that "the
Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." It
recognized that "it is spiritual, but man is carnal, the slave of sin."
It could say, "What I do I approve not; for I do not what I would, but
what I hate. But if my will [my better judgment] is against what I do, I
consent unto the Law that it is good. And now it is no more I that do
it, but sin, that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my
flesh, good abideth not, for to will is present with me, but the power
to do the right is absent: the good that I would, I do not; but the evil
that I would not, that I do. I consent gladly to the law of God in my
inner man ['the rational and immortal nature'[963]]; but I behold a law
in my members ['the irascible and concupiscible nature'[964]] warring
against the law of my mind (or reason), and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. _Oh wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death_?"[965] Paul was able
to say, "I thank God (that he hath now delivered me), through Jesus
Christ our Lord!" Platonism could only desire, and hope, and wait for
the coming of a Deliverer.

[Footnote 963: Plato.]

[Footnote 964: Ibid.]

[Footnote 965: Romans, vii.]

This consciousness of the need of supernatural light and help, and this
aspiration after a light supernatural and divine, which Plato inherited
from Socrates, constrained him to regard with toleration, and even
reverence, every apparent approach, every pretension, even, to a divine
inspiration and guidance in the age in which he lived. "'The greatest
blessings which men receive come through the operation of _phrensy_
([Greek: mania]--inspired exaltation), when phrensy is the gift of God.
The prophetess of Delphi, and the priestess of Dodona, many are the
benefits which in their phrensies (moments of inspiration) they have
bestowed upon Greece; but in their hours of self-possession, few or
none. And too long were it to speak of the Sibyl, and others, who,
inspired and prophetic, have delivered utterances beneficial to the
hearers. Indeed, this word phrenetic or maniac is no reproach; it is
identical with mantic--prophetic.[966] And often when diseases and
plagues have fallen upon men for the sins of their forefathers, some
phrensy too has broken forth, and in prophetic strain has pointed out a
remedy, _showing how the sin might be expiated, and the gods appeased_
(by pray