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| Chapter VII. Of the value of the conflict which the Apostle makes to consist in the strife between the flesh and the spirit.
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Chapter VII.
Of the value of the conflict which the Apostle makes to
consist in the strife between the flesh and the spirit.
This conflict too we read
in the Apostle has for our good been placed in our members: “For
the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh.
But these two are opposed to each other so that ye should not do what
ye would.”1293
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too a contest as it were implanted in our bodies, by the action and
arrangement of the Lord. For when a thing exists in everybody
universally and without the slightest exception, what else can you
think about it except that it belongs to the substance of human nature,
since the fall of the first man, as it were naturally: and when a thing
is found to be congenital with everybody, and to grow with their
growth, how can we help believing that it was implanted by the will of
the Lord, not to injure them but to help them? But the reason of this
conflict; viz., of flesh and spirit, he tells us is this: that ye
should not do what ye would.” And so, if we fulfil what God
arranged that we should not fulfil, i.e., that we should not do what we
liked, how can we help
believing that it is bad for us? And this
conflict implanted in us by the arrangement of the Creator is in a way
useful to us, and calls and urges us on to a higher state: and if it
ceased, most surely there would ensue on the other hand a peace that is
fraught with danger.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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