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AND they "delight" indeed "in the law of God after the inner man,"
which soars above all visible things and ever strives to be united to God
alone, but they "see another law in their members," i.e., implanted in
their natural human condition, which "resisting the law of their mind,"
brings their thoughts into captivity to the forcible law of sin, compelling
them to forsake that chief good and submit to earthly notions, which though
they may appear necessary and useful when they are taken up in the
interests of some religious want, yet when they are set against that good
which fascinates the gaze of all the saints, are seen by them to be bad and
such as should be avoided, because by them in some way or other and for a
short time they are drawn away from the joy of that perfect bliss. For the
law of sin is really what the fall of its first father brought on mankind
by that fault of his, against which there was uttered this sentence by the
most just Judge: "Cursed is the ground in thy works; thorns and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee, and in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
bread." This, I say, is the law, implanted in the members of all
mortals, which resists the law of our mind and keeps it back from the
vision of God, and which, as the earth is cursed in our works after the
knowledge of good and evil, begins to produce the thorns and thistles of
thoughts, by the sharp pricks of which the natural seeds of virtues are
choked, so that without the sweat of our brow we cannot eat our bread which
" cometh down from heaven," and which "strengtheneth man's heart." The
whole human race in general therefore is without exception subject to this
law. For there is no one, however saintly, who does not take the bread
mentioned above with the sweat of his brow and anxious efforts of his
heart. But many rich men, as we see, are fed on that common bread without
any sweat of their brow.
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