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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." You have here 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.
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