Delighting in the Law of God in the Inner Man

They “delight” indeed “in the law of God according to the inner man,” the inner man that soars above all visible things and strives always to be united to God alone. But they “see another law in their members,” that is, one planted in their natural human condition, which, “resisting the law of their mind,” brings their thoughts captive under the forceful law of sin. It compels them to leave that chief good and give way to earthly concerns. These concerns may seem necessary and useful when they are taken up for some religious need. Yet when they are set beside that good which holds the gaze of all the saints, the saints see them as bad and as things to be avoided, because by them, in one way or another and for a short time, they are drawn away from the joy of that perfect happiness. [a]

For the law of sin is truly what the fall of mankind’s first father brought on the human race by his fault. Against that fault the most just Judge spoke this sentence: “Cursed is the ground in your works. Thorns and thistles it will bring forth for you, and in the sweat of your brow you will eat bread.” This, I say, is the law planted in the members of all mortals. It resists the law of our mind and holds it back from the vision of God. Since the earth was cursed in our works after the knowledge of good and evil, this law begins to produce the thorns and thistles of thoughts, and by their sharp pricks the natural seeds of the virtues are choked. So without the sweat of our brow we cannot eat our bread, the bread that “comes down from heaven” and “strengthens the heart of man.” So the whole human race, without exception, is subject to this law. For there is no one, however holy, who does not take the bread mentioned above with the sweat of his brow and the anxious striving of his heart. But many rich men, as we see, are fed on that common bread without any sweat of their brow.