{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050314.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050314.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050314.htm","text":"Chapter 67 [LVII.]\u2014Who May Be Said to Be Under the Law.\nBut even our author should observe that it is to persons who have been already baptized that it was said: \u201cThe flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.\u201d 1293 And lest he should make them slothful for the actual conflict, and should seem by this statement to have given them laxity in sinning, he goes on to tell them: \u201cIf ye be led of the Spirit, ye are no longer under the law.\u201d 1294 For that man is under the law, who, from fear of the punishment which the law threatens, and not from any love for p. 145 righteousness, obliges himself to abstain from the work of sin, without being as yet free and removed from the desire of sinning. For it is in his very will that he is guilty, whereby he would prefer, if it were possible, that what he dreads should not exist, in order that he might freely do what he secretly desires. Therefore he says, \u201cIf ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,\u201d\u2014even the law which inspires fear, but gives not love. For this \u201clove is shed abroad in our hearts,\u201d not by the letter of the law, but \u201cby the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.\u201d 1295 This is the law of liberty, not of bondage; being the law of love, not of fear; and concerning it the Apostle James says: \u201cWhoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty.\u201d 1296 Whence he, too, no longer indeed felt terrified by God\u2019s law as a slave, but delighted in it in the inward man, although still seeing another law in his members warring against the law of his mind. Accordingly he here says: \u201cIf ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.\u201d So far, indeed, as any man is led by the Spirit, he is not under the law; because, so far as he rejoices in the law of God, he lives not in fear of the law, since \u201cfear has torment,\u201d 1297 not joy and delight.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}