Marriage and Virginity
are obeyed. So there exists in us the desire to sin, and this must not be allowed to rule; its wishes†7 must not be obeyed, so that it will not rule over those who obey them. It follows that sinful desire must not take over our bodies, but continence must claim them for itself, so that they will be God's weapons for justice, and not the weapons of sin for deeds of wickedness; in this way sin will not be our master. We are not subject to the law, which indeed commands what is good but does not bestow it, but we are subject to grace, which makes us love what the law commands and so can require it of us as free persons.†8
9. In the same way when he urges us not to live according to the flesh, lest we die, but to put to death the deeds of the flesh, in order to live, the trumpet that he sounds certainly makes evident the war in which we are engaged and inflames us to struggle keenly and put to death our enemy, so that it will not put us to death. He makes it clear enough who this enemy is. It is the deeds of the flesh that he wanted us to put to death. This is what he said: If, however, you put to death the deeds of the flesh with the spirit, you will live (Rom 8:13). And so that we will know what these are, let us hear what he says when writing to the Galatians: It is clear what are deeds of the flesh; they are adultery, impurity, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, disputes, jealousy, hatred, disagreements, heresies, envy, drunkenness, gluttony and things like that, about which I preach to you as I have preached before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). In naming these things he showed that the war was there too, and with the same heavenly, spiritual trumpet he summoned the soldiers of Christ to put these enemies to death. Previously he had said, I say to you, however, walk with the spirit and do not carry out the desires of the flesh. The flesh has desires opposed to those of the spirit, and the spirit has desires opposed to those of the flesh. These two work against each other with the result that you do not do what you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law (Gal 5:16-18). He therefore wants those living under grace to enter that struggle against the deeds of the flesh. To show what these works of the flesh are, he added the words we quoted above: It is clear what are deeds of the flesh; they are adultery (Gal 5:19) and the rest, the things he either mentioned or included by implication, especially by adding, and things like that.
Finally, as if leading out another spiritual army for this battle against a kind of carnal army, he said: The fruits of the spirit are charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trust, gentleness, restraint; against things like this there is no law (Gal 5:22-23). He did not say