SO FLESH AND SPIRIT. reason, added to the knowledge of scripture, and by the inward stings, and sharp reproofs of natural conscience, many an evil motion of the flesh is suppressed, many an inordinate appetite andpassion subdued, and many a grosser sin prevented. Now though all this is not properly called holiness, till the nature itself be renewed, the love of sin broken, and the love of God wrought in the heart ; yet it is evident that those principles which resist sin, and haveany distant tendenciestowardholiness, liechiefly in themind or spirit. . This is yet moreevident in a saint, a man that is regenerated and sanctified bygrace : For though in such a person, thebody as well as the spirit, may be in part sanctified ; that is someof its irregular appetites may be muchweakened and subdued; yet still I cannot help supposing that the spirit, or soul, has a greater share of sanctification than the flesh in this life. It is in the soul that the love of God is wrought by the Holy Spirit; it is the soul that repents of past sins, and watches against temptation ; it is the soul that believes the gospel, and trusts in our Lord Jesus Christ : it is thesoul that by faith takes adistant prospectof hea- ven and hell, andconverses with invisible things beyond the reach and power of fleshand sense : It is by the powers of the soul en- lightened and renewed, that we come to see the value and excel- lency of religion, and spiritual things above temporal; and are inclined to chuse God for our only happiness, andJesus Christ as the way to the Father. The understanding and will are facul- ties of the soul, andthe fleshhasno part in theiroperations. The soul of a believer seems to he the more proper, immediate, and receptive subject ofthe sanctifying influences ofthe Spirit of God and this will appear byconsulting theword of God, or the expe- riences of men. Theword of God leadsus verynaturally into this sentiment by its constant language. The apostle speaks indeed in one place of being sanctified wholly, and our whole spirit, soul and body, being preserved blameless, tic. 1 Thess. v. 23. But he much oftner expresses sanctification by the renewingof the mind ; Rom. xii. 2. Renewing of the spirit of the mind ; Eph. iv. 23. Though ,the outward man, or body, perish, yet the inward man, or spirit, is renewed day by day ; 2 Cor. iv. 16. And theconstant language of the scripture calling sin flesh, and holiness spirit, in the saint, intimatesthat there is more sin in the flesh, and moreholiness in the spirit of one that is sanctified. Thus we read in St. Paul's discourse from the 16thver. of Romans vii. to the 25th, whereyou find him all along distinguishing the flesh and themind. By one of them hecomplains in a variety of expressions, that he is led away to sin, while the other of them approves anti pursues after holiness ; and though thewords flesh and spirit are often used for
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