17 2 Not with Pp and blood. Firft, for the Negative part of the Defcription ; we are not to take it fora pure negation, as if we had no conflia with flefh and blood, but wholly and folcly to engage againft Satan; but by wayof compatifon, not only with flefh and blood, and in fome fenfe not chiefly. It is ufual in Scripture fuch manner of phrafe, Luke i4. 12. Call not thyfriends todinners but the poore; that is, not only thofe, fo as to negle6I the poor. Nowwhat is meant here by flefh and blood ? there is a double interpretation of the words. Firft, by flefh and blood may be meant our own bofome- corruptions ; that fin which is in our corrupt nature fo oft called flefh in the Scripture; The fleJh lugeth againfi the Spirit, and fometimes flefh and blood, as Matth. 16.17. Flefb and blood bath not revealed this, that is, this Confeffion thou haft made comes from above ; thy flefhly corrupt minde could never have found out this fupernatural truth, th y finful Will would never have embraced it. So, i Cor I 5. 20. Flefh andbloodcannot inhe- rit the Kingdome ofGod, that is,finful mortal flefh,as it's expound- ed in the words following. So, Gal. ,I. 21. confulted not with flefh and blood, that is, carnal reafon. Now this bofome- enemy may be called flefh, partly from its derivation, and part- ly from its operation ; from its derivation, becaufe it's derived and propagated to us by natural generation ; thus Adam is Paid to beget a Jon in ht, own likene fie, finful as he was, as well as mor- tal and miferable ; yea. the holiefl Saint on earth having flefh in him, derives this corrupt and finful nature to his childe, as the cycumcifed Jew begat an uncircumcifed childe; and the wheat cleani'd and fann'd (being fowen) comes up with a husk, john. 3.6. That which is borne of the fiefh is fiffh. Secondly, itscali'd flefh from the opeiations of this corrupt na- ture, which aft- flefhly and carnal ; The reafoningf of the cor- rupt minde flefilly, therefore called the carnal minde,uncapable indeed of tht igs of (Tod, which it neither doth nor can per- ceive : As the Sunne doth obfignare fuperiorea dum revelat inferi- era ; hide the Heavens which are above it from us, while it re- veales things beneath ; fo carnal reafon leaves the creature in the dark concerning fpiritual truths, when it is moil able to conceive and difeourfe of creature-excellencies, and carnal in- terefis here below. What a childia queftion, for fo wife a man,
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