THE POWERS AND CONTESTS OF FLESH A-No SPIRT'''. 109 nian has sins of its own, that it borrows not immediately from the flesh : There is a pride in the mind, arising from learning, and intellectual powers, and accomplishments ; there are vainand excessive desires of .human knowledge there is a sinful curiosity, prying into secret futurities ; there is aglorying in self, a vanity of mind, and self-con- fidence, instead of trusting in God, and giving him the glory of all : There is, indeed, a- secret dislike and aversion to God and holiness, in the soul of every un- sanctified sinner ; these are more spiritual iniquities. I might add also, that there are several of those sins which, in some appearances of them, are numbered among the works of the flesh, because they are often excited, and almost always increased, by the humours and ferments of the body ; which yet, in some other opera- tions and appearances, begin in the spirit,. belong chiefly to the soul, and must be called spiritual sins, or lusts of the mind ; such as malice and envy, self - conceit, emula-: tion, hatred of good men, &c. which are doubtless found in the fallen angels, those evil spirits, who have no flesh about them. Now as an unsanctified soul may be some- times guilty . of these when in the body, so, when it is dismissed from flesh, we must grant, that it would be filled with all these iniquities, these spiritual lusts, for ever, though none of the carnal sins, no appetites to fleshly objects, should follow it into the separate state. But the point which I propose to prove is this, that though there may be several sins that arise chiefly from themind, yet there are multitudes of disorderly appetites, sinful inclinations and aversions, as well as violent im- moderate tendencies towards lawful ofjects, seated in our animal nature, in, our flesh and blood, in this mortal part of our frame and composition; wherein we are a-kin to the beasts that perish ; and it is by the senses, by these sensitive motions and ferments of flesh and blood, that the human soul is most frequently led into tempta- tion.and sin : And more especially I may venture to say, that tle soul of a true christian, which is sanctified by the Spirit of God, and has a new and heavenly temper and bias, and a divine nature given it, owes most of its actual transgressions to the flesh, and the lusts thereof, to which it is united in the present state. 'There is one objection that seems t1$cessary to be an x. 3
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