THE POWERS AND CONTESTS OP FLESH AND SPIRIT. 323 ment, viz. That the principles and springs, or occasions of sin, lie chiefly in our bodily natures, In out flesh and blood : And as I have made this to appear from several places of scripture, so I have proved it from rational ob- servations ; viz. howgreat an influence the different con- stitutions ofmankind, their casual distempers, and their various ages of life, have upon the soul, to incline it to the practice of different sins ; and all these are plainly derived from flesh and blood. I have considered fur- ther, what sinful actions arise from the presence of tempting objects impressing the senses ; and when the images of them are treasured up in the brain, they be- come the seeds of impure imagination and sinful appetite. Many of our sins also are nearly imitated by the brutes that perish, whose blood is their life and soul ; and even original sin is conveyed to us by the flesh. Hence we may learn to judge aright concerning seve- ral cases of difficulty in the christian life, relating to sins and temptations, and find an answer to some practical questions ofgreat importance. Question I: Whether the first start or motion of our nature towards unlawful objects, is properly sinful, and brings guilt upon the soul r Answer. The mere ferments of the blood and spirits, the appetites and motions, that belong purely and only to the flesh, and spring entirely from it, are not properly sins ; because the flesh, considered in itself, is but mere matter : Now mere matter, whether it were united to a rational mind or no, would be thus moved and acted by natural springs and impressions, and is under no moral law; and where no law is, there is no transgressiòn. The brutal or animal nature, abstracted from the soul, is not capable of knowledge or will, consent or dissent; but the first moment that the soul indulges or consents to any of these irregular ferments, these springs of unruly passion in the blood, and yields to these inordinate appe- tites of the flesh, it commits sin ; as soon as it complies with any of these desires, that are contrary' to its duty, the soul becomes &uilty in the sight of God; for the .proper notion of sin is the tendency of an intelligent being to things disagreeable to the divine law ; the -prac-, tice of what is forbidden, or the neglect of what is coma mauded. Y
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