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SERM.
"IV.]
FLESH
AND
'SPIRIT,
&C.
67
warring
against
the
law
of
my
mind
;
which makes
the
true
christian
cry
out
often, with
bitterness
of
soul,
O
wretched
man
that
I
ain
I who
shall
deliver
me
from
the
body
of
this
death?'
Rom.
vii.
24..
,
Yet
still
it remains an
uncontestable truth,
That
where
there
is
no
resistance
to the
flesh,
and
the lusts
thereof,
there,
persons are
not
only
in
a
state
of
sin,
but
in
the
strongest bonds
of
iniquity
:
they have
brutified
their
human
natures,' and
have-
made
'themselves like
the
beasts
that
perish
;
such
was
the
character
of
the
Ephe-
sian
Gentiles
when
the
gospel-
calve first
among them
;
they were
alienated
from the
life
of
God, and
being
past
feeling, gave
themselves up
to
work
all
uncleanness
with
greediness,
Epli.'
iv.
18, 19.
Remark
IL
There
may
be
some spirit in
a
per-
son where
there
is
much flesh; some holiness where
there
is
much
sin. h'or
as
none
but
saints
in
heaven
are
all
spirit, and
as
the
unregenerate are
all flesh;
so
the saints here upon earth, are
some
flesh
and some
spirit,
because
-they
are
sanctified
but
in
:part;
they
are
in
their
way
towards perfection,
but
they
are
not perfect:
The spirit and
the
flesh
conflict in them,
so
that
they:
cannot
do
the
things
which
they
would. As
they
cannot
serve
God and practise
holiness, with such constancy.
and
zeal as
they desire, because
of
the
lusting
of the
flesh;
so
neither
can they sink
so
far into
sin,
nor in-
dulge
evil
courses
so
far
as
the
flesh
would
lead
them,
if
they
had
no
strivings
of
the
spirit
to
resist
it,
no
princi-
ples
of
regeneration or
holiness.
They
are
led away
indeed many
times by
sensual and
fleshly
allurements,
but
the
chief
objects
of
their
pursuit
are spiritual
and
heavenly;
they have too many
of
the
same vain affections
and
sinful desires,
that
were born
of
the
flesh,
remaining
in
them; but
they have also new
thoughts and
hopes, new
inclinations and appetites
to-
wards divine things, which
could
not
be
derived
but
from heaven,
and prove
them
to be
born
of
the
spirit.
As
unreasonable
as
it
is
therefore for any sincere
chris-
tians
to
say,
they
are
complete
in
holiness,
or
pretend
to
perfection
in
this
life,
because they
find
a work
of
grace
in
them
:
so
it
is
equally
unreasonable
for
them tò
charge themselves with being
altogether carnal and
Un-
regenerate,
because they
find some
of
the
lusts
Of
the
F