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SERM.
IV.]
FLESH
AND
SPIRIT,
StC.
69
great
mistake, while you
say,
that
you obey all the dic-
tates
of nature
when
you rush
on
to
fleshly
iniquities.
Have
you no
natural
conscience within you
that
forbids
these
vile
practices?
IIas
it not
given you many a check
already, and many
an inward
reproach
?
Have
you
no
reason
that
tells you
that
there
is
a God,
and
a
judg-
ment,
and
a
terrible account
one day
to
be
given
of
the
guilt
and
madness which you now
indulge
?
It
is
but
one
part of your nature
then, and
that
the
meanest and
the
vilest too, whose
dictates
you
obey,
when you give
yourselves up to
all
intemperance.
The
very
heathens
have such
a conscience
in
them,
such a law written
in
their
hearts,
to
forbid, and to condemn the grosser
ini-
quities,
Rom.
ii.
15.
and such
an inward
monitor
be-
longs to
your nature
too, unless you have
entirely sub-
dued and
enslaved
your
spirits,
which
are the
best
part
of
your
natures, to the tyranny
of your
flesh
;
unless
you have
buried your reason
in
brutal appetite, and
seared
your
conscience
as with a
hot iron,
that
they may
neither
feel
nor
speak.
2.
You
say,
it
is
nature
you
obey, while
you follow
after
fleshly
lusts; but
is
it not nature depraved and
spoiled? Can
you
think
it
is
the pure,
the
original and
uncorrupted nature of
man to follow all the
appetites
of
flesh
and blood,
and
live
upon a
level with
the brutes
that
perish
?
Can
you
imagine
that
your spirit
and rea-
son,
and
all
the glorious powers
of
your intellectual na-
ture
in
their
first
perfection,
were
made
to be
thus em-
ployed as lackeys to the body,
and mere purveyors to
the
flesh
?
Is
it
not
a sign
your nature
is
fallen from its
original state,
while
these
meaner
powers
of
sense
and
passion have se mighty and sovereign an influence;
and
is
it
not rather
the
dictate
of
reason, and
nature, and
true
self-love,
that
you
should seek the recovery
of
your
original excellencies,
that
you should
use
all
methods
to
stop and
heal the diseases
of
your
nature,
and
to
repair
these ruins
of
humanity.
But,
3.
Suppose it
were
the inclination
of
animal
nature
in its
original
frame, to be
intemperate, proud,
angry,
impatient, and
luxurious;
and suppose
all
the
present
evil
appetites and
passions
of
the
flesh,
were
the
attendants of
man
in his first
estate
;
yet
has
not God
your
Creator and Governor,
a
right
to
place
you
in
at
3