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THE
P0W
EST
AND
CONTESTS
OF
FLESH
AND
SPIRIT.
31D'
indulgence
of
them,
contrary
to
the forbidding
law
of
his
Creator. Now this
proposed contest
between
flesh
and
spirit
is
ordained
by
God our Maker
in
infinite
wisdom,
to be
a
proper state
of
trial
for
us,
in
order
to
future
re-
wards and
punishments.
7.
I might
add,
in
the
last
place,
another
argument to
prove
that
our
flesh
is
the
chief
occasion
of
sin
to
the
soul,
from this
consideration
;
that
the soul
at
first
is
tainted, corrupted,
or
defiled,
with
original
sin, by
its
union
to sinful
flesh.
You
will
immediately enquire,
how
is
this
possible,
since
the
soul
is
a
pure spiritual
being,
created immediately
by
God
himself,
and there-
fore innocent and
holy;
and
since
it
cannot touch,
nor
be
touched, by
any
thing corporeal,
such
as flesh
and
blood
?
In
what
manner
can the soul, though united
to
the body,
receive
any
such
sinful
pollution,' or
sinful impression,
from the body?
Take
this
account of
it
in
short, in these
few
propo-
sitions.
1.
Though
the
spirit
of
man be
incorporeal, and
is
created
by
God-without depraved or
sinful
qualities
in
it,
yet
it never
exists,
or
comes
into
being,
but
as
a
part
of
human
nature;
and
that not
as
a
piece
of
new
workman-
ship,
but
as
a
part of
mankind
propagated
from
parents
by
the
continued power
of God's
creating
word
;
"
Be
fruitful and multiply." When
the
infant-body of man
is so
far formed
as to
become
fit
for
union
with
a
rational
soul,
the
soul' comes into
existence in union with
the
body, by
the
original
law
of
creation, and becomes
a
part
of
the man,
as
much
as
the
breath,:
which
is
borrowed
from
the
air,
or the
blood, which
is
made
out
of
the
food
of
the
mother.
2.
Thence
it
follows,
that
the
soul
is
not to
be
judged
of,
-or
Considered, as
a
single
separate
being,
but
as.
in
union
with
flesh
and blood,
as
making
up a compound
creature
of
the
human
species.
3.
Si
ce
in the very first moment
of
its being, by
the
.
old and
eneral rules
or
laws
of
creation and
providence,
it
belon
rs
to
a
human
body, derived
from Adam,
-,it
is
estéeme
as
propagated
by
the
parents, and it becomes
hereby a
son
or a
daughter of
fallen man,
and
is
natu-
rally,
by
the law
of
creation; involved
in
t
e
same
cir-
cumstance
of
ruin,
.bas
no claim to
preserykg
or recur-