THE apostle having undeniably proved that the justified are dead to sin, he now beginneth his exhortation that we should not obey sin by indulging bodily lusts. The exhortation is short, but of great weight, ' Let not sin therefore reign,' &c.
In the words take notice -
1. Of the illative particle, therefore, which leadeth us to the principles from whence the duty is inferred, namely, the tenor of Christianity, which is considered - (1.) As professed by them, for they have submitted to baptism, and so are obliged to die unto sin and live unto God; (2.) As having obtained its effect in them, as in charity he presumeth them to be regenerated or real believers, and therefore chargeth them with this duty; for Christ's grace must not lie idle in the soul.
2. The duty to which they are exhorted is to take care to prevent the reign of sin, which is described and represented -
1. By the seat of it, 'In your mortal body.'
2. The nature of it, 'That you should obey it in the lusts thereof.' To obey bodily lusts is the reign of sin.
Doct. That Christians are strictly obliged to take care that sin get not dominion over them by the desires and interests of the mortal body.
1. Let me explain this point.
2. Give you the reasons of it.
First, In explaining this doctrine, I shall handle three questions -
1. Why is sin said to reign in our bodies rather than our souls?
2. Why doth the apostle call it our mortal body? the use of this term; and -
3. When is sin said to reign?
First, Why is sin said to reign in our bodies rather than in our souls? And again 'lusts thereof,’ autou, as agreeing to soomati, not autès, as relating to hamartia..
1. Negatively, it is not to be understood that sinful lusts are only in the body, or have their original only from the body, and not from the soul; for that is repugnant to what Christ saith: Mat. 15:18,19, 'Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man; for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.'
2. But positively, he saith 'In your body.'
[1.] Because these lusts mostly manifest themselves in the body, and belong to the body and the flesh. Therefore the apostle saith, 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth,' Col. 3:5; and Rom. 7:23, ‘I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind;' James 4:1, 'Lusts that war in your body.' When the devil would set up a kingdom in the hearts of men, he doth it by the body; for what is nearer and dearer to us than our bodies? And things present and grateful to the bodily senses promote his designs; these blind our minds and corrupt our hearts, and entice our affections, so that we follow after them earnestly, with the neglect of God and our precious immortal souls. There are various desires, according to the variety of objects which tend to please and gratify the flesh, by occasion of which sin doth insinuate itself into us.
[2.] Because they are acted and executed by the body or outward man, and therefore are called 'the deeds of the body,' Rom. 8:13. Now, though some sins are seated in the mind, as heresies, yet they are works of the flesh: Gal. 5:19, 20, 'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies;' because usually they begin at falseness of the heart, and are bred in us by some corrupt affections, such as pride, vainglory, self-seeking, &c.: Gal 2:18, 'Puffed up with his fleshly mind.' And for sins of omission, they arise in us from some inordinate sensual affection to the creature, which causeth us to omit our duty to God. But generally most sins are acted by the body. Therefore, as in grace, or in the dedication of ourselves to God, the soul is included when the body only is mentioned: Rom. 12:1, 'Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.’ All the service we perform to God is acted by the body; so in the destruction of sin: 'Let it not reign in your body.'
[3.] Because the disorder of the sensual appetite, which inclineth us to the interests and conveniences of the bodily life, is the great cause of all sin; and therefore man corrupted and fallen is represented as wholly governed by his sensual inclinations: Gen. vi 3, 'For that man also is flesh;' and John 3:6, 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh;' as if he had nothing in him but what is earthly and carnal. Our souls do so cleave to the earth, and are addicted to the body, that they have lost their primitive excellency; our understandings, will, and affections are distempered by our senses, and enslaved to serve the flesh, which is a matter well to be regarded, that we may understand why the scripture so often calleth sin by the name of flesh, and sometimes a body; or it is said 'to dwell in the body,' not as if the understanding and will were not corrupted and tainted, but to show how they are tainted and corrupted, that this corruption which hath invaded human nature cometh chiefly, though not only, from the inordinancy of our sensual appetite. I will prove it by two considerations -
(1.) One is a supposition. Suppose that original sin, so far as it concerneth the understanding and will, consisted in a bare privation of that rectitude that should be in these faculties (I do not say it is so, but suppose it were so), yet as long as our senses and appetites are disordered, which wholly incline us to terrene and earthly things, this were enough to cause us to sin; as a chariot must needs miscarry where the driver is weak, sleepy, negligent, and the horses unruly and disorderly. So here, we have not so much light and love to higher things as will restrain the sensual appetite. The understanding hath no light: 2 Peter 1:9, 'But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off;' Eph. 1:18, 'The eyes of your understandings being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling,' &c. The will hath no love: 1 Cor. 2:14, 'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.' And therefore, man, that obeyeth his bodily lusts and desires, must needs be corrupt and sinful.
(2.) The other is an assertion; that there are habitual, positive, inordinate inclinations to sensual things both in the understanding and will; for fronèma sarkos, 'The carnal mind is enmity against God,' Rom. 8:7. The mind doth not only befriend the lusts of the flesh, and seek to palliate and excuse them, but opposeth whatever would reduce us from the love of them. And the will is biassed by such sensual inclinations: 1 Tim. 6:10, 'For the love of money is the root of all evil.' Our reason doth often contrive and approve sin, and the will embraceth it so that you see the reason why sin is said to reign in our bodies, because of the strong inclination of our souls to present things, or things conducing to the contenting of the flesh, or gratifying the bodily life.
Secondly, Why doth the apostle say, 'In your mortal bodies'? I answer - For sundry reasons.
1. To put us in mind of the first rise of sin; for sin brought in death: Rom. 5:12, 'As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.' And so while we live this mortal bodily life, we are subject to these desires, swarms of sinful motions and inclinations to evil remain within us, we are prone to them, and give way to them, and are too slack in the resistance of them, and through the ignorance and inat-tentiveness of our minds cannot discern or distinguish between what regular nature desireth and lust craveth. There are lawful desires of the body, and prohibited desires of the body; through the crafty conveyance between the understanding and the false heart, we easily give way to what is inordinate, under the pretence of what is lawful and convenient, and so insensibly slide into compliance with the plain prohibited desires of the body. Lust is headstrong, and the empire and government of the will feeble, and so we are led on to obey them; that is, we become servants and slaves to sin. And though the regenerate be delivered from the power of sin, yet much of this corruption remaineth in them for their exercise and humiliation; and if they be not watchful, and obey not the motions of the Spirit, it will soon recover its power, and men will be brought into their old slavery and captivity: Gal. 5:16, 17, 'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh.' So that this mortal body giveth sin many advantages.
2. This term, mortal body, puts us in mind of its punishment; it tendeth to death and destruction. We considered it before as it pointed at the rise, now at the fruit itself. The apostle telleth us, Rom. 8:10, 'The body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.' He speaketh there of believers, or those who have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, who, being once sinners, the punishment of sin, death, befalleth them, and so their bodies must die and return to dust, yet they shall live a happy and blessed life both in body and soul. If they labour to mortify and suppress sin, and return sincerely to newness of life, though they are still mortal and subject to corporal death because of sin, yet it shall not be eternal death. The renewed soul is a partaker of eternal life, and shall always live with God in glory, and though the body be put off for a time, yet in time it shall be partaker of this life also.
3. To show us the transitoriness of these delights. You gratify a mortal body with the neglect of a precious and immortal soul; now the mortal body should not be pampered with so great a loss and inconvenience to our souls. All the good things which the flesh aimeth at, they perish with the mortal body, but the guilt and punishment of this disorderly life remaineth for ever. All fleshly pleasure ceaseth at the grave's mouth, and wealth, pleasure, carnal rest, worldly honour, are no longer of use to us when we are to be laid in the dust. One would think this should cure the mad desires of all mortal creatures: 1 John 2:17, 'The world passeth away, and the lusts thereof; but he that doeth the will of God shall endure for ever.' When we come to die, neither can the thing do us good, and the very lust and desire is gone, and is bitter in the remembrance of it. Pray, how little can all the world then do for you? When you have most need of comfort, the taste of these things is gone, and the sting remaineth; the pampered flesh must then be cast into the dust, and all its pleasure will then be at an end; which will be a doleful day to those that had their good things here, and all their portion in this life. When that is gone which is so much valued and sought after, and the true felicity forfeited because it was undervalued and contemned, how will they be ashamed of the folly of their perverse choice! Therefore, if we would joyfully bear, or contentedly yield to the dissolution of our bodies, we should now master and mortify the desires of the flesh.
4. To show that in this state of mortality and frailty we may prevent the reign of sin. Many will say, We are frail creatures, we are not glorified saints; the desires of nature are impetuous. Ay! but you may resist them, and that with success. The mortality of the body doth not excuse sin, but aggravate it, that for a little brutish pleasure, that is, but for a while, we will forfeit eternal joys, and run the hazard of eternal pains. But can we avoid the pleasing of desires so natural? Yes; many that live in the flesh do not live after the flesh; their reason is not enslaved by sense, but illuminated and directed by faith to higher things. The apostle produceth himself as an instance: Gal. 2:20, 'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.' And he speaketh no more of himself than what is common to all believers. Surely they may or can, if they be not wanting to themselves, 'crucify the flesh with the affections and passions thereof;' yea, they have, if they are true believers: Gal. 5:24, 'They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.' Indeed, nothing seemeth harder and harsher than for men to get such a victory over their own flesh, and to contradict motions that are so pleasing. They are not stocks and stones, they say; how is it possible to be so dead to the interests of the animal life as not to be moved, and sometimes greatlv moved, with these things, which either gratify or displease the flesh? I answer, in Christ's words, Mat 19: 26, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.' There is the Spirit of Christ to change our natures, and the Spirit of Christ to direct and influence our motions, and ordinances and means appointed to convey this Spirit to us, as the word, which revealeth better things, sacraments which assure to us our great hopes, and oblige us to live answerably; there are many providences to deaden the taste of the flesh, and train us up for better things in another world, and we are to be watchful, serious, heavenly.
5. To show that the tediousness of our conflict and this troublesome resistance shall endure but for a little while. All our business is that sin may not reign in our mortal body; there will a time come when 'this mortal shall put on immortality,' 1 Cor. 15:53; and long before that 'our spirits must return to God that gave them,’ Eccles. 12:7. Now, the more we think of another life, the stronger we are against sin; the troublesome part of our duty is but while we are in the flesh or in the world; and if we can but escape the corruption that is in the world through lust, we shall be happy for ever.
Thirdly, When is sin said to reign? I answer - In general, that is said to reign which attaineth the chief power in the soul, and particularly sin is said to reign -
1. Negatively, when it is not opposed, or but slightly opposed. We must take in this part of the description, because there are contrary principles in us. There is no question but fleshly lusts will solicit you; but your business is to inquire whether you oppose them. It may be you do; for it cannot be imagined that whilst a spark of conscience remaineth alive in us, a man can apparently be tempted from his duty, but his heart will give back a little; but an ineffectual striving will not acquit us; even the unregenerate have a remnant of natural knowledge and conscience, which in its measure resisteth sin as light resisteth darkness, as is seen in the Gentiles: Rom. 2:14,15, 'For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another.' And where supernatural revelation is added, it may no more; for Christians know what is evil more than heathens do, and so 'may escape through the knowledge of Christ the common pollutions of the world,' 2 Peter 2:20, or be much troubled if they fall into them; and God may give unto many some common internal grace of the Spirit, Heb. 6:4,5, which may occasion many convictions of the evil way they walk in. But the business is, whether there be such a principle of resistance set up in the soul, that 'you walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit'? Rom. 8:1, so that your hearts are habitually bent to God, and your course of life is altered, you dare not wittingly nor willingly give way to any known sin, or live in the neglect of any known duty (as they do that live in any customary practice of sin, or constant neglect of God), or ordinarily break out into enormous offences. It may be, after all your care, caution, watchfulness, resistance, you may be overtaken or overcome by some violent temptation, and may feel in yourselves some infirmities; you find you are guilty of many idle thoughts, passionate words, unwary practices; but what is this to iniquities? So those that say they relent, and strive, and have many wishes to be better, but still continue in a carnal and ungodly life, these do but sin against conscience, and never conquer the sin which they strive to resist; till the opposite principle be the ruling principle for the main bent of your hearts and course of your lives, the opposition and striving is but ineffectual. If there be no sin but what you are truly desirous to know, and no sin but what you are truly desirous to get rid of, so that the chiefest care of your hearts end endeavour of your lives be to serve and please God, and it is your daily desire and endeavour to please God, and master its rebellious opposition to the Spirit, and you so far prevail that for your drift and course you are not led by the flesh, but the Spirit, then you are sincere and upright with God; otherwise you must not think every striving will excuse you, if it be such a striving as may consist with the dominion and customary practice of sin. There are few wretches so bad but they may have some wishes that they could leave sin, especially when they think of the inconveniences that attend it, and conscience may strive a little before they yield, but they live in it still. A Christian striveth, but cannot be perfect; there are infirmities: but the convinced sinner striveth, but cannot live holily; there are iniquities. This striving hindereth not the dominion of sin, because he doth not conquer and master it so far but that it breaketh out in a gross manner; his striving cometh not from the renovation of the Spirit, but the conviction of his conscience, which is ever condemning his practices.
2. Positively, when we obey it and follow it, and do that to which sin enticeth us. For the end of sin's reign and empire is our obedience; the commands and urgings of it are in vain if you obey them not, but rather rebuke and suppress them. Now we may obey bodily lusts two ways - [1.] By the inward consent of the mind; for what sins you would do you have done in God's account, though the outward act follow not: Mat. 5:28, 'He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart,' though you be impeded and hindered in the action. The life and reign of sin is in the heart, in the love of the heart, though it may be it may not appear in outward deeds. Restraint is not sanctification. Practices may be restrained by by-ends; but if you like the sin in your hearts, you let it reign, and do not oppose it by gracious motives. Your hearts are false with God if his empire be not set up there. Therefore obey not the lusts of the body, that is, consent not to them; if they arise and bubble up in your hearts, let them be disowned and disliked. We are to 'abstain from fleshly lusts,' 1 Peter 2:11, before they break out into our conversation. For the governing of the heart, and the regulating of the life are two distinct acts of our obedience to God; they are required indeed, the one in order to the other, but you must be careful of both. Your love to God and his law must be showed by abominating the motions that would draw you to the contrary: Ps. 119:113, 'I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love.' The first motions are sins, for they proceed from corrupt nature; we had none such in innocency; and the consent is a further sin, because then you begin to give way to its reign. The delightful stay of the mind showeth our love to it; these pauses of the mind come from sin, are sin, and tend to further sin: James 1:15, 'Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.'
[2.] The execution of these motions by the body, when sin is brought to her consummate effect: Micah 2:1, 'Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds; when the morning is light they practise it, because it is in the power of their hands.' This is a sign of the reign of sin; too much room being given to sin in the heart, that it obtains a mastery there; it violently and effectually commands our practice, which, if it be a scandalous enormity, it makes sin to reign for the present. Lesser evils steal into the throne by degrees, and leaven us with a proud, worldly, or carnal frame of heart; but gross sins invade the throne in an instant, at least for the present, making fearful havoc and waste of the conscience, and the repeated acts show our state.
Secondly, That Christians are strictly obliged to take heed that sin get not dominion over them.
1. By the light of nature, which is in part sensible of this disorder which hath invaded all mankind, namely, an inclination to seek the happiness and good of the body above that of the soul The very make and constitution of man showeth his duty. Man is composed of a body and a soul, both which parts are to be regarded according to the dignity of each. The body was subordinated to the soul, and both soul and body unto God; his flesh was a servant unto his spirit, and both flesh and spirit unto the Lord; but sin entering, defaced the beauty, and disturbed the harmony and order of God's creation and workmanship. Man withdrew from subordination to God his maker, seeking his happiness without God, and apart from him, in earthly and worldly things; and also the body and flesh is preferred before the soul, and reason and conscience enslaved to sense and appetite; understanding and will are made bond-slaves to the lusts of the flesh, which govern and influence all his actions; his wisdom, mind, and spirit as it were sunk into the flesh, and transformed into a brutish quality and nature. This many of the wiser heathens saw, and sought to rectify. Maximus Tyrius calls our passions and appetites ton dèmon, the tumultuous populacy or common people of the soul, which must not be left to their own boisterous violence, but be kept under the law and empire of the mind. Philo the Jew calleth them to thèlu, the woman part in man, in opposition to reason, which he maketh to be the masculine part; Simplicius, ton paida, the child in us, which needeth more staid heads to govern it; and some, peripezion psuchès meros, the foot part of the soul; as it is a monstrous disorder if the feet be there where the head should be, so it is for us to serve divers lusts and pleasures, when we should be governed by reason. The stoics generally, to thèrion, the bestial part in us, which they counted the man, as if the beast should ride the man, as Socrates expressly calls reason heniochon, the rider or chariot-driver, as the body and bodily inclinations the horses. Now if the light of nature taught the heathens, who knew little of the cause and malignity of this vitiosity and disorder, to observe this, and labour under it, surely Christians are more strictly bound to curb the flesh, and moderate the lusts and passions of it. We know more clearly what an evil it is to love the creature above God, the body more than the soul, the world above heaven, riches, honours, and pleasures more than grace and holiness; as the light of Christianity befriendeth the light of nature in this point, we may see clearly how great a disorder it is to obey or fulfil these bodily lusts to the wrong of God and the soul, and that the true honour and dignity of a man consists in the victory which he hath over himself; and that to pamper the flesh is not our honour, but our disgrace; and that these irregular desires should not be gratified, but mortified.
2. Christian piety, or the tenor of our religion, requireth it of us. The drift of this religion is to recover men out of their apostasy, and to promote true genuine holiness in the world; to dispossess us of the beast, and that man, being restored to man, might be also brought back again to God; or, in short, to draw us off from the animal life to life spiritual and eternal. As appeareth -
[1.] By the precepts of it, which mainly tend to enfore self-denial, mortification, recess from the world, that we may not miscarry in our obedience to God by our bodily lusts: Mat. 16:24, 'If any will come after me, let him deny himself;' Col. 3:5, 'Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.' The whole drift and business of this religion is to drive out the spirit of the world, and to introduce a divine and heavenly Spirit: 1 Cor. 2:12, 'Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God.' That part of the world which is mad and brutish is enslaved to lower things; but the other part, which hath submitted to the healing institution of Christ, should be wise and heavenly. The cure which Christ intended was of the great disease of mankind, which was that the immortal soul, being depressed and tainted by the objects of sense, doth wholly crook and writhe itself to carnal things, and instead of likeness to God, the image of a beast was impressed upon man's nature, and the divine part enslaved and embondaged to the brutish.
[2.] By its promises: 2 Peter 1:4, 'Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,' 2 Cor. 4:18. That man may seek his happiness in some higher and more transcending good than the beasts are capable of, something that suits with his immortal spirit. In short, to draw us off from things we see and inordinately love to a glory and blessedness wholly unseen and future.
[3.] By the grace provided for us, namely, the Spirit of Christ, whose great design is to free man from a state of subjection to the flesh, and by overcoming the lusts thereof to make him ready for all the graces and duties of the spiritual life: Rom. 8:5, 'They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit; the things of the Spirit.' He is first renewed by this Spirit: John 3:6, 'That which is born of the Spirit is spirit;' and then acted and assisted by him: Rom. 8:13, ‘If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live;' Gal. 5:25, 'If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.’
[4.] By being baptized into this religion we are bound to this strict care; for in our baptism we did solemnly renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, as the usurpers must be thrust out before the rightful lord can take possession: Josh. 24:23, 'Put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel;' and we are dedicated to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier; as before, 'We are to count ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God,’ ver. 11. Now, it is the greatest hypocrisy that can be to be under this solemn obligation to God, and let sin reign in us. Baptism is a sign and seal of grace on God's part, and on ours a bond of duty; on God's part, that he will cleanse and wash away sin: Acts 22:16, ‘Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.' On our part, it obligeth us to do what in us lieth to destroy sin, a bond never to be forgotten by us: 2 Peter 1:9, 'He hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.'
Use 1. To humble us, that we have so much forgotten our solemn covenant, so much cared for the body, and so little cared for the soul; that time and heart hath been so much taken up about those things which belong to the present life. The mortal body is minded at every turn, and how much may the immortal but neglected soul complain of hard usage! We profess subjection to the gospel, and therefore should 'seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added to us,' Mat. 6:33; but we walk too much according to the course of the carnal careless world: Eph. 2:2, 3, 'Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that ruleth in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.'
2. Strengthen the bonds, and anew devote yourselves to obedience: ver. 13, 'Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.' Bind yourselves for time to come, to make it your work not to indulge the flesh, but save your souls: Heb. 10: 39, 'For we are not of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul,’
3. Take great heed that sin reign not by bodily lusts.
[1.] The necessity of this. These lusts are represented as deceitful: Eph. 4:22, 'That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.' And as violent and imperious: Rom. 7:20, 'Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me;' both together: James 1:14, 'Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed,’ We are by subtlety blinded by the delusions of the flesh, and it is always endeavouring to get the throne, and hurry us to destruction, and seeking to divert us from the love of God; the more we indulge them the more imperious they are, the more caution and resolution therefore is necessary.
[2.1 The danger of not doing it.
(1.) They do not only unfit us for God, but for human society: James 4:1, 'From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?' They make you disquiet all others near you, as dogs snarling at one another for a bone or piece of carrion.
(2.) They destroy the welfare of our bodies; the part gratified is depressed by them: Prov. 14:30, 'A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy is the rottenness of the bones;' Prov. 5:11, 'Thou shall mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.’
(3.) These lusts war against the soul. The perfection of the soul consists in the image of God, which is defaced by these lusts; yea, against the graces and motions of the Spirit: Gal. 5:17, 'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit;' against the comfort of the soul, which dependeth on the holy sanctifying Spirit; he is grieved when his work is hindered in us.
(4.) These lusts oppose our everlasting felicity and happiness, when to gratify the flesh we run the hazard of losing soul and body for ever.
(1st.) By efficiency: they steal away our hearts from God, take up our time, turn our thoughts from the one thing necessary. The great end of faith is the saving of the soul; they make it the great end of their living to pamper the body. They put heaven away from them, sell it for a trifle; in effect, bid God keep his heaven to himself: Heb. 11:16, 'Profane Esau for one morsel of bread sold his birthright'
(2d.) By desert: Gal. 6:8, 'He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;' Rom. 6:13, 'Neither yield ye your bodies as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.' God is provoked, and so our damnation is sure. They spend their strength, time, estates on the service of fleshly lusts; surely these can look for nothing but everlasting perdition.
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