and strength; and while he liveth upon Christ for these by faith, he shall not be overcome by any

enemy.

The glory of the incarnate God, and his infinite sufficiency to save, have not a greater enemy than a legal spirit, and therefore I have enlarged upon this point, that believers might be convinced from the word of God, they were saved from the condemnation of the law. They will never live comfortably, till they see the law dead and buried, and then will, ingly give up themselves to be espoused to Christ, who will make them free indeed. And when they have learned of him to enjoy and walk in their Christian liberty, then they will be better acquainted with the warfare between nature, and grace, the old man and the new, the flesh and the spirit.

1

IV. This warfare is the fourth great hinderance, that stops the growth of faith in weak believers. They are unskilful in it, soon tired of it, and often likely to be defeated. They do not enter into the battle strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might; nor are they certain, if they fall in battle, they shall be saved with an eternal salvation. These are great discouragements, and until these be removed, they cannot fight the good fight of faith, like good soldiers of Christ Jesus.

The case is thus:-There is in every believer an old man and a new man, nature and grace, flesh, and spirit, and these are opposite and contrary the one to the other, in their principles and actions; they are always desiring different things, and pursuing different ends, which occasions a continual war between them

The flesh lusteth always against the spirit,

ཞ

and has many and mighty allies on its side, armies of lusts, the faculties of soul and body to bring forth sin, hosts of fallen angels, and all the world that lieth in wickedness. But the new man, renewed in the spirit of his mind, has a reconciled God on his side, and therefore he need not fear what any enemy can do unto him, but may bravely face the stoutest of them, even death itself, relying upon that sure word of promise, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Here is the believer's encouragement to fight, his God will never leave him; here he obtains victory every day, his God never forsakes him ; and after he has fought the good fight of faith, his God and Saviour will make him more than conqueror; he will send death to kill sin; and then the believer will never more have temptation from it, no sorrow about it: but till that happy time come, he must be fighting against his corrupt nature and all his allies; no peace can be made with them, not even a truce; he must expect no kind of favour from them, because they are God's irreconcilable enemies; and therefore, as long as he is in the world, he must be fighting against the world; as long as he has a body of flesh, he must oppose it with its affections and lusts, because they war against the soul; and as long as he is in the reach of temptation, he must oppose the tempter, steadfast in the faith, never putting off his armour, until the Lord give him a discharge.

The believer's peace within, and victory without, are closely connected with the clear understanding of this case; and although I have stated it from the word of God, and agreeably to the sense in which

the church of God has always interpreted it, yet, for its more full confirmation, some testimonies must be brought, which speak to the very point: first, to the believer's having in him an old man and a new;. secondly, that these two are at war; and thirdly, that they fight together till death.

1. The apostle says to the saints at Ephesus, chap. iv. 22, &c. "Put off the old man, put on the new." Mind, the same persons had both in them an old man, corrupt, according to his deceitful lusts, daily to be put off, and a new man to be put on, and renewed day by day in the spirit of his mind. The old man is described to have a body of sin with all his members, his affections, and lusts; these must not be obeyed, but mortified, "Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin," Rom. vi. 12, 13. The saints at Rome had sin in them, and it wanted to reign as it had done heretofore in the lusts thereof; but,

There was in

2. They were not to obey them. them a new man, who was to fight against those fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

v. 17.

"The

flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would," Gal. Here is battle between two: the flesh, the whole nature of the old man; and the spirit, the new man born again of the Spirit: the cause of it is, the one wills what the other hates, each wants to carry his own will into execution, and these being contrary the one to the other, they fight for mastery:

ร

in the battle, the flesh, the old man, is defeated, and
the Spirit working in the new man conquers; and
this lusting and fighting is in one and the same per-
son, in him who is said to be not under the law, to
be led by the Spirit, and to live and to walk in the
Spirit. In Rom. viii. 7. the apostle calls the flesh
the carnal mind, and he says, " It is enmity against
"It
God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can be;" since it is enmity itself, there is no
reconciling it, it will not, nay it cannot obey God,
but is ever lusting and rebelling against his law.
The nature of the battle is described at length in
Rom. vii. The chapter consists of three parts: first,
the believer's liberty from the law, to ver. 6; secondly,
he answers some objections made against the law
from its nature and properties, and that in his own
person, because it had been the means of bringing
him to the right knowledge of sin, ver. 7; and sin
being discovered by the law through the corruption
of nature, raged and rebelled the more in him, ver.
8; and the law had made him sensible of God's an-
ger against sin, and of his deserving death and hell
for it, ver. 9 to 14; and from thence to the end of
the chapter, he describes the conflict between the
old man and the new, the one consenting to the law,
and the other resisting the law. In this conflict
there were three sharp attacks: in the first, he found
in himself two contrary principles of action always
resisting each other, the old man fighting against the
new, from ver. 14 to 18; secondly, when the will of
the new man was good, through the opposition of
the old man, it had not the desired effect, ver. 19,
20; and thirdly, he felt in himself two contrary laws,

both requiring obedience, the law of the members warring and rebelling against the law of God written in the renewed mind; for no sooner did his mind, guided by the Holy Spirit, set about any thing which God's law commanded, but he found the law of the members making a strong resistance. This he groaned under as a heavy burden, and was humbled for it before God, expecting pardon from him, and victory every day, and perfect deliverance at last.

I cannot enlarge upon this chapter. Turn to it, and read it over upon the plan which I have here laid down, remembering all along, that St. Paul is describing himself. He ten times says, it is himself he is speaking of, from ver. 7 to 14, where he is showing of what use the law had been to him, when he was first convinced of sin; and from thence to the end, he mentions himself thirty-eight times. I, the apostle Paul, I myself, my very self, and not another; I myself am, now, at this present, at the very time of writing this; I myself, whom the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made free from the law of sin and death; I myself, to whom now there is no condemnation, for I am in Christ Jesus, and I walk after the Spirit, am still at war with sin that dwelleth in me, with the old man, with the flesh, with the law of the members, with the body of sin. Although I have a new nature, and God is on my side, yet it is a hard and a sharp battle. I find it so. The length of it makes it still more painful, and forces me to cry out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Paul was not out of God's favour, or accursed; but as the word rendered wretched,