nailed to the cross of Christ; but the hand of Jesus Christ as the Lord their sanctifier is ever on the persons of those who believe in Himbeautifying them with His salvation, and spreading over their characters all the graces of holi

ness.

388

LECTURE XLVII.

ROMANS, viii, 5.

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit."

I SHOULD like if I could give you a clear understanding of the difference that there is, between your simply dwelling in the flesh as your tenement -and your being immersed, with the practical consent of your will and mind, in those pursuits and pleasures which are natural to the flesh. And the first thing which might occur, for the illustration of this difference, is, to offer, as expressive of it, that distinction of meaning which one feels between the two phrases, 'to be in the flesh' and 'to be after the flesh.' The one may be thought simply to imply, that the flesh is the place of the soul's present residence; and the other, that all the soul's inclinations and energies, are in full prosecution of those objects which minister to the appetites of the flesh. But then But then you have the very phrase of being in the flesh applied in Scripture not to the state of one who barely occupies the flesh as his present tabernacle, but of one who delights in the flesh as his congenial and much loved element. And it must be in this latter sense of the phrase that it occurs at the distance of a very few verses from the one now submitted to you—

when it is said, that they who are in the flesh cannot please God; and when it is further said, that ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

At the same time it must be remarked, that, in other passages of the Bible, the phrase of being in the flesh denotes the soul's simple occupation of a fleshly tabernacle, and not the soul's immersion in fleshly habits or fleshly desires. The apostle who said that Christ liveth in me, also says I live in the flesh; and that to abide in the flesh is more need. ful for you. In this sense too, even Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh; and it was a most essential point of orthodoxy that He had come in the flesh. In both of these instances, flesh was the temporary abode; but in neither of them, was it the chosen or the much-loved home. It is true of both, that, though in the flesh, they walked not after the flesh; and though we have not been so fortunate, as to find the former phrase to be in the Bible universally characteristic of nothing more than simple occupancy-yet we believe of the latter phrase, that it is uniformly descriptive of that state, in which a man abandons himself to the propensities of nature, and lives in the full prosecution of its delights or its interests.

And the distinction between these two things, is very well marked by the apostle within the compass of one verse. "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not walk according to the flesh-we do not war after the flesh."

And it is well, that, in this fifth verse, we have a descriptive clause, by which we are presented with something like a definition of being after the flesh. They who are after the flesh, mind the things of it. It is not that the flesh assails them with its suggestions, for this it does, and often as forcibly with those who resist the suggestions as with those who yield to them. But it is that their mind follows after the flesh-that they make a study and a business of its enjoyments-that they prosecute them in thought, in purpose, and in will. Some there are, who dwell in the flesh, and so are surrounded with the importunity of its delights and temptations; but who nevertheless abide in the firm attitude of withstanding them all. Their mind is not after the flesh, but in opposition to it. But for these some, there are the many, who are dragged willingly along in that very direction in which the flesh draws them-who, not only resign themselves implicitly to the force of its instigations; but who, even in their hours of calm and dispassionate exemption from them, are in some way labouring or devising for the pleasures and accommodations of the perishable body-whose mind, both in its likings and in the exercise of its faculties, is wholly given over to the pursuit of these things. What the things are, we may learn from the apostle John-when he bids us love not the world neither the things that are in the world ; and when he comprehends these things in the one summary description of all that is in the world, which he maketh to consist of the lust of the flesh

and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. Thus are we to understand of all those who are after the flesh, that either, as slaves, they are tyrannized over by the master-idols of sensuality or avarice or ambition; Or that, with a sort of free and more sovereign agency, they at least give themselves up to the object of providing for these gratifications -that, if not dragged after them by the force of appetite, they at least drive after them, and that, of spontaneous and withal of steady and settled choice. And thus, in the habitual preference of their mind as well as in the propensities of their animal system, are they altogether entitled to the denomination of worldly.

And there is one thing that you would do well to advert unto. It is not necessary that you mind all the things of the flesh, in order to constitute you a carnal man. It is enough to fasten this character upon you, that you have given yourself over to the indulgence or the pursuit, even of so few as one of these things. A miser may not be a debauchee, and neither the one nor the other may be an aspiring politician. But whatever the reigning passion may be, if it have the effect of attaching you to some one object that is in the world, and which with the world will terminate and perish-then still your mind is in subjection to an idol, and the death of the carnally minded is your inheritance and your doom. Be not deceived then, ye men, who engrossed with the cares and observant of all the sobrieties of business, are not