rations. You know the flesh is oftentimes the greatest
impediment that the spirit hath, because of its lumpishness and earthly
quality. How willing would the spirit be, how nimble and active in the
ways of obedience, if it were not retarded, dulled, and clogged with the
heavy lump of our flesh! "The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is
weak," saith Christ, Matt. xxvi. 41. Truly I think the great remissness,
negligence, weakness, fainting of Christians, in their race of
Christianity, arise ordinarily from this weight that is carried about with
them, that it must be some extraordinary impulse of a higher Spirit to
drive us on without wearying. And because of this indisposition of the
flesh, we are not able to bear much of God's presence in this life, (it
would certainly confound mortality, if so much were let out of it as is in
heaven) no more than a weak eye can endure to behold the sun in its
brightness. And then the flesh, as it is the greatest retardment in good,
it is the greatest incitement to evil, it is a bosom enemy, that betrays
us to Satan, it is near us and connatural to us. And this is the great
advantage Satan hath of a Christian, he hath a friend within every
Christian, that betrays him often. You know the most part of temptations
from without could have no such force or strength against us if there were
not some predisposition in the flesh, some seeds of that evil within, if
they were not presented to some suitableness to our senses, and they being
once engaged on Satan's side, they easily draw the whole man with them,
under a false colour and pretence of friendship, therefore they are said
to "war against the soul," 1 Pet. ii. 11, and they are said "easily" to
"beset us," Heb. xii. 1. Truly it is no wonder that the enemy storm our
city, when the outworks yea, the very ports of the city, are possessed by
traitors. No wonder Satan approach near the walls with his temptations,
when our senses, our fleshly part, are so apt to receive him, and ready to
entertain all objects without difference, that are suitable to affect
them.

You see then how much power the flesh hath in man so that it is no wonder
that every natural man hath this denomination, one "after the flesh," one
carnal from the predominating part, though the worst part. Every man by
nature till a higher birth come may be called all flesh, all fashioned and
composed of the flesh, and after the flesh, even his spirit and mind being
fleshly and ea