ffect to be honourable above the base! How
do they seek to be rich, and hate poverty! These differences of poor and
rich, high and low, noble and ignoble, learned and unlearned, the thoughts
of men are wholly taken up with, but there is one great difference, that
is most in God's eye, and is both substantial and eternal, and so
infinitely surpasseth all these differences that the minds of men most run
out upon; and it is here, the great difference between flesh and spirit,
and them that are after the flesh, and them that are after the Spirit.
This is of all other most considerable, because widest and durablest. I
say, it is the widest of all, for all others put no great difference
between men as men, they do reach the peculiar excellency of a man, that
is, the true, and proper, good of his spiritual and immortal part, they
are such as befall alike to good and bad, and so cannot have either much
good or much evil in them. I have seen folly set in great dignity, and
princes walking on foot, Eccles. x. 6, 7. Then certainly such titles of
honour and dignity, such places of eminency erected above the multitude,
have little or nothing worth the spirit of a man in them, seeing a fool, a
wicked man, is as capable of them, as a wise man, or a man of a princely
spirit, and so of all others, they do not elevate a man, as a man, above
others. A poor, unlearned, mean man may have more real excellency in him,
than a rich, learned, and great person. But this draws a substantial and
vast difference indeed, such as is between flesh and spirit, such as is
between men and beasts. You know what pre-eminency a man hath over a
beast. There is no such wide distance among the sons of men as between the
lowest and meanest man and the chiefest beast. "There is a spirit in man,"
saith Elihu, Job xxxii. 8,--an immortal, eternal substance, of a far higher
nature and comprehension. You know what excellency is in the spirit beyond
the flesh, such as is in heaven beyond the earth, for the one is breathed
from heaven, and the other is taken out of the dust of the earth; the one
is corruptible, yea, corruption itself, the other incorruptible. How swift
and nimble are the motions of the spirit, from the one end of heaven to
the other! How can it compass the earth in a moment! Do but look and see
what a huge difference is between a beautiful living body, and the same
when it is a dead carcase, rotten and corrupted. It is the spirit dwelling
within that makes