can, they cannot please him, whom alone to please is of only concernment,
what can be invented(191) to that? Now, if you ask who they are that are
such? These words speak it plainly, in way of inference from the former
doctrine, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Not they
in whom there is flesh; for there are remnants of that in the most
spiritual man in this life: we cannot attain here to angelic purity,
though it should be the aim and endeavour of every Christian. But they
that are in the flesh, or after the flesh, imports the predomination of
that, and an universal thraldom of nature unto it, which indeed is the
state of all men that are but once born, till a second birth come, by the
Spirit of Jesus Christ.

The ground of this may be taken from the foregoing discourse, and it is
chiefly twofold. One is, because they are not in Jesus Christ, in whom his
soul is well pleased; another is, because they cannot suit and frame their
carriage according to his pleasure. Since all mankind hath fallen under
the displeasure of the most high God, by sinning against him, in
preferring the pleasure of the flesh, and the pleasure of Satan, to the
pleasure of God, there can be no atonement found to pacify him, no
sacrifice to appease him, no ransom to satisfy his justice, but that one
perfect offering for sin, Jesus Christ, the propitiation for the sins of
the elect world. This the Father accepts in the name of sinners; and in
testimony of his acceptance, he did two several times, by a voice from
heaven, declare, first to a multitude, (Matth. iii. 17.) and then to the
beloved disciples, (Matth. xvii. 5.) and both times with great majesty and
solemnity (as did become him), that this is his well-beloved Son, in whom
his soul is well-pleased. It pleased God to make the stream of his love to
take another channel after man's sin, and not to run immediately towards
wretched man, but he turned the current of his love another way, to his
own Son, whom he chose for that end, to reconcile man, and bring him into
favor, and his love going about, by that compass, comes in the issue
towards poor sinners with the greater force. He hath appointed Christ the
meeting place with sinners, the Daysman to lay his hand on both, and
therefore he is God to lay his hand on God, and man to lay his hand on
man, and bring both into a peaceable and amiable conjunction. Now then,
whoever are not in Jesus Christ, as is spoken, certainly they