our flesh, that
he might work in us, and make us again conformed to God.

We shall not cut this asunder into many parts. You see the words contain
plainly the very essential definition of a spiritual man, and of a
Christian. You find a spiritual man and a Christian equivalent in this
verse, that is to say, they are taken for one and the self same thing, and
so they are reciprocal, of equal extent and restraint. Every Christian is
one after the Spirit, and whosoever is after the Spirit is a Christian.
One of Christ's, and one after the Spirit, is one thing. Now the
definition of the Christian is taken from that which really and
essentially constitutes him such. He is one in whom the Spirit of Christ
dwells, that makes him one after the Spirit, that makes him one of
Christ's, because it is the Spirit of Christ. As if you define what a man
is, you could not do it better than thus: he is one endowed with a
reasonable soul. So the apostle gives you the very soul and form of a
Christian, which differenceth from all others. As the soul is to the body
to make up a man, so the Spirit of Christ is to the soul and Spirit of a
man to make up a Christian, as the absence or presence of the soul makes
or unmakes a man, so the absence or presence of this Spirit makes or
unmakes a Christian, for you see he makes it reciprocal. If you be
Christians, the Spirit dwells in you, but if the Spirit dwell not in you,
you are not Christians.

A word then to the first of these, that a Christian and a spiritual man
are commensurable one to another. It is true, there are Jews who are not
Jews inwardly, but only according to the letter, Rom. ii. 28, 29. And so
there are Christians so called, who are but so outwardly, and in the
letter, who have no more of it but the name and visible standing in the
church, but we are speaking of that which is truly that which it is
called, whose praise is not of men but of God. The name of a man may be
extended to a picture or image, for some outward resemblance it hath of
him, but it is not a proper speech, no more is it proper to extend the
name of Christians unto the pictures or images of Christians, such as are
destitute of this inward life. You may be properly, according to scripture
phrase, members of the visible body, but you cannot have that real and
blessed relation to Jesus Christ the head, which shall be the source of
happiness to all the living members. I wish you would take it so, and
flatter yourselve