rit of the Lord, 2 Cor. iii.
13. Certainly that must be fleshly walking, which is rather conformed unto
the imaginations of a man's own heart, than the blessed will of God
revealed in his word. Can such walking please God, when a man will not so
much as hearken to what is God's will and pleasure? As other heresies, so
especially this, is a work of the flesh.

Now there is another principle amongst many of us. We account it spiritual
walking, to be separated from the gross pollutions of the world, to have a
carriage blameless before men. This is the notion that the multitude fancy
of it. Be not deceived,--you may pass the censure of all men, and be
unreprovable among them, and yet be but walkers after the flesh. It is not
what you are before the world can prove you spiritual men, though it may
prove many of you carnal. Your outside may demonstrate of many of you that
ye walk after the flesh; and if ye will not believe it, I ask you if ye
think drunkenness a walking in the Spirit? Do ye think ye are following
the Spirit of God in uncleanness? Is it not that Holy Spirit that purgeth
from all filthiness? Look but what your walk is, ye that are not so much
as conformed to the letter of the word in any thing; who care not to read
the scriptures and meditate on them. Is this walking after the Spirit of
truth? If drunkenness, railing, contention, wrath, envy, covetousness, and
such like, be the Spirit's way, then I confess many of you walk after the
Spirit; but if these be the manifest works of the flesh, and manifestly
your way and work, then why dream ye that ye are Christians?

But I suppose, that ye could be charged with none of these outward things;
that you had a form of religion and godliness, yet I say, all that is
visible before men cannot prove you to be spiritual walkers. Remember it
is a Spirit ye must walk after; now, what shall be the chief agent here?
Sure, not the body,--what fellowship can your body have with him that is a
Spirit? The body, indeed, may worship that eternal Spirit, being acted by
the spirit; but I say, that alone can never prove you to be Christians. We
must then lay aside a number of professors, who have no other ground of
confidence but such things as may be seen of men; and if they would enter
their hearts, how many vain thoughts lodge there! How little of God is
there! God is not almost in all our thoughts; we give a morning and
evening salutation, but there is no more of God all the day thro