with tliese thing;?. There is a jjlace of rest remains for the peoplu of God. You do not beat tlie air, hut wrestle for a heaven tliat is yonder above these clouds; you have your worst first ; the best will follow. You wrestle but to win a crown, and win to wear it, yea, wear, never to lose it; which, once on, none shall take off, or put you to the hazard of a battle more. Here, we overcome to fitht again ; the battle of one temptation may be over, but the war remains. What peace can we have, as long as devils can come abroad out of their holes, or any thing of sinful nature remains in ourselves unniortified, which will even fight upon its knets, and strike with one arm while the other is cut ofl"? But when death conies, the last stroke is struck ; this good physician will perfectly cure thee of thy spiritual blindness and lameness, as tlie martyr told his fellow at the stake, bloody Bonner would do their bodies. What is it. Christian, which takes away the joy of thy life, but the wrestlings and combats which this bosom enemy puts thee to? Is not this the Peninnah, that, vexing and disturbing thy .spirit, hath kept thee oft' many a sweet meal thou mightest have had in com- munion with God and his saints ? Or, if thou hast come, hath made thee cover the aitar of God with thy tears and groans ? And will it not be a happy hand that cuts the knot, and sets thee loose from thy deadness, hypocrisy, pride, and what not, wherewith thou wert yoked? It is life which is thy loss, and death which is thy gain. Be but willing to endure the rending of the veil of thy flesh, and thou art where thou wouklst be, out of the reach of sin, at rest in the bosom of thy God. And why should a short evil of pain aftright thee more, than the deliverance from a continual torment of sin's evil ravish thee ? Some . you know have chosen to be cut, rather than to be ground daily with the stone, and yet, may be, their pain comes again ; and canst thou not quietly think of dying, to be delivered from the torment of thy sins, never to return more? And yet that is not half that death doth for thee. Peace is sweet after war, ease after pain; but wha tongue can express what joy, what glory must fill the creature at the first sight of God, and that blessed company ? None but one that dwells there can tell. Did we know more of that blissful state, we ministers would find it as hard a work to persuade Christians to be willing to live here so long, as now it is to persuade them to be v/illing to die so soon.
CHAPTER 11.
WHEREIN IS SHEWED WHAT IS MEANT BY FLESH AND ELOOD ; IIOW THE CHRIS- TIAN DOTH NOT, AND HOW HE DOTH WRESTLE AGAINST THE SAME.
Section I. — Now follows the description of the saint's enemies, with whom he is to wrestle.
First, Desciibed negatively, ' Not with flesh and blood.'
Secondly, Positively, 'But against principalities and powers,' &c.
First, For the negative part of the description ; we are not to take it for a pure negation, as if we had no conflict with flesh and blood, but wholly and solely to engage against Satan ; but by way of comparison, not only with flesli and blood, and in some sense not chiefly. It is usual in Scripture, such manner of phrases; Luke xiv. 12, ' Call not thy friends to dinner, but the poor ;' that is, not only those, so as to neglect the poor. Now, what is meant here by flesLh and blood? There is a double interpretation of the words.
First, By -flesh and blood may be meant our bosom corruptions; that sin which is in our corrupt natvue so oft called ilesli in the Scripture ; ' The flesh lustelh against the spirit;' and sometimes flesh and blood; as Matt. xvi. 17, ' Fle^h and blood hath not revealed this;' that is, this confession thou ha.st made comes from above ; thy fleshly corrupt mind could never have found out this supernatural truth ; thy sinful will would never have embraced it. So 1 Cor. XV. 20: 'Flesh and blood cannot inheiit the kingdom of God;' that is, sinful mortal flesh, as it is expounded in the words following. So, Gal. i. 11 : 'Consultednot with flesh and blood;' that is, carnal reason. Now this bosom enemy may be called flesh,* partly from its derivation, and partly from its operation ; from its derivation, because it is derived and propa- gated to us by natural generation ; thus Adam is said to beget ' a son in his own likeness,' sinful as he was, as well as nmrtal and miserable ; jea, the
NOT WJTII FLESH AM) Bf.OOU. }^,5
holiest saint on e:inii having flesli in him, derives this corrupt and sinful nature toliischikl; as the circumcised Jew begat an imcircumcised child ; and the wheat cleansed and fanned, being sown, conies up with a husk : John iii. 6, * That which is born of the flesh is flesh.'