(1.) Partly, because all minding the flesh is not sinful, but an over- minding the flesh. The body hath its necessities, and they must be cared for. Yea, take the flesh for sensitive appetite, to please it with lawful satisfactions is no sin ; for it is a faculty put into us by God, and in due subordination to religion may be pleased. To please it by things forbidden is certainly a sin ; and to prefer it before the pleasing of God is a great sin indeed, for it is a character of them who are in a state of damnation, that ' they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, ' 2 Tim. iii. 4. Therefore though we must observe our thoughts, words, and actions, yet it must be thus interpreted not to condemn every act, but that we may know in what proportion the vigour of mind is mani- fested and carried out to either of these objects, by thoughts, words, or actions. If our thoughts of the world shut out all thoughts of God, Ps. xii. 4, 'God is not in all their thoughts.' If our thinking of spiritual things be too rare, unfrequent, and unpleasing to us, we are after the flesh. So for words, if we are heartless in our talk of heavenly things, and we are in our element when speaking of carnal things, and when a serious word is interposed for God, we frown upon the motion. So for actions, compare men's care for the world with their care for their souls ; if they more earnestly and industriously seek to please the flesh than to save their souls, it is a sign the flesh and its interests are predominant in them ; all things are done superficially, and by the by in religion, not as becomes those that work from and for life, with any diligence and fervency. There is no proportion between endeavours for the world, and their preparations for eternal life ; all is earnest on one side, but either nothing is done, or in a very slight manner on the other side ; their thoughts, and love, and life, and strength are wholly occupied and taken up about the things of the flesh.
(2.) Partly, because we must distinguish between the sin of flesh pleasing, and the state of flesh pleasing; for a man is to judge of his spiritual condition, not by single acts, but his state, or the habitual frame of his heart. Who is there among God's own children who doth not mind the flesh, and too much indulge the flesh ? But they who make it their business to please the flesh, are over careful about it : Eom. xiii. 14, ' Who make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof ; ' and so indulge the minding of the flesh, as not to mind the things of the spirit, so that vain pleasures do exceed their delight in
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God, and kill it yet more and more, and brino; a slavery upon them- selves, which they cannot help : Tit. iii. 3, * Serving divers lusts and pleasures,' and being captivated by the fleshly part, they have contracted a strangeness and enmity to God and his ways : Kom. viii. 7. They that have no relish for the joys of faith, and the pleasures of holiness, and do habitually prefer the natural good of the body, before the moral, spiritual, and eternal good both of body and soul, these are in a state of carnality.
2. The observations upon the point.
[1.] This minding of the flesh must be interpreted not with respect to our former estate ; for alas ! all of us in times past pleased the flesh, and ' walked according to the course of this world,' and ' had in time past our conversation in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh, and of the mind,' Eph. ii. 3. It was God that loosed our shackles : Tit. iii. 3, ' We ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, etc., but after the kindness and love of God appeared towards mankind,' etc. If we yet please the flesh we are not the servants of Christ ; but if we break off this servitude, jrod will not judge us according to what we have been but what we are.
[2.] To know what we are we must consider what principle liveth in us, and groweth and increaseth ; and on the other side, what decreaseth, the interest of the flesh or the interest of the spirit ; for these two are contrary, and the one destroyeth the other. The love of the world, and the flesh, estrangeth us from God : 1 John ii. 15, ' Love not the world, nor the things of the world ; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.' On the other side, minding the things of the spirit deadeneth our affections to the world and the baits of the flesh. The conversation in heaven is opposed to the minding of earthly things : Phil. iii. 19, 20, ' Whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things ; but our conversation is in heaven.' So much of afiection as we give to the one, we take from the other : Col. iii. 2, ' Set your affections on things above, and not on things of the earth.' Now we are to consider if we grow more brutish, forgetful of God, unapt for spiritual things, the flesh gaineth ; but if the spiritual inclination doth more and more discover itself with life and power in our thoughts, words, and actions, the flesh is in the wane, and we shall be reckoned among those that walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit ; we have every day a higher estimation of God, and Christ, and grace, and heaven, and thereby we grow more dead to other things.