In speaking of the two principles mentioned in our text, we shall notice,
I. Their united existence —
There yet remains in God's people an evil prin- ciple, which is here designated by the name of "flesh"—
[Man, since the fall of our first parents, is born into the world a corrupt creature : for " who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" He is depraved in all the members of his body, and in all the faculties of his soul : there is no part which is not defiled and debased by sin : the understanding is become dark ; the will perverse ; the affections sensual ; the conscience seared ; the memory retentive only of things that are gratifying to the carnal mind. However this depravity may be checked by grace, it is not extirpated : it remains like the infection in the leprous house, and will remain till the house itself is levelled with the ground.]
But there is also in them a new heaven-born prin- ciple, which is called " spirit" — ;
[This is spoken of by our blessed Lord as contradistin- guished from the other, and in precisely the same terms : ' That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit0." Under the term "flesh," he includes all that we bring into the world with us, and all that characterizes us as men : but the " spirit" is that which makes and designates us new men, or " new creatures in Christ Jesus." Indeed, it is called " the new man," as the other is " the old man ;" and is " a renewal in the spirit of our mind," after the " very image of our God, in righteousness and true holiness"1." This new principle is infused into the soul at the time of our regeneration ; and it is, if I may so speak, the seminal principle of our conversion. At the instant of its infusion into the soul, we are " quickened from the dead," and " pass from death unto life." Previously to the communication of it to us from above, we are like the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision : we may have the form of men, but we are not living men : it is not till we have received that, that " Christ liveth in us ;" but then " Christ himself becomes our lifee." Now this principle co- exists with the former : it does not at once expel the former ; nor is itself barred out by the former: but it enters into, and occupies, the whole man, even as the former did ; and, accord- ing to the measure in which it is imparted, it communicates
c John iii. 6. d Eph. iv. 22—24.
e Gal. ii. 20. and iv. 19. and Col. iii. 4.