Surely if our souls were sanctified by divine grace, but so much as many are in this world, and had no flesh about them, they would not sin so much as they do. When we are engaged in the exercise of grace, or performance of spiritual duties, such as meditation, prayer, delighting in God, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, we should not be so soon weary of it, nor so immediately called away from it by the mere vanity or wandering of our minds, if we had no fleshly objects about us, no outward senses, no inward treasures of fancy, no appetites of the body to start up and mingle with our religion, to clog us in our sacred work, to make us grow weary under it, and draw us from it. How often must a saint say, “My soul is sincerely set against every sin, and I fear to offend him whom my soul loveth; _with my mind I serve the law of God_, and I watch against every rising iniquity: But my outward senses, or the inward ferments of fleshly appetite or passion, surprize me before I am aware and defile my soul. Sometimes my spirit wrestles hard _with flesh and blood_; I summon all the powers of reason and scripture, conscience and christianity; I make a firm stand for a season, and maintain a brave and painful resistance; but the restless and perpetual assaults of fancy or passion, at last over-power the feeble spirit, and I sinfully submit and yield to the fretful or the luxurious humours of the body; and thus the brutal powers overcome the mind, and _I am led away captive to sin_. If I had not an eye, I had not been drawn away to the commission of this folly; if I had not an ear, I had not been tempted from God at such a season; if I had not such appetites or senses in exercise, I had been secured from many a snare; if I did not wear this flesh about me, which is so fond and tender of itself, and so impetuous and active in the pursuit of its own ease and satisfaction, I had not shrunk away at such a time from a dangerous duty; I had not been so fearful and cowardly at such a place in the profession of my faith, nor so often polluted my soul with sensualities, and made work for bitter repentance.” Thus the experience of christians, and the language of scripture concur in this point, That the occasions of sin evidently lie most in the flesh: and a contradiction or opposition to sin, proceeds more from the spirit.