It is not every resistance therefore that we make and maintain against sin, can be a sufficient evidence that we are _new creatures_, unless we can say with St. Paul; Rom. vii. 22. _I delight in the law of God after the inward man_; that my soul not only approves, but takes pleasure in holiness; that sin is the object of my utter hatred, as well as my present resistance; and that not only as it promotes my own ruin, but as it brings dishonour to God: that my very heart and soul are set for God and religion, and it is a grief and daily burden to me, that there should be any such thing as _a law in my members warring against the law of my mind_; which makes the true christian cry out often, with bitterness of soul, _O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?_ Rom. vii. 24. Yet still it remains an incontestible truth, That where there is no resistance to the flesh, and the lusts thereof, there persons are not only in a state of sin, but in the strongest bonds of iniquity; they have brutified their human natures, and have made themselves _like the beasts that perish_; such was the character of the Ephesian Gentiles when the gospel came first among them; they were _alienated from the life of God_, and being past feeling, gave themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness; Eph. iv. 18, 19. Remark II. There may be some spirit in a person where there is much flesh; some holiness where there is much sin. For as none but saints in heaven are all spirit, and as the unregenerate are all flesh; so the saints here upon earth, are some flesh and some spirit, because they are sanctified but in part; they are in their way towards perfection, but they are not perfect: The spirit and the flesh conflict in them, _so that they cannot do the things which they would_. As they cannot serve God and practise holiness, with such constancy and zeal as they desire, because of the lusting of the flesh; so neither can they sink so far into sin, nor indulge evil courses so far as the flesh would lead them, if they had no strivings of the spirit to resist it, no principles of regeneration or holiness. They are led away indeed many times by sensual and fleshly allurements, but the chief objects of their pursuit are spiritual and heavenly; they have too many of the same vain affections and sinful desires, that were born of the flesh, remaining in them; but they have also new thoughts and hopes, new inclinations and appetites towards divine things, which could not be derived but from heaven, and prove them to be born of the spirit.