III. 1. But was he not then _freed from all sin_, so that there is no sin in his heart? I cannot say this: I cannot believe it: because St. _Paul_, says the contrary. He is speaking to believers, and describing the state of believers in general, when he says, _The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: these are contrary the one to the other_. _Gal._ v. 17. Nothing can be more express. The apostle here directly affirms, that _the flesh_, evil nature, opposes _the Spirit_, even in believers; that even in the regenerate, there are two principles, _contrary the one to the other_. 2. Again. When he writes to the believers at _Corinth_, to those who were _sanctified in Christ Jesus_, _1 Cor._ i. 2. he says, _I brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ――Ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal?_ ch. iii. ver. 13. Now here the apostle speaks unto those who were unquestionably believers, whom in the same breath he stiles his _brethren_ in Christ, as being still in a measure _carnal_. He affirms, there was _envying_ (an evil temper) occasioning _strife among them_, and yet does not give the least intimation, that they had lost their faith. Nay, he manifestly declares, they had not; for then they would not have been _babes in Christ_. And (what is most remarkable of all) he speaks of being _carnal_ and _babes in Christ_, as one and the same thing: plainly shewing that every believer (is in a degree) _carnal_, while he is only a _babe in Christ_. 3. Indeed this grand point, that there are two contrary principles in believers, nature and grace, the flesh and the Spirit, runs through all the epistles of St. _Paul_, yea through all the holy scriptures: almost all the directions and exhortations therein, are founded on this supposition: pointing at wrong tempers or practices in those, who are notwithstanding acknowledged by the inspired writers to be believers. And they are continually exhorted to fight with and conquer these, by the power of the faith which was in them. 4. And who can doubt, but there was faith in the angel of the church of _Ephesus_, when our Lord said to him, _I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, thou hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured and hast not fainted_. Rev. ii. 2, 3, 4. But was there meantime no sin in his heart? Yea, or Christ would not have added, _nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love_. This was a real sin which God saw in his heart (of which accordingly he is exhorted to _repent_.) And yet we have no authority to say, that even then he had no faith.