2. “However, there is one scripture more, which will put the matter out of question. _If any man be_ (a believer) _in Christ_, he is _a new creature. Old things are past away: behold all things are become new_, 2 Cor. v. 17. Now, certainly a man cannot be a _new creature_ and an _old creature_ at once.” Yes, he may. He may be _partly renewed_, which was the very case of those at _Corinth_. They were doubtless _renewed in the spirit of their mind_, or they could not have been so much as _babes in Christ_. Yet they had not the whole mind which was _in Christ_, for they _envied_ one another. “But it is said expresly, _old things are past away: all things are become new_.” But we must not so interpret the apostle’s words, as to make him contradict himself. And if we will make him consistent with himself, the plain meaning of the words is this. His _old judgment_ (concerning justification, holiness, happiness, indeed concerning the things of God in general) is now _past away_. So are his _old desires, designs, affections, tempers, and conversation_. All these are undeniably _become new_, greatly changed from what they were. And yet though they _are new_, they are not _wholly new_. Still he feels, to his sorrow and shame, remains of the _old man_, too manifest taints of his former tempers and affections, though they cannot _gain_ any _advantage_ over him, as long as he _watches unto prayer_. 3. This whole argument, “If he is clean, he is clean,” “if he is holy, he is holy;” (and twenty more expressions of the same kind, may easily be heaped together) is really no better than playing upon words: it is the fallacy of arguing from a _particular_ to a _general_; of inferring a general conclusion, from particular premisses. Propose the sentence entire, and it runs thus: “If he is holy _at all_, he is holy _altogether_.” That does not follow: every babe in Christ is holy, and yet not altogether so. He is saved from sin; yet not intirely: it _remains_ though it does not _reign_. If you think it does not _remain_ (in _babes_ at least, whatever be the case with _young men_, or _fathers_) you certainly have not considered the height and depth and length and breadth of the law of God; even the law of love, laid down by St. _Paul_ in the thirteenth of _Corinthians_ and that _every_ ἀνομία, disconformity to, or deviation from this law, _is sin_. Now is there no disconformity to this in the heart or life of a believer? What may be in an adult Christian is another question. But what a stranger must he be to human nature, who can possibly imagine, that this is the case with every babe in Christ? 4. “But believers _walk after the Spirit_.[27] Rom. viii. 1. and the Spirit of God _dwells_ in them, consequently they are delivered from the guilt, the power, _or in one word_, the being of sin.”