than can be found in any thing below, certainly the motion of thy spirit
will be in a straight line upward. When thou leavest thy dust to the
earth, angels wait to carry that spirit to that bosom of Christ where it
longed and liked most to be. But devils do attend the souls of most part
of men, to thrust them down below the earth, because they did still bend
down to the earth.

Sermon XVII.

Verse 5.--"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of
the flesh,", &c.

Though sin hath taken up the principal and inmost cabinet of the heart of
man--though it hath fixed its imperial throne in the spirit of man, and
makes use of all the powers and faculties in the soul to accomplish its
accursed desires and fulfil its boundless lusts, yet it is not without
good reason expressed in scripture, ordinarily under the name of "flesh,"
and a "body of death," and men dead in sins, are said to be yet in the
flesh. The reason is, partly because this was the rise of man's first
ruin, or the chiefest ingredient in his first sin,--his hearkening to the
suggestions of his flesh against the clear light and knowledge of his
spirit. The apple was beautiful to look on and sweet to the taste, and
this engaged man. Thus the voluntary debasement and subjection of the
spirit--which was breathed in of God--unto the service of that dust which
God had appointed to serve it hath turned into a necessary slavery, so
that the flesh being put in the throne cannot be cast out. And this is the
righteous judgment of God upon man, that he that would not serve so good
and so high a Lord, should be made a drudge and slave to the very dregs of
the creation. Partly again, because the flesh hath in it the seeds of the
most part of these evil fruits, which abound in the world. The most part
of our corruptions have either their rise or their increase from the
flesh, the most part of the evils of men are either conceived in the flesh
or brought forth by it, by the ministry and help of our degenerate
spirits. And truly this is it that makes our returning to God so hard and
difficult a work, because we are in the flesh, which is like stubble,
disposed to conceive flame upon any sparkle of a temptation, there are so
many dispositions and inclinations in the body since our fall, that are as
powerful to carry us to excess and inordinateness in affection or
conversation, as the natural instincts of beasts do drive them on to their
own proper ope