God Exalted, Man Humbled & Chri
is life and peace," &c. 1 Cor. iii 1 " And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." So that it is manifest by this, that men that have been the subjects only of the first birth, have no degree of that moral principle or quality that those that are new born have, whereby they have a title to the kingdom of heaven. This principle or quality comes out then no otherwise than by birth, and the birth that it must come by is not, cannot be, the first birth, but it must be a new birth. If men that have no title to the kingdom of heaven, could have something of the Spirit, as well as flesh, then Christ's argument would be false. It is plain, by Christ's reasoning, that those that are not in a state of salvation, cannot have these two opposite principles in their hearts together, some flesh and some spirit, lusting one against the other as the godly have, but that they have flesh only.
2. That the only principle in those that are savingly converted, whence gracious acts flow which in the language of Scripture is called the Spirit, and set in opposition to the flesh, is that which others not only have not a sufficient degree of, but have nothing at all of, is further manifest, because the Scripture asserts both negatively, that those that have not the Spirit are not Christ's. Rom. viii. 9 " But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His ;" and also [positively] that those that have the Spirit are His 1 John iii. 24 " Hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us." And our having the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts is mentioned as a certain sign that persons are entitled to heaven, and is called the earnest of the future inheritance, (2 Cor. i 22, and v. 5, Eph. i 14 ;) which it would not be if others that had no title to the inheritance might have some of it dwelling in them.