A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

This depravation of the mind and will of man, enslaved and ruled by the Flesh or sensuality, is the very cause that most men will not choose the Better part, and so the cause of their perpetual misery. And till the Holy Ghost send in a heavenly light of Wisdom into the mind to show them the true difference between the Good and the Evil, and a new Inclination into the Will, that shall turn their hearts from the Evil to the Good, they will still go on, and the matters of God will seem foolishness to them; and they will take those men for the veryest fools that follow the Wisdom of the Lord, and provide most carefully for eternal life; and they will take those for the wisest men, that are most contrary to the God of Wisdom, and that dare leap most fearlessly into Hell; Or if this be not their Opinion, but conviction force them to a wiser kind of language, yet will it be their Practical estimation and their Hearts, as their Choice and Lives will easily declare. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit, Joh. 3. 6. The fleshly man will have a fleshly mind and will, and openly or secretly will Live after the flesh, and such are the heirs of death, Rom. 8. 5, 7, 13. Fleshly generation cannot make a spiritual mind or heart in any, but it must be by ⟨p. 105⟩spiritual Regeneration: and therefore except a man be born again of the spirit as well as of water, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, Joh. 3. 3, 5.

This depravation of the mind and will of man, enslaved and ruled by the Flesh or sensuality, is the very cause that most men will not choose the Better part, and so the cause of their perpetual misery. And till the Holy Ghost send in a heavenly light of Wisdom into the mind to shew them the true difference between the Good and the Evil, and a new Inclination into the Will, that shall turn their hearts from the Evil to the Good, they will still go on, and the matters of God will seem foolishness to them; and they will take those men for the veryest fools that follow the Wisdom of the Lord, and provide most carefully for eternal life; and they will take those for the wisest men, that are most contrary to the God of Wisdom, and that dare leap most fearlesly into Hell; Or if this be not their Opinion, but conviction force them to a wiser kind of language, yet will it be their Practical estimation and their Hearts, as their Choice and Lives will easily declare. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit,