A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

In the next place, The Apostle giveth a reason, why they are thus to give themselves up to the Spirit, else the flesh will quickly prevail, and that is from the contrary nature and inclinations of these two, expressed in that Proposition, The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. By flesh and spirit we are not to understand the body and the soul, nor the spiritual sense and literal sense of the Scripture, as Origen most absurdly; nor as many Papists and others, the rational part, and the sensitive, as if the Apostle were here speaking no more then Aristotle doth about his incontinent person, as distinct from an intemperant one. Therefore that is too frigid and dilute of the late Annotator on this place, in his paraphrase, as if the opposition were between the carnal and rational wills, between the carnal and rational part of a man instructed out of the Gospel, for this ariseth to no more then that ethical and moral conflict, which Heathen Philosophers describe; whereas the Apostle is here speaking of that which the godly find in themselves, and that from the two contrary principles of the flesh and spirit within them.

In the next place, The Apostle giveth a reason, why they are thus to give themselves up to the Spirit, else the flesh will quickly prevail, and that is from the contrary nature and inclinations of these two, expressed in that Proposition, The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. By flesh and spirit we are not to understand the body and the soul, nor the spiritual sense and literal sense of the Scripture, as Origen most absurdly; nor as many Papists and others, the rational part, and the sensitive, as if the Apostle were here speaking no more then Aristotle doth about his incontinent person, as distinct from an intemperant one. Therefore that is too frigid and dilute of the late Annatator on this place, in his paraphrase, as if the opposition were between the carnal and rational wils, between the carnal and rational part of a man instructed out of the Gospel, for this ariseth to no more then that ethical and moral conflict, which Heathen Philosophers describe; whereas the Apostle is here speaking of that which the godly find in themselves, and that from the two contrary principles of the flesh and spirit within them.