Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

In the Natural Conflict the fight is in a Logical and Argumentative way only; and Reason being corrupt, like a cunning Sophister, turns about and stands ever and anon on the same side with Sin; but in the Spiritual Conflict, there can be no such compliances, the War is laid in nature, Grace in its very nature carries an enmity against corruption, and irreconcilably, interminably ⟨p. 262⟩opposes it, as long as Grace is Grace, and Sin Sin. In the Natural Conflict Reason fights but ex parte, only against the gross, carnal, sensual lusts, which stain Humanity; in the mean time the pride, perverseness, and desperate contradiction, which dwell in the upper faculties, are altogether untouched. The Moralist stands upon bis own bottom, full of self-power and self-righteousness; and because he hath by his Reason conceived and brought forth some Moral Virtues, Free-grace and its progeny, born after the Spirit, are despised in his eyes; than which temper, there is nothing more diametrically opposite to the Gospel, which would have Men come in to Jesus Christ weary, heavy laden, hungry, thirsty, poor in spirit; lost in themselves, and sensibly wanting all things: But in the Spiritual Conflict, the War is universal, Grace sights against all Sin, not only against the gross carnal lusts which have more of the beast in them, but against the fine Spiritual ones, which have more of the Devil; nor only against those open Sins which face the World, but against those secret ones which lie hid in the Heart. So opposite it is, that as in the War against the Canaanites, it would destroy every thing that breaths. Sin in the first motions and titillations thereof, in the Natural Conflict, the fight is between distinct faculties, Reason and Passion, and so is at a distance, and as it were by missile arms; but in the Spiritual Conflict, the fight is close and immediate, there is something of Grace in every faculty to encounter ⟨p. 263⟩the corruption there. In the Understanding there is an Heavenly Wisdom which counterplots the Earthly, as Hushai did. Ahithophel, whilst the one designs for Absalom, the rebellious lust in the Heart, the other stands up for the Kingdom of Christ, the true David. In the Will there is an holy Principle which balances the corrupt, and is as a counter-bias to the Heart, drawing it off from the false beatitudes to the true.

In the Natural Conflict the fight is in a Logical and Argumentative way only; and Reason being corrupt, like a cunning Sophister, turns about and stands ever and anon on the same side with Sin; but in the Spiritual Conflict, there can be no such compliances, the War is laid in nature, Grace in its very nature carries an enmity against corruption, and irreconcilably, interminably