(8) "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh."

(7) And suffer not the soul to be eaten with the flesh, that your blood, which is your life, may not be required at the hand of any flesh that sheddeth (it) on the earth.

(6) And the Saviour has said to us, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God," explains the apostle: "for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed, can be. And they that are in the flesh cannot please God." And in further explanation continues, that no one may, like Marcion regard the creature as evil. "But if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."

(51) The flesh is not the life, but is a dead, inanimate being, which, when the government or dominion of the spirit ceaseth to qualify or operate therein, soon becometh a dead carcass, and putrefieth and turneth to dust or ashes.

(75) So also the admirable Peter says: "Beloved, I exhort you as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from carnal lusts, which war against the soul, and conduct yourselves well among the heathen; for this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the activity of foolish men, as free and not using your freedom as a covering for evil, but as God's slaves." Likewise also Paul in the Epistle to the Romans writes: "We who are dead to sin, how shall we any longer live in it? Because our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed," down to the words, "do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin."

(2) While man is in this world, two things are necessary for him: first, the protection and nurture of his soul; secondly, the care and nurture of his body. The proper nourishment of the soul, as above shown, is the knowledge and love of God, and to be absorbed in the love of anything but God is the ruin of the soul. The body, so to speak, is simply the riding animal of the soul and perishes while the soul endures. The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel; but if the pilgrim spends his whole time in feeding and adorning his camel, the caravan will leave him behind; and he will perish in the desert.

(26) But it is quite otherwise where there is poorness of spirit, and true humility; and it is so because it is found and known of a truth that a man, of himself and his own power, is nothing, hath nothing, can do and is capable of nothing but only infirmity and evil. Hence followeth that the man findeth himself altogether unworthy of all that hath been or ever will be done for him, by God or the creatures, and that he is a debtor to God and also to all the creatures in God’s stead, both to bear with, and to labour for, and to serve them. And therefore he doth not in any wise stand up for his own rights, but from the humility of his heart he saith, “It is just and reasonable that God and all creatures should be against me, and have a right over me, and to me, and that I should not be against any one, nor have a right to anything.” Hence it followeth that the man doth not and will not crave or beg for anything, either from God or the creatures, beyond mere needful things, and for those only with shamefacedness, as a favour and not as a right. And he will not minister unto or gratify his body or any of his natural desires, beyond what is needful, nor allow that any should help or serve him except in case of necessity, and then always in trembling; for he hath no right to anything and therefore he thinketh himself unworthy of anything. So likewise all his own discourse, ways, words and works seem to this man a thing of nought and a folly. Therefore he speaketh little, and doth not take upon himself to admonish or rebuke any, unless he be constrained thereto by love or faithfulness towards God, and even then he doth it in fear, and so little as may be. Moreover, when a man hath this poor and humble spirit, he cometh to see and understand aright, how that all men are bent upon themselves, and inclined to evil and sin, and that on this account it is needful and profitable that there be order, customs, law and precepts, to the end that the blindness and foolishness of men may be corrected, and that vice and wickedness may be kept under, and constrained to seemliness. For without ordinances, men would be much more mischievous and ungovernable than dogs and cattle. And few have come to the knowledge of the truth but what have begun with holy practices and ordinances, and exercised themselves therein so long as they knew nothing more nor better. Therefore one who is poor in spirit and of a humble mind doth not despise or make light of law, order, precepts and holy customs, nor yet of those who observe and cleave wholly to them, but with loving pity and gentle sorrow, crieth: “Almighty Father, Thou Eternal Truth, I make my lament unto Thee, and it grieveth Thy Spirit too, that through man’s blindness, infirmity, and sin, that is made needful and must be, which in deed and truth were neither needful nor right.” For those who are perfect are under no law.

(67) For the judgement shall come upon them, because they believe in the lust of their body and deny the Spirit of the Lord.

(27) But now the flesh is not the whole man; for this flesh cannot comprehend or apprehend the Deity, else the flesh were not mortal and corruptible, or fading and transitory; for Christ saith, [John vi. 63]: It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. [the spirit is the life]

(3) "Why call ye me Lord, Lord," He says, "and do not the things which I say?" For "the people that loveth with their lips, but have their heart far away from the Lord," is another people, and trust in another, and have willingly sold themselves to another; but those who perform the commandments of the Lord, in every action "testify," by doing what He wishes, and consistently naming the Lord's name; and "testifying" by deed to Him in whom they trust, that they are those "who have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." s "He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

(17) Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

(41) Therefore if one who uses his power to live a virtuous life receives praise, then much more worthy of reverence and honour is he who has given us this free and sovereign power and has allowed us to live as we choose, not allowing us to become en- slaved and subjected to necessity by our acts of choice and rejection. But if both can have no anxiety, he who chooses incontinence and he who chooses abstinence, yet the honour is not equal. He who indulges his pleasures gratifies his body; but he who is controlled liberates from its passions his soul which is master of the body. And if they tell us that we are called to freedom, only let us not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, as the apostle says. If lust is to be gratified and a life of sin regarded as morally neutral, as they say, either we ought to indulge our desires in every direction and, if this is our desire, do the most lascivious and immoral acts, in that we are following our instincts in every way; or we may suppress certain desires and live no longer a life which recognizes no distinction of right and wrong, nor be absolute slaves to our most dishonourable members, the stomach and the private parts, gratifying our carcase for the sake of desire. For desire is nourished and invigorated if it is encouraged in indulgence, just as, on the other hand, it loses strength if it is kept in check.

(92) The Deity in Christ in the holy Ternary said, Eat of the Word of the Lord, and go forth from the outward Man, rest in the Kingdom of Heaven, and live in the new Man, and then the old Man is dead, for the new Man's Sake; on the contrary, the Devil said to the Soul, Thy earthly Body does hunger (because there is no Bread for it) therefore make Bread of Stones, that thou mayest live; and the strong Soul in Christ as a Champion stood and said; Man lives not by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the Mouth of God: And he rejected the earthly Bread and Life, and put his Imagination into the Word of God, and did eat of the Word of the Lord, and then the Soul in the Kingdom of Heaven was predominant, and the earthly Body was as it were dead for the Kingdom of Heaven's Sake; whereas yet it was not dead, but it became the Servant of the heavenly Body, and lost its potent Dominion.

(5) As slaves the Scripture views those "under sin" and "sold to sin," the lovers of pleasure and of the body; and beasts rather than men, "those who have become like to cattle, horses, neighing after their neighbours' wives." The licentious is "the lustful ass," the covetous is the "savage wolf," and the deceiver is "a serpent." The severance, therefore, of the soul from the body, made a life-long study, produces in the philosopher gnostic alacrity, so that he is easily able to bear natural death, which is the dissolution of the chains which bind the soul to the body. "For the world is crucified to me, and I to the world," the [apostle] says; "and now I live, though in the flesh, as having my conversation in heaven."

(104) Say not in regard to the righteous and good who are in life: "In our troubled days we have toiled laboriously and experienced every trouble, And met with much evil and been consumed, And have become few and our spirit small.

(116) And secondly, that it receives all thy Purposes and Deeds, and sets them in the Tincture of thy Soul, and makes of it another Dwelling-house for thy Soul, that it may not send thee so naked away from it. 1 17. And then, thirdly, that it has brought thy Soul out of Heaven into the Pleasures of this World, and now leaves it in its Misery, wholly naked and bare, sitting in its Filthiness, and goes away and regards no more where the Soul is, or how it is with it, if it was in the Abyss of Hell [it were all one to the Spirit of this World;] this thou hast to expect for thy Recompense from the Spirit of this World, because thou hast so truly served it.

(25) And so it was tried for a long Time, whether it were possible that Man should be recovered this Way, so that he might yield himself wholly to God, that the Soul might be born in the Word, and at last stand before God; yet all was in vain, the kindled Soul could not stand, but there came to be Man-slayers and Murderers, also self-willed People, in mere Lechery and Unchastity of the Flesh; also aspiring in State, Pride, and Domineering, according to the Regimen of the Stars and Elements, that drives the Body and the Soul of Man at all Times; and there were but few that did cleave to the Word of God.

(62) The soul which is a member of God's household is one which is kept pure, and the soul which has put on Christ is one which is pure. It is impossible for it to sin. Now where Christ is, there sin is idle.

(6) But flesh, with the life thereof, with the blood, ye shall not eat ; for the life of all flesh is in the blood, lest your blood of your lives be required. <nAt the hand of every man, at theJiaj}cLj}iv.exy_3 m (beast), shall I require the blood"DTman.

(19) But, when all is said, the knowledge of the soul plays a more important part in leading to the knowledge of God than the knowledge of our body and the functions. The body may be compared to a steed and the soul to its rider; the body was created for the soul, the soul