signification here. Flesh does not mean flesh, it means men's
corrupt nature;' little thinking all the while that perhaps they
understand those words, spiritual, and corrupt, and nature, just as
ill as they do the rest of the text.

How much better, my friends, to let the Bible tell its own story;
not to be so exceeding wise above what is written, just to believe
that St. Paul knew better how to use words than we are likely to
do,--just to believe that when he says flesh he means flesh.
Everybody agrees that when he says spirit he means spirit, why, in
the name of common sense, when he says flesh should he not mean
flesh? For my own part I believe that when St. Paul talks of man's
flesh, he means by it man's body, man's heart and brain, and all his
bodily appetites and powers--what we call a man's constitution; in a
word, the ANIMAL part of man, just what a man has in common with the
beasts who perish.

To understand what I mean, consider any animal--a dog, for instance--
how much every animal has in it what men have,--a body, and brain,
and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and
pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness; it likes freedom,
company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a
great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food
and shelter, just as human beings do: in short, it has a fleshly
nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal,
and so, in one sense, we are all animals, only more delicately made
than the other animals; but we are something more, we have a spirit
as well as a flesh, an immortal soul. If any one asks, what is a
man? the true answer is, an animal with an immortal spirit in it;
and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain, which are mere