between itself and the fun, but even the animal fancy cafts in its phantafms and imaginations as a mift before the eye of the foul, which through divine grace hath been somewhat enlightened, and cleared from its inbred finful humours. Though corruption in the mind be as a rheume in its eye, so that it cannot well fee; yet that doth not hinder, but that the fancy by presenting its unfpiritual imaginations, doth alfo caft a mift before it, that it cannot fee well, nor judge rightly; and fo it is either held in grofs ignorance, or lapfes into error. But in the regeneration this fenfe either fhall not be, or fhall be pure and spiritual.

2. Whilst we are in the body, we are diftant from God, as to that fervice which we ought to perform to him in the world. And herein it were endless to run through all thofe outward duties which we owe unto God in the body; and to fhew how the body becomes a hindrance either to them, or in them. Though the foul be made willing and forward, by a divine principle implanted in it, yet the body remains a body, a weak and fluggifh inftrument; and fo it will be whilft it is animal; it will go down into the dust a weak body, I Cor. xv. 43. What man ever had a more willing and chearful heart than Mofes the friend of God? Yet his hands were heavy, and ready to hang down, Exod. xvii. 12. Shall I inftance in the excellent duty of preaching and hearing? Wherein the fpirits of the moft fpiritual preacher are foon exhaufted; the tongue of the learned is ready to cleave to the roof of his mouth; the head is feized with dizziness; the heart with pantings; the organs of speech with weariness; and the

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knees with trembling; and the ears of the most devout hearers with heavinefs; the eyes with fleepinefs; and the whole body in a fhort time with weakness. Shall I inftance in the noble duty of prayer? Wherein the pious foul goes out to God, but can scarce get its body to accompany it; and there the fancy diftracts, the fenfes divert; and indeed all the members are ready to play the truants, if not the traitors too: especially the brain, where the foul fits enthroned, is fuddenly environed with a rude rout of fluggish vapours arifing from the ftomach, and being no longer able to defend itself against them, falls down dead in the midst of them: infomuch that the poor foul is ready to wish fometimes with the forrowful phet, O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place, that I might leave my members, and go from them, for they are all an affembly of treacherous fervants: or with that it were like its Saviour, who could leave his raw difciples asleep, and go and pray apart, and come again unto them. Shall I inftance in that high duty of fuftaining martyrdom, bearing perfecutions for God? Come on my body, cries the holy foul, come on to the stake; come my head, lay down thyself upon this block; come my body, compose thyself in this dark dungeon; come my feet, fit yourselves into these stocks; come my hands, draw on these fetters, these iron bracelets; come, come drink the cup that my father gives thee. But O how it follows to the. stake! what shaking, fhivering, trembling, and reluctancy may you fee in the whole structure of it! the head hangs down, the eyes run over, the lips quaver, the fhoulders pull back, the hands

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tremble, the knees knock together, and the whole fabric is ready to tumble down, for fear of falling. Either to this, as fome interpret, or to that duty of prayer, as others, doth that of our Saviour refer, Mark xiv 38. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. It feems the spirit of the weakeft chriftian is ftrong, though the body, as we have feen, of the strongest faint is weak: though indeed it is not properly the weakness that is in the body, that I am to fpeak to, but the influence that the body hath upon the foul to weaken that for whilft the foul fympathizes with the body, attends to it, fpares it, pities it, itself becomes almoft ill affected to the fervice of God. I am not fo much blaming the body, becaufe it I had need by reason of its flothfulness to be drawn on to duty; but because by its influences, it draws on the foul alfo from them: for so we find it by woful experience, that if the body fleep, the foul cannot wake; it cannot hear without the ear, nor fee without the eyes; fo that the body's wearinefs at length ends in the foul's unwillingness; and the weakness of the one, grows to be the fin of the other.

3. Whilft we are in the body we are at a diftance from God, as to communion with him: we are cftranged from fellowship with him; and this is indeed to be abfent from the Lord. Oh how many weary and uncomfortable days do poor Saints live at a great distance from their God, their Life, their happiness, whilft they are in their worldly pilgrimage, in their cage of flesh! Oh how many days do they forget God, and are apt to think that God hath forgotten them too! How

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do they live fometimes, as it were, without God in the world, their fouls being furfeited with carnal pleasures, benumbed with fears, frozen with felf love, choaked with cares, ftifled with griefs, and feem to have no more feeling of God their life, than a body in the dust hath of the soul its life! Oh what a heavy yoke doth the poor foul draw under, when it plows and harrows to the flesh, and cannot lift up its head to Heaven! Oh how is our intercourfe with God obftructed, our beholding of him obfcured, our entertaining of him prevented, our enjoyment of him difturbed and violated, our love to him deadened, and his love to us damped; ours rendered infirm, and his rendered insensible, and all by this make-bate mortal flesh! Alas what uncertainties, and viciffitudes, what changings and toffings, turnings and windings are our poor pilgrim fouls here exercised with! What breakings and piecings, reconciliations and fallings out, clofings and partings, rifings and fallings; what ups and downs; what forwards and backwards doth the poor diftreffed foul experience in this animal ftate! The flourishing foul withers; the lofty foul languifhes; the vigorous foul fainteth; the nimble foul flaggeth; the devout foul fwooneth; the lively foul fickeneth, and is ready to give up the Ghoft; and fhe that was a while ago refting and glorying in the arms of her Lord, anon lies embracing a dung-hill, and hath almost forgotten that ever the was happy; her peace is violated, her reft is difturbed; her converfe with Heaven interrupted, her incomes from God are few and infenfible, her outgoings to him are few and lazy, and the rivers of her divine pleasures are almoft dried up, And all

this, while fhe lis in this body: and indeed a great part of it by reason of this body in which fhe is: The animal body keeps us diftant from the Lord, that we cannot converse with him, mind him, enjoy him, live upon him, and unto him. The body being fitted only for this animal ftate, is ever drawing down the foul, when it would raise up it felf in contemplation of, and communion. with the bleffed God. And fo,

1. The Neceffities of the body do hinder the fouls communion with the Lord. Not that the neceffities of the body are fimply in themselves to be blamed, but the caring for thefe doth fo exercife the foul in this ftate, that it cannot attend upon God without diftraction. Oh how much doth the neceffary caring for meat and drink, food and phyfic; yea, the ordering of temporal affairs, eftrange from communion and converfe with God! fo that the foul, like poor Martha, is cumbered with many cares, and bufied with much ferving in this houfe, and cannot attend fo devoutly and entirely as it ought upon the Lord. If the body be pinched with pain, the foul cannot be at reft, but muft needs look out for relief: if the body be pinched with hunger and thirst, the foul can take no reft, till it hath found out a fupply for it. If the one be fick, the other is fad; if the one be hungry or thirsty, the other feems to languish; like Hippocrates's twins that laughed and cried, lived and died together.

It is a wonderful mystery, and a rare fecret, how the foul comes to fympathize with the body, and to have not only a knowledge, but, as it were, a feeling of its neceffities; how these come to be

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