Imatges de pàgina
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conveyed to the soul, and how it comes to be thus affected with them. But we find it so: and, indeed to speak truth, it feems neceffary for the maintaining of this animal state, that it should be fo, that the foul should be, as it were, hungry, weary, fick, and fleepy together with the body: "for if our foul should not know what it is to be “hungry, thirsty, cold, or fick, or weary, but by a bare ratiocination, or a dry fyllogiftical infe"rence, without any more efpecial feeling of "these necessities, it would foon fuffer the body to languish and decay, and commit it wholly to all changes and cafualties: neither would our own body be any more to us, than the body of a plant, or of a ftar, which we do 66 many times view with as much clearness, and " contemplate with as much contentment, as we "do our own." But in the mean time, the foul is diverted from its main employment, turned aside from its communion with God: not fo much by providing fomewhat for our bodies to eat, and drink, and put on, which is lawful and needful, as our Saviour implies, Mat. vi. 32. as by finking itself into the body, being paffionately and inordinately affected with its wants, and fo being finfully thoughtful, as our Saviour intimateth in the fame chapter, verfe 31.

2. The Paffions of the body do hinder the fouls communion with the Lord. So powerful is the interest and influence that this body hath in and over the foul, that it fills it with defires, pleafures, griefs, joys, fears, angers, and fundry paffions. The body calls out the foul to attend upon its feveral paffions, which I dare not fay are finful in

themselves,

themselves, as they firft affect our fouls, any more than it is our fin that we are men: our bleffed Saviour, seems not to have been free from them, as grief, Ifa. liii. 3. fear, Heb. v. 7. who yet was free from all fin, 1 Pet. ii. 22. Nay, it seems neceffary (as I faid before) confidering the nature of this animal life, that the foul fhould have the corporeal paffions and impreffions feelingly and powerfully conveyed to it, without .which, it could not exprefs a due benevolence to the body that belongs to it: and indeed, were it not fo, we could not properly be faid (in the Apostle's phrase here) to be at home in the body: the foul would rather dwell in domo aliena quam fua. But the foul being called out to attend upon these paffions, is eafily enfnared by them: for it can hardly exercise itself about them, but it flips infenfibly into a finful inordinacy. As for example: "The animal fpirits nimbly playing in the brain, "and fwiftly flying from thence thorough the

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nerves, up and down the whole body, do raise "the fancy with mirth and chearfulness, which we must not presently mistake for the power grace, nor condemn for the working of cor"ruption fo alfo when the gall empties its bitter juice into the liver, and that mingles "itself with the blood there, it begets fiery fpirits, which presently fly up into the brain, "and cause impreffions of anger." though I dare not fay, that the foul's firft fenfating and entertaining of these paffions is finful, yet, it is fadly evident that our fouls being once moved by thefe undifciplin'd animal fpirits, are very apt to fit upon, and cherish those paffions of grief, fear, mirth, anger, and, as it were, to

Now

work

work them into itself, in an inordinate manner, and contrary to the dictates of reason, and fo the will prefently makes thofe finful, which before were but merely human, or as one calls them, the meer bloffomings or fhootings forth of animal life within us. We fee then in these particulars, that not only the depraved difpofitions of the foul do keep us at a distance from God, but even this body alfo, is a great hinderance to that knowledge of God, which we fhall attain to, that fervice of God, which we might perform, and that sweet communion with him, which we fhall enjoy. It is a clog to the foul that would run; a mift to the foul that would fee clearly; a manacle to the foul that would work; a fnare to the foul that would be free; a fetter to chain it to earthly and material things; and, as it were, a pinion to the wings of contemplation: more particularly, it is a hinderance to it, as to thofe three things which I have named: As to the foul's knowledge of God, the body is an occafion of ignorance and error: as to its ferving of God, an occafion of distraction and weariness; lightness and triflingness; and as to its communion with God, an occafion of earthlinefs and fenfuality. Now this distance, which this body. keeps the foul at from God, might more particularly appear in another way of explication, by obferving the efpecial grievances, that do arife to the foul from those three great animal faculties, (if I may so speak) the Senfes, the Appetite, the Fancy.

1. The Senfes, I mean the external senses of the body; feeing, hearing, &c. Thefe convey paffions

paffions to the foul, upon which it infifts and feeds with a finful fondness and eagerness. Set open the eye, and it will fet hard to convey fome fpecies to the foul, of earthly objects, that shall juftle the ideas of God out of it. Set open the ear, and it will fill the foul with fuch a noife and earthly tumult, that the fecret whispers of the divine fpirit cannot be heard. The like I may fay of the reft: Oh, how eafily do these discompofe the fixed foul, diftract the devout foul, caft a mift before the contemplative foul, and hale down the raifed foul from communion with heaven to converfe with earthly objects! Ut vidi, ut perii ! is the complaint of many a Chriftian, as well as it was of the heathen. The fouls of moft men are quite funk into their fenfes, and do nothing but, as it were lacquey to them all their lives, and fo the fervants are on horfeback, and princes go on foot. Though the eye will never be fatisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; yet forfooth, these important fuitors must be gratified the eye must see what it will fee, and the ear muft hear what it will hear: nothing must be withheld from them, that these childish fenfes do whine after.' These mens fouls are indeed incarnate, swallowed up in their eyes, ears, and mouths. But not only thefe, but even godly fouls are often charmed and enfnared by their fenfes; even they converse not only in the body, but too much with it also; and it becomes as a Delilah, to lull them afleep, and bind them too. Good Job found his fenfes fo treacherous, that he was fain to make a covenant with them, fob xxxi. I. And well if he could .efcape fo too. The words are a metaphor; for

indeed the worst of it is, that these senses are not capable of any discipline; one cannot bring them into any covenant terms: fo that whilft we have fenfes, they will be treacherous; whilft our eyes are in our heads, they will be wandering after forbidden objects.

2. The Appetite, the fenfitive appetite, which is a faculty of the fenfitive foul, whereby this animal man is stirred up to defire and luft after the things which his fenfes have dictated to him. This bodily luft following upon the neck of the former, becomes a greater fnare to the foul: This reftlefs fuitor comes whining ever and anon to the foul for every trifle that the eye hath seen, or the ear heard, or the mouth hath tasted; and by its continual coming, and importunate crying wearies her into an obfervance of it: as the fond child comes crying to the mother for every knack and gewgaw that it hath feen upon the ftalls, and The, though he cannot in judgment approve of the request, yet either in fond indulgence, or for peace fake, will condefcend to purchase it. This is the daughter of the Horfeleech, that cries continually, Give, Give: why, what would it have? Even any thing that it hath feen, or heard, or touched, or tafted; any thing that it fees a fellow creature to be posseft of: and so indeed the Appetite doth not only enfnare the foul into drunkennefs and gluttony, but voluptuoufnefs, lafcivioufnefs, and all manner of fenfuality. The evil of the fenfual appetite appears in wantonnefs and lafciviousness (whether real, verbal, or mental) in immoderate and inordinate trading, ingroffing, Sporting, building, attiring, fleeping, vifiting, as

well

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