The Soul of Man, Part 5 – Part 6
USE II. Of Reproof.
IN the next place let me press you to regulate your love to your Bodies, by the rules of Religion and right Reason: I must press you to love them, though Nature it self teacheth you so to do; but I press you to love them as Christians, as men that understand the right use and improvement of their Bodies. There are two sorts of errours in our love to the Body, one in Defect, the other in Excess: both come fitly here to be censured and healed.
I. Some there be that offend in the Defect of love to their own Bodies, who use them as if they had no love for them, whose Souls act as if they were enemies to their own Bodies. They do not formally and directly hate them, but consequentially and eventually they may be said to hate them, and that
(1) By defiling them with filthy lusts, so the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. 6.18. Every sin that a man doth, is without the Body, but he that committeth Adultery sinneth against his own Body: in other sins, 'tis the Instrument, but here 'tis both Instrument and Object; not only God, but your own Bodies are abused, and wronged by it. The Body may be considered two ways, either
1. As our Vessels, or,
2. As the Spirits Temple.
1. As our Vessel or Instrument for natural and Spiritual Uses and Services: and on that account we should not injure or defile it, 1 Thes. 4.4, 5. but possess it in sanctification and honour. The lusts of Uncleanness, Gluttony, and Drunkenness quench the vigour; blast the beauty, and destroy the health and honour of the Body; and so render it both naturally and morally unfit for the service and use of the Soul.
2. And the injury is yet greater, if we consider it as the Spirits Temple. On this ground the Apostle strongly convinceth, and disswadeth Christians from these abuses of the Body, 1 Cor. 6.15, 16. He argues from the Dignity God will put upon our Bodies by the Resurrection, ver. 13, 14. They are to be transformed, and made like unto Christs glorious Body: and from the honour he hath already put upon the Bodies of the Saints, in their union with Christ, ver. 15, 16. They, as well as the Soul, are ingrafted into him, and joyned with him; they are his Temples, to be dedicated, hallowed, and consecrated to his service. O let them not be made a sink for lusts, or meer strainers for meat and drink.
(2) By macerating them with covetous lusts, denying them their due comforts and refreshments, and unmercifully burthening them with labours and sorrows about things that perish. (1) Some deny their Bodies due comforts and refreshments, which the natural and positive Laws of God both allow and command. Their Souls are cruel Step-mothers to their bodies, and keep them too short; not out of a prudent and Christian design to starve their lusts, but to advance their estates. Of this evil Solomon speaks, Eccles. 6.22. There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun, and it is common among men; A man to whom God hath given riches, Wealth, and Honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his Soul, of all that he desireth; yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease. Tenacity is a disease of the Soul, like that of a Dyscracy in the stomach, which so indisposeth it, that it cannot receive with any appetite or delight the best refreshments at a plentiful Table. (2) And others there are that wrong and abuse their own bodies by laying unreasonable and unmerciful loads upon them, especially loads of grief and sorrow, wasting and weakning them beyond all rules of reason or Religion. If a friend or relation die, they have less mercy on their own Bodies, than a conscientious man hath on the Horse he rides. Cares and sorrows are as deadly to the Body as a Sword, 1 Tim 6.10. Intense and immoderate griefs about Worldly losses and crosses have slain their ten thousands: and which is strange, the Soul seems to take a certain kind of pleasure in loading and tormenting the Body. There is a real truth in that strange expression of Seneca, Inest quiddam dulce tristitiae, Senec. Ep. 806.Sorrow it self hath a certain kind of pleasure attending it.
The Souls of some mourners do willingly excite and provoke their own griefs, when they begin to abate, which is like the whetting of the knife that grows dull, to make it cut the deeper into the Body.Cum occurrant Sermones corum jucundi, conversatio hilaris, officiosa pietas; tunc ocali velut in gaudio relaxantur. Sen. Ep. 806. Thus, as Seneca observes, Some Parents that have lost their beloved children, willingly call to mind their pleasant sayings, and pretty actions, to find a kind of pleasure in a fresh shower of tears for them; when, poor hearts! sorrow hath so broken them already, that they need consolations under their present sorrows, rather than irritations of new ones. And the Souls unmercifulness to the Body, is in such cases farther discovered by its obstinate refusal of all that is comforting and relieving: So it is said of Rachel, Jerem. 31.15. Rachel weeping for her children, would not be comforted, because they were not. So the Israelites hearkened not unto Moses, because of the anguish of spirit, and the cruel bondage, Exod. 6.9. Thus we studiously rake together, and exasperate whatsoever is piercing, wounding, and over-whelming; and shut our ears to all that is relieving and supporting, which is cruelty to our own Bodies, and that which hath so far broken the health and strength of some bodies, that they are never like to be useful instruments to the Soul any more in this World. Such deep and desperate wounds have their own Souls given them by immoderate grief, as will never be perfectly healed, but by the Resurrection. Of those wounds the body may say as it is Zeth. 13.6. These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house (or by the hand) of my friend: thus my own Soul hath dealt cruelly and unmercifully with me.
II. Others offend in the Excess and extravagancy of their love to the Body, and these are an hundred to one in number with those that sin in defect of love. My friends, upon a due search it will be found, that the love of our Souls generally degenerates into fondness and folly: There is but little well tempered and ordinate love found among men. We make fondlings, yea, we make Idols of our own Bodies, we rob God, yea our own Souls, to give to the Body. It is not a natural and kindly heat of love, but a meer feavourish heat which preys upon the very Spirits of Religion, which is found with many of us. This feavourish distemper may be discovered by the beating of our pulse in three or four particulars.
(1.) This appears by our sinful indulgence to our whining appetites; We give the flesh whatsoever it craves, and can deny it nothing it desires; pampering the Body, to the great injury and hazard of the Soul. Some have their conversation in the lusts of the flesh, as it is Eph. 2.3. Trading only in those things that please and pamper the flesh: They sow to the flesh, Gal. 6.8. (i.e.) all their studies and labours are but the sowing of the seeds of pleasure to the flesh. Not an handful of spiritual Seed sowen in Prayer for the Soul all the day long; what the Body craves, the obsequious Soul like a slave, is at its beck to give it. Tit. 3. 3. Serving diverse lusts and pleasures, attending to every knock and call, to fulfil the desires of the flesh: O how little do these men understand the life of Religion, or the great design of Christianity! which consists in mortifying, and not pampering and gratifying the Body, Rom. 14. 13, 14. And according to that rule all serious Christians order their Bodies, giving them what is needful to keep them serviceable and useful to the Soul, but not gratifying their irregular desires: giving what their wants, not what their wantonness calls for. So Paul, 1 Cor. 9.27. I beat it down, and keep it under; he understood it as his Servant, not his Master. He knew that Hagar would quickly peark up, and domineer over Sarah, expect more attendance than the Soul, except it were kept under: These two verbs, foreign and foreign are very emphatical; the former signifies to make it black and blue with buffeting, the other, to bring it under by checks and rebukes, as Masters that understand their place and Authority use to do with insolent and wanton Servants.
It was a rare expression of an Heathen, Major sum, & ad … natus▪ quàm ut corporis mei sim mancipium: I am greater, and born to greater things, than that I should be a drudge or Vassal to my Body. And it was the saying of a pious Divine, when he felt the flesh rebellious and wanton, Ego faciam, aselle, ut non calcitres: I will make thee thou Ass, that thou shalt not kick. I know the superstitious Papists place much of Religion in these external things, but though they abuse them to an ill purpose, there is a necessary and lawful use of these abridgments and restraints upon the Body; and it will be impossible to mortifie, and starve our lusts, without a due rigour and severity to our flesh. But how little are many acquainted with these things? They deal with their Bodies as David with Adonijah, of whom it's said, 1 Kings 1.6. His Father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so? And just so our flesh requites us by its Rebellions and Treasons against the Soul: it seeks the life of the Soul, which seeks nothing more than its content and pleasure; this is not ordinate love, but fondness and folly, and what we shall bitterly repent for at last.
(2.) It appears by our sparing and favouring of them, in the necessary uses and services we have for them in Religion. Many will rather starve their Souls, than work and exercise their Bodies, or disturb their sluggish rest: thus the idle excuses and pretences of endangering our health, oftentimes put by the duties of Religion, or at least lose the fittest and properest season for them: We are lazying upon our beds, when we should be wrestling upon our knees: The World is suffered to get the start of Religion in the morning, and so Religion is never able to overtake it all the day long. This was none of David's course, he prevented the dawning of the morning, and cryed, Psal. 119.147. and Psal. 5.3. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. And indeed we should consecrate unto God the freshest and fittest parts of our time, when our bodily Senses are most vigorous; and we would do so (except God by his providence disable us) were our hearts fully set for God, and Religion lay with weight upon our Spirits.
Some I confess cannot receive this injunction, being naturally disabled by prevailing infirmities, but those tha… …, ought to do so. But O how many slothful excuses doth the flesh invent to put off duty! We shall injure our health, &c. O the hypocrisy of such pleas! if profit or pleasure call us up, we have no such shifts, but can rise early, and sit up late.
O Friends, why hath God given you Bodies, if not to waste and wear them out in his service, and the service of your own Souls? if your Bodies must not be put to it, and exercised this way, where is the mercy of having a Body? If a stately Horse were given you on this condition, that you must not ride or work him, what benefit would such a gift be to you? Your Bodies must, and will wear out, and it's better wear them with working, than with rusting: we are generally more sollicitous to live long, than to live usefully and serviceably, and it may be our health had been more precious in the eyes of God, if it had been less precious in our own eyes? 'Tis just with God to destroy that health with diseases, which he sees we would cast away in slothfulness and idleness. Think with thy self, had such a Soul as Timothies or Gaius's been blessed with such a Body as thine, so strong and vigorous, so apt and able for service, they would have honoured God more in it, in a day, than perhaps you do in a year. Certainly, this is not love, but laziness, not a due improvement, but a sinful neglect and abuse of the Body, to let it rust out in idleness, which might be imployed so many ways for God, for your own and others Souls. Well, remember death will shortly dissolve them, and then they can be of no more use; and if you expect God should put glory and honour upon them at the Resurrection, use them for God now, with a faithful self-denying diligence.
(3.) It appears by our cowardly shrinking from dangers that threaten them, when the glory of God, our own and others Salvation,Here the Soul receives a deadly wound upon it self, toward it …ff from the Body. So did Spira. bid us expose and not regard them. Some there are, that rather than they will adventure their flesh to the rage of man, will hazard their Souls to the wrath of God. They are too tender to suffer pain or restraint for Christ, but consider not w…t sufferings are prepared for the fearful and unbelieving in the World to come, Rev. 21.8. How many sad examples do the Church-Histories of ancient and latter times afford us, of men who consulting with flesh and bloud in time of danger, have in pity to the Body ruined their Souls?
There be but few like minded with Paul, who set a low price upon his liberty or life for Christ, Act. 20.24. or with those worthy Iews, Dan. 3.28. who yielded their Bodies to preserve their consciences. Few of Chrysostoms mind who told the Empress, Nil nisi peccatum timeo, I fear nothing but sin; Or of Basils, who told the Emperor, God threatned Hell, whereas he threatned but a prison. That is a remarkable Rule that Christ gives us Mat. 10.28. The sum of it is, to set God against man, the Soul against the Body, and Hell against temporal sufferings, and so surmounting these low fleshly considerations, to cleave to our duty in the face of dangers. You read Gal. 11 16. how in pursuit of Duty, though surrounded with danger, Paul would not conferr or consult with flesh and bloud, (i. e.) ask its opinion which were best, or stay for its consent till it were willing to suffer; he understood not that the flesh had any voice at the Council-table in his Soul, but willing, or unwilling, if duty call for it, he was resolved to hazard it for God.
We have a great many little Politicians among us, who think to husband their lives and liberties a great deal better than other plain-hearted and too forward Christians do; but these Politiques will be their perdition, and their craft will betray them to ruine. They will lose their lives by saving them, when others will save them by losing them, Matth. 10.39. For the interest of the Body depends on and follows the safety of the Soul, as the Cabin doth the ship.
O my Friends, let me beg you not to love your Bodies into Hell, and your Souls too for their sakes: be not so scar'd at the sufferings of the Body, as with poor Spira to dash them both against the wrath of the great and terrible God. Most of those Souls that are now in Hell, are there upon the account of their indulgence to the flesh: they could not deny the flesh, and now are denyed by God. They could not suffer from men, and now must suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
(4.) In a word, it appears we love them fondly and irregularly, in that we cannot with any patience think of death and separation from them. How do some men fright at the very name of death? and no Arguments can perswade them seriously to think of an unbodied and separated estate. 'Tis as death to them, to bring their thoughts close to that ungrateful Subject. A Christian that loves his Body regularly and moderately, can look into his own grave with a composed mind, and speak familiarly of it, as Iob 17.14. And Peter speaks of the putting off of his Body by death, as a man would of the putting off of his cloaths at night, 2 Pet. 1.13, 14. And certainly such men have a great Advantage above all others, both as to the tranquillity of their life and death. You know a parting time must come, and the more fond you are of them, the more bitter and doleful that time will be. Nothing except the guilt, and terrible charges of conscience, put men into terrours at death, more than our fondness of the Body. I do confess, Christless persons have a great deal of reason to be shie of death: their dying day is their undoing day: but for Christians to startle and fright at it, is strange, considering how great a friend death will be to them that are in Christ. What are you afraid of? What, to go to Christ? to be freed of sin and affliction too soon? Certainly, it hath not been so comfortable an habitation to you, that you should be loth to exchange it for an Heavenly one.
USE III. Of Exhortation.
TO conclude, seeing there is so strict a friendship and tender affection betwixt Soul and Body, let me perswade every Soul of you to express your love to the Body, by labouring to get union with Jesus Christ, and thereby to prevent the utter ruine of both to all Eternity.
Souls, if you love your selves, or the Bodies you dwell in, shew it by your preventing care in season, lest they be cast away for ever. How can you say you love them, when you daily expose them to the everlasting wrath of God, by imploying them as weapons of unrighteousness, to fight against him that formed them? You feed and pamper them on earth, you give them all the delights and pleasures you can procure for them in this World, but you take no care what shall become of them, nor your Souls neither after death hath separated them. O cruel Souls, cruel not to others, but to your selves, and to your own flesh, which you pretend so much love to! Is this your love to your Bodies, what, to imploy them in Satans service on Earth, and then to be cast as a prey to him for ever in Hell? You think the rigor and mortification of the Saints, their abstemiousness and self-denial, their cares, fears, and diligence, to be too great severity to their Bodies, but they know, these are the most real evidences of their true love to them; they love them too well to cast them away as you do. Alas! Your love to the Body doth not consist …n feeding and cloathing and pleasing it; but in getting it united to Christ, and made the Temple of the Holy Ghost: in using it for God, and dedicating it to God.
I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God, to present your Bodies living Sacrifices to God, which is your reasonable service… Rom. 12.1. The Soul should look upon the Body as a wise Parent upon a rebellious or wanton child, that would (if left to it self) quickly bring it self to the Gallows; The Father looks on him with compassion and melting bowels, and saith, with the rod in his hand, and tears in his eyes, my child, my naughty, disobedient, headstrong child, I resolve to chastise thee severely, I love thee too well to suffer thee to be ruin'd, if my care or corrections may prevent it. So should our Souls evidence their love to, and care over their own rebellious flesh. 'Tis cruelty, not love or pity, to indulge them to their own destruction.
Except you have gracious Souls, you shall never have glorified Bodies: except you Souls be united with Christ, the happiness of your Bodies as well as Souls is lost to all eternity. Know you not that the everlasting condition of your Bodies follows and depends on the Interest your Souls now get in Christ? O that this one sad truth might sink deep into all our considerations this day; that if your Bodies be snares to your Souls, and your Souls be now regardless of the future estate of themselves and them; assuredly, they will have a bitter parting at death, a terrible meeting again at the Resurrection, and horrid reflections upon each other, mutually charging their ruine upon each other to all eternity. Whilst they that are in Christ part in hope, meet with joy, and bless God for each other for evermore.