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than felf-love, John xiii. 34. But by this principle of self-love, in all ordinary cafes, we must proportion and difpenfe our love to all others; by which you fee what a deep-rooted and fixed principle in nature felf-love is, how universal and permanent a lone this is, which else were not fit to be made the measure of our love to all others.

Two things will deferve our confideration in the doctrinal part of this point.

First, Wherein the foul evidenceth its love to the body. Secondly, What are the grounds and fundamental caufes or realous of its love to it; and then apply it.

First, Wherein the foul evidenceth its love to the body, and that it doth in divers refpects.

1. In its cares for the things needful to the body, as the text fpeaks, in nourishing and cherishing it, i. e. taking care for food and raiment for it. This care is univerfal, it is implanted in the most favage and barbarous people; and is generally fo exceffive and exorbitant, that though it never needs a fpur, yet most times, and with most men, it doth need a curb; and therefore Chrift, in Matth. vi. 32. fhews how thofe cares torture and distract the nations of the world, warns them against the like exceffes, and propounds a rule to them for the allay and mitigation of them, ver. 25, 26, 27. So doth the apostle alfo, I Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31. To fpeak as the matter is, moft fouls are over-heated with their cares, and eager purfuit after the concerns of the body. They pant after the duft of the earth. They pierce themselves through with many forrows, I Tim. vi. 10. They are cumbered like Martha with much ferving. It is a perfect drudge and flave to the body, beftowing all its time, ftrength, and ftudies about the body: for one foul that puts the queftion to itself, "What fhall I do to be faved?" a thoufand are to be found that mind nothing more, but, "What

fhall I eat, what fhall I drink, and wherewithal shall I and "mine be cloathed ?" I do not fay, that thefe are proofs of the foul's regular love to the body; no, they differ from it, as a fever does from natural heat. This is a doating fondness upon the body. He truly loves his body, that moderately and ordi. nately cares for what is neceffary for it, and can keep it under, 1 Cor. ix. 27. and deny its whinning appetite, when indulgence is prejudicial to the foul, or warms its lufts. Believers themfelves find it hard to keep the golden bridle of moderation upon their affections in this matter. It is not every man that hath attained Agur's cool temper, Prov. xxx. 8. that can flack his VOL. III. F f

pace and drive moderately, where the interests of the body are concerned the beft fouls are too warm, the generality in raging heats, which distract their minds, as that word, Matth. vi. 25. pen esperare, fignifies. If the body were not exceeding dear to the foul, it would never torture itfelf, day and night, with fuch anxious cares about it.

2. The foul difcovers its efteem and value for the body in all the fears it hath about it. Did not the foul love it exceedingly, it would never be affrighted for it, and on its account, fo much and fo often as it is. What a panic fear do the dangers of the body caft the foul into? Ifa. vii. 2. When the body is in danger, the foul is in diftraction, the foul is in fears and tremblings about it: these fears flow from the fouls tender love and affec tion to the body; if it did not love it fo intenfely, it would never afflict and torment itself at that rate it doth about it: Satan, the profeffed enemy of our fouls, being throughly acquainted with thofe fears which flow from the fountain of love to the body, politicly improves them in the way of temptation, to the utter ruin of fome, and the great hazard of other fouls; he edges and fharpens his temptations upon us this way; he puts our bodies into danger, that he may thereby endanger our fouls; he reckons, if he can but draw the body into danger, fear will quickly drive the foul into temptation: it is not fo much from Satan's malice or hatred of our bodies, that he ftirs up perfecu tions against us: but he knows the tie of affection is fo ftrong betwixt these friends, that love will draw, and fear will drive the foul into many and great hazards of its own happiness, to free the body out of thofe dangers. Prov. xxix. 25. "The "fear of man brings a fnare:" and Heb. xi. 37. "Tortured "and tempted."

Upon this ground alfo it is, that this life becomes a life of temptation to all men, and there is no freedom from that dan ger, till we be freed from the body, and fet at liberty by death. Separated fouls are the only free fouls. They that carry no flesh about them, need carry no fears of temptation within them. It is the body which catches the fparks of temptation.

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3. The foul manifefts its dear love and affection to the body, by its fympathy, and compaffionate feeling of all its burdens whatever touches the body, by way of injury, affects the foul also by way of fympathy. The foul and body are as ftrings of two mufical inftruments, fet exactly at one height; if one be touched, the other trembles. They laugh and cry, are fick and well together. This is a wonderful mystery, and a rare fecret (as a learned man obferves) 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 and infirmities; how this fleshly lump comes to affect, and make its deep impreffions upon at creature of fo different a nature from it, as the foul or spirit is, But that it doth so, tho' we know not how, is plain and sensible to any man. If any member of the body, tho' but the lowest and meanest, be in pain and mifery, the foul is prefently affected with it, and commands the eyes to watch, yea, to weep, the hands to bind it up with all tendernefs, and defend it from the leaft injurious touch; the lips to complain of its mifery, and beg pity and help from others for it. If the body be in danger, how are the faculties of the foul, underflanding, memory, invention, &c. employed with utmost strength and concernment for its deliverance! This is a real and unexceptionable evidence of its dear and tender love to the body. As thofe that belong to one myftical body fhew their fincere love this way, I Cor. xii. 25, 26. so the foul.

4. The foul manifefteth its love to the body, by its fears of death, and extreme averfation to a feparation from it. On this account, death is called in Job xviii. 14. "The king of ter86 rors," or the black prince, or the prince of clouds and dark-' nefs, as fome tranflate that place: We read it, "The king of

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terrors," meaning, that the terrors at death are fuch terrors as fubdue and keep down all other terrors under them, as a prince doth his fubjects. Other terrors compared with those that the foul conceives and conflicts with at parting, are no more than a cut finger, to the laying one's head on the block. the foul and body are ftrongly twisted and knit together in dear bands of intimate union and affection, and these bands cannot be broken without much fruggling: Oh! it is a hard thing for the foul to bid the body farewel, it is a bitter parting, a doleful feparation: Nothing is heard in that hour but the most deep and emphatical groans; I fay emphatical groans, the deep fenfe and meaning of which the living are but little acquainted with: For no man living hath yet felt the forrows of a parting pull; whatsoever other forrows he hath felt in the body, yet they must be supposed to be far fhort of these.

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The forrows of death are in fcripture fet forth unto us, by the bearing throes of a travailing woman, Acts ii. 24. adivas T Savers, and what thofe mean, many can tell. The foul is in Jabour, it will not let go its hold of the body, but by con ftraint: Death is a clofe fiege, and when the foul is beaten out of its body, it difputes the paffage with death, as foldiers ufe

to do with an enemy that enters by storm, and fights and strives to the laft: It is also compared to a battle or sharp fight, Eccl. viii. 8. that war. That war with an emphasis. No conflict fo sharp, each labour to the utmost to drive the other from the ground they ftand on, and win the field. And though grace much over-powers nature in this matter, and reconciles it to death, and makes it defire to be diffolved, yet faints wholly put not off this reluctation of nature, 2 Cor. v. 2. Not that we would be uncloathed; as it is with one willing to wade over a brook to his father's houfe, puts his foot into the water, and feels it cold, ftarts back, and is loth to venture in; Not that we would be uncloathed. And if it be fo with sanctified fouls, how is it, think you, with others? Mark the fcripture language, Job xxvii. 8. God, taketh away their fouls, faith our tranflation; but the root is, extrahere, and fignifies to pull out by plain force and violence. A graceless foul dieth not by con fent, but force. Thus Adrian bewailed his departure, a Animula, vagula, blandula, heu quo vadis! Yea, tho' the foul have never fo long a time been in the body, though it should live as long as the Antideluvian fathers did, for many hundred years, yet fill it would be loth to part; yea, though it endure abun dance of mifery in the body, and have little rest or comfort, but time spent in griefs and fears, yet for all that it is loth to part with it. All this fhews a ftrong inclination and affection to it.

5. Its defire of re-union continuing ftill with it, in its state of feparation, fpeaks its love to the body. As the foul parted with it in grief and forrow, so it still retains, even in glory, an inclination to re-union, and waits for a day of re-espousals: and to that sense some searching and judicious men understand those words of Job, chap. xiv. 14. "If a man die, shall he live again?” viz. by a resurrection: if fo, then all the days of my appointed feparation, my foul in heaven fhall wait till that change come. And to the fame fenfe is that cry of feparated fouls, Rev. vi. 9, 10, 11. "How long, O Lord, how long?" (i. e.) to the confummation of all things, when judgment fhall be executed on them that killed our bodies, and our bodies fo long abfent, reftored to us again? In that day of refurrection, the fouls of the faints come willingly from heaven itself, to repossess their bodies, and bring them to a partnership with them in their glory: for it is with the foul in heaven as it is with an husband who is richly entertained, feafted, and lodged abroad, but his dear wife is folitary and comfortless; it abates the completeness of his joy. Therefore we fay, the faints joy is not confummate till that day.

-There is an exercife for faith, hope and defires, on this account in heaven.

The union of foul and body is natural, their feparation is not fo: many benefits will redound to both by a re-union, and the refurrection of the body is provided by God, as the grand relief against those prejudices and loffes the bodies of the faints fuftain by feparation. I fay not that the propenfion or inclination of the foul to re-union with its body, is accompanied with any perturbation or anxiety, in its ftate of feparation; for it enjoys God, and in him a placid reft; and as the body, so the foul refts in hope; it is fuch a hope, as difturbs not the rest of either yet when the time is come for the foul to be re-efpoufed, it is highly gratified by that fecond marriage, glad it is to fee its old dear companion, as two friends after a long feparation. And fo much of the evidence of the foul's love to the body.

Secondly, Next we are to enquire into the grounds and reafons of its love and inclination to the body. And,

1. The fundamental ground and reafon thereof will be found in their natural union with each other. There my text lays it: "No man ever yet hated his [own] flesh." Mark, the body is the foul's own; they are strictly married and related to each other: the foul hath a propriety in its body, these two make up, or constitute one perfon: True, they are not effentially one, they have far differ ent natures, but they are perfonally one; and though the foul be what it was, after its feparation, yet to make a man the who he was, (i. e.) the fame complete and perfect perfon, they must be re-united. Hence fprings its love to the body. Every man loves his own, John xvii. 19. All the world is in love with its own, and hence it cares to provide for its welfare, 1 Tim

And this is no more than necessary for the confervation of the fpecies, else the body would be neglected, expofed, and quickly perish, being had in no more regard than any other body.

8. V. 6.6 If any man provide not for his own, he is worse than an "infidel." For nature teacheth all men to do fo. Why are children dearer to parents than to all others, but because they are their own? Job xix. 17. But our wives, our children, our goods, are not fo much our own, as our bodies are; this is the nearest of all natural unions.

In this propriety and relation are involved the reafons and motives of our love to, and care over the body, which is no more than what is neceffary to their prefervation. For, were it not for this propriety and relation, no man would be at any

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