is comforting and relieving. So it is faid of Rachel, Jer. xxxi. 15. "Rachel weeping for her children, would not be comforted, "because they were not." So the Ifraelites hearkened not un to Mofes, because of the anguish of fpirit, and the cruel bondage, Exod. vi. 9. Thus we ftudiously rake together and exafperate whatsoever is piercing, wounding, and overwhelming; and that our ears to all that is relieving and fuporting, which is cruelty to our own bodies, and that which hath fo far broken the health and ftrength of fome bodies, that they are never like to be ufeful inftruments to the foul any more in this world; fuch deep and defperate wounds have their own fouls given them by immoderate grief, as will never be perfectly healed, but by the refurrection. Of thofe wounds the body may say, as it is Zech. xiii. 6. These are the wounds "with which I was wounded in the "houfe (or by the hand) of my friend;" thus my own foul 'hath dealt cruelly and unmercifully with me.

Secondly, Others offend in the excefs and extravagancy of their love to the body, and these are a hundred to one in number with thofe that fin in defect of love. My friends, upon a due fearch, it will be found, that the love of our fouls generally degenerates into fondnefs and folly: there is but little well-tempered and ordinary love found among men. We make fondlings, yea, we make idols of our bodies; we rob God, yea, our own fouls, to give to the body. It is not a natural and kindly heat of love, but a mere feverish heat, which preys upon the very fpirits of religion, which is found with many of us. The feverish distemper may be difcovered, by the beating of our pulfe, in three or four particulars.

66

66

(1.) This appears by our finful indulgence to our whinning appetites. We give the flesh whatsoever it craves, and can deny it nothing it defires; pampering the body, to the great injury and hazard of the foul. Some have their converfation in the lufts of the flesh, as it is, Eph. ii. 3. trading only in those things that please and pamper the flesh; They fow to the flesh," Gal. vi. 8. i. e. all their ftudies and labours are but the fowing of the feeds of pleasure to the flesh. Not a handful of fpiritual feed fown in prayer for the foul all the day long: what the body craves, the obfequious foul, like a flave, is at its beck to give it; Tit. iii. 3. "Serving divers lufts and pleafures;" attending to every knock and call, to fulfil the defires of the flesh, O how little do thefe men understand the life of religi on, or the great defign of Chriftianity! which confifts in mortifying, and not pampering and gratifying the body, Rom. xiv. 13, 14. And according to that rule, all ferious Chriftians or

der their bodies, giving them what is needful to keep them ferviceable and useful to the foul, but not gratifying their irregu lar defires; giving what their wants, not what their wantonnefs calls for. So Paul, rCor. ix. 27. "I beat it down, and "keep it under;" he understood it as his fervant, not his master, He knew that Hagar would quickly perk up, and domineer over Sarah, expect more attendance than the foul, except it were kept under these two verbs, vα and dλyyw, are very emphatical; the former fignifies to make it black and blue with buffering, the other to bring it under by checks and rebukes, as mafters that understand their place and authority use to do with infolent and wanton fervants.

It was a rare expreffion of a Heathen, Major fum, et ad majora natus, quam ut corporis mei fim mancipium; I am greater, and born to greater things, than that I fhould be a flave to my body. And it was the faying of a pious divine, when he felt the flesh rebellious and wanton, Ego faciam, afelle, ut ne calcitres ; I will make thee, thou afs, that thou shalt not kick. I know the fuperftitious Papifts place much of religion in these external things, but though they abuse them to an ill purpose, there is a neceffary and lawful ufe of thefe abridgments and reftraints upon the body; and it will be impoffible to mortify and ftarve our lufts without a due rigour and feverity to our flesh. But how little are many acquainted with thefe things? They deal with their bodies as David with Adonijah, of whom it is faid, 1 Kings i. 6. His father had not difpleafed him at any time, in faying, Why haft thou done fo? And just so our flesh requites us, by its rebellions and treafons against the foul; it feeks the life of the foul, which seeks nothing more than its content and pleasure: this is not ordinate love, but fondnefs and folly, and what we shall bitterly repent for at last.

(2.) It appears by our fparing and favouring of them, in the neceffary ufes and fervices we have for them in religion. Many will rather ftarve their fouls, than work and exercise their bo. dies, or difturb their fluggish reft: thus the idle excufes and pretences of endangering our health, oftentimes put by the duties of religion, or at leaft lofe the fitteft and propereft feafon for them: we are lazying upon our beds, when we should be wrestling upon our knees: the world is fuffered to get the start of religion in the morning, and fo 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 cried, Pfal. cxix. 147. and Pfal. v. 3. "My voice fhalt thou hear in the morning, VOL. III. Hh

"O Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, "and will look up." And indeed we should confecrate unto God the fresheft and fitteft parts of our time, when our bodily fenfes are most vigorous; and we would do fo, (except God by his providence difable us), were our hearts fully fet for God, and religion lay with weight upon our fpirits.

Some I confefs, cannot receive this injunction, being naturally difabled by prevailing infirmities; but thofe that can, ought to do fo. But O how many flothful excufes doth the flesh in. vent to put off duty! We fhall injure our health, &c. O the hypocrify of fuch pleas! If profit or pleasure calls us up, we have no fhifts, but can rife early, and fit up late.

O friends, why hath God given you bodies, if not to wafte and wear them out in his fervice, and the fervice of your own fouls! 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 muft and will wear out, and it is better to wear them with working, than with rufting: we are generally more foli citous to live long, than to live usefully and ferviceably; and it may be our health had been more precious in the eyes of God, if it had been lefs precious in our own eyes. It is just with God to deftroy that health with difeafes, which he fees we would caft away in flothfulness and idlenefs. Think with thy felf, had such a foul as Timothy's or Gaius's been bleft with fuch a body as thine, fo ftrong and vigorous, fo apt and able for fervice, they would have honoured God more in it in a day, than perhaps you do in a year. Certainly this is not love, but lazinefs; not a due improvement, but a finful neglect and a bufe of the body, to let it ruft out into idleness, which might be employed fo many ways for God, for your own and others fouls. Well, remember death will fhortly diffolve them, and then they can be of no more ufe; and if you expect God fhould put glory and honour upon them at the refurrection, use them for God now, with a faithful felf-denying diligence.

(3.) It appears by our cowardly farinking from dangers that threaten them, when the glory of God, our own and others falvation, bid us expofe and not regard them. Some there are, that rather than they will adventure their flesh to the rage of man, will hazard their fouls to the wrath of God. They are

Here the foul receives a deadly wound upon itself, to ward it off from the body. So did Spira.

too tender to fuffer pain or reftraint for Chrift, but confider not what fufferings are prepared for the fearful and unbelieving in the world to come, Rev. xxi. 8. How many fad examples do the church-hiftories of antient and latter times afford us, of men, who confulting with flesh and blood in time of danger, have, in pity to their bodies, ruined their fouls!

There be but few like-minded with Paul, who fet a low price upon his liberty or life for Chrift, Acts xx. 24. or with those worthy Jews, Dan. iii. 28. who yielded their bodies to preserve their confciences. Few of Chryfoftom's mind, who told the emprefs, Nil nifi peccatum timeo, I fear nothing but fin; or of Bafil's, who told the emperor, God threatned hell, whereas he threatned but a prifon. That is a remarkable rule that Christ gives us, Mat. x. 28. The fum of it is, to fet God against man, the foul against the body, and hell against temporal fufferings; and fo furmounting these low fleshly confiderations, to cleave to our duty in the face of dangers. You read, Gal. i, 16. how in purfuit of duty, though furrounded with danger, Paul would not confer, or confult with flesh and blood, i. e. afk its opinion which were beft, or stay for its confent, till it were willing to fuffer; he understood not that the fleth had any voice at the council-table in his foul, but willing or unwilling, if duty call for it, he was refolved 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 Chriftians do but thefe politics will be their perdition, and their craft will betray them to ruin. They will lofe their lives by faving them, when others will fave them by lofing them, Matth. x. 39. For the intereft of the body depends on, and follows the fafety of the foul, as the cabin doth the fhip.

O my friends, let me beg you not to love your bodies into hell, and your fouls too for their fakes: be not fo fcared at the fufferings of the body, as, with poor Spira, to dafh them both against the wrath of the great and terrible God. Moft of those fouls 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 denied by God. They could not fuffer from men, and now mull fuffer 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 feparation from them. How do fome men fright at the very name of death! And no arguments can perfuade them seriously

to think of an unbodied, and feparated ftate. It is as death to them, to bring their thoughts clofe to that ungrateful fubje&. A Chriftian that loves his body regularly and moderately, can look into his own grave with a compofed mind, and speak familiarly of it, as Job xvii. 14. And Peter fpeaks of the putting off of his body by death; as a man would of the putting off of his cloaths at night, 2 Pet. i. 13, 14. And certainly fuch men have a great advantage above all others, both as to the tranquillity of their life and death. You know a parting time muft 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 confcience, put men into terrors at death, more than our fondnefs of the body. I do confefs, chriftless perfons have a great deal of reafon to be fhy of death; their dying day is their undoing day: but for Christians to startle and fright at it, is ftrange, confidering how great a friend death will be to them that are in Chrift. What are you afraid of? What, to go to Chrift? to be freed of fin and affliction too soon? Certainly this hath not been fo comfortable a habitation to you, that you should be loth to change it for a heavenly one.

Ufe third, of exhortation.

To conclude; Seeing there is fo ftrict a friendship and tender affection betwixt foul and body, let me perfuade every foul of you to express your love to the body, by labouring to get union with Jefus Chrift, and thereby to prevent the utter ruin of both to all eternity.

Souls, if you love yourselves, or the bodies you dwell in, fhew it by your preventing care in feafon, left they be caft away for ever. How can you fay you love them, when you daily expofe them to the everlasting wrath of God, by employing them as weapons of unrighteoufnefs, to fight against him that formed them? You feed and pamper them on earth, you give them all the delight and pleasures you can procure for them in this world; but you take no care what shall become of them, nor your fouls neither, after death hath feparated them. Oh cruel fouls! cruel, not to others, but to yourfelves, and to your own flesh, which you pretend fo much love to! Is this your love to your bodies? What, to employ them in Satan's fervice on earth, and then to be caft as a prey to him for ever in hell? You think the Figour and mortification of the faints, their abftemiousness and felf-denial, their cares, fears, and diligence, to be too great feverity to their bodies: but they know these are the most real evidences of their true love to them; they love them too well tą calt them away as you do. Alas! your love to the body doth