(1.) The will, like an abfolute fovereign *, reigns over the body (i. e.) its external members by way of abfolute command. It faith, as the centurion did, I am in authority, and God hath put the many members of the body in subjection to me; i fay to one, move, and it moves; to another, stop, and it ftops; and to a third do this, and it doth it. The obfequious members of the body, like fo many fervants, have their eyes waiting on the imperial commands of the will, and it is admirable to behold with what difpatch, and speed they execute its commands, as if their obedient motions were rather concomitant, than fubfequent acts to the will's mandates. Let it but command to have the windows of the body open or fhut, and it is done in a moment, in the twink of an eye; and fo for the rest of the external fenfes and members, they pay it most ready obedience. Yet when I fay, the will hath a defpotical, and abfolute fovereignty over the members, it must be understood with a double limitation. First, They are only at its beck for ufe and fervice; it can use them whilst well and rightly difpofed; but it cannot perpetuate them, or reftore them when indifpofed. If the foul will the health, and life of the body never fo intenfely and vehemently, it cannot keep off death one moment the longer from it. And, Secondly, Its fovereignty no way intrenches upon, nor interferes with the dominion of providence over the members of the body, and the various motions of them. God hath referved a fovereign, negative voice to himfelf, whatever decrees the will paffes.. Jeroboam stretches out his hand against the man of God to fmite him; but God puts a remora in the very inftant to the loco-motive faculty, that though he would never so fain, he could not pull in his hand again to him, 1 Kings xiii. 4. The will commands the fervice of the tongue, and chargeth it to deliver faithfully fuch or fuch words, in which, it may be, the ruin of good men may be imported; and when it comes to do its office, the tongue falters; and contrary to the command of the will, drops fome word that discovers and defeats the defign of the will, according to that in Job xii. 20. "He removeth away the fpeech of the trufty." This is its defpotical and fovereign power over the external members of the body.

Man acts not by neceffity of nature, but freely, namely in a ra. tional way, that is by way of command; this command requires the final determination of the practical understanding, and while the efficacy of the command stands, the will is moved freely. Camel, de Volun. p. 59.

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(2.) It hath a political power over the faculties and paffions of the foul, not by way of abfolute command, but by way of fuafion and infinuation. Thus it can oft times persuade the underftanding, and thoughts to lay by this or that subject, and apply themselves to the study of another. It can bridle, and reftrain the affections and paffions, but yet it hath no abfolute command over the inner, as it hath over the outward man. weakness and inability to govern the inner man appears in two things, more especially remarkable, viz. 1. It cannot with all its power and skill command, and fetch off the thoughts from fome fubjects, which are fet on, at fome times, with extraordinary weight upon the foul. However, the thoughts may obfequiously follow its beck at fome times, yea, for the most part; yet they are cafes, and feafons, in which its authority, and perfuafions cannot difengage one thought.

As (1.) When God hath to do with the foul, in the work of converfion, when he convinceth of fin and danger, and fets a man's evils in order before his eyes: Thefe are terrible reprefentations, and fain would the carnal will difengage the thoughts from fuch fad fubjects, and strives by all manner of perfuafions, and diverfions, fo to do; but all to no purpose, Pfal. li. 3. "My fin is ever before me." The thoughts are fixed, and there is no removing of them. It may give them a little interruption, but they return with the more impetuous violence. And inftead of gaining them off, they at laft, or rather God by them gains over the will also.

(2.) When Satan hath to do with the foul, in the way of temptation, and hellish fuggeftion: Look, as the carnal will op. pofed itfelf to the thoughts in the former cafe to no purpose ; fo that the fanctified will opposes itself to them in this cafe, ofttimes with as little effect or fuccefs, as he that oppofeth his weak breath to the strong current of a mighty river. Well were it, if the fanctified will were now the mafter of the fantafy, and could controul the thoughts of the heart; but, like a made horse, the fancy takes the bit in its teeth, and runs whither it pleaseth; the will cannot govern it. Think quite ano ther way, faith the will; turn thy thoughts to other things; but notwithstanding, the foul turneth a deaf ear to its counfels. 2. It cannot quiet and compofe a raging confcience, and reduce it at its pleasure to rest and peace. This is the peculiar work of God. He only that fills the ftormy feas, can quiet the dif treffed and tempeftuous foul. The impotence of the will, in this cafe, is known to all that have been in those deeps of trouble. And this is the mifery of the devil and the damned,

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that though they would never so fain, yet they cannot get rid of those tormenting impreffions made upon them by their own trembling and condemning confciences. There would not be fo many pale, fweating, affrighted confciences on earth, and in hell, if the will had any command or power over them.

Tam frigida mens eft

Criminibus; tacita fudant præcordia culpa.

It is an horrible fight to fee fuch a trembling upon all the members, fuch a cold fweat upon the panting bofom of a selfcondemned, and wrath-prefaging foul, in which it can, by no means relieve or help itself. These things are exempt from the liberty, and dominion of the will of man; but notwithstanding these exemptions, it is a noble faculty, and hath a vastly extended empire in the foul of man; it is the door of the foul, at which the Spirit of God knocks for entrance. When this is won, the foul is won to Chrift; and if this stand out in rebellion against him, he is barred out of the foul, and can have no faving union with it. The truth of grace is to be judged and difcerned by its compliance with his call, and the measure of grace to be estimated by the degree of its fubjection to his will. VII. The foul of man is not only indued with an understanding and will, but alfo with various affections and paffions, which are of great ufe and fervice to it, and fpeak the excellency of its nature. They are originally defigned, and appointed for the happinefs of man, in the promoting and fecuring its chiefeft good, to which purpose they have a natural aptitude: for the true happiness and rest of the foul not being in itself, nor in any other creature, but in God, the foul muft neceffarily move out of itself, and beyond all other created beings, to find and enjoy its true felicity in him. The foul confidered at a distance from God, its true reft and happiness, is furnished and provided with defire and hope to carry it on, and quicken its motion towards him. These are the arms it is to ftretch out towards him, in a ftate of abfence from him. And feeing it is to meet with many obftacles, enemies, and difficulties, in its courfe, which hinder its motion, and hazard its fruition of him, God hath planted in it, fear, grief, indignation, jealoufy, anger, &c. to grapple with, and break through thofe intercurrent difficulties and hazards +,

7. Furnished with various affections and pas, fions.

+ Paffio anima nihil aliud eft quam motus appetivæ virtutis VOL. III.

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By thefe weapons in the hands of grace, it conflicts with that which opposes its paffages to God, as the apostle expreffeth that holy fret and paffion of the Corinthians, and what a fume their fouls were in by the gracious motion of the irrafcible appetite; 2 Cor. vii. 11. "For behold this felf-fame thing, that ye for"rowed after a godly fort; what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing yourfelves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement defire, yea, what zeal, yea, "what revenge?" Much like the raging and ftruggling of waters, which are interrupted in their courfe by fome dam or ob facle which they ftrive to bear down, and fweep away before them.

But the foul confidered in full union with and fruition of God, its fupreme happiness, is accordingly furnished with affections of love, delight, and joy; whereby it refts in him, and enjoys its proper bleffednefs in his prefence for ever. Yea, even in this life, thefe affections are in an imperfect degree exercised upon God, according to the prelibations and enjoyments it hath of him by faith, in its way to heaven. In a word,

The true ufes, and moft excellent ends for which thefe affections and paffions are beftowed upon the foul of man, are to qualify it, and make it a fit fubject to be wrought upon in a moral way of perfuafions and allurements, in order to its union with Chrift, (for by the affections, as Mr. Fenner rightly obferves, the foul becomes marriageable, or capable of being et poufed to him ;) and being fo, then to affift it in the profecution of its full enjoyment in heaven, as we heard but now.

But, alas, how are they corrupted and inverted by fin! The concupifcible appetite greedily faftens upon the creature, not upon God; and the irrafcible appetite is turned against holiness, not fin. But I must infift no farther on this fubject here, it deferves an entire treatife by itself.

8. And an inclination and love to the body.

VIII. The foul of man hath, in the very frame and nature of it, an inclination to the body. There is in it a certain pondus or inclination which naturally bends or sways it towards matter, or a body. There are three different natures found in living creatures, viz.

1. The brutal.

2. The angelical.

profecutione boni, vel fuga mali. i. e. A paffion of the foul is nothing elfe, but the motion of defire in feeking good, and fhunning evil.

3. The human. (1.) The foul of a brute is wholly confined to, and dependent on the matter or body with which it is united. It is dependent on it, both in effe et in operari, in its being and working; it is but a material form, which arifes from, and perisheth with the body. The foul of a brute, (faith a great perfon *) is no "other than a fluid bodily fubftance, the more lively, and refin "ed part of the blood (called fpirit) quick in motion, and from "the arteries by the branches of the carotides carried to the "brain; and from thence conveyed to the nerves and mufcles, move the whole frame and mafs of the body; and receiving "only certain weak impreffions from the fenfes, and of fhort " continuance, hindered and obftructed of its work and moti on, vanishes into the foft air."

(2.) An angel is a fpirit free from a body, and created without an appetite or inclination to be embodied. The Stoics call the angels soins xixas, fouly fubftances; and the Peripatetics, formas abstractas, abftract forms. They are fpirits free from the fetters and clogs of the body.

"An angel is a perfect foul, and an human foul is an im"perfect angel." Yet angels have no fuch rooted difaffection to, and abhorrence of a body, but they have affumed, and can, in a ready, obedience to their Lord's commands, and delight to ferve him, affume bodies, for a time, to converse with men in them, i. e. aerial bodies in the figure and fhape of human bodies. So we read, Gen. xvii. 2, three men i. e angels in human shape and appearance, stood by Abraham, and talked with him; and at Chrift's fepulchre, Luke xxiv. " There appeared two men in "fhining garments." But they abide in these bodies, as we do in an inn, for a night, or fhort feafon; they dwell not in them as our fouls in thofe houses of flesh, which we cannot put on and off at pleasure as they do; but as we walk in our garments, which we can put off without pain.

(3.) The human foul is neither wholly tied to the body, as the brutal foul is; nor created without inclination to a body, as angels are; but loves and inclines to it, though it can both live and act without it, when it is parted from it at death. The proof of this affertion, and the reafons why God created it with fuch an inclination, will, in their proper place, be more fully fpo

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*Lord Chief Juftice Hale, in his treatife de anima, p. 56. Angelus eft anima perfecta, et anima eft angelus imperfectus, Bell. de afcen, mentis.

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