are every one of them made use of in the service of sin and Satan. For
the unbelieving are throughout impure, as is manifest, because their
‘mind and conscience (two of the masterpieces of the soul) is defiled’
(Titus 1:15). For if the most potent parts of the soul are engaged in
their service, what, think you, do the more inferior do? But, I say, so
it is the more is the pity; nor can any help it. ‘This work ceaseth for
ever,’ unless the great God, who is over all, and that can save souls,
shall himself take upon him to sanctify the soul, and to recover it,
and persuade it to fall in love with another master.
But, I say, what is man without this soul, or wherein lieth this
pre-eminence over a beast? (Eccl 3:19-21). Nowhere that I know of; for
both, as to man’s body, go to one place, only the spirit or soul of a
man goes upward—to wit, to God that gave it, to be by Him disposed of
with respect to things to come, as they have been, and have done in
this life, But,
Of the senses of the soul.
Second, I come, in the next place, to describe the soul by its senses,
its spiritual senses, for so I call them; for as the body hath senses
pertaining to it, and as it can see, hear, smell, feel, and taste, so
can the soul; I call, therefore, these the senses of the soul, in
opposition to the senses of the body, and because the soul is the seat
of all spiritual sense, where supernatural things are known and
enjoyed; not that the soul of a natural man is spiritual in the
apostle’s sense, for so none are, but those that are born from above (1
Cor 3:1-3) nor they so always neither. But to go forward.
Of sight.
1. Can the body see? hath it eyes? so hath the soul. ‘The eyes of your
understanding being enlightened’ (Eph 1:18). As, then, the body can see
beasts, trees, men, and all visible things, so the soul can see God,
Christ, angels, heaven, devils, hell, and other things that are
invisible; nor is this property only peculiar to the souls that are
illuminate by the Holy Ghost, for the most carnal soul in the world
shall have a time to see these things, but not to its comfort, but not
to its joy, but to its endless woe and misery, it dying in that
condition. Wherefore, sinner, say not thou, ‘I shall not see Him; for
judgment is before Him,’ and He will make thee see Him (Job 35:14).
Of hearing.
2. Can the body hear? hath it ears? so hath the soul (Job 4:12,13). It
is the soul, not the body, that hears the language of things invisible.
It is the soul that hears God when He speaks in and by His Word and
Spirit; and it is the soul that hears the devil when he speaks by his
illusions and temptations. True, there is such an union between the
soul and the body, that ofttimes, if not always, that which is heard by
the ears of the body doth influence the soul, and that which is heard
by the soul doth also influence the body; but yet as to the organ of
hearing, the body hath one of its own, distinct from that of the soul,
and the soul can hear and regard even then, when the body doth not nor
cannot; as in time of sleep, deep sleep and trances, when the body
lieth by as a thing that is useless. ‘For God speaketh once, yea twice,
yet man, (as to his body) perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of
the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the
bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,’
etc. (Job 33:14-16). This must be meant of the ears of the soul, not of
the body; for that at this time is said to be in deep sleep; moreover
this hearing, it is a hearing of dreams, and the visions of the night.
Jeremiah also tells us that he had the rare and blessed visions of God
in his sleep (Jer 21:26). And so doth Daniel too, by the which they
were greatly comforted and refreshed; but that could not be, was not
the soul also capable of hearing. ‘I heard the voice of His words,’
said Daniel, ‘and when I heard the voice of His words, then was I in a
deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground’ (Dan 10:8,9).
Of tasting.
3. As the soul can see and hear, so it can taste and relish, even as
really as doth the palate belonging to the body.6 But then the things
so tasted must be that which is suited to the temper and palate of the
soul. The soul’s taste lieth not in, nor is exercised about meats, the
meats that are for the belly. Yet the soul of a saint can taste and
relish God’s Word (Heb 6:5), and doth ofttimes find it sweeter than
honey (Psa 19:10) nourishing as milk (1 Peter 2:2), and strengthening
like to strong meat (Heb 5:12-14). The soul also of sinners, and of
those that are unsanctified, can taste and relish, though not the
things now mentioned, yet things that agree with their fleshly minds,
and with their polluted, and defiled, and vile affections. They can
relish and taste that which delighteth them; yea, they can find
soul-delight in an alehouse, a whorehouse, a playhouse. Ay, they find
pleasure in the vilest things, in the things most offensive to God, and
that are most destructive to themselves. This is evident to sense, and
is proved by the daily practice of sinners. Nor is the Word barren as
to this: They ‘feed on ashes’ (Isa 44:20). They ‘spend their money for
that which is not bread’ (Isa 55:2). Yea, they eat and suck sweetness
out of sin. ‘They eat up the sin of My people’ as they eat bread (Hosea
4:8).
Of smelling.
4. As the soul can see, hear, and taste, so it can smell, and brings
refreshment to itself that way. Hence the church saith, ‘My fingers
dropped with sweet-smelling myrrhl’ and again, she saith of her
beloved, that ‘his lips dropped sweet-smelling-myrrh’ (Song 5:5,13).
But how came the church to understand this, but because her soul did
smell that in it that was to be smelled in it, even in his word and
gracious visits? The poor world, indeed, cannot smell, or savour
anything of the good and fragrant scent and sweet that is in Christ;
but to them that believe, ‘Thy name is as ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee’ (Song 1:3).
Of feeling.
5. As the soul can see, taste, hear, and smell, so it hath the sense of
feeling, as quick and as sensible as the body. He knows nothing that
knows not this; he whose soul is ‘past feeling,’ has his ‘conscience
seared with a hot iron’ (Eph 4:18, 19; 1 Tim 4:2). Nothing so sensible
as the soul, nor feeleth so quickly the love and mercy, or the anger
and wrath of God. Ask the awakened man, or the man that is under the
convictions of the law, if he doth not feel? and he will quickly tell
you that he faints and dies away by reason of God’s hand, and His wrath
that lieth upon him. Read the first eight verses of the 38th Psalm; if
thou knowest nothing of what I have told thee by experience; and there
thou shalt hear the complaints of one whose soul lay at present under
the burden of guilt, and that cried out that without help from heaven
he could by no means bear the same. They also that know what the peace
of God means, and what an eternal weight there is in glory know well
that the soul has the sense of feeling, as well as the senses of
seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling. But thus much for the senses of
the soul.
Of the passions of the soul.
Third, I come, in the next place, to describe the soul by the passions
of the soul. The passions of the soul, I reckon, are these, and such
like—to wit, love, hatred, joy, fear, grief, anger, etc. And these
passions of the soul are not therefore good, nor therefore evil,
because they are the passions of the soul, but are made so by two
things—to wit, principle and object. The principle I count that from
whence they flow, and the object that upon which they are pitched. To
explain myself.
Of love.
1. For that of love. This is a strong passion; the Holy Ghost saith ‘it
is strong as death, and cruel as the grave’ (Song 8:6,7). And it is
then good, when it flows from faith, and pitcheth itself upon God in
Christ as the object, and when it extendeth itself to all that is good,
whether it be the good Word, the good work of grace, or the good men
that have it, and also to their good lives. But all soul-love floweth
not from this principle, neither hath these for its object. How many
are there that make the object of their love the most vile of men, the
most base of things, because it flows from vile affections, and from
the lusts of the flesh? God and Christ, good laws and good men, and
their holy lives, they cannot abide, because their love wanteth a
principle that should sanctify it in its first motion, and that should
steer it to a goodly object. But that is the first.
Of hatred.
2. There is hatred, which I count another passion of the soul; and
this, as the other, is good or evil, as the principle from whence it
flows and the object of it are. ‘Ye that love the Lord, hate evil’ (Psa
97:10). Then, therefore, is this passion good, when it singleth out
from the many thousand of things that are in the world that one filthy
thing called sin; and when it setteth itself, the soul, and the whole
man, against it, and engageth all the powers of the soul to seek and
invent its ruin.7 But, alas, where shall this hatred be found? What man
is there whose soul is filled with this passion, thus sanctified by the
love of God, and that makes sin, which is God’s enemy, the only object
of its indignation? How many be there, I say, whose hatred is turned
another way, because of the malignity of their minds.
They hate knowledge (Prov 1:22). They hate God (Deu 7:10; Job 21:14).
They hate the righteous (2 Chron 29:2; Psa 34:21; Prov 29:10). They
hate God’s ways (Mal 3:14; Prov 8:12). And all is, because the grace of
filial fear is not the root and principle from whence their hatred
flows. ‘For the fear of the Lord is to hate evil:’ wherefore, where
this grace is wanting for a root in the soul, there it must of
necessity swerve in the letting out of this passion; because the soul,
where grace in wanting, is not at liberty to act simply, but is biased
by the power of sin; that, while grace is absent, is present in the
soul. And hence it is that this passion, which, when acted well, is a
virtue, is so abused, and made to exercise its force against that for
which God never ordained it, nor gave it license to act.
Of joy.
3. Another passion of the soul is joy; and when the soul rejoiceth
virtuously, it rejoiceth not in iniquity, ‘but rejoiceth in the truth’
(1 Cor 13:6). This joy is a very strong passion, and will carry a man
through a world of difficulties; it is a passion that beareth up, that
supporteth and strengtheneth a man, let the object of his joy be what
it will. It is this that maketh the soul fat in goodness, if it have
its object accordingly; and that which makes the soul bold in
wickedness, if it indeed doth rejoice in iniquity.
Of fear.
4. Another passion of the soul is fear, natural fear; for so you must
understand me of all the passions of the soul, as they are considered
simply and in their own nature. And, as it is with the other passions,
so it is with this; it is made good or evil in its acts, as its
principle and objects are; when this passion of the soul is good, then
it springs from sense of the greatness, and goodness and majesty of
God; also God himself is the object of this fear’—I will forewarn you,’
says Christ, ‘whom ye shall fear. Fear him that can destroy both body
and soul in hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him’ (Matt 5:28; Luke 7:5).
But in all men this passion is not regulated and governed by these
principles and objects, but is abused and turned, through the policy of
Satan, quite into another channel. It is made to fear men (Num 14:9),
to fear idols (2 Kings 17:7,38), to fear devils and witches, yea, it is
made to fear all the foolish, ridiculous, and apish fables that every
old woman or atheistical fortune teller has the face to drop before the
soul. But fear is another passion of the soul.
Of grief.
5. Another passion of the soul is grief, and it, as those afore-named,
acteth even according as it is governed. When holiness is lovely and
beautiful to the soul, and when the name of Christ is more precious
than life, then will the soul sit down and be afflicted, because men
keep not God’s law. ‘I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved;
because they kept not Thy word’ (Psa 119:158). So Christ; He looked
round about with anger, ‘being grieved for the hardness of their
hearts’ (Mark 3:5). But it is rarely seen that this passion of the soul
is thus exercised. Almost everybody has other things for the spending
of the heat of this passion upon. Men are grieved that they thrive no
more in the world; grieved that they have no more carnal, sensual, and
worldly honour; grieved that they are suffered no more to range in the
lusts and vanities of this life; but all this is because the soul is
unaquainted with God, sees no beauty in holiness, but is sensual, and
wrapt up in clouds and thick darkness.
Of anger.
6. And lastly, There is anger, which is another passion of the soul;
and that, as the rest, is extended by the soul, according to the nature
of the principle by which it is acted, and from whence it flows. And,
in a word, to speak nothing of the fierceness and power of this
passion, it is then cursed when it breaketh out beyond the bounds that
God hath set it, the which to be sure it doth, when it shall by its
fierceness or irregular motion, run the soul into sin. ‘Be ye angry,
and sin not’ (Eph 4:26), is the limitation wherewith God hath bounded
this passion; and whatever is more than this, is a giving place to the
devil. And one reason, among others, why the Lord doth so strictly set
this bound, and these limits to anger, is, for that it is so furious a
passion, and for that it will so quickly swell up the soul with sin, as
they say a toad swells with its poison. Yea, it will in a moment so
transport the spirit of a man, that he shall quickly forget himself,
his God, his friend, and all good rule. But my business is not now to
make a comment upon the passions of the soul, only to show you that
there are such, and also which they are.
And now, from this description of the soul, what follows but to put you
in mind what a noble, powerful, lively, sensible thing the soul is,
that by the text is supposed may be lost, through the heedlessness, or
carelessness, or slavish fear of him whose soul it is; and also to stir
you up to that care of, and labour after, the salvation of your soul,
as becomes the weight of the matter. If the soul were a trivial thing,
or if a man, though he lost it, might yet himself be happy, it were
another matter; but the loss of the soul is no small loss, nor can that
man that has lost his soul, had he all the world, yea, the whole
kingdom of heaven, in his own power be but in a most fearful and
miserable condition. But of these things more in their place.
[THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL.]
SECOND, Having thus given you a description of the soul, what it is, I
shall, in the next place, show you the greatness of it.
[Of the greatness of the soul, when compared with the body.]
First, And the first thing that I shall take occasion to make this
manifest by, will be by showing you the disproportion that is betwixt
that and the body; and I shall do it in these following particulars:—
The body a house for the soul.
1. The body is called the house of the soul, a house for the soul to
dwell in. Now everybody knows that the house is much inferior to him
that, by God’s ordinance, is appointed to dwell therein; that it is
called the house of the soul, you find in Paul to the Corinthians: ‘For
we know,’ saith he, ‘that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens’ (2 Cor 5:1). We have then, a house for our soul
in this world, and this house is the body, for the apostle can mean
nothing else; therefore he calls it an earthly house. ‘If our earthly
house’—our house. But who doth he personate if he says, This is a house
for the soul; for the body is part of him that says, Our house?
In this manner of language, he personates his soul with the souls of
the rest that are saved; and thus to do, is common with the apostles,
as will be easily discerned by them that give attendance to reading.
Our earthly houses; or, as Job saith, ‘houses of clay,’ for our bodies
are bodies of clay:
‘Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay’
(Job 4:19; 13:12). Indeed, he after maketh mention of a house in
heaven, but that is not it about which he now speaks; now he speaks of
this earthly house which we have (we, our souls) to dwell in, while on
this side glory, where the other house stands, as ready prepared for us
when we shall flit from this to that; or in case this should sooner or
later be dissolved. But that is the first; the body is compared to the
house, but the soul to him that inhabiteth the house; therefore, as the
man is more noble than the house he dwells in, so is the soul more
noble than the body. And yet, alas! with grief be it spoken, how common
is it for men to spend all their care, all their time, all their
strength, all their wit and parts for the body and its honour and
preferment, even as if the soul were some poor, pitiful, sorry,
inconsiderable, and under thing, not worth the thinking of, or not
worth the caring for. But,
The body clothing for the soul.
2. The body is called the clothing and the soul that which is clothed
therewith. Now, everybody knows that ‘the body is more than raiment,’
even carnal sense will teach us this. But read that pregnant place:
‘For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened (that is,
with mortal flesh); not for that we should be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life’ (2 Cor 5:4). Thus
the greatness of the soul appears in the preference that it hath to the
body—the body is its raiment. We see that, above all creatures, man,
because he is the most noble among all visible ones, has, for the
adorning of his body, that more abundant comeliness. ’Tis the body of
man, not of beast, that is clothed with the richest ornaments. But now
what a thing is the soul, that the body itself must be its clothing! No
suit of apparel is by God thought good enough for the soul, but that
which is made by God himself, and that is that curious thing, the body.
But oh! how little is this considered—namely, the greatness of the
soul. ’Tis the body, the clothes, the suit of apparel, that our foolish
fancies are taken with, not at all considering the richness and
excellency of that great and more noble part, the soul, for which the
body is made a mantle to wrap it up in, a garment to clothe it withal.
If a man gets a rent in his clothes, it is little in comparison of a
rent in his flesh; yea, he comforts himself when he looks on that rent,
saying, Thanks be to God, it is not a rent in my flesh. But ah! on the
contrary, how many are there in the world that are more troubled for
that they have a rent, a wound, or a disease in the body, than for that
they have for the souls that will be lost and cast away. A little rent
in the body dejecteth and casteth such down, but they are not at all
concerned, though their soul is now, and will yet further be, torn in
pieces, ‘Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in
pieces, and there be none to deliver’ (Psa 50:22). But this is the
second thing whereby, or by which, the greatness of the soul appears—to
wit, in that the body, that excellent piece of God’s workmanship, is
but a garment, or clothing for the soul.
The body a vessel for the soul.
3. The body is called a vessel, or a case, for the soul to be put and
kept in. ‘That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel
in sanctifcation and honour’ (1 Thess 4:4). The apostle here doth
exhort the people to abstain from fornication, which, in another place,
he saith, ‘…is a sin against the body’ (1 Cor 6:18). And here again he
saith, ‘This is the will of God, that ye should abstain from
fornication:’ that the body be not defiled, ‘that every one of you
should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour.’
His vessel, his earthen vessel, as he calls it in another place—for ‘we
have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ Thus, then, the body is called
a vessel; yea, every man’s body is his vessel. But what has God
prepared this vessel for, and what has He put into it? Why, many things
this body is to be a vessel for, but at present God has put into it
that curious thing, the soul. Cabinets, that are very rich and costly
things of themselves, are not made nor designed to be vessels to be
stuffed or filled with trumpery, and things of no value; no, these are
prepared for rings and jewels, for pearls, for rubies, and things that
are choice. And if so, what shall we then think of the soul for which
is prepared, and that of God, the most rich and excellent vessel in the
world? Surely it must be a thing of worth, yea, of more worth than is
the whole world besides. But alas! who believes this talk? Do not even
the most of men so set their minds upon, and so admire, the glory of
this case or vessel, that they forget once with seriousness to think,
and, therefore, must of necessity be a great way off, of those suitable
esteems that becomes them to have of their souls. But oh, since this
vessel, this cabinet, this body, is so curiously made, and that to
receive and contain, what thing is that for which God has made this
vessel, and what is that soul that He hath put into it? Wherefore thus,
in the third place, is the greatness of the soul made manifest, even by
the excellency of the vessel, the body, that God has made to put it in.
The body a tabernacle of the soul.
4. The body is called a tabernacle for the soul. ‘Knowing that shortly
I must put off this my tabernacle’ (2 Pet 1:14), that is, my body, ‘by
death’ (John 21:18,19). ‘For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God,’ etc. (2 Cor
5:1). In both these places, by ‘tabernacle,’ can be meant nothing but
the body; wherefore both the apostles, in these sentences do personate
their souls, and speak as if the soul was THE ALL of a man; yea, they
plainly tell us, that the body is but the house, clothes, vessel, and
tabernacle for the soul. But what a famous thing therefore is the soul!
The tabernacle of old was a place erected for worship, but the
worshippers were more excellent than the place; so our body is a
tabernacle for the soul to worship God in, but must needs be accounted
much inferior to the soul, forasmuch as the worshippers are always of
more honour than the place they worship in; as he that dwelleth in the
tabernacle hath more honour than the tabernacle.8 ‘I serve,’ says Paul,
God and Christ Jesus ‘with my spirit (or soul) in the gospel’ (Rom
1:9), but not with his spirit out of, but in, this tabernacle. The
tabernacle had instruments of worship for the worshippers; so has the
body for the soul, and we are bid to ‘yield our members as instruments
of righteousness to God’ (Rom 6:13). The hands, feet, ears, eyes, and
tongue, which last is our glory when used right, are all of them
instruments of this tabernacle, and to be made use of by the soul, the
inhabiter of this tabernacle, for the soul’s performance of the service
of God. I thus discourse, to show you the greatness of the soul. And,
in mine opinion, there is something, if not very much, in what I say.
For all men admire the body, both for its manner of building, and the
curious way of its being compacted together. Yes, the further men, wise
men, do pry into the wonderful work of God that is put forth in framing
the body, the more still they are made to admire; and yet, as I said,
this body is but a house, a mantle, a vessel, a tabernacle for the
soul. What, then, is the soul itself?9 But thus much for the first
particular.
[Other things that show the greatness of the soul.]
Second, We will now come to other things that show us the greatness of
the soul. And,
The soul is called God’s breath.