fitly may our spirits and minds be compared to the loins. The loins are the chief seat of bodily strength. Of Behemoth it is said, Job xl. 6, ' His strength is in his loins.' The loins are to tlie body, as carina navi, the keel to the ship; the whole ship is knit to that, and snstained by it ; and the body to the loins ; if the loins fail, the whole body sinks. Hence, to ' smite through the loins,' is a phrase to express destruction andniin, Deut. xxxiii. 11, weak loins, and a weak man. If we be but a little weary, nature directs us to lay our hands on our loins to sustain them, as our chief strength. Thus, as the actings of our minds and spirits are in their faculties and powers, so we are weak or strong Christians ; if the understanding be clear in its apprehensions of truth, and the will sincere, vigorous, and fixed in its pin-poses, for that which is holy and good, then he is a strong Christian. But if the understanding be dark, or uncertain in its notions, as a distempered eye that cannot well discern its object, and the will be waver- ing and unsteady, like a needle that trembles between two loadstones, not able to bring its thoughts to an issue, which to close with ; here the man is weak, and all he doth will be so. Feeble spirits cause an intermitting, faltering pulse ; so, want of strength in the mind, to know truth, and resolution in the will to pursue that which he knows to be holy and good, causeth a man to falter in his course. The use therefore of these two, — -truth of doctrine for the mind, and sincerity for the will, — is to unite and establish both these faculties, which they do when they are clasped, and girt about the soul, as the girdle about the loins of the body. Though the loins be the strength of the body, yet they need an auxiliary, — their strength from the girdle, — to keep those parts close, and unite their force ; without which, men, when they would strain themselves, and put forth their strength in any work, find a trembling and looseness in their loins. Hence, the * shaking of the loins,' is a phrase to express weakness, Psa. Ixix. 23. Thus our minds and spirits need this girdle to strengthen them in every work we do, or else we shall act nothing vigorously.
First, We shall begin with tnith of doctrine, or truth of the woi'd, called ' the word of truth,' Ephes. i. 13, because it is the word of God, who is God of truth. It behoves every Christian to be well girt with this truth. ' Resist the devil,' saith Peter, ' stedfast in the faith,' 1 Pet. v. 9 ; that is, in the truth ; faith being there put for the object of our faith, which is the truth of God declared in the doctrine of the gospel; this is 'the faith which was once delivered to the saints,' Jude 10; that is, the truth delivered to them to be believed and held fast. And of what importance is it to be thus stedfast in the faith, the apostle Peter, in the following verse of the aforementioned place, shews by his vehement and earnest prayingfor them, that God would 'stablish, strengthen, and settle them.' The heaping of words to the same purpose implies the great danger they were in of being unsettled by Satan and his instruments, and the necessity of their standing firm and inishaken in the faith. Nothing is more frequently incul- cated than this in the Epistles, and the more, because in those blustering times it was impossible to have kept the faith from being blown from them, without this girdle to hold it fast. Now, as there is a double design Satan hath to rob Christians of truth, so there is a twofold girding about with this truth necessary.
First, Satan comes as a serpent, in the persons of false teachers, and by them labours to put a cheat on us, and cozen us with error for truth. To defend us against this design, it is necessary we be girt with truth in our understanding, that we have an established judgment in the truths of Christ.
Secondly, Satan comes sometimes as a lion, in the persons of bloody perse- cutors, and labours to scare Christians from the truth, with fire and faggot. Now to defend us against this, we need have truth girt about us, so that with a holy resolution we may maintain our profession in the face of. death and danger. To begin with the first.
CHAPTER II.
WHEREIN IS SHEWN, IT IS THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTY TO LABOUR FOR A JUDG- MENT ESTABLISHED IN THE TRUTH; WITH THE REASONS OF IT; AS ALSO SOME APPLICATION OF THE POINT.
It should be the care of every Christian to get an established judgment in the truth. The Bereans are highly commended for the inquiry they made into the
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