As for me it hath been my sin, and is now the matter of my sorrow, that whilst myriads of souls, (of no higher original than mine) are some of them beholding the highest Majesty in heaven, and others giving all diligence to make sure their salvation on earth, I was carried away so many years in the course of this world, (like a drop with the current of the tide) wholly forgetting my best self, my invaluable soul ; whilst I prodigally wasted the stores of my time and thoughts upon vanities, that long since passed away as the waters which are remembered no more -f\ It shall be no shame to me to confess this folly, since the matter of my confession shall go to the glory of my God. I studied to know many other things, but I knew not myself. It was with me as with a servant to whom the master committed two things, viz. the child, and the chilcTs clothes ; the servant is very careful of the clothes, brushes and washes, starches and irons them, and keeps them safe and clean, but the child is forgotten and lost. My body which is but the gar- ment of my soul, I kept and nourished with excessive care, but my soul was long forgotten, and had been lost for ever, as others
* Itaest ista vita mortal*, ttbi homo ciniiafi similis Jlictus est : dies ejus tvhit umbra prcctcrunt. Aug. de Civ. lib. '11. c. 24.
f Saints after their hearts are renewed by repentance, are not ashamed to acknow- ledge their ignominious faults, to the glory of God. For nothing is lost to us that re- dounds to his praise, who, pardoning our sins, transfers us from misery to happiness, Bright man on Cant. p. 12.
daily are, had not God roused it, by the convictions of his Spirit, out of that deep oblivion and deadly slumber.
When the God that formed it, out of free grace to the work of his own hands, had thus recovered it to a sense of its own worth and danger, my next work was to get it united with Christ, and thereby secured from the wrath to come ; which I found to be a work difficult to effect, if it be yet effected) and a work of time to clear, though but to the degree of good hope through grace.
And since the hopes and evidences of salvation began to spring up in my soul, and settle the state thereof, I found these three great words, viz. Christ, soul, and eternity, to have a far different and more awful sound in my ear, than ever they used to have. I looked on them from that time, as things of the greatest certainty and most awful solemnity. These things have laid some weight upon my thoughts, and I felt, at certain seasons, a strong inclina- tion to sequester myself from all other studies, and spend my last days, and most fixed meditations upon these three great and weighty subjects.
I know the subject matter of my studies and enquiries (be it never so weighty) doth not therefore make my meditations and dis- course upon it great and weighty ; nor am I such a \sim.opinionator, as to imagine my discourses every way suitable to the dignity of such subjects ; no, no, the more I think and study about them, the more I discern the indistinctness, darkness, crudity, and con- fusion of my own conceptions, and expression of such great and transcendent things as those ; but In magnis voluisse sat est, I re- solved to do what I could ; and accordingly some years past I finished and published, in two parts, the Doctrine of Christ ; and by the acceptation and success the Lord gave that, he hath en- couraged me to go on in this second part of my work, how un- equal soever my shoulders are to the burden of it.
The nature, original, immortality, and capacity, of mine own soul, for the present lodged in and related to this vile body, destined to corruption ; together with its existence, employment, perfection, converse with God, and other spirits, both of its own, and of a su- perior rank and order : when it shall (as I know it shortly must) put off this its tabernacle ; these things have a long time been the matters of my limited desires to understand, so far as I could see the pillar of fire (God in his word) enlightening my way to the know- ledge of them. Yea, such is the value I have for them, that I have given them the next place in my esteem, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and my interest in him.
God hath formed me, as he hath other men, a prospecting crea- ture. I feel myself yet uncentered, and short of that state of rest
and satisfaction to which mv soul, in its natural and spiritual capa- city, hath a designation. I find that I am in a continual motion towards my everlasting abode, and the expence of my time ; and many infirmities tell me that I am not far from it : by all which I am strongly prompted to look forward, and acquaint myself as much as I can, with my next place and employment. I look with a greedy and inquisitive eye that way.
Yet would I not be guilty of an unwarrantable curiosity in searching into revealed things ; how willing soever I am to put my head by faith into the world above, and to know the things which Jesus Christ hath purchased and prepared for me, and all the rest that are waiting for his appearance and kingdom, I feel my curi- osity checked and repressed by shat elegant paronomasia, Rom. xii. 3. M'/j uzjt&govsn <na, o hu (peoveiv, aXXa (pcovziv £/? ro <fw<pgovuv, In all things I Would be wise unto sobriety. I groan under the effects of Adam's itching ambition to know, and would not by repeating his sin, increase my own misery ; nor yet would I be scared, by his example, into the contrary evil of neglecting the means God hath afforded me, to know all that I can of his revealed will.
* The helps philosophy affords in some parts of this discourse are too great to be despised, and too small to be admired. I confess I read the definitions of the soul given by the ancient philosophers with a compassionate smile. When Thales calls it a nature with- out repose; Asclepiades, an exer citation of sense! Hesiod, a thing composed of earth and water : Parmenides, a thing composed of earth and fire ; Galen saith it is heat ; Hippocrates, a spirit diffused through the body ; Plato, a self-moving substance ; Aristotle calls it EntelecMa, that bi) which the body is moved : If my opinion should be asked which of all these definitions I like best, I should give the same answer which Theocritus gave an ill poet, repeating many of his verses, and asked which he liked best ; Those (said he) which you have omitted. Or if they must have the garland as the prize they have shot for, let them have it upon the some reason that was once given to him that shot wide. — Difflcilius est toties non attin- gerc, — Because it was the greatest difficulty to aim so often at the mark, and never come near it. One word of God gives me more light than a thousand such laborious trifles. As Caesar was best able to write his own commentaries, so God only can give the best account of his own creature, on which he hath impressed his own image.